I grew up in a 1950s-style small suburb next to a wooded town, two miles south of us, called Canyon. Canyon, according to my parents and their friends, displayed all the excesses of the sixties, and we kids were never to go there. Men with ponytails and beards were common, engaged in communal, rural living. These families lived in Appalachian-like poverty or at least rejected middle America’s materialism and suburban comforts. Dark and dense as Muir Woods, this isolated community was spooky a...

Growing up in my 1950s-style small suburb, there was a wooded town, two miles south of us called Canyon. Canyon, according to my parents and their friends, displayed all the excesses of the sixties, and we kids were never to go there. Men with pony tails and beards were common, engaged in communal, rural living. These families lived in Appalachian-like poverty or at least rejected middle America’s materialism and suburban comforts. Dark and dense as Muir Woods, this isolated community was spo...

Growing up in my 1950s-style small suburb, there was a wooded town, two miles south of us called Canyon. Canyon, according to my parents and their friends, displayed all the excesses of the sixties, and we kids were never to go there. Men with pony tails and beards were common, engaged in communal, rural living. These families lived in Appalachian-like poverty or at least rejected middle America’s materialism and suburban comforts. Dark and dense as Muir Woods, this isolated community was spo...

My son William and I ran a race together called the Dipsea, a tortuous, seven-mile climb and descent over a mountain. Running a practice Dipsea a month earlier, I found that the mountain laughs at you. “You thought that incline was hard? Try this one! And you better pay attention to these treacherous tree roots and the poison oak in the valley." Unlike most cross-country contests, though, this race uses handicaps developed from a long history of running performances. William, age thirteen, st...