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More San Francisco Musings

Since breakfast at the hotel seemed exorbitant, we walked across the street to Lorie’s Diner—a retro-type restaurant with the hood of a 1950s car sticking out of one of the walls. The café sported a long counter, waiters and waitresses dressed in garb like the 50’s, each wearing a red soda jerk paper-pointed hat and…
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San Francisco Insights

Visiting San Francisco has always brought up comparisons in my mind with Los Angeles, where I grew up. It felt richer in history, which, of course, it is. Every time I visited SF, I detected a vibe that was different from my hometown: There seemed to be a heartbeat in the Fog City missing in…
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The Perfect Nursery

In those beginning days of motherhood, I would rush to the crib, pick him up, and try to soothe him. He seemed startled and not even the warm breast would calm him. I would rock him, not understanding his cry, and that is when I first heard it.
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Lahaina’s Banyan Tree

Note: I wrote this essay in 2020, many years after visiting it in 1980. It has always stayed in my memory of Lahaina. Because of the terrible tragedy that Lahaina recently suffered with a devastating fire, this beautiful monarch is one of the many victims. Now tree surgeons from around the Hawaiian Islands are trying…
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The Bag of Charcoal

More than fifty years ago, I had an unexpected meeting...
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Ah, California

Recently, I returned to my home state because I missed the Pacific Ocean. Oh, yes, I do love northern Arizona with its red rocks and its prickly pear cactus and mesquites, but California was calling. And this is what I inhaled… Greenery everywhere, filling my senses Camellias blooming     Azaleas flaunting Bird of Paradise displaying Coral…
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