Fred Gardner | O'Shaughnessy's

Mamdani Ad

A 30-second spot. The screen shows a poster for the movie Casablanca. Dooley Wilson is singing “… You must remember this…” QUICK DISSOLVE to footage in which Bogart, at a table in his cafe, is being...

Funding High School Sports

A Conversation with Supervisor Terence “Kayo” Hallinan (11/13/91 in the Anderson Valley Advertiser) AVA: Your plan was to tax The Giants and the 49ers to help pay for high school sports? Hallinan: Yes –high school and...

Post-its

After posting this memoir, I moved from the East Bay to a town in Sonoma County. Unpacking, I’ve come across some items that I would included in the Kayo Chronicles. Here they are: • A 1978 Christmas card from the Hallinan...

A Compliment From Westy

By Fred GardnerThe New York Times has published an op-ed piece by historian David Parsons about...

Autumn 1963

Friday, November 22, was going to be my last day of civilian employment in Manhattan, barring a miracle. I was supposed to start basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, on Sunday the 24th. I had been an editor at Scientific...

Trippet Saga

In the AVA 4/20/25 “Stealing From the Rich: The Home-Stake Oil Swindle” by David C. McClintick (Evans, 1977) recounts how a Tulsa, Oklahoma lawyer named Robert Trippet masterminded the most lucrative Ponzi scheme of...

Hammett v. McCarthy

The removal of 381 books from the US Naval Academy Nimitz library last week was flashback-inducing...

The Cultivator’s Handbook

By Bill Drake, illustrated by Terry Rutledge, calligraphy by Jim Drake. Published in 1970 by the Agrarian Reform Company, Eugene, Oregon.

Mystery Solved!

The obviously pseudonomynous author of “Marijuana Girl,” N.R. de Mexico, “was...

Author: Fred Gardner