Recovering journalist living in California's Sierra Nevada
Winter of 1977 I was holed up in a Yosemite Valley hotel room writing. Took an afternoon break with a friend to get a beer at the Broiler Room and nearly everybody was talking about The Airplane, about the marijuana being salvaged from a lake toward the south end of the Park. If I’d been more … More The Airplane
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Is that enough? Judy was pregnant. I was burned out or maybe just bored. Hillary’s Mariposa house was falling into ruin. Nixon had just been reelected. The hippy dropout idea was very current in 1973. Judy and I both had solid, desirable jobs In the city, … More How We Became Country Hippies
Back in the mid-90s I spent two years on and off in Bosnia where there had just been a war. Quick review: in about 1993 a First World Country slipped into genocide in a matter of weeks, goaded by flagrant racist propaganda on TV…. an advanced multi-ethnic European country with push-button telephones, color TV, automobile … More Fragile
A bit more than 25 years ago now I spent some time in Fargo ND working for America’s Most Wanted. The case in particular was a missing child named Jeanna North, an 11 year old who had disappeared roller blading the three blocks between the Dairy Queen and her home. In that short distance she … More Missing
In 1976 or so, Jackson Browne wrote about traveling in a tour charter, saying: We’ve got country and western on the bus, R & B We got disco in eight tracks and cassettes in stereo We’ve got rural scenes & magazines We’ve got truckers on CB We’ve got Richard Pryor on the video So, ‘stereo’, … More What a Long Strange Trip
Roger Nelson was my best friend, in school, when I needed a friend the most. His folks were founders and stalwarts of the Winnetka Bible Church which my dad was hired to pastor in 1951. We lived in the parsonage next door to the church; Nelsons lived hardly a block away, and they were my … More Roger’s Gone
Tom DeVries 