Our last stops in Washington were Yakima and Spokane. Yakima is a town of about 80,000 people, nearly 40 percent of whom are Hispanic. One reason for this is that the region is heavily oriented…

We left Los Angeles and drove to Oakland, a trip of 370 miles. As she has done throughout this trip, Karen did all the driving. We took Interstate 5 because it was quicker, though 101,…

We had a fine event in Tacoma, at Kings Books. This spacious and well-stocked store in owned in part by Pat McDermott, who was a gracious host. Jim is from Mt. Lebanon, a suburb of…

We drove north across the bridge over the Columbia River that separates Oregon from Washington thinking how odd it was to have been in Portland, where we had lived longer than any other place the…

We visited Portland, Oregon (the subject of chapter Four in the book) on June 5. We checked into a La Quinta motel in the industrial area in the northwest part of the city. The location…

Our first stop in Oregon was Eugene, home to the University or Oregon, Monthly Review's editor John Foster, MR editorial board member Brett Clark, and Peter Ogura's amazingly compact but well-stocked Black Sun Books. We…

We arrived in Los Angeles late morning on May 21. I was to be on the Tavis Smiley Public Television show, and we were scheduled to do the taping at 1:30. I had made arrangements…

Our first stop was at a Barnes and Noble in Orange, California. The long drive to there from Tucson was uneventful until we go to some troublesome highway construction near Riverside. Tucson is about a…