New Yorker blogs about Placerville

Blog covers Placerville history through a series of personal essays.

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Michael D. Jackson grew up in Placerville during the 1970s and 1980s and has started to post personal essays about that era in a new blog titled Main Street Stories.

“I started writing about Main Street, Placerville, one day and kept getting ideas for new stories about my memories of growing up in small town America,” said Jackson.

Not knowing exactly what to do with these essays, he decided to start a blog in August 2012 with an eye towards eventually turning the material into a book.

The blog covers a great variety of topics from holidays in Placerville to historical stories, including historical fiction as an entertaining window into the past. Some of the articles include adventures in other small towns such as Coloma, Apple Hill, Sam’s Town, El Dorado Township and Salinas. Some of the articles describe simple aspects of life, such has the history of an overcoat passed down from one generation to the next or going to the movies at the Empire Theater.

“I wanted to relate the experience of small town life as it was when I was a kid,” writes Jackson. “We are far enough away from the 1970s now to feel nostalgic about it and indeed times were simpler not so long ago. I also like to look back at how my era compares to earlier times like the 1920s or 1940s.”

Topics covered in the blog include the summer of 1984 when Bob Hope came to town for a Marshall Hospital benefit, productions at the Olde Coloma Theatre and Theater El Dorado, Gold Bug Park, Wagon Train parades and Old Hangtown history.

Jackson is the son of Joan and Steve Jackson, who still live in Placerville. He earned his Master’s degree in Theater Arts from California State University, Sacramento. He has been a theater critic for Off Off Broadway Review and currently writes for Examiner.com. He has directed numerous productions in New York and California, and is a playwright. A collection of his plays, “Making Progress,” and a book of theater criticism, “New York Stages,” are published by AuthorHouse. In addition, he has served as artistic director for Lambda Players and co-producing director for the Firsthand Theatr rProject in New York. He is currently a licensing agent with Music Theater International.

Find Main Street Stories online at http://mainstreetstories.blogspot.com/.