Friends & Family
21
Dear Sam & Denali, Every year as your birthdays approaches, mom and I take a walk down Memory Lane. We’ll replay key events in your lives, making them come alive once again. One of our favorite stories to recount, and a preview of our lives to come as parents, is...
Emma’s Barbershop
To walk through the door of Emma’s Barbershop in Santa Rosa is to enter a portal to the past. An old school barber’s pole stands in the window, spinning its red and white stripes into infinity. The shop is small and narrow, customers wait for their haircuts in...
Mac’s
I’m sitting at the counter of Mac’s Deli & Cafe in downtown Santa Rosa and it feels just like I’m in a movie about a typical morning at an old-school diner. My seat is a low, wicker- backed chair, the counter formica. Through the opening into the kitchen three...
Dad and Me and Sports
My dad Ray Ferrera passed away quietly last week, he was 95. Here's my tribute to him. On Father’s Day in 1965 I was eight years. My dad was taking my older brother Ray and I to see our first baseball game at legendary Yankee Stadium. I’m sure I must have been super...
Old Friends
Q: When are 50 year old jokes the funniest? A: When they’re told among the same three friends 50 years later Of all the blessings in my life, and there are many, I count my friendship with Tim and Benji as one of the most blessed. And those 50 year old jokes? They’re...
We’re In Love With Everyone And Everyone Is In Love With Us
Mitch, Andy and I are as close as friends can be. We’ve shared countless blissful times together over the course of our more than three decade friendship. Our annual boy’s weekends are much anticipated touchstones in our lives. The following is an account of one such...
Twenty Years On
On March 6th our precious twins turned twenty. I wrote them a letter. Dear Sam and Denali, So how on Earth did you both manage to turn twenty? The moment of your birth was a watershed event for your mom and I and without a doubt the greatest day in our lives. Two...
A Date With Destiny
des-tin-y 1. the seemingly inevitable or necessary succession of events. It’s entirely possible that one of the most significant days of your life has come and gone without you noticing. It most likely appeared uneventful at the time but somewhere down the road...
Some Final Thoughts On Christmas
It’s December 26, Christmas is finally over. All of the major holidays begin and end on their designated day. Thanksgiving, New Years, Halloween…etc they’re all one and done. Sure, there is a lead up to each of these days, but the actual celebrations last just the one...
Thank You Mom
My mom, Marie Ann (Spadone) Ferrera passed away on October 15. Mom was a strong willed woman, mother and grandmother who would do anything for her family. She gave me so much and I loved her dearly. Thank you for teaching me how to ride a bicycle. You took me to the...
There Are Many Ways To Mark The Passage Of Time
How many ways are there to mark the passing of time? The slow sweep of the second hand as it makes its way around the face of a clock. The imperceptible, glacial movements of the minute and hour hands. The magical transformation of LED numbers as one bleeds into the...
My Lomaberry Family
There’s the family that you’re born into and the family that you choose. Almost everyone has the former but only the most fortunate of us also have the latter. Like all families, there are ups and downs, joy and conflict, we try and overlook the blemishes and burnish...
Dad and Sam Time
When you walk into our house one of the first things you notice is a unique looking mirror hanging on the right side wall of the entryway. The frame is about 1’x 2’, sparkly green with seashells and starfish painted around the border. It comes to a stylish point at...
A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words
Some cliches are just plain silly: A watched pot never boils, The bigger they are, the harder they fall. The list goes on. However, sometimes a cliche is spot on, like this one: A picture speaks a thousand words. Since the invention of photography in the mid 1800’s,...
Camp Loma
The narrow two-lane road that leads us in is a snake; a slithering S winding its way over the Santa Cruz Mountains. Civilization slowly melts away as we make our way through a tunnel of redwood, bay laurel and madrone trees, over dry creek beds, a cascade of small...
Rocking Chair Revisited
Carol and I dropped our daughter Denali off at college last week. It was a momentous occasion and a watershed day in our lives. I don’t think Denali was able to fully grasp the enormity of this moment but Carol and I were hyper-aware of its importance. It was a...
Love Like Kimmy
I had to run to Safeway the other day to pick up a few items. If I’m in a hurry I sometimes use one of the automatic checkout kiosks, yea they’re dehumanizing and one of the many manifestations of our increasingly impersonal society, but when I want to get out of the...
Kim
The fragility of life came into pinpoint focus for me last week when I learned of the passing of my dear friend Kim Kenney. How could such a shining beacon of light and love be extinguished so quickly? I last saw her two months ago at a three day music festival up in...
Vashon Island
On July 27, Carol and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. How did I end up with this amazing woman as my life partner? More on that later. Twenty years is a significant milestone so we wanted to do something extra special to mark the occasion. Initially we...
Heaven at the Hog Farm
About and hour north of Santa Rosa, CA on the 101 freeway, the Welcome to Mendocino County sign promises: “Wilderness, Waves and Wine”. Perhaps another time for us, this weekend we’re here for the music. Self proclaimed hippie icon and Woodstock legend Wavy Gravy is...
The Musician
My mom is a musician. There weren’t any instruments in our house when I was growing up. My mom didn’t play the violin or strum the guitar. As a teenager she did play a bit of piano. Mom often spoke of that period in her life. There was a piano in the small flat that...
Mockingbird Music
The Northern Mockingbird is so entertaining. From sunrise to sunset it sings incessantly and I have no idea what its actual voice sounds like. Its palette of sounds is seemingly endless: chirps, trills, whistles, peeps, coos and everything in between. You see the...
On The Occasion Of Your 18th Birthday
When I first met you you were wrinkled and red, covered in that white powdery stuff, fists clenched, eyes closed, wisps of hair dark and damp and plastered to your scalps. A few inches of umbilical chord, your lifeline to mom, was left protruding from your soon to be...
Teenagers On The Move!
Our teenage twins are constantly in motion. If you blink, you miss ‘em! Denali Dazzles Denali dazzles when she runs. Pippi Longstocking braids fall past her waist and become scarlet jet trails that fly behind her as she whizzes past. It’s a blur of freckles- hazel...
Ella
Ella’s ears are still pointy, that much hasn’t changed. What has changed is Ella no longer is a kitten, she’s a full grown cat. Ella was once a foster cat. Eight years ago we took her in on a trial basis, fell immediately in love and decided to adopt her. The first...
Wonders At Our Doorstep
One of the benefits of retirement, besides the obvious one of not having to go to work every day and deal with the trials and tribulations of a regular job, has been getting to spend more time with my wife Carol. Over the past year Carol and I have made it a point to...
The Dancing Crystal
In an upstairs widow in our home hangs a crystal. This crystal is a multi-faceted orb about half the size of a ping pong ball, shaped like a fat raindrop and coming to a slight point at the bottom. A thin filament runs through the top of this crystal. There are...
Childish Things
One day last spring I finally sold our daughter’s bicycle. She’s 17 now and drives a car. The bike had been collecting dust in our garage for several years now. It was time to let it go. This one was the last in the continuum of three bikes that she’s owned, and it...
Songs In The Key Of Life
My son has a particularly creative English teacher. For a recent assignment she had her students choose 7-10 songs that were important to them at some point in their lives. They were to write a short vignette about why each song was important, create a playlist and...
The View From Section 315
The first thing that strikes me as soon as I settle into my seat in Section 315 at Oracle Park is just how far I can see. The Easy Bay hills and its’ million dollar homes are clearly visible, miles away across San Francisco Bay. When conditions are just right the...
Senior Year
“Who knows where the time goes?” I awoke at dawn today with that bittersweet Judy Collins song swimming through my head. I pad down the hallway towards the kitchen to make my coffee, pausing at our daughter’s room to let her meowing foster kitten out. I get the coffee...
Free At Last
Carol and I went to the movies this afternoon. Upon walking into the lobby we were immediately greeted by the twin aromas of melting butter and popping popcorn. We took our seats among the twenty or so other people inside the dimly lit theater. The only sounds were...
My Parents’ House
My parents' house has a front door but no one ever uses it. Everyone comes and goes through the back door. The dank, musty smells of age and neglect greet you as you enter the house because five steps down to the right is the basement. Its smooth cement walls are...
Brothers From Other Mothers
As the sun finally rose, he was starting to understand the meaning of life. Well not really, but last night while he and his two best friends were deep into conversation, it seemed like they had it all figured out. Their talk was wide ranging and free form, bouncing...
Pitchers And Catchers
When I awoke this morning, the sun looked a little brighter, the sky a deeper shade of blue, the air seemed fresher, crisper, the birdsong a bit cheerier. I wasn’t thinking about covid or Trump or racial injustice or climate change. All seemed right with the world...
I Want To Live Again
Towards the end of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, James Stewart’s character George Bailey is at the end of his rope. He has just been shown what his community would have been like had he never been born. It is a nightmare vision. He stands in the middle of a...
Hail Dorothy!
As a child growing up in the 1960’s, the airing of The Wizard of Oz was an annual event not to be missed. It was long before VCRs, DVDs, video stores and online streaming enabled you to watch this iconic film whenever you wanted to. If you weren’t in front of your...
Shelter From The Storm
After witnessing the horrific assault on our nation's capitol by Donald Trump's mob, I felt an urgent need to do something life affirming, so I visited one of my favorite spots in nature. One of the things I love about visiting a favorite place in nature are the...
A Bibliophile’s Dream
There’s this wonderful Hobbit hole of a used bookstore in Santa Rosa and it is a bibliophile’s dream. When I walk into Treehorn Books I feel as if I’m entering one of those archaic shops in the Diagon Alley of Harry Potter novels. There are books piled on top of...
Where I’m From
We’re all from somewhere. Being from someplace is being of that place. Where I’m from is as much a part of me as the color of my eyes and the bouncy way I walk that my friends can identify me by from 100 yards away. I am from the much maligned, often lampooned,...
You’ve Got Mail
When was the last time you received a letter? I’m not talking about the latest fund raising appeal from Greenpeace or the water bill. I mean an actual handwritten letter. When did you last write a letter to someone? I bet it’s been a while for both. The ubiquity of...
Paying It Forward
When I picked my son up yesterday from his past time job at the local hardware store, he told me about this experience that he had during his lunch break. Sam walked into Burger King, placed his order and stepped aside to wait for his food. A scruffy young man with...
Baseball Green
It was another lifetime ago. Actually it was just six months ago. Spring training was in full swing. Me, my son and our baseball pals were already making plans to buy tickets for upcoming games at Oracle Park in San Francisco. Another season with our beloved Giants...
Child’s Play
We were quite the flotilla. Six adults, three teenagers and two dogs heading out on paddle boards and kayaks for an afternoon on Sparks Lake near Bend, Oregon. This idyllic lake in the shadow of majestic Mount Bachelor is the perfect place to spend a lazy summer...
My Barefoot Wish
Hanalei Would you like to be part of my barefoot wish? We could walk hand in hand dodging rainbows on the beach in Hanalei with cool rain falling on our heads and warm sand squishing between our toes. Clouds slip past the sun and the rainbow colors become so intense...
The Thrush and the Fair
It’s one of the more unusual sounds in the bird kingdom. Beginning on a low note it gradually rises in pitch and speed, spiraling up and up, note by note until the sound just disappears into the forest air. It’s the sound of a wood faerie’s flute. The song of the...
What I Miss
Unmasked faces Smiles The progression from frown to grin Lips, mouth and teeth form That uniquely human expression of joy Beyond borders, beyond cultures We all smile in the same language But now We’re forced to rely on eyes alone And struggle to read what’s hidden ...
Don’t It Always Seem To Go…
The sign on Highway 1 for Doran Beach showed that the parking lot was FULL. Since it was late afternoon we figured that some people would most likely be leaving by now so we headed there anyway confident that we’d find a place to park. The road to Doran winds...
Life Through The Plum Tree
The Santa Rosa plum tree in our backyard is wizened and has many tales to tell. Her age is a mystery to me. So many beautiful moments in our family’s history have occurred within her arms and in the shade of her leaves. A chronicle of our children’s lives can be...
Making Lemonade
The other night Carol and I were watching a movie. Like most people, we’ve been watching lots of movies lately. This was a sweet independent film about a struggling improvisational comedy troupe set in New York City, the type of film we’d normally pay to see at our...
Driving To School
Today is crisp and clear, typical for a winter morning in Sonoma County. A thin layer of frost clings to the roofs of the houses and cars in our neighborhood. The sun has just begun to rise, painting the eastern sky in pastel hues of pink and orange. My son Sam and I...
What I Took
Last October, for the second time in three years, my family and I were forced to flee our home in the wake of the Kincade Fire. Fortunately, our home and neighborhood escaped unscathed. Having to decide once again what to take with us as we evacuated was a sobering...
One Acorn at a Time
My wife Carol and I bought our first house, the one we currently live in, in November of 2002. Our home sits at the end of a cul-du-sac in a quiet neighborhood on the northwestern edge of Santa Rosa, CA. On one side of our front yard is a thick row of hedges. They’re...