Books
Published Books
The Dream of America: As Seen From Saracen's Head Tavern
This is the tale of Thomas Jadwin’s dream of America. The story occurs during the last half of the reign of England’s greatest monarch Elizabeth I and the first decades of her hand-picked successor James I. Thomas’ father was a cutler of Welsh ancestry who supplied fine weapons for Nobility. Thomas courts and weds the beautiful and educated fishmonger’s daughter, Catherine Pelham. As a wedding gift the Jadwins are given a tenement on the High Street near London Bridge within walking distance of the Bear Baiting Garden and the Globe Theatre. They convert the tenement into a tavern called Saracen’s Head. Many of the luminaries of the day, including William Shakespeare, Squanto, and Captain John Smith, come to Saracen’s Head to hear the news and raise a tankard of Southwark ale. Inspired by his father’s membership in Raleigh’s Adventurers for Virginia Thomas buys shares in the company formed to plant the first English colony in America. In this age of famine, plague, war, and the Reformation, Thomas comes to see America as the place where a reconstitution of human society might occur. He actually makes the journey across the Atlantic to the newly founded colony at Jamestown with the Third Supply on the ill-fated Sea Venture.
The Confessions of a Shade-Tree Mechanic: Berkeley the 60s & 70s
Roger Williams stumbles through adolescence with the aid of a few friends and his love for the automobile. At the end of college he hits the road to the West Coast in a rolled and tucked, convertible Pontiac, along route 66, over the Sierras to Berkeley for graduate school in 1963. At Berkeley he meets Ginny Wyant a Phi Beta Kappa from Boston University. In the explosive environment of Berkeley in the 60s Roger and Ginny fall in love and move in together. In revolutionary times Roger and Ginny decide to drop out and join the gypsy life. Roger becomes a shade-tree mechanic for artists, musicians, and drug dealers. The parties, the concerts, the riots, the drugs, and the attempts to create a sustainable life outside the mad house of the Vietnam War culture that Roger and Ginny participate in are legendary. After a few years Ginny decides to return to school and complete her PhD in psychology. In 1970 Roger and Ginny have a daughter. The family sustains them through the brutal 70s. By the end of the seventies the war is over, the movement for social change is dead, and the move the to the political right begins. Roger and Ginny move into the next revolution in Silicon Valley. Ginny, who has gotten her degree, gets a job at a psychiatric ward. Roger and Ginny change gender roles. Roger becomes the President of the Mother’s Club, rebuilds the house they have been able to buy, and has time to sum up the utopian 60s.
More Books
A Tale of Hopi and Navajo Culture
How I lived Life As An Artist
This book is a description of how the arts helped shape my life.
The Missing Pages of Masonic Tradition
This is a broad overview of the roots of Masonic tradition going back 25,000 years. It makes reference to the latest discoveries in anthropology, archeology, linguistics, mythology, and history. It establishes a basis for determining who we are, how we got here, and why.
Following the Path Around Lake Elizabeth
Natural history of Lake Elizabeth in Fremont California.
A Season at Acacia Creek
The natural history of Acacia Creek, part of the Masonic Home in Union City, California.
The Little Ice Age to Global Warming
A photo essay showing how the weather has influenced the arts for the last thousand years.
The Walden Project
The natural history of a plot of land in the heart of the Silicon Valley inspired by the work of Henry David Thoreau.
Cosmographia
A brief overview of cosmology from Copernicus to the amazing views of the universe gathered by modern tools of astronomy such as the Hubble telescope. This is where we came from; this is where we are going; this is where we have always been.
Hopi-Navajo Culture
For those with a curiosity for the big picture this is an attempt to integrate the oldest human story, which we hold with thinly veiled contempt, with the latest scientific evidence pertaining to the human condition, which we bury out of fear and ignorance. How can we even begin to approach a comprehensive consciousness without knowing about such things?
A Hundred Views of Paris
This is a pictorial essay on the City of Light through time.