By Louie Ferrera

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 cooks are visible from the chest up, young Latino men sweating from the heat of the grill. I watch them scurry about like soldiers in a small army. Every few minutes, one of the cooks places a plate on the counter and dings a bell, indicating that an order is up. The waitresses on duty today are in constant motion, either clipping yellow tickets to a chrome carousel or picking up food to bring to their hungry customers. I’ve always been in awe of the balancing act that waitresses perform in the course of their work, an act worthy of a circus side-show. I watch one of the servers place two huge plates brimming with food on her right arm and carry another equally heaped plate in her left hand. She glides effortlessly past me on her way to deliver the food. These waitresses are the same ones I usually see when I’m here. They all look to be early middle age, have ready smiles and carry themselves with the dignity and confidence that comes from years on the job. They call me “sweetie” and “hon” and that’s just fine with me.

Mac’s is a Santa Rosa institution, occupying the same spot on 4th Street since 1952. This place is one-of-a-kind in every sense of the word. Walking through the door at Mac’s is like entering a portal to a gentler, simpler time. The naugahyde upholstered booths, formica counter tops and tables with wicker-backed chairs are all circa 1970s. The decor is homey and unpretentious without looking shabby or outdated. Enticing aromas of fried potatoes and breakfast meat waft through the air, the gentle cacophony of clattering plates and friendly conversation is meditative and almost Zen-like. It’s a full sensory experience that immediately sets my mind at ease. I’m always greeted with a smile and feel welcome from the moment I walk through the door until the moment I pay my bill. The waitresses don’t carry those hand-held computers for you to put your credit card into where the first thing you see are the obnoxious “suggested” tip percentages. They actually write your order down on a small pad. You get a copy of the bill which you pay at the front register. There’s even a bowl of candies beside the register, you’re welcome to one on your way out.

Of course the reason to come to any restaurant is for the food and Mac’s delivers big time. They only serve breakfast and lunch, the portions are huge, the food delicious and unpretentious. There’s nothing chi-chi or nouveau about the cuisine, you won’t find a crab benedict or arugula salad on the menu here, just good, honest home-cooked food. The prices are more than reasonable too. The sandwiches are the main attraction at Mac’s. There are 47 different combinations to choose from. You want a sardine sandwich? They’ve got one. Pastrami and egg salad? Yep. The gargantuan, triple-decker turkey, ham and bacon club sandwich is three-inches high (I measured it) and a personal favorite. They use freshly roasted turkey breast for their sandwiches, not the deli turkey you get in most other places. Of course the breakfasts are magnificent too. The biscuits and gravy, pancakes, home fried potatoes and egg dishes of all types are fresh and filling. When you order toast, each plate comes with two half-ounce packages of Smucker’s jam; one strawberry the other blackberry, it’s just one of the many old school touches you’ll find at Mac’s. You’ve got to be hungry if you hope to clean your plate here.

The orchestrator of this whole show is owner/manager Toraj Soltani. He’s a compact, muscular fellow with a bald pate and an intense, no messing around look on his face. He wears shorts with an apron tied to his waist. Toraj means business but is also super welcoming; he knows many of his regular customers by name. His wife Lisa is co-owner and head waitress. If you looked in the dictionary under waitress you could very well find a photo of Lisa. Young daughter Tatum is hostess. It’s a family affair, there’s nothing corporate about Mac’s.

Mac’s Deli & Cafe is a certified gem and stands head and shoulders above the generic chain restaurants that dominate so much of our landscape. Whenever I dine here I feel a deep gratitude for having such a unique place right here in my community.

By Louie Ferrera

On the cusp of Winter Solstice, I’ve had some thoughts about the upcoming season.

Leaf Ballet

A handful of leaves cling stubbornly to the branches of our majestic valley oak, a tree that one day 20 years ago poked its spindly trunk cautiously out from the cover of thick privet hedges that form one of the borders in our front yard. This tree simply wanted to grow here, it’s now taller than our house and completely fills the view from the two windows in our upstairs room. The few remaining leaves are either green or yellow or brown. One afternoon last week I stood beneath our tree, a soft wind rustled it’s branches and one or two or five leaves at a time gave up their grips and drifted to the ground like snowflakes. I became mesmerized by this ballet of leaf and wind and craned my neck to look up as leaves fluttered down around me. There were moments when no leaves fell then the breeze would pick up and their flight began anew. It felt like I was witnessing a moment of pure grace, a show meant for my eyes only. With the oak’s branches nearly bare, birds have nowhere to hide, I can see them clearly as they flutter about. The bush tits are my favorite. Not much larger than hummingbirds, they move through the tree in flocks of a dozen or more hunting for small insects. Very soon all of the leaves will be gone. Our oak will wait patiently through winter until the first bud break of spring. A  carpet of coffee-colored leaves now covers the ground like puzzle pieces, waiting to be raked into piles or blown about by the wind.

Winter Sky

The winter sky this morning is perfectly white, unmarred by any recognizable cloud forms or patches of blue. Some would call it drab but I think that the color of the winter sky is the most beautiful color of all. It’s the perfect canvas for spindly, leafless branches or the lush greens of redwood or cypress trees. The contrast is stark, making these trees literally jump off the sky-canvas. Hitchcock crows are black Vs against the sky, dark and ominous their plaintive caws send a chill up my spine. The dome of overcast deadens all sound, everything is hushed, the world is holding its breath. Where I live we’re blessed with many months of warm temperatures and blue skies. It’s during this time that I yearn for a day like today. The rains so far  have been frequent and drenching; 22 inches in the past two months. The hills are green, the ground saturated, trees and buildings, sidewalks and streets have all been cleansed of summer dust. The smell of wet earth is intoxicating. The creeks in our neighborhood are brown torrents flowing to the sea. The seasonal wetland behind our house is once again alive at night with a chorus of frogs. The winter sky is the canvas upon which this wonderful winter scene unfolds.

The Language Of Rain

In order to understand the language of rain you need open ears and a quiet mind. The sound of rain through trees is a primeval sound, a sound as old as time itself. While walking through the forest in a rain storm I try and imagine what it was like for our ancestors. The sounds I hear not much different from what they heard. The sound wash of raindrops changes in tone and volume depending upon the size and concentration of the foliage that the rain is falling through.

The sound that rain makes on open water is one long woosh, an unbroken wave of white noise perfect for quiet meditation. I imagine a monk perched peacefully under a dripping stand of giant bamboo watching the ripples as they spread to the shore, each raindrop creating its own flash of diamond-like brilliance when it strikes the surface.

The sound that rain makes when it falls on the corrugated plastic roof over our deck can be quiet and barely audible, like small handfuls of sand being dropped from above or loud and jarring like buckshot. A favorite winter activity of mine is to sit beneath the deck roof, sipping a glass of wine and listening to the spectrum of sound when a storm passes through.

By Louie Ferrera

The definitive song about a seminal event in the counterculture of the 1960s was written by someone who wasn’t even there.

Joni Mitchell was supposed to be at Woodstock. She was also booked on the Dick Cavett Show the day after the festival was to end. Joni and her manager watched on tv as nearly half a million hippies converged on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in upstate New York.  Roads were clogged, traffic was backed up for miles, it was chaos. It soon became apparent that if Joni were to go to Woodstock she would most likely not make it back in time for her appearance on the Cavett show. A decision was made and Joni stayed home. As it turned out Joni was joined on the show by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and members of the Jefferson Airplane, all of whom performed at the festival. She would have made it back after all, but then again perhaps Joni never would have written Woodstock had she actually been there. Her song is essentially a second hand report written from information she gleaned from those who had been there.

While history was being made up at Yasgur’s farm, I was twelve years old. Needless to say I didn’t make it to Woodstock. Over the years I’ve become somewhat of an aficionado of that festival; I’ve read the books, seen the film and listened to the songs countless times. From everything that I could gather, Joni Mitchell managed to grasp the essence of what the Woodstock experience was all about and distill it into a musical masterpiece. Her version of the song appears on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon. The 60s weren’t all sunshine and rainbows. There was a dark undercurrent during the Age Of Aquarius. Accompanying herself on electric piano, Joni brilliantly conveys this dichotomy. Her performance of Woodstock is haunting and deeply emotive. This is a song that stays with you.

The recording of Woodstock that most people are familiar with appears on the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album Deja Vu. Where Joni’s version is dark and moody, CSNY’s is raucous and celebratory, by any standard a truly great rock and roll song. Neil Young introduces the tune with a run of his trademark guitar licks, a ragged-but-right sound as recognizable as any in rock. Neil sets the table for what I think is the most inspired vocal performance of Stephen Stills’ life. Stephen’s voice can be sweet as honey or rough as an old bluesman. He brilliantly combines both elements here. In 1970, Stills was at the top of his game, a singer/songwriter/guitarist triple threat. His phrasing is spot on as the song chugs along through the first verse. Woodstock hits the first of many peaks when those incomparable CSNY harmonies kick in on the chorus. Soaring, seamless, inspired… I run out of superlatives when trying to describe this once in a lifetime vocal blend:

We are stardust, we are golden

We are caught in the Devil’s bargain

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden

Stephen sings verse two with everything he’s got, the harmonies soar even higher on the second chorus, then here comes Neil again. His guitar solo here is twenty-seconds long. Everything that makes Neil Young a totally unique stylist, everything that moves me about his music and has made me a lifelong fan of his is packed into these incendiary twenty-second:  the tone, the distortion, the passion. Neil plays this solo like his hands are on fire! Out of the solo comes yet another chorus, because you just can’t get enough of those harmonies. The last verse is the cherry on top, the icing on the cake, the super in superlative ‘cause CSNY sing it together in four-part harmony:

By the time we got to Woodstock

We were half a million strong

And everywhere was a song and a celebration

Celebration indeed! I get goosebumps every time this verse comes around and sing it at the top of my lungs no matter where I happen to be.

By the end of the decade, the 1960s came crashing down. The hippie dream of peace, love and brotherhood never really came to pass. But for a brief moment that dream was alive for three days at a dairy farm in upstate New York. Joni Mitchell wasn’t there but her song Woodstock was the dream catcher.

(Listen to both versions of Woodstock below.)

By Louie Ferrera

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 excited, but I don’t have any actual memory of that. Our mom would most surely have made us sandwiches, baloney or salami, but I can’t remember which. The ride to the Bronx must have felt like an eternity. All of it has faded into the fog of the past, all except for this.

After the long trudge up the concrete ramps at The Stadium, we emerged from the promenade into the upper deck in left field and I was simply thunderstruck by what I saw…green. The enormous expanse of the outfield grass was a shade of green that my eight year old mind had no previous frame of reference for. This was surely how Dorothy must have felt when she stepped from the sepia-toned world of 1930s Kansas into the Technicolor wonderland of Oz. The Yankee Stadium outfield was The Emerald City, it was all of the glory that is the color green. Up until that point, every baseball game I had watched with dad was viewed on our tiny black and white television set. Of course I knew that grass was green but THIS green? Needless to say this first impression of a major league baseball field has stayed with me my entire life

Besides being Father’s Day, it was also Bat Day. Every kid who walked through the turnstiles received a real wooden bat with a Yankee autograph stamped into the barrel (mine was third baseman Clete Boyer’s). There were upwards of seventy thousand people there that day, by far the most I’d ever seen assembled in one place. It was brutally hot, the concession stands ran out of soda. I sat rapt as Bob Sheppard’s booming baritone announced the Yankee line-up, his voice reverberating through the cavernous expanses of Yankee Stadium like the voice of God: “Batting third and playing first base, numbah seven Mickey Mantle.” The Mick was my childhood Idol. He hit a triple that day.

The way I connected with my dad was through sports. To say that he was a sports enthusiast would be a gross understatement. We’d watch whatever was on tv: baseball, football, basketball, hockey. If none of the major sports were on we’d stoop to golf and even bowling. Dad would sit in his chair, puffing on a cigar and sipping from a long-neck Bud. Together we lived and died by our favorite teams. One of my most cherished sports memories was when Ray, dad and I watched the Knicks win their first ever NBA title with a seventh game blowout against the LA Lakers. Besides baseball, dad took us to lots of other games: the Jets at Shea Stadium, the Giants when they played at Yankee Stadium, the Rangers and Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Back in his heyday, dad was also an athlete. He played basketball for Montclair High School. I remember feeling so proud while looking at those old black and white photos of him in his uniform.

On Father’s Day 2009 Carol and I took our five year old twins to their first baseball game. It was a sellout crowd that day at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco as the Giants took the field. Memories of Bat Day with my dad at Yankee Stadium swirled through my mind as I sat next to my own son. We were decked out in our hometown colors cheering on the Giants. I had come full circle. Like father like son.

By Louie Ferrera

The word of Phil Lesh’s passing at the age of 84 came via a text message last Friday from an old Deadhead friend of mine in New Jersey. It was a bit of a shock as I wasn’t aware that Phil had been sick. Most of the musical heroes of my generation are in their late 70s to early 80s, when one of them dies it’s a stark reminder of my own mortality. I received numerous texts from friends and family that day offering their condolences on Phil’s passing, as if an actual member of my family had died. In a way, Phil Lesh was family.

I first became aware of the Grateful Dead sometime in 1973 when I was a high school senior. I had borrowed their double live album Grateful Dead ( also known as Skull and Roses or Skullfuck) from a friend of my older brother’s. The first thing that grabbed me about The Dead’s music wasn’t, surprisingly, Jerry Garcia’s guitar playing but rather the melodic, thundering, unbridled playing of bassist Phil Lesh. The bass player in a rock and roll band had traditionally been relegated to the roll of timekeeper, lub-dubbing alongside the drummer while the rest of the band shined out front. Innovators like Paul McCartney, John Entwistle and Jack Cassidy helped to change the concept of what a bass player could be and Phil was right up there with them. Lesh’s sound was like nothing I had heard before. As is the case with all true musical innovators his tone and approach were unique. Phil’s bass wove seamlessly between Garcia’s  interstellar improvisations and the one-of-a-kind rhythm guitar of Bob Weir to help create what’s now known as psychedelic music. Oftentimes it was Phil and not Jerry who was the lead player in the band. Jerry once famously stated, “When Phil’s happening, the band is happening.”I can personally attest to that statement. Having attended a couple hundred Dead shows, the times when the band was most locked in, when the music approached true transcendence, were when Phil was leading the charge. Some of the happiest moments of my life were spent in the company of Phil Lesh and the Grateful Dead.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Grateful Dead in my life. I can’t imagine what my life would be like today had The Dead not been a part of it. So many of the people who are near and dear to me can somehow be traced back to the Grateful Dead. At a Dead show in Oakland in the early 90s I met a wild, whirling dervish of a woman named Dannielle. We became fast friends. Several years later Dann introduced me to Carol, the love of my life and the mother of our children. How did Dann and Carol meet? Waiting in line for tickets to see…The Grateful Dead! In 1985 I was taking photos of the crowd inside a show at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. One of those photos was of a lovely, smiling woman named Michelle. The cycle of my relationship with Michelle went from friend to lover, back to friend and we’re still going strong nearly 40 years later. Through Michelle I met a like-minded group of merry pranksters, one of whom is Mitch, a brother of mine in every sense of the word. Mitch introduced me to Andy, another dear brother. Talk to any Deadhead and you’ll hear similar stories, how chance encounters facilitated by their love of the band altered the course of their lives. The thread of the Grateful Dead runs through us all.

Maybe you’ll find direction around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you. (From Box of Rain)

Phil didn’t write many of the Dead’s songs but one of his compositions really struck gold. Box of Rain’s beautiful melody, odd chord changes and enigmatic lyrics by Robert Hunter in many ways encapsulates the entire experience of what the Grateful Dead are all about. Box of Rain was Phil’s signature tune and one of the most beloved songs in the Grateful Dead’s canon. If you were lucky enough to be at a show when the band performed it, well that was just about as good as it could get. Box of Rain was often played as an encore, the perfect grace note to a sublime musical experience. The Dead’s stage set-up remained consistent throughout the 80s and 90s. From left to right it was Phil, Bob, Jerry and Brent Mydland. If you wanted to get the full frontal force of Phil’s bass, you stood on the left side, which came to be known as The Phil Zone.

The Grateful Dead were so much more than just a rock and roll band. They were a lifestyle, a life force, a philosophy and to some, even a religion. Like the mycelium that spreads beneath a forest floor, the Dead’s influence was far reaching and touched millions of people in deeply profound ways, myself being one of them. While listening to that borrowed album 50 years ago I had no way of knowing how the Dead would come to enrich my life, what an important role they’d play in helping me to become the person I am today. So… fare thee well Phil. Happy trails wherever in the time/space continuum your beautiful soul is currently traveling. I love you brother.

By Louie Ferrera

It’s ok to just sit here, right? It’s ok to watch the green fingers of the apple tree sway in tandem with the singing of the wind chimes, right? It’s ok to watch the sky-blue scrub jay hop from tree branch to lawn to fountain. It’s ok to marvel at the stillness and the golden glow of the light on this October afternoon. The breeze is just enough of a whisper to move the bird feeders, solar lights, wind chimes and sun spinners that have managed to bring some life back into our dead plum tree. I’m just watching them all as they dangle from the thin, lichen-covered branches, turning what could be a sad sight into a celebration of rebirth and repurpose. I give myself permission to simply sit here and observe, I have no other agenda. There’s a blue plastic hummingbird up there too. It has a tiny five-blade fan attached to each of its sides instead of wings and hangs from a swivel hook. When the wind blows, the bird spins one way while the fans spin another way. Sometimes it appears as if it’s about to break free, become animated and join its fellow hummingbirds as they zip and buzz around the yard.

If I look just right at the three Van Gogh cypress trees before me, the light on them takes on a hallucinatory and dream-like quality. I once had a dream with just this very type of light illuminating it. I don’t have words to describe this dream but I know the feeling and I’m having it now. You may see me sitting here and wonder what I’m doing. I’m not doing , I’m just being. When  I’m in this state, I find that I notice the little things: how the same hummingbird always sits at the end of the same skinny branch tip on the plum tree, how the magnificent Orb Weaver spider that’s called our backyard home since the summer comes out of hiding after dark every night and mends its tattered web, the fleeting alpenglow that lights up the Japanese maple tree at sunset, the departure of summer birds, the arrival of fall species.

It’s ok to not feel like the other shoe is about to drop, it’s ok to take a break from the feverish madness of Trump and the election, it’s ok to not think about the insane orgy of violence in the Mideast and Ukraine. My window on the world this afternoon is peaceful and green. Our cat is curled up like a question mark inside the last small pool of sunlight on our deck. She’s not worried about anything. Oh to be a cat. When Ella falls asleep in my lap her purring is food for my soul.

A folk singer-sage-poet that I used to listen to once said, “Life is short…but it’s WIDE!” There’s so much to see and experience in the brief time that we’re here. I try and wring every bit of living out of every precious moment but each day manages to slip by no matter how tightly I hold on. So today it’s ok to not do but to just be, hoping to slow the wheel down just a little and allow this golden afternoon to wash over me.

By Louie Ferrera

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 just the tip of the iceberg.

Tim, Benji and I met in 1974 when we were teenage freshmen at William Paterson College, a small state school in New Jersey. We were part of a ragtag band of budding disc jockeys at WPSC, the campus radio station. WPSC was like a fraternity minus all of the nonsense of Greek life. It was an everyone is welcome, freak freely kind of scene where for the first time in my life I was being accepted for who I was. The friendships I began to make at the radio station were deep, I was part of a fun-loving and accepting family. It was here that the friendship between me, Tim and Benji flourished. I have vague memories of our first encounters: Tim walking into the radio station carrying a guitar case, Benji sitting next to me in our philosophy class. Tim, the tall and lanky dude with a ready smile, the most positive person I’ve ever known. Tim  has always been there for me, solid ground in unsettled times. Benji, the kind, lovable, teddy bear of a guy who’s more fun than a box of Slinkys. He squints and flashes a big, white-toothed smile when he laughs. Benji has made me laugh harder than any human ever has. Some of the happiest times of my life have been spent in the company of these two gentlemen. Our backgrounds are similar, middle class kids raised by hard working parents in suburban New Jersey. I had friends in high school but these two were different. Our energies complimented each other, our world views and sense of humor similar. Simply stated, we just GOT each other. 

I had alway wanted to learn to play the guitar. I had one as a kid but never stuck with it. The radio station was chock full of creative people…and guitar players! Both Tim and Benji played. Well, that sealed the deal, I just had to hang with these guys. Soon after befriending them I bought my first guitar, a $90 Yamaha. A couple of really talented guitar players named Denise and Carol also worked at the radio station. Along with Tim and Benji, these four tolerated a know-nothing beginning hacker like myself. They welcomed me into their circle and basically taught me how to play. My appetite for music was voracious. I played my new guitar until my fingers ached and was driven to succeed.

Playing guitar together quickly became the basis of the friendship between Tim, Benji and myself, the bedrock upon which everything since has grown from. Making music with another person is a unique form of intimacy, musical expression is deep and very personal and not something that I share with just anyone. The deeper the three of us went musically, the stronger our friendship became. We played guitar together every chance we had and soon became a fixture at parties and around campus. We were never a “band” per say but nonetheless christened ourselves BLT. Our musical styles complimented one another: Benji the hot shot lead player, Tim solid and steady on rhythm. I played rhythm too but also took the lion’s share of the lead vocals, not necessarily because I was the best singer, but by virtue of the fact that I always knew all of the words. The longer we played together, the more our repertoire grew. We were deep into the country/folk rock scene. We worshiped at the altar of the Eagles, Neil Young was our God. We’d get stoned and play and I’d lose myself in the ecstasy of it all. Our favorite place to play was on the second floor landing inside the stairwell of the student center. It was like playing in a cathedral. Our $200 guitars rang out like Martins and for that brief and beautiful time we were Crosby, Stills and Nash.

We graduated in 1978. A year later I decided to strike out for the west coast and seek my fortune in California where I still live today. Through periodic visits, letters and phone calls, texts, Face Time and Facebook, Tim, Benji and  I have managed to maintain our friendship. The fact that we’re still going strong half a century later speaks volumes to the depth and resiliency  of our bond.

My most recent trip found all three of us together for the first time in over a decade. From the moment of the reunion it felt as if no time had passed, we simply picked up right where we left off. The jokes were still funny, the love still strong and the music flowed through us like a river; effortlessly, timelessly.

By Louie Ferrera

The hike I went on today was all about feathers. It seemed like everywhere I looked, there they were: A 12 inch long, steel-grey wing feather from a Great Blue heron, a tail feather from a crow; coal-black and broadly rounded at the end in two heart-shaped humps. I saw a turkey feather and one from a jay, bits of down from who knows what and a jumble of feathers from all parts of a quail’s body marking the spot where this bird met its end.

I’m not sure if there just happened to be a lot of feathers lying around or if I was just tuned into them, probably a little of both. Either way once I began noticing feathers they seemed to be everywhere. I wore the crow feather in the back of my Giants cap which elicited smiles from folks I passed along the trail. My favorite finds of the day were the trio that accompanies this story. The black one with spots is from a hairy (or downy, I can never tell the two apart) woodpecker. The multi-hued one was found along the rocky shore of a river so I think it belonged to a spotted sandpiper, a small shorebird that I had seen before at that spot. I’d have to consult an ornithologist to ID the solid grey feather.

The perfect, beautiful symmetry of a bird feather is a true wonder of nature. I love the way the individual parts of a feather radiate out from the central rib and sweep upwards to a taper at the end. When I hold a feather in my hand I can feel the energy of the bird it was once attached to. If there are gaps in a feather it can be restored to its previously unbroken state simply by running your fingers along its length, I think that is just so cool!

Throughout human history bird feathers have been prized and in some cultures thought to bestow magical powers on those who wore them. In Native American culture, eagle feathers represent courage, strength and healing. Colorful feathers have been particularly sought after, leading to extinctions or near extinctions of many birds as they’ve literally been hunted to death. One such bird is the quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala. Quetzals are extremely rare and confined to isolated pockets of undisturbed jungle in Central America. On our family trip to Costa Rica in 2018 we were fortunate enough to see a Resplendent Quetzal while on a guided hike through the Monteverde Forest Preserve. It was a brief but memorable glimpse, the quetzal’s ruby red breast flashing in the sun, its nearly one meter-long emerald green tail feathers trailing behind it as it flew from the tree tops. My favorite bird feathers can be seen a little closer to home: the dazzling, iridescence of the hummingbird. With the right combination of sun and light our year-round resident, the Anna’s Hummingbird, lights up like a jewel in a yuletide display of crimson and emerald.

For me, finding and identifying feathers is one way to deepen the nature experience. Seeing a bird through my binoculars is one thing, finding its feather is to hold a little piece of that bird in my hand. Today I was a collector, other days I’ll just observe and leave them for someone else to find. It’s a good policy to spread the wonder around.

By Louie Ferrera

Research has shown that the most effective way to conjure up an old memory is through the sense of smell. Well, the researchers never got around to my house because for me it’s always been music.

Growing up in a house where music was always playing in the background; on the radio, on the stereo or my mom singing, my brain is hard wired to respond to music. Mom once told me that when she listens to music she feels it throughout her entire body. Like mother like son. For her it was Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, for me it’s Neil Young and The Beatles. My connection to music is as visceral for me as it was for mom.

There’s a direct line in my brain from music to memory that’s always open and just waiting for a song to bring it to life. Hearing that song at the right time will literally bring me to a specific moment from my past. I’m not only there, but I feel the memory and everything associated with it. Sometimes it’s a very specific moment in time that I shared with a friend, family member or lover, other times the memory will be of a more general period in my life when I was happy, sad, content, searching… Either way the effect is immediate, like a switch has been flipped in my brain. I’m amazed at how a sappy love song, by of all people Alice Cooper, can conjure up such a sun burnished memory for me.  My song memories run the gamut of human emotions; sad and melancholy, blissful and elated, unrequited longing. I try and go with whatever comes up and ride it out, feeling the emotion as deeply as I can. I rarely put on a song intentionally to re-experience the moment it reminds me of. Like seeing a shooting star or an unexpected spotting of wildlife while out in nature, I think song memories are most effective when they’re least expected. They can come from anywhere and at anytime; on a Spotify mix, at a concert, while grocery shopping or even just a snippet of song heard through the window of a passing car. It doesn’t take much to flip my song memory switch.

I won’t bore you with my song memories, after all they’re my memories and won’t have anything to do with any experience you may have had with a song, unless of course it’s a shared song memory. I’ve got several of those so if you’re reading this perhaps we were along for a musical ride together sometime in our past.

Song memories do occasionally change. Has this happened to you? Typically for me the song and the memory are inextricably linked but it has happened when I’ll have a new experience with a song that will supplant my old song memory. Like all memories, song memories fade too. A one-time vivid memory I have with a song can get washed out like the colors on an old Polaroid photograph, the memory is still there but its intensity diluted, the song just doesn’t have the same power that it used to. However I’m also finding that some of my deepest song memories grow stronger with time. I said I wasn’t going to bore you with any of my specific song memories, but indulge just me once here, ok? 

From the first notes of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, I’m immediately transported under the canopy of a mixed redwood, oak and bay laurel forest. The light is dappled and green, the air warm and pleasant on this July afternoon. There’s an impossibly beautiful woman in my arms wearing a wedding dress, we’re surrounded by all of our closest friends and family. Carol and I twirl gracefully as the strains of Let’s Stay Together echo through the forest. Everyone is smiling, we’re as happy as we’ve ever been because we’re beginning  our life together. Like I said, my song memories are powerful!

By Louie Ferrera

I get the feeling that someone or something is watching me. Am I being paranoid or are those just imaginary glances from behind the green facade of the forest? The canopy in here is thick and nearly impenetrable, what light that does make it through is green and dappled. Walking down this trail feels like I’m swimming underwater, all that’s missing are the fish and the frogs. The tree cover is very dense, redwood and bay laurel trunks stand shoulder to shoulder like silent sentries, stretching as far as I can see. In here it’s womb-like and soothing but also tentative and a bit spooky too. Try as I may I can’t seem to shake the feeling of being watched. I tell myself that those glances are only imaginary. By definition a facade is a kind of cover, a device by which what’s underneath, the “true thing”, is hidden or obscured. Is the green facade of the forest hiding something from me?

The Native Americans both revered and feared the redwood forest. Perhaps it’s those people’s ancient spirits that I’m sensing. When European invaders arrived here they took one look at those majestic trees and could think of only one thing: how to saw them down and use them for their own purposes. I have no conception of that kind of mindset, it’s like shitting on the Mona Lisa. Trees are living things, they have a spirit, an essence. The wisdom stored in an ancient redwood is beyond human capacity to understand or quantify. Perhaps the forest facade is obscuring the imaginary glances, the spirit, of those long ago clearcut trees?

The glances of animals are anything but imaginary. Animals don’t need a facade, they can hide in plain sight. A deer’s ability to camouflage is akin to magic. One minute it’s there, the next minute it has literally melted into the forest. The only thing that reveals a deer’s presence is movement and a deer can stay still for a long time. Who knows how many times I’ve been watched by coyotes, bobcats, foxes or mountain lions? I’ve never seen a mountain lion but I’m certain one has seen me. So it is entirely likely that this green facade surrounding me is hiding the not so imaginary glances of forest animals. The birds, insects and other minute forest dwellers know I’m here too. We humans are so clumsy and oafish the way we trample through the domain of others. The facade is real, the glances not so imaginary. I move about with trepidation, my senses on full alert.