Sacramento
Kyle Guy Guards the Social Media
When the Kings drafted Kyle Guy I looked at stats and his bio and learned in high school he’d been Mr. Basketball in hoops-crazed Indiana. I also noticed several videos of Guy and a young woman. I clicked one called: “Reading Kyle Guy’s Hate Mail” filmed in early 2019. He and fiancée Alexa Jenkins munched…
Read MoreSummertime Love for Sacramento Kings
I like living in Lubbock year round and rooting for my alma mater Texas Tech Red Raiders in football and basketball but recently surrendered to my fifth wife, Melanie, who’s from Sacramento and during the seven months I’ve known her has been pestering me to buy a second home here so we can watch her…
Read MoreJail for Juvenile Felons
There’s a pretty picture on the postcard: San Francisco Bay provides a serene, blue backdrop for a hill with a group of shining buildings on it. The writing on the other side acknowledges the setting’s superficial beauty but offers a warning: San Quentin prison may look good on a postcard but is not a nice…
Read MoreDrought is God’s Punishment
Until last week I thought the drought that’s squeezing California resulted from natural weather fluctuations, and didn’t want to be political or presume to have scientific insight so rarely mentioned climate change and then only as a relatively minor factor. I should’ve known there was a much simpler yet more ominous explanation, and Shannon Grove…
Read MoreMichael Carter’s Historic Launch
I remember Michael Carter’s final shot put, of course, no one present will forget that, but first I felt the wind getting stronger throughout that late afternoon in June 1979. I was wearing a tank top, instead of something more protective and professionally appropriate, and the weather gods lashed me as well as several thousand…
Read MoreMiddle of River
Don’t go in the American River, kids in our neighborhood were often told. There are branches, rocks, and an undertow you can’t see. Here, read today’s newspaper; another boy’s drowned. We still couldn’t stay out and swam whenever we wanted, never meeting danger until mature enough to drink Friday night. The cops yelled, hey you…
Read MoreMaris Prime Rib
In mid-sixties Sacramento a restaurateur, exhibiting either grand generosity or manifest ignorance of human hunger, offered eat all you want prime rib lunch on Sundays. Two fast-growing adolescents and I, salivating after a hot afternoon of schoolyard baseball, scurried into an establishment that, a few years earlier, had presented Roger Maris the baseball he hit…
Read MoreMiddle of River – Part 2
(This vertical prose has been rewritten in horizontally and posted on July 24, 2012.) stay out of american river kids in neighborhood often told there’s undertow you can’t see branches either here read today’s newspaper another boy’s drowned still couldn’t stay out of water nor could other kids swimming whenever wanted never meeting danger until…
Read MoreOld Newscasters Never Die
The chronology unfolded about like this: I recently visited my hometown Sacramento, which I’d left in 1991, and was as ever moved by familiar places laden with ancient memories, and shortly after returning to Bakersfield I wondered what had become of several television newscasters from my youth. And in particular I was interested in Harry…
Read MoreShooting Baskets in Dreams
Generation after Hal moved from two small dingy rooms connected to old house in battery-stealing part of town, he thought dreams had disappeared so was saddened to see himself there shooting baskets. Old friend sat behind and watched errant shots. Damn ceiling’s too low to shoot right. Friend should’ve agreed but only stared as Hal…
Read MoreClippers Carve Kings during Thanksgiving Feast
On Thanksgiving night I made my first visit to Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles since New Year’s Day when the defending-champion Lakers hosted an aroused and hot-shooting group of young Sacramento Kings who would’ve prevailed if Kobe Bryant, with customary flair, hadn’t swished a three-point jumper a millisecond before the final horn. The capacity…
Read MoreGolf Course Braces for Wild High School Reunion
Sacramento, CA – Officials at scenic Ancil Hoffman Golf Course, which stretches along the American River east of town, issued an emergency decree this morning after police informed them that a (publicly-unnamed) suburban high school, notorious for its rowdy alumni, plans next week to attack the links with ten foursomes celebrating forty years of parole…
Read MoreFantasizing on Highway 99
Pretty soon you’ve got to drive from Bakersfield to Sacramento. You are, of course, thankful you don’t have to start further south in Los Angeles and thus crawl up and down scorched and barren mountains that separate the city of glamour and poverty from the rest of the state. Your journey, instead, will take you…
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