

The Mighty Miss of Give and Take
Suffocating through the extreme heat of the past weeks, my mind drifted back to a different time and place when weather conditions were...

Darby Lee Patterson
Jul 7, 20214 min read


Aging Stereotypes, Please meet Reality
Mollie Burrows was a dear friend and role model for me. She died at the age of 97 a couple of years ago. Though she’s never far from my...

Darby Lee Patterson
Jun 29, 20214 min read


Burning Man Fest Comes to the Kitchen
Now that a respectful Father’s Day is behind us, I am feeling freer to talk about some observations I’ve gathered through countless...

Darby Lee Patterson
Jun 22, 20214 min read


Marching with a Father of Change
In 1974 I landed a pretty sweet job in the news department of KTMS Radio in Santa Barbara. I started out by doing simple interviews with...

Darby Lee Patterson
Jun 15, 20215 min read


Magic, Music and the Mediterranean Sea
Darby Lee Patterson It was a dream trip. A cruise around the Mediterranean with stops in ports I thought I’d only read about in glossy...

Darby Lee Patterson
Jun 8, 20214 min read


A Writer’s-Block Buster
It was not so far past the days when newspaper reporters hunched over their desks with cigarettes dangling from their lips. When the...

Darby Lee Patterson
Jun 1, 20214 min read


Black Cats, Ladders, and Sidewalk Cracks
Superstition was a fundamental guiding principle in my grandmother's life, along with Catholicism, her home, and how she was perceived by...

Darby Lee Patterson
May 26, 20214 min read


Missing the Moment but, Alas, Not the Man
It was decades ago, and I was about to acquire yet another new husband. He was fit for Holywood. Tall, green eyes, tousled blond hair,...

Darby Lee Patterson
May 18, 20214 min read


From a Crow in the Pines to Pope Francis in Bronze
by Darby Lee Patterson Why does a fully-lapsed Catholic, having been kicked out of Catholic school three times before the age of twelve,...

Darby Lee Patterson
May 11, 20213 min read


Back Door to a Journalism Career
In keeping with my life as a human ping pong ball, I chose to study archeology, anthropology, and African Studies at UC Santa Barbara. I...

Darby Lee Patterson
May 4, 20214 min read