Flying Fathers

These guys were to hockey what the Harlem Globe Trotters are to basketball. Their goalie rode a horse named Penance. Their best player was a priest dressed as a nun, “Sister Mary Shooter.” She would distract the other team’s goalie by lassoing him with a twelve-foot...

Skunk Train 

A redwood forest 140 miles North of San Francisco is a place so bountiful and full of peace, “Nothing around here is ever killed.  It always dies of old age and cholesterol,” Juanita Dahl grins.  She lives miles from the nearest highway, but not alone. ...

Giving Back on Block Island

Fred Benson was the most successful person I ever met.  He lived on Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island.  Fred was police chief, fire chief and the state Driver’s license examiner.  He was also head of the rescue squad, baseball coach, teacher,...

Laughter Saves a City

 Juan Delgadillo looked like a Shriner who had lost his parade.   He cruised by my car window on a hot, dusty day west of the Grand Canyon driving an ancient convertible painted the colors of a dripping ice cream cone.   It was a griddle hot morning in...

Migrant Mona Lisa Update

Florence Thompson’s picture haunted the nation.  Her grandson saw the photograph hanging inside a G.I.’s tent in Vietnam.  The face had been printed black and the Black soldier who owned it swore she was Black.  Florence and her story had not yet been...