Columnists
Virginia City has always had a talent for mining things out of the ground, silver in one century, trouble in the next, and occasionally both in the same afternoon. On April 23, just about the time honest citizens were deciding whether to call it an early dinner or a late
Columnists
For his fourth birthday in 1930, my dad—Robert “Bobbie” King—received a gift that would stay with him for the rest of his life. It wasn’t much to look at. A record player. A 12-inch record. But in a small New Jersey apartment, it might as well
Columnists
Once upon a time I had the best job in America. At 16 years of age, I was the gas jockey of Orinda Union 76. At closing time, it was my job to swab the bay, which was more fun than you might think. I weighed 140 pounds at the
Columnists
A man may learn a great many things in this life, some from books, some from experience, and the rest from watching another fellow make a spectacle of himself. It was my privilege, on one memorable evening, to receive instruction of the latter sort, courtesy of Mr. John Henry Crown
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When my dad was a boy, he brought a horse to school. That sounds like the beginning of a joke—but to him, it was just another Tuesday. He was eight or nine when his mother decided he belonged in Catholic school. My grandmother Julia was a force of nature;
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In the sleepy stretches of Lockwood in Storey County, where the tumbleweeds outnumbered people, and common sense is considered a luxury, two modern-day Prospero apprentices decided to conduct chemical experiments in a motorcar. Joseph Caldwell, a man from Reno with all the cunning of a wet sponge, and Jordan
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With thanks to the Banned Book Club at St. Patrick’s, I was invited to speak in Huckleberry’s behalf, so I thought I’d like to pass my thoughts along to you, the gentle reader, while they’re fresh on my mind… Olivia Clemens wanted her husband to become
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Some cities rise by industry, some fall by misfortune, and then there is San Francisco, which appears to be doing both at once out of sheer originality. The latest from NASA, which watches us from above like a patient landlord, is that San Francisco is sinking faster than it previously
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Virginia City, that proud little patch of dirt that has somehow survived history’s attempts to forget it, has decided to add a new form of public spectacle: the kilted 5K. Yes, you read that right. A race in which grown adults dash, sprint, or occasionally hobble through the streets
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Some boys test the limits of everything—and everyone—around them. Most of us just learn to do it more quietly. My father, Robert “Mark” King—Bobbie then—was not quiet about it. By the time he was in grade school, it was just him and his mother. His father,
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So brief is life, I feel compelled to take this moment to save the world. Necessarily I will need to call upon everything I have learned from our generation to address this daunting task, but here goes… How can we avoid a Third World War? We can avoid the scourge
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It takes a village to raise a child. It might also take a village to remember who we are. I was reminded of that while restoring an old car. My dad, Mark King, and I were driving home down Hwy 50 from Carson City when I spotted a Ford Model