The Archives
A working archive of profiles, essays, and dispatches — the pieces I keep coming back to, and a few I probably shouldn't.
When I was a reporter at the S.F. Examiner in the late 1970s, I was assigned to write a feature about people who live and work at Lake Tahoe. Sammy Davis Jr., aka “the world’s greatest entertainer,” kept a residence there.
Feeling down? They’ll take you to new heights, and then some! Three decades after crowning America’s scariest coaster for People, I strapped in again — at 64 — to find out if the thrill still held.
I didn’t realize how hard it was to meet new people until I had to try. A move from Boston to Minneapolis taught me what old friends really are — and why you can’t manufacture them at 60.
“Are you the Jon Stark?” I get asked that question a lot. So before Season Seven premiered, I hunkered down in my own House of Stark for a 60-hour binge — in the name of professional survival.
The email came from out of the blue a few months ago. It was from the wife of a man I had been secretly involved with. “How long did your affair with my husband last?” she demanded to know. “I’d like the date range of the years, please.”
I wrote this satirical essay about healthy retirement for the Desert Sun on-line edition. I was in line at my neighborhood pharmacy when the man in front of me announced he was retiring in four days — and began rattling off his dreams. Dream on.
I wrote this satirical essay about surveys for the Desert Sun on-line edition. Everywhere I go these days I get sent a customer-experience survey — so I’ve devised a short one of my own, to send to friends and colleagues after their time with me.