Do you shudder at the sight of low-life trailer-trash crankheads driving around in their beat-up Camaros? Do you nod solemnly when one of the big tv news actors presents a piece on how methamphetamine is now the Number One Drug Scourge of the United States? Are you shocked at video footage of police and firefighting personnel in radiation suits removing chemistry lab equipment from innocuous rural dwellings? It's everywhere, isn't it?
Posts published by “Howard Belkamp”
It was around 1978 when I had my first and only Northern California “wine-tasting” experience. We were driving north to Willits, to visit Jim Gibbons, the poet, athlete, sportswriter and all-around not-very-nice person who was busy becoming famous for being able to run long distances without dropping dead, and for writing stories offensive enough to get him fired from certain positions in the local education establishment.
My family was from New York and surrounding areas. I was born in Westchester County where my parents’ families lived and where they met and…
One curious effect of the 60s phenomenon was some people's ideas of who they were — or not — and consequently what their names were.…
One of my childhood friends was from a blue-collar Catholic family. Trade unionists. The father was a house painter. The sons, a plumber, a glazier,…
I’m sorry, so sorry.... Please accept my apology... — Brenda Lee, 1960 It’s apology season. Maybe it's like the Catholic church, you go and confess,…
Protestant guilt-work ethic? A cruel deception promulgated by the rich, the bosses, the early versions of the corporate exec who sits on his ass collecting…
Leaving Union Station in LA, southbound, the first thing one sees is the jailhouse. We are immedately reminded that things could be worse. The building…