I drove up the Philo-Greenwood Road to Vinegar Ridge (Signal Ridge) and met Lee at her lovely home in the woods. We sat down and she served up good strong coffee and some delicious sausage from Lemons’ Market in Philo, along with ciabatta bread and jam. (Later, I would also get to enjoy a ham sandwich on that won­derful bread too!).

Lee was born in New Jersey in 1947 but her family lived in upstate New York about an hour from Albany at the time. She and her sister Martha, who is two years older, were the two children born to Hendrick Serrie and Josephine Galietta. The Serries were displaced French Huguenots who had settled in Amsterdam and worked on the barges there for several generations. Lee’s grandfa­ther went to sea at the age of eleven but after his third ship went down and he was the sole survivor he emi­grated to the States and settle in Hoboken, New Jersey where he lived and worked on the freight barges around Manhattan and New York harbor. The Galiettas were from a small hillside community outside Naples, Italy, and Lee’s grandmother had decided at the age of 16 that she wanted adventure so she came alone to the States to stay with an uncle in Jersey City. This was a town that had become a landing stop for many immigrants, many of who stayed for the first generation.

Lee’s father had two children with his first wife who had died and so when he married Lee’s mother in 1942, on the recommendation of a friend at the Dutch Reform Church, they came too, although they were 14 and 10 years old when Lee was born. “That same family friend at the church had introduced my father’s family to another Huguenot family upstate and my Dad went to work there as a farmhand every summer from the age of 14 to 19. That family was very fond of my father and he loved the lifestyle. He went on to serve in the Navy and then returned to Jersey City where he was to own a butcher’s shop and deli from about 1930 to 1943 but he always wanted to be a gentleman farmer like the family he had worked for. He finally was able to buy a dairy farm in the area and move up there. My mother had little say in that. She had married a successful businessman and would go with him. She was a city girl but she went along with it and soon she was into her garden and can­ning and managed to put a smile on her face and became a good farm wife and farm manager.”

Apart from a four year spell from the age of four to eight when they sold this farm and returned to Jersey City before getting another farm close to the first one — this time a chicken farm. Lee therefore grew up on a farm and went through grade school, elementary, junior and most of high school in and around the small rural town of Breakabeen. New York. “It was similar in size to Philo and I led a sort of Huck Finn childhood, riding my pony, having fun at the swimming holes and playing on bikes. I helped on the farm and we’d plough the fields initially with two horses, Tom and Jerry, before we got our new John Deere tractor. From the age of eight I was responsible for maintaining and collecting the eggs from about 100 chickens out of the 20,000 we had on the farm. At one point we had the largest egg-laying opera­tion in New York State with huge mechanized barns.”

Lee enjoyed her schooling and was a very good stu­dent. She was also in the choir and played the French horn and trumpet. While history, geography and music were her biggest interests she did play a little basketball and was very social. “I had twenty-three cousins, mostly in the city four hours drive away, but in the summers they would come to visit us. The small, tight-knit com­munity was primarily of Dutch descent and I had little Italian influence despite my mother’s heritage. In the middle of my junior year at high school, when I was sixteen, the town and the school had all become a little too ‘small’ for me. My father enquired about sending me to a private school in the city and even though it meant giving up a lot I decided I wanted to do it. I wanted to expand my life, open new doors; I was just kind of fin­ished there. My parents realized this and with my sister, with whom I was very close in every way (we had a huge sibling rivalry), having already left home for college, it was felt it would be best for me to go to the city. I moved into my grandmother’s four-storey house, each floor having members of the family living there, and attended Jersey Academy until my graduation in 1964.”

In the fall of 1964, Lee began her studies in the lib­eral arts at Antioch College, Ohio, in between Dayton and Columbus. “My major was Chinese art and litera­ture. Let me explain. My half brother was an anthropolo­gist who had studied Chinese family structure and I had been to Taiwan on a trip with him following which I had become seriously interested in Chinese language and lit­erature. Furthermore, my sister was at Stanford from where she would graduate and become the first regis­tered acupuncturist in the State of California. And finally, my older (half) sister taught English at a Chinese University. We’ve never worked out why all these Chinese connections. I had a good time in college and it certainly broadened my horizons. I was introduced to the new culture of the day for the first time — the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the various political movements of the mid-sixties. I’d never even had an avocado before then! Antioch was the first college to offer a work/study program and so I would study for about six months and then worked for six or so. One of the jobs, from April to October 1967, was for the Clearwater Ranch residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed kids in Ander­son Valley! Actually, I spent most of the time in Clover­dale at their residential home there but I certainly got to know the Valley a little too at that time. It was still basically a ranch area back then and I bought a motor­bike and would ride out to the Navarro River beach at weekends with other counselors. Of course that June was when San Francisco exploded and, although I was never a hippie, I visited there often and also saw my sister who was studying at Stanford. During my college days I became quite political. Antioch was very active in the anti-war and civil rights movements and I was on many marches and demonstrations and we would sometimes go to DC which was ten hours away. I had begun to get interested in film and Antioch became one of the first schools to get equipment for undergraduate film study. Until then it was either UCLA or New York University and only postgraduate programs. We made little films and showed them in the assembly hall on Saturday nights and by the time I graduated in 1970 they had hired their first professor of film.”

Following graduation, Lee found a job in social work in the Chinese community in New York City but soon after her sister’s husband died and she came out to San Francisco to be with her sister. Some of her filmmaking friends form college had moved to the bay Area and she hung out with them doing the “communal living in the City” thing. For a time she studied Chinese language at SF State but ran out of money and for a couple of years she was another “struggling artist” as she worked in a secretarial job at an architectural firm, although she found time to work on the sound of a drama filmed in a house in Mendocino and directed by Wayne Wang, later the maker of such films as “The Joy Luck Club,” “Maid in Manhattan,” and “Smoke.”

In 1973, Lee and her boyfriend from college were approached by a friend of theirs from Antioch who had been teaching in various International Schools around the world and who was at that time settled in Quito, Ecuador, to join him on a trip along the Andes mountain range in South America. They thought it was a great idea and their year-long journey on horseback began. “We didn’t sleep in a bed for a year and had a wonderful time filming and painting so many beautiful sights on the way.”

On their way back to the States in 1974 the hand of fate stepped in for Lee. “We had sort of adopted three monkeys as pets and wanted to bring them back to the States. We planned to drive all the way but there was no accessible road from Columbia to Panama so we flew into there and were told we would have to fly out too. This meant we would have to fly to SF and the monkeys might not have got into the country there. We thought they would have a better chance if we went to New York and landed at JFK airport. We were right and they were let in. Now I was on the east coast for a short time and so I decided to contact an old college roommate who I had been writing to about my career goals etc when we were in South America. She had been the first woman hired by NBC News and she advised me that if I wanted to get into filming news stories for television then I should not go back to California. They were ten years behind. I certainly wanted to work in that business and now seren­dipity had led me to New York. I stuck around and after a year of politicking I managed to get a union card and a job with NBC News.”

Lee was to live in New York for the next seven years, residing in a loft in the SoHo district. “It was a great time to be in New York. My co-workers were so savvy and smart and I learned so much. I had a good nose for news and worked as the sound engineer on a three-person crew producing news stories and documentaries. It soon became second nature for me to tell the story that was there, with a beginning, middle, and end. I was sur­rounded by reporters, correspondents and producers who ‘knew the score’ and constantly reviewing what we had been told. It was a very educational process and I had a great time. Besides work, I was young and really enjoyed the New York scene particularly because NBC’s finan­cial constraints meant they were not allowing much overtime work so we had plenty of time to socialize.”

In 1981, Lee was ready for a change of scenery and had always intended to get back to the west coast. Jobs were difficult to come by in San Francisco so when she saw an opening for a company transfer she jumped at the chance and became a sound engineer for NBC News in the Bay Area working on The Today Show, various documentaries, and live broadcasts. In 1982, on a blind date made arranged by her friend and her husband, she met Rob Giuliani at the Chart House restaurant in Mon­tara near Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. “The four of us went out a second time for sushi and Rob pre­tended to like it and soon we were going out. Over the next year we traveled together several times and our relationship developed but then I was faced with a major career choice. Rob was the pressroom foreman at the SF Chronicle, a career job, and he was going to stay there but NBC News wanted to move our crew, the second SF Crew, to Denver. I did not want to go to Denver so I asked if there was any way this could be worked out. I was told that if one of the LA crews wanted to go to Denver then our crew could go to LA. This is what hap­pened and in 1983 I started work in Los Angeles.”

For the next 18 years the two of them commuted between the airports or to wherever Lee may have been in any one of the thirteen western states that she had to cover. “It was what we decided to do. Sometimes I’d call Rob and ask him to guess where I was and having read the papers he would make an educated guess as to where I might be covering a story! I’d apply for every SF story that came up and we’d spend more time together when that happened of course. I didn’t enjoy LA that much and would take almost any assignment out of town, even ones that others didn’t want. After a few years I wanted to move from sound to the camera and I applied for an opening when it came along. No woman had ever had such a job at NBC and I was rejected. I brought a suit against them and in 1986 I won a settlement for my fees and a chance to try out for the job. That was all I wanted. I got the job and I embarked on the coverage of many big stories in the next few years, such as the Columbine School Shooting — a tough and demanding assignment; the Alaskan Oil Spill; the O.J. Trial; the former Philip­pine President, President Marcos, in his home in Hawaii; the L.A. riots, for which our crew provided the first cov­erage from the streets; Governor Jerry Brown on the campaign trail; various Presidential Campaigns; and, because the L.A. Bureau covered Hollywood, various movie stars at their homes or on the set of television shows such as Seinfeld. I remember being in Mexico for The Today Show on the set of “Under the Volcano” starring Albert Finney. He sat opposite me for breakfast and I said I had not slept well because somebody had been singing opera until 4am in the morning. It turned out it was him.”

“In 1988, I was covering the oil drilling off the coast of Mendocino and Rob and I drove up here and through the Valley on Highway 128. I remember there was a float protesting the drilling in the July 4th Parade. Any­way, I remembered Lemons’ Market from my time in the Valley over 20 years earlier and thinking this is a beau­tiful warm inland Valley yet only 45 minutes to the coast and Rob’s hobbies — fishing etc. A month or so later we came up for a week’s vacation and on the fifth day we saw this parcel here on Vinegar Ridge (Signal Ridge) and in that November we had bought ourselves the 20-acre property. It was definitely a kind of impulse buy. For years we’d come up here on a Friday evening and stay in an old trailer we put on the land. We’d clear some trees and brush for two days and then I’d go back to LA or to wherever my next story was on Sunday night. We did that for three out of every four weekends for a long time.”

Over the next few months Lee and Rob became friends with their neighbors, Steve and Janet Anderson and soon got to know their friends too — people such as Rob and Barbara Goodell, Jean and Anne Duvigneaud, and the Apfels. At the conclusion of the O.J. Simpson Civil Trial in 1997 they were married and Lee took a week off work. Later that year they started to build the house with help from Olie Eriksen and Bob Heller and when Rob was offered a buyout at the Chronicle he readily accepted it and moved up here. Rob didn’t want to visit LA really so Lee would come up to see him here in the Valley. “I wanted to come to the Valley despite the long trip. However, I did love my work. My job was my life, and so it took me two years to slowly disassociate myself from that world. The 150 hours a week I was doing on the Columbine shooting was certainly a catalyst to my eventual move and besides that the business had changed. Reporters no longer asked the right questions or didn’t ask questions at all. There was no longer any skepticism and that’s something I believe you need when investigating a story. I gradually pulled away and it cer­tainly helped knowing I had a beautiful place in the country to move to.”

In 2000, Lee moved to the Valley full-time, into “Rob’s house.” He had lived there alone for two years. “I was ready and had taken up the hobby of quilting in 1998 and soon got involved with a Mexican co-operative in the Valley that was working on a project in which the women told their life stories in the form of a quilt. Meanwhile Rob and Henry Gundling, our neighbor, had gone fishing together and in time Heidi Gundling and I became friends. She is a filmmaker and together we worked on a film for the health clinic, along with the school’s film teacher Mitch Mendoza, and then the three of us did an anti-methamphetamine film called “The End of Silence” which was made with help from Patty LeFaveri’s advanced computer class. This film has now been shown at schools in seventeen states and the any profit all goes to the school. Then our friend Barbara Goodell wanted to have a film made about the book she had worked on with the Mexican women in the Valley about their salsa recipes and so Heidi, Mitch and I worked together once more and made the “Secrets of Salsa” movie which did very well indeed. I had contin­ued with my quilting and was regularly entering my work in the County Fair and eventually I ended up mak­ing the film about the quilt project called ‘Los Hilos de la Vida’ — the quilt of life. In the last couple of years I have spent many more hours on the quilt project which not only touches every aspect of the Mexican women’s lives but also allows them to spend time together, socializing away from their homes, empowering them more than ever before.”

Lee and Rob are now living the life they both worked so hard for and dreamed about. Lee spends a lot of time on their land, enjoying her work on the garden, quilting, canning, going to trivia nights at Lauren’s Restaurant, dinner parties with friends, and fund-rising events. “I love living in a place where I know most of the people I see. Having grown up in a small town this is important to me. This Valley is a very positive place to live; most people here are working for the greater good. One thing I do find a little annoying is that some people handle information/gossip poorly. It’s the one area in which people are not great with each other around here.”

I next asked Lee for her responses to some of the more discussed Valley issues.

The wineries and their impact? “It’s better than hav­ing no economy at all. However, in this house fishing is very important and what is happening to the rivers is directly related to the wineries being here. The rivers are just a trickle in the summer and the sediment at the river mouth is well, what can I say? I love agriculture but it is incumbent on everybody to practice it at the highest of standards.”

The AVA? “Some people gripe about the newspaper but I believe the Valley would be a ‘poorer’ place with­out our community newspaper. It’s amazing that we have it given what has happened to the newspaper business in recent times.”

KZYXZ radio? “The same thing as the paper although I do wish we had more local news rather than hearing about Garberville and Southern Humboldt County. I was also very disappointed to see Christine Aanestad leave because her efforts gave a certain level of professionalism to the news broadcasts.”

The school system? “It’s the biggest employer in the Valley and it’s wonderful how many kids we send to college.”

Drugs in the Valley? “Any drug that is not within our control can be, and often is, detrimental or harmful to the people living here.”

To end the interview, I posed a few obvious and some not-so-obvious questions.

What excites you; makes you smile; inspires you, gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotion­ally? “When someone stands up for someone else, possi­bly at a risk to their own social capital. I find that very admirable. Trees also inspire me.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Loose talk; people speaking without thinking. Some gossip is fine and it serves a function, but knowing the line between that and hurtful gossip is important.”

Sound or noise you love? “The owls at night.”

Sound or noise you hate? “When music is too loud. It’s harmful too.”

What is your favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “A rib-eye steak.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “Paul McCartney. He seems to be a very eclectic person and I’m an admirer of many of his lyrics.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “An electric book reader with 2,000 books; some paper and a pen to write and draw; a piano.”

Where would you like to visit if you could go anywhere in the world? “Back to Machu Picchu in the Andes; this time with Rob. He wants to go to Australia. That would work too.”

Favorite film/song/book or one that has influenced you? “I think Star Wars is one of the greatest films, a western in space age costumes. As for music I love the songs by Harold Arlen who wrote the music for many Broadway shows and films in the 40s and 50s. His most famous probably being ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow.’ And a book would be James Clavell’s ‘Shogun,’ because of my interest in Chinese culture.”

A smell you really like? “A rose by the name of ‘Jude the Obscure’.”

Favorite hobby? “Playing the piano and quilting. I have also just started to learn knitting.”

Profession other than your own you’d like to attempt if you were given the chance to do anything? Your fantasy job, perhaps? “A designer of some sort — clothes, objects, tools.”

Profession you’d not like to do? “Something that entailed doing the same thing every day, whatever that might be. Or a job where I was under the thumb of some tyrant boss.”

What was the happiest day or event in your life? “It’s all been pretty good — from being a farm kid, my time at college, my job at NBC and I loved the day I moved here and started a new life.”

Saddest day or period? “When my father died in September 1975. He was my best friend.”

What is your favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “That I am eclectic and have lots of different interests. That I am adaptable, mostly.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “Welcome, Lee. You have helped as many people as you could along the way.” ¥¥

(To read the ‘stories’ of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Anderson Valley School Teacher Betsy Taylor.)

I met Elaine at her home on Gschwend Road a couple of miles back beyond the Christine Woods region. I was greeted by the 14-year old Chocolate Lab, Pepper, and 7-year old McNab Mix, Ziggy, before Elaine and I sat down with coffee and water and began our chat.

Elaine was born in 1961 to parents Salvador Rubal­cava and Sara Gallegos in the town of Maywood in Los Angeles County. Her father was born in Tampico on the Pacific coast of Mexico and came to the States when he was thirteen. He later served in the U.S. Army for four years and became a prominent radio personality on the Spanish stations in LA and on the nightclub scene and also worked in the used car business. Elaine’s mother was born in Oceanside, California and her family was also from Mexico, with her father a migrant worker splitting time between Mexico and the States for many years. They moved full-time in the 1920s and Sara is one of eleven children, five of them half-siblings with the same father. Salvador and Sara were married and had four children — Louis, Elaine, Irma, and Cynthia. “My Dad also had had four other children with four other women prior to being with my mother. He was often not around and we found out later he had a whole other life away from us.”

When Elaine was a small child, her mother moved with Louis and her to Santa Barbara to stay at the home of Elaine’s grandfather, Francisco. “For a time we moved back and forth but settled in Santa Barbara when I was five and that’s where I grew up for the next twelve years, going through Elementary, Junior High, and most of High School there… The town was not like it is now, although there were certainly tourists. Now when we visit it’s crazy. When I lived there the town would be quiet on some days — Sundays were like Sundays in Ukiah now — deserted.”

Elaine’s mother did daycare and was also a seam­stress at a dry cleaners for extra money. Elaine’s father sent money and would visit once every couple of months. “My Mom busted her butt to support us. My Dad was not around but I didn’t know any different so it wasn’t strange to me at the time. My mother’s side of the family was all around us in Santa Barbara and we went to lots of family functions. I had twenty cousins or so in town. I was the oldest and would baby-sit many of the others. My social scene was mostly with a girlfriend, Linda, who lived a block away. We were fairly well behaved and didn’t party every weekend, spending most of our time on skateboards. That was a very big thing for me. I went everywhere on that thing. I guess I had lots of acquaintances and just a few close friends. Then I had a steady boyfriend in my sophomore and junior years. I really enjoyed school. I was upset if I ever got sick and couldn’t go. I was not a good academic but I did enjoy the social life at school and with my junior high just three blocks away in one direction and my high school three blocks in the other, I walked to both. My favorite subject was art and I did like history but I didn’t absorb very much. I played volleyball and ran track — the mile. I worked part-time jobs when I was at school. My grandfather had a Mexican restaurant and I bussed tables there when I was about fourteen. My Mom used to work there too as a cook for a time. She was always working but she never complained. She is an angel and tries to think well of everyone but will not tolerate a complainer for very long. Later, in my high school years, I worked as a counter clerk at the dry cleaners after school and one day at the weekend.”

In the summer of 1978, between Elaine’s junior and senior year, her father bought a house for the family in Bell Gardens, a suburb of LA “It was absolutely horrible for me to move and to go to this place which was no comparison to my life in Santa Barbara. It was emotion­ally very traumatic. I’ve advised parents here that the child has to want to move if that trauma is to be avoided. It can be so upsetting.”

Elaine was mature beyond her years and liked to dress stylishly too. “I guess I often stood out in a crowd as I carried myself well and dressed a little differently. I had helped mother a lot and was always taking care of my younger cousins so perhaps in some ways I was quite a bit older and wiser than many in my class.”

Elaine attended Bell Gardens High School and as part of her PE class she took weight training in the gym. “The social studies teacher, Dennis ‘Buzz’ Busse, used to work out there too and we used to run together after the class. There was no attraction there on my part. He was a charming man but we were just friendly.”

A couple of years earlier, in 1977, Dennis had men­tioned to an old girlfriend who was living in Sebastopol that he wanted to buy some property in the Mendocino area and she had suggested this area to him. He and a friend, Chris Wallace, a former student of his who was married to D’Ann Wallace (who was to later own the Horn of Zeese), started to look around the Valley. There was nobody on Gschwend Road year-round at that time except perhaps Hayes and Linda Brennan but when they drove back in past the private road gate they ran into Thor and Leona Robertson who were visiting their land. They told them that Mary Bell, the recently widowed retired schoolteacher wanted to sell her parcel nearby and shortly afterwards they bought her twenty acres for $12,500.

“Going to college was not really on my radar although I could have gone to Cal State Long Beach and sometimes wish I had, looking back. Because my high school in Santa Barbara had been so good, I was ahead of the class so during my senior year I was able to work in the afternoons at a Fosters Freeze, which is like a Dairy Queen. During that year at school I took a Regional Occupation Program in banking and when I graduated in June 1979 a friend of mine and I both got jobs at the local Bank of America. Around that time, Dennis came up to work on his property and then went to the Caribbean for a month’s vacation. When he returned we started to date and I got to know him better although I was in Bell Gardens with my mother and he was in Huntington Beach, 35 miles away. I continued to work at the bank and tried to get as much time off in the summer to coincide with his school vacation and we were able to travel a lot. To some people the twelve-year age differ­ence was eye-roller stuff but we didn’t care and were married four years later in 1983 and I moved into his house in Huntington Beach. We lived for twelve years and raised our sons. Travis was born in 1987 and then Tyler in 1990. I moved to a couple of different branches with the BofA and went part-time at the Costa Mesa branch in Orange County when the kids were young. We’d go up to Anderson Valley for a couple of weeks in the summer and by 1990 Dennis had begun work on building the house.”

Back in 1981, along with Chris Wallace and his father, and Buzz’s sister, Dennis had bought Thor’s par­cel on Gschwend Road when Leona died and that’s where Elaine, buzz and the kids stayed when they visited although it had no power and was very basic. “Dennis had always wanted to live here. Ever since we’d met I’d known that and so when we finally moved here full-time in the summer of 1994, with our four and six-year old kids, I was fine with it. Buzz kept his job in Southern California for a year and would drive up every weekend, eight hours each way; otherwise I was here alone with the kids and worked part-time at the BofA in Ukiah for three days a week. Buzz could not find work here although he was close a couple of times at both Mendo­cino and AV High School. It was tough but finally he became a long-term substitute teacher for the Athletic Director at Ukiah High and got the job permanently a year later. Our kids went to Anderson Valley until high school, which they attended in Ukiah where Buzz taught.”

Elaine and Buzz knew few people in the Valley with her work in Ukiah and him doing twelve to fourteen hours at the high school over there. “I had become friends with Alexis Moyer, when I’d taken her summer pottery class some years earlier, and also others in the class such Eileen Pronsolino, Pat Daniels, and Linda Baker, and then once the kids were in school I gradually got to know others here, plus neighbors, the Tripletts and Smiths, although overall I did not have much contact with most of the Valley. By 1998 I had become tired of the bank. It had been nearly 20 years by that time and had become all big business bullshit. I needed to do something else. One day I was at Lemons’ Market in Philo and was talking to Yolanda Ibarra at the meat counter. Her son Rodolfo and Travis were the same age. She told me that Valerie Gowan had just quit at the Boonville Hotel and although Jeanne Eliades had taken over the job there might be something else available there. I knew Jeanne from playing volleyball at the Triplett’s house and so I met up with her and Johnny Schmitt, her husband at the time and the owner of the Hotel. They hired me as the innkeeper three days a week and I kept one day a week at the bank for a few months to get my 20 years in.”

Elaine pretty much learned on the job and also did bartending at lunchtimes, with Libby (now of Libby’s Restaurant in Philo) in the kitchen. Gina Barron was the hotel’s event planner and head waitress but she quit and at various times Elaine started doing those jobs too. “I was soon almost full-time and was pretty much the gen­eral manager. Johnny was fairly easy-going and let me run the place on some levels, certainly in terms of staff­ing, reservations, organizing, hosting, and innkeeping, although I was not in the kitchen or doing any book­keeping. I ended up being there for twelve years and really liked it most of the time but it did become a little ‘weird’ in the last couple of years, for want of a better word. It just wasn’t the same anymore even though the staff still loved the place and did our best to keep it going. In November 2009, Johnny decided he needed to make some changes and I understood that. He laid most of us off saying he would take us back as we were needed. Gail Meyer had been there for twenty years, Saffron Fraser and I for twelve, Joel Leach for five; Jonesy DeWolf and several others too had been loyal employees. Over the past few months some have gone back part-time, all except Saffron, Joel and I. I signed up for unemployment and was quite mad and upset at what had happened, although it also felt like a lead weight had been removed after a very stressful couple of years there. I had liked the job, had thrived on it, but I did not enjoy having to put myself through the situation where the staff had pretty much held it together for the last two years. In the end I felt a sense of relief.”

While the two boys were at the school in AV, Elaine was involved with their sports activities but she acknowledges that she is not too community minded. “I volunteered to help if the kids were involved. I was busy with my jewelry making, which is now sold at the Mer­cantile Store in Boonville. Talking of which, my mother has lived with us for several years now in her own suite at the house. She keeps very busy in the garden etc and with her sewing skills she is able to make things that are also sold at that store. I was a homebody and Buzz even more so with all the hours he worked in Ukiah. People were always asking where he was. I think they thought I had made him up! We rarely attended events in the Val­ley although sometimes I would go out for a drink with friends. Once the boys went to Ukiah H.S. I was over there more and got to know the parents of students there. Buzz retired in June 2009 and then on December 18th last year I was laid off. I was convinced something would come up. I inquired at some wineries and even thought about bar work at The Lodge if it had stayed open. I didn’t want full-time or any stress and for six or seven weeks I was happy being unemployed. I saw an ad in the paper for a tasting room manager at Greenwood Ridge Winery but knew I wasn’t qualified. Then out of the blue, the owner, Allan Green called me at home one evening. He knew me from the Hotel where he had sometimes been a customer. Gail Mayer from the Hotel had recommended me and I set up a meeting. That lasted for three hours by the end of which I was freaking out with all the stuff he showed me. I was doubtful about the job until Chris, who works in the tasting room, took me aside to say he would help me settle in and that greatly encouraged me. I was offered the job on the spot and accepted. I was flabbergasted.”

After a shaky start Elaine settled in. She had been hired for her personnel management skills and abilities with the public. The other stuff she learned quickly. “I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason and I wish now that this opportunity had come earlier. I am thoroughly enjoying the job and am very grateful to Allan for believing that I could do it. Ironically three other job offers came in just afterwards but I had made a commitment and am so glad that I did. I am at a good point in my life.”

Travis has now graduated college from USF with a degree in Media Studies and lives in San Francisco where he hopes to develop a career in music and song writing. Meanwhile Tyler is entering his junior year at Sonoma State with Art as his major. “We told both of them to give college two years and then decide whether they wanted to stay or not – too many kids give up too early.”

Elaine loves her life in the Valley but some winters she thinks she could move somewhere with sandy beaches and a Mediterranean climate — Santa Barbara weather. “We came here to raise our kids in a small town, away from the hustle of L.A. The slow-pace of life here suits me even though I stick out sometimes with my city-side and appearance. That’s just me. I enjoy visiting the City to see Travis but it’s always so nice to come back to Anderson Valley.”

I asked Elaine for her thoughts on some of the Valley issues that many here discuss.

The Wineries and their impact? “We should have a limit on how many we have. Surely the effect on the environment is too great if we keep adding more.”

The AVA? “I pick it up occasionally. We used to sub­scribe when we lived in LA but since moving here we stopped but occasionally still get it.”

The local school system? “Well our boys were here through junior high so I did think about keeping them here. However, I felt that the school board had been entrenched too long and then with Buzz teaching at Ukiah we thought it would be a good fit. There seemed to be more options for our kids over there too, it is a big­ger school obviously and with Buzz driving there every day it worked well. I am a little out of touch with the school here now to offer a current opinion”… Drugs in the Valley? — “I have no problem with people growing pot but I don’t really want it close to my home. I used to walk back in through the woods to the river but I don’t risk doing that anymore, which is too bad.”

I posed a few questions from a questionnaire featured on TV’s “Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton” and some I came up with myself.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “A bright sunny day. Talking to people.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Whiney people who are full of themselves.”

Sound or noise you love? “I like the quiet. But I do love music — classic rock music — and I am a big Elton John fan.”

Sound or noise you hate? “Logging trucks; the fan on a hood of the stove; a drunken neighbor screaming in the middle of the night.”

What is your favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “My Mom’s enchiladas or her menudo.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “It would be Elton John — you know that. I’ve seen him over 50 times in concert.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “Family photographs; a comfortable bed, a record player and my records. I guess I can live without my lipstick!”

Where would you like to visit if you could go any­where in the world? “I would love to go back to the British Virgin Islands. We were there a couple of years ago for our 25th wedding anniversary. Or the Yucatan Peninsular in Mexico. I love warm beaches, not the North Coast beaches I’m sorry to say.”

A smell you really like? “Cinnamon or mint.”

Your favorite word or phrase? “I used to say ‘Oh shit’ all the time. It made me feel better. I like to say ‘If it’s true it ain’t gossip’ because my friends kid me that I like to gossip.”

Favorite hobby? “It used to be making jewelry or painting — both the house and artistic stuff. I like to read mysteries and non-fiction — autobiographies mainly. And I do like to collect folk art.”

Profession other than your own would you like to attempt if you were given the chance? Your fantasy job, perhaps? “I always wanted to be a disc jockey on the radio. Or a supermodel perhaps!”

Profession you’d not like to do? “A housekeeper. I like to do my own but it would be a thankless job I would think.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “When I got mar­ried and also watching our kids grow up.”

Saddest? “Moving from Santa Barbara to Los Ange­les. I have not had much loss or deep sadness. My dad dying was sad but we were not close.”

What is your favorite thing about yourself, physi­cally, mentally, spiritually? “That I’m happy with myself, very comfortable in my own skin. What you see is what you get. I am more approachable than some may think or than I seem to be. That I like to make jokes out of serious stuff sometimes. That I try to be positive. Peo­ple have much bigger problems than I do and I have to stop myself from being negative because I have many positives. I tell the kids this all the time.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “Even though I am not a big party animal, I do like to have fun so if he said ‘Welcome Elaine, let the party begin’ that would be good.” ¥¥

(To read the ‘stories’ of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Lee Serrie, Valley filmmaker and former NBC News crew member.)

]]> http://theava.com/archives/7995/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/7929 http://theava.com/archives/7929#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:51:02 +0000 Steve Sparks http://theava.com/?p=7929

I met Mike at his home on Hwy 128 almost opposite The Grange between Boonville and Philo. I sat down with a cup of fresh coffee and a plate of chocolate good­ies Mike and his wife, Karen, had picked from the newly opened Paysanne ice cream store in town and we began our chat.

Mike was born in Napa, California in 1963, the sec­ond of three children born to Marshall Crutcher and Patricia Silvestre. He has a sister, Patty Ann, three years older, and a brother David a year younger. He knows little about the Crutchers other than that before moving to the Napa area they were originally from Tennessee. His father was rarely around and at some point chose to have nothing to do with the family. Grandfather Silvestre came from Italy by boat in 1911 to Vallejo, California, where other family members had settled previously. Mike’s great grandmother had a house there that Mike vividly remembers as being at the top of a very steep hill. His grandfather opened a bar in town and met his grandmother there. When World War 2 began his grandfather, fearing that Italians would be interned at prison camps, decided to move the family to the Silverado Trail area of Napa which was far more rural and out of the way compared with Vallejo where the shipyards were situated and people might be on the look out for the “enemy.” Mike’s mother went to Napa High School where she met his father and they were married shortly after graduation.

When Mike was five his parents were divorced and his mother initially took the kids to live with their grand­parents in Napa before moving to Fort Bragg on the coast and staying in the ten-by-fifty mobile home that the grandparents had bought for their retirement. Mike then entered 3rd grade in Fort Bragg. “The wine industry was taking off in Napa — I remember that to protect the blossoms, the growers used smudge pots that smelled of burning diesel and huge fans that sound like helicopters. The fans could be heard from a mile or more away and the combined smell and din was not nice. My grandfa­ther who had owned the bar stayed in the alcohol busi­ness as a sales representative for liquor and wine and would often take me with him on his rounds to all the Italian-owned bars and restaurants he knew and did business with. We were always greeted in Italian and treated like kings as I remember… Then when we moved to Ft. Bragg it was different — a community based around the logging and commercial fishing industries. My mother dated a logger called Aldo Matuzio, known as ‘Moose’ as he was such a big, big man. There was lots of derogatory talk about the hippies when he was around, although Mom was a lot more open-minded about the new young generation of the late sixties and didn’t mind me talking to them if I saw them at the laundromat. Moose became my father figure and would take me fishing and hunting and I would pack his lunch and gas can before he’d go to work at 4am in the morning. I also went into the woods with him on many occasions when I was in my early teens.”

Mike attended Fort Bragg Elementary, Junior High and High Schools. In junior high he was talked into joining the band and became a drummer. “I thought if they wanted someone to beat on something then that was for me. It was when with the band that I first hung out in Anderson Valley when we marched in the County Fair Parade. I had also passed through many times when we’d visit my grandparents in Napa and I always thought ‘how cool is this place!’ People were always happy there, out of the fog and not drinking too heavily like so many log­gers and fishermen did. We’d always stop in our 1965 Thunderbird where the Drive-In is now and have ice cream. It was a great little place to stop and I can hon­estly look back at my childhood and say that I was drawn to this place and its community from a young age.”

With Mike’s mother working as a grocery clerk and at other stores to earn money to support the family, Mike was primarily raised by his sister. “My sister was a good ‘parent’ although I did not make it easy for her I’m sure. I was great at getting out of chores and am probably responsible for many of Mom’s grey hairs and dementia! To say I was a high maintenance child is an understate­ment. I was always up to something; l loved the woods and it was a great place for a kid with a bike and a wild imagination. We lived less than a mile from the ocean and I’d ride my bike there to go fishing, often coming home with fish for my mother or sister to cook — which they did if I cleaned it first.”

At school Mike did well at the subjects he liked although in all his classes he was a big headache for the teacher. “If any of my teachers read this, please accept it as an open apology to all.” His favorite subjects were the sciences and from an early age finding out how things worked fascinated him. “I was taking apart my toys from when I was four years old and would get into all kinds of mischief with things even at that age, including blowing up my mother’s camera flash bulbs with a battery.”

In high school Mike maintained that same level of wildness although he was a good kid in many ways and did not really break any laws apart from some illegal firework activity. He was just mischievous. He took auto and welding classes at night school as he continued his desire to find out how things worked and worked on the family car and plumbing and was able to fix the windows he would seem to break accidentally with his BB gun.

“I was tough to handle for some I’m sure and then when I got a motorbike, a Honda 250, at the age of six­teen that was my wings. In junior high, I had worked in the summers on a commercial fishing boat and later got a job at Rex Pharmacy as a maintenance guy and stocking shelves. On February 5th 1979, I met one of the sales­clerks there by the name of Karen and we started to date… Meanwhile, I was supposed to share my bike with my brother David but I needed it a lot more — it was how I got to work. Mom had insisted I got a job with my sister having moved out. Then one day David took the bike and somehow basically destroyed it. My mother defended him and I ended up yelling profanities at her so she told me to leave the house, for good. I was sixteen… This was in the early spring of 1980 and I moved into a friend’s house. His Dad helped me buy a car, a 1964 Chevy Malibu and I felt like I was king of the world in that thing. I would still see my mother occasionally and it has pretty much be the same ever since, although we have somewhat reconciled at this point but it was diffi­cult for many years. She feels that at the time she did the right thing.”

After staying at his friend’s house Mike then lived in a couple of garages and even in his car for a time, but before his senior year one of his teachers offered him a large spare room (the top floor) in his house and Mike rented it for $75 a month. That was a difficult year of study for Mike and his attendance dropped off, although he did manage to keep up in the important classes. He and Karen were still dating and for some of the year they were “shacked up” together. “I felt like I had everything I wanted — a car, a girlfriend, a nice place to live, enjoying school, and a job. It was possibly some of the happiest days of my life. I had some great friends — we were not jocks, more cool nerds, and we did like to smoke a little pot… or actually as much as we could get our hands on! Led by Ganja Willy, who could roll a joint in ten seconds, we had a ‘Doomsday Pact’ that if we ever heard that missiles were coming in from the Soviet Union we’d meet up somewhere and Willy would roll one up and we’d be loaded when the bomb hit. We ran many practice drills to prepare for that!”

As part of his auto shop studies, Mike had joined the Industrial Club of America and not long before his graduation he attended the club’s award ceremony and dinner for all the clubs in the area that was held in Boon­ville. “I was sitting there with my friends and our teacher, not really paying attention to the awards being given out, when someone said my name had been read out and I should go up to the stage. I did so and was pre­sented with a scroll of paper tied up with a ribbon. I had no idea what this was for but enjoyed the applause any­way. When I returned to my seat I opened the scroll and it said I had been granted a full scholarship to attend the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. It was as a result of a competition I had entered in the spring and had forgotten all about. I was overwhelmed. When I left the auditorium some Boonville girls came up to me with flowers and kissed me on the cheek. Once again I couldn’t help but think ‘I love this Valley. What is this place — it’s magical.’ I thought I’d won the Indy 500!”

Soon afterwards Mike graduated from high school and in July 1982 went to Arizona with his scholarship and some extra finances from his parents (who were in touch) and grandparents. He bought new tools — “some of which I still own” — and decided he would work as hard as he could to repay everyone for putting up with him. He came second on the motorcycle maintenance course at its conclusion and met many great mechanics during his time there. “I loved the desert and the people and the wild life, especially the reptiles and rattle­snakes.”

In 1983, he returned to Fort Bragg but could not find a job in the motorbike field so he started a job at a gas station, pumping gas and doing minor mechanical repairs. Here he met Richard Starr, an excellent mechanic who was opening a shop in Philo, Anderson Valley — Starr Automotive. “He gave me a job — the first employee of Starr, and for a time I commuted to Philo and loved the job. However, after a few months it was obvious I was just not good enough as an auto mechanic and Richard needed someone better than me. I understood completely and returned to Fort Bragg where I found work at Seafair — the lumber company’s department store where I did stocking and deliveries too, which I enjoyed for a couple of years.”

By 1986 Mike was working at ‘Sofa’s Beds Etc’’ a furniture store owned by Darrell McNeill (the child molester recently murdered by one of his victims). “He was a very nice person to work for — I guess you never know. There were rumors but I was always very skepti­cal about them.” During this time, Mike and Karen took a weekend trip to see a friend of theirs in Chico, Califor­nia. While they were there he was offered a job at ‘The Little Engine Shop’ where they worked on all kinds of engines and repairing lawn mowers, orchard equipment and occasionally motorbikes.

“We were really ready for a change. We returned for a couple of weeks and then I quit my job, packed up, and we moved to Chico in 1987. We rented a cute a little house from Karen’s new employers at an educational supply store called The Creative Apple. It had the white picket fence and cute lawn and it was just a short walk to my job. We visited Fort Bragg during our time in Chico and were married in my sister’s backyard in September 1987. We loved our three years in Chico and cried when we left — we were really, really happy there.”

By 1989 Karen’s parents were living in the Valley’s Rancho Navarro sub-division and offered them a place to stay in a trailer on their property. Mike had by now decided he wanted to work for himself and so when Karen’s father, Jim Colling, told him that the Valley’s two pump guys — Bobby Glover and Smokey Blattner were cutting back on their work, he offered to go into business with Mike. Mike and Karen returned from Chico in November 1990 and opened Philo Pump and Power in the Floodgate area in time for the great freeze of 1990/91. “It reached 9 degrees in some spots and there were broken pipes throughout the Valley. It was great for business and I didn’t get a day off until the end of March! We made some money in those crucial early months of any small business and met many, many Val­ley people at the same time, with word of mouth getting us so much work. Old George Gowan, who had lived here all his life, told me it was the worst winter for more than sixty years. We were up and running and for the next six years I owned the business and did well before, with my father-in-law not in good health, we sold it to Jeff Pugh in 1996. It was a good decision and I still work part-time for Jeff to this day. With Karen having a steady job as a court clerk for the County I was able to go out on my own, doing freelance repair, plumbing and just about any sort of handyman work except carpentry — I leave that to the ‘artists.’.”

For a time, Mike ran the pump business from the prop­erty he and Karen bought on Monte Bloyd Road but when they sold the business they sold the land too and moved to Boonville to live behind the caboose, home of North Coast Realty. “I had met many Valley folks through my business and joined a group called, in Boontling, ‘The Kimmies of the Codgy Mosh’ — ‘Boys of the Old Machines’ who get together one afternoon a week to work on old tractors etc. There were some great mechanics in that group including Tom Miller a former helicopter mechanic — they are always the best. As Richard Starr said — ‘they can turn horseshit into ice cream.’ Others in the group were Jim Bowen Sr, Skip Harris, Doug Elliott, Bob Fowler, Frank Wyant, Wes Smoot, Dick Sands, and others too.”

Mike kept his musical interests alive by forming a garage band with Mark Gowan, Bret Stone, and James Thomasson. “We never had a name but came up with some decent, tasteless songs. When that folded I wanted to continue to sing and so I joined the Community Cho­rus. One of the members was Captain Rainbow, who I had also met on one of my jobs. He invited me to join the Magic Company and eventually I was a regular on the backstage crew, mainly dealing with the video, special effects, and sometimes the creative process for the Vari­ety Show and many other Valley events, including the AV Film Festival, the Halloween event, and the Food­shed Group who just put on the ‘Not-So-Simple Living Fair’ here in town.”

These days Mike continues to do his freelance handy­man work in the Valley and now also works on computer repair. “I have learned a lot more about electronics, radios, and television sets in recent years. The motorcy­cle thing has been very helpful over the years in so many ways even though I have not often worked on bikes themselves. Three years ago I started to work a couple of days a week at Rossi’s Hardware in Boonville. The Rossi’s treat me so well and it’s like being a kid in a candy store for me there, and on top of that I get to hear lots of the Valley history from Emil Rossi when we get a chance to talk. Karen and I moved to this cute little house on Hwy 128 with Sam Prather as our landlord. We love it here. I have a shop and Karen has her own work­room for her projects. It is a real home for us.”

“Anderson Valley has that same feeling as a whole too. It’s home — the only place that I’ve ever lived where I have felt that. Honest to god. Sometimes I may complain about something but when put into perspective against the positives about life here there is nothing to moan about. I must just say that I do have one thing that annoys me — the speed limit in the Valley’s towns should be 25mph. And one thing that would be nice would be to stop traffic completely when the Fair Parade goes through town — it’s for maybe 30 minutes on one afternoon a year. Why not?”

I asked Mike for his responses to some Valley issues.

The wineries and their impact? “I know many people who are not happy with their expansion here but they are just the latest crop/industry to do this. There are some good and bad things about it but in the end there is little we can do about it. I guess I am cool with it for now.”

The AVA newspaper? “I love it! We have a newspa­per! And we have a public radio station in KZYX & Z. Good, bad, or indifferent we have these things when many do not. It would be a tragedy if we lost one or both of them and they both have something for everyone.”

The school system? “It’s an important part of Valley life and I hope the recent bond issue will encourage more parents to keep their kids here at the Valley’s schools. I’m very glad we still have an Agriculture Department, and a damn good one too. I put in the alternative energy project at the high school and recently fixed the laminator at the Elementary School — they think I’m some sort of wizard there.”

Tourism in the Valley? “We need it. It goes back over one hundred years in one form or another. Having said that I hate to get caught behind some motorhome that will not use the turnouts on Hwy 128! The changes in our small businesses have been good and many people in the community have been helped thanks to the tourist dollars. Thanks to the ‘defenses’ of Hwy 128 and 253, it’s never going to get like Napa here.”

Drugs in the Valley? “Personal use of marijuana is fine and if some people need a bit more to pay their bills than I’m not opposed to that either. I think the big illegal grows will go away if the price drops and indoor growing will take over most of the industry when it becomes legal with some small outdoor grows surviving. I don’t smoke at all and I don’t drink much either at this point. I get buzzed too easily but I don’t mind others doing it at all. As for methamphetamine, I have seen evidence of this but I’m not sure what the proper steps are to deal with it. It is a terrible drug but the solution may be to try and help the potential users before they go down that road.”

I posed a few quick-fire questions to my guest.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Solving a problem that I’m working on — the thrill of that ‘victory’ makes me very happy. It’s a magical thing for me.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Not being able to fix a problem. It’s as simple as that. I live for the puzzle and its solution.”

Sound or noise you love? “The coffee pot going in the morning.”

Sound or noise you hate? “The sound that coyotes make at night. It’s very spooky and awful. There’s no way you can ignore it.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “Karen’s chicken pot pie. That’s one heck of a pot pie.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “Nikola Tesla, the inventor, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. I have so many questions for that man.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “My ‘doctor’s bag’ of tools; several pencils and paper. It would be nice to be able to write thoughts down. And a good sleeping bag.”

Favorite film/song/book or one that has influenced you? “I am a big Beatles fan but I like many forms of music; a film would be ‘Groundhog Day. It cracks me up every time I see it. And I like to read technical books.”

A smell you really like? “Coffee and chocolate.”

Favorite hobby? “Fishing, whether I catch anything or not. As the saying goes, ‘A bad day’s fishing beats a good day of work.’ I also collect Barbie Dolls and have done for years — older and unique ones in particular. That’s strange to some people I guess.”

Profession other than your own you’d like to attempt? Your fantasy job, perhaps? “A pilot of some kind.”

Profession you’d not like to do? “A carpenter. I really suck at it and never had the talent for it so I’d hate to have to do it.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “I can’t really pin it down to one. I am a really lucky person and I’ve had many cool things happen to me. Meeting Karen was great and winning that scholarship, of course. I have been very fortunate.”

Saddest day or period of your life? “Having to put our dog Tora down last year. She was my very, very favorite and she captured my heart absolutely.”

What is your favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “That I’m a lucky guy and that it’s so cool that I can fix so many different things. It’s my obsession, my nightmare, my puzzle, me!”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “How about ‘Welcome to Boonville, Mike — glad you’re here because we have a problem with the gate.’ Now that would be perfect.” ¥¥

(To read the stories of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Elaine Busse.)

]]> http://theava.com/archives/7929/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/7871 http://theava.com/archives/7871#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:48:29 +0000 Steve Sparks http://theava.com/?p=7871

I drove up Holmes Ranch Road and on to Chipmunk Lane before arriving at Susan’s house where I was greeted by her Miniature Schnauzer, Bebe, and Wire-haired Terrier, Asta. Susan served a plate of her tasty homegrown plums and delicious aged Irish cheddar and we sat on the deck to chat.

She was born in Oroville, California in 1951, the sec­ond daughter of David Spencer and Hazel Hughes who had had another daughter, Linda, four years earlier. The Spencers were from the Midwest, mainly Missouri and Kansas, but her grandparents had split up when her father was a young child and he and his mother moved to Los Angeles, although he did keep in touch with his family back there, apart from his father. The Hughes family was Protestant Irish who originally settled in Illi­nois before moving to Washington State when Susan’s mother was a child, where her grandfather was a coal miner and later a carpenter, before they moved again, this time to California’s Central Valley where they were farmers before moving once more, this time to Pasadena.

“My parents were high school sweethearts and my Dad always said he married my Mother because she had ‘great gams’ (legs). My Dad worked for the Pasadena Star News in the circulation department while my Mother was an office worker. After Dad served in World War 2 they were married and lived in Pasadena for a time but Dad decided to move to Oroville where he could work for his uncle who was a contractor. His Uncle gave my Dad great encouragement and offered bonuses if he showed improvement so that eventually he was able to get his contractor’s license. My mother had us two girls and was a homemaker, although at various times she did work at a bank and the Montgomery Wards department store.”

Oroville was very rural and the Spencers had their own horses at their home, which Susan learned to take care of and ride. She attended the local elementary, jun­ior and high school. “I liked school, particularly the sci­ences and art, and also French, thanks to a wonderful teacher. However, my true passion was horses, horses, horses. Our whole family was into them. My Dad encouraged us all to do this and he felt it brought the family closely together. It was a very wise decision on his part and he once told me ‘the smartest thing I ever did was buy a horse’. He was gone five days a week with his various construction jobs, many of which were in the Sugar bowl/Squaw Valley ski areas where he built many fine houses. I was a pretty good kid up to a point and a good student too. During my school years I worked vari­ous jobs such as at a gas station, in a photo mat, and in a nursing home. I was also very social and while not exactly being ‘the belle of the ball’, I had lots of friends. It was the mid-to-late sixties and I was enamored by what was going on in San Francisco and began to dress like a hippy to go to school. My friends and I threw some great parties. We were a very tight group of friends, both boys and girls, and were all into the ‘peace and love’ scene. We’d even invite parents to our parties and they’d have a good time too, although they probably didn’t know we were all smoking pot in the back.”

“Then, in 1967, when I was 17 I started to get a little too wild and began dating the town ‘bad boy’ and even­tually ended up in juvenile hall. My parents were horri­fied and with my father already thinking about moving closer to his work, they decided to simply take me out of the situation and we moved to Auburn in the Sierra Foothills. Looking back, my Dad, who was friends with the local police and involved in the local community, made what was very good decision and it really helped our family. I was pretty independent and was not too bothered by moving, even though it meant leaving friends. I have always been bohemian type and had never really liked Oroville. It had a certain bad element there and was very hot and oppressive. Auburn, with its trees and water was like moving to heaven by comparison. It was so magical and good for me. I corrected myself and became very close to my mother, riding horses, going shopping together, and holding hands. That would never have happened in Oroville where I would have been grounded for life the way things were going. I was still a hippy but now really got into art seriously for the first time, although when I had been grounded in Oroville, my Dad, being a kindly grump, had bought me paint and plasterboard and told me I could decorate my room. This gave me some focus although I’m not sure if he liked the way I did it with versions of various bands’ album covers on the walls.”

Susan graduated from Auburn High School in 1968. In that final year she had been greatly influenced in her art studies by the teacher, Mario De Ferrante, who was part of the Northern California Contemporary Art Movement of the time. “I googled him and his art recently and he obviously influenced my art in a big way. He did not teach in the classical way, it was far more experimental. He led me into collage and assem­blage art.”

After graduation Susan attended the Sierra Junior Col­lege in Rocklin, California where she befriended numerous guys who had come home from the war in Vietnam and became involved in the small anti-war movement that was at the college. A year later she transferred to American River College in Sacramento, which had a highly regarded science department. “I was a bit different in that I was into my art but still had that liking for the sciences, biology in particular.”

She was at American River for two years during which time she met and, in 1973, married Paul Crosby who was attending Sacramento State University. Around 1976, Paul, who was licensed to teach autistic kids, applied for a job at the Clearwater Ranch School here in Anderson Valley as a speech therapist. “I had never heard of this place but he got the job and we moved to Boonville where we stayed at the south end of town in a hotel/motel, which is now those apartment buildings opposite the Fairgrounds. We stayed there for several weeks until moving into a house we rented from Joan and Lauren Bloyd, next to The Floodgate Store owned at the time by Sam and Marguerite Avery, a kindly French woman who would sometimes feed us. Paul soon began to make friends with his co-workers such as J.R. Collins, Flick McDonald, and Linda Baker. We had very little money and it was tough at first and we lived off oatmeal. I remember one day that a load of corn and zucchini fell off the back of a Gowan produce truck and we lived off that for a while too. I still owe them for that! Finally Paul’s first check arrived but I needed to get a job too so I drove out to Fort Bragg on the coast and pretty much told Ralph, the owner, to give me a job at his restaurant, Captain Flint’s, even though I had no experience of res­taurant work. He gave me three days a week and I’d drive out there in my little Volkswagen. There is still a picture on the restaurant wall that was taken one day when it was parked outside.”

It was a very tight crowd at Clearwater and Susan and Paul were soon part of the group. “I like to say that they were the ‘second wave’ of back-to-the-land’ers to come here. Everyone contributed to any event we went to, sharing whatever he or she had. We were all going to live off the land – we didn’t know much about doing that other than it was what we wanted to do… Meanwhile I did like my job and the tips were good and so we moved to a better place in Navarro — The Deep End. It was very different down there even though it was only a mile or so away from Floodgate. We were now in the Italian region of the Valley — Iteville as locals call it.”

In 1978, with Susan now working at the Valley’s Bachmann-Hill School for wayward boys and girls, Susan and Paul were able to buy 20 acres on Holmes Ranch subdivision in which they went into partnership with J.R. Collins. “It was, and is, all on a handshake — very unusual these days of course, but it has always worked very well for us. I was at the school working as an aid in the classroom and teaching a little art here and there, which I had also done a little of at Clearwater. Our son Nathan was born in 1980 but we did not move on to the property until 1982 with Randy Falk and Butch Paula hauling the mobile home on here. It was a tough job and Randy told us to never ask him to move it out!”

Susan and Paul raised all kinds of animals — goats, pigs, rabbits, chickens. “We were killing so much of our own food that we referred to it as ‘the killing fields.’ However, after several years that got old and we were so done with it. During that time my art was on hold as we were just too involved with the animals and subsistence living. Socially I had become friends with other ‘hippy mamas’ such as Denise Mattei (Lawson), Judy Nelson, Annie Steele, Ellen Ellison, Susan McClure, Suzanne Thurston, Susan Apfel, and Diane Paget, my midwife. Then when Nathan was three I became the Director of the Peachland Pre-School and did that for a year or so. Around that time I began to offer rides to the kids of these mamas, plus a couple of adults too — Sue Chiver­ton and Joanie Williams. Nathan got a pony at five and the lessons took place at our corral here called ‘The Pony Paddock.’ I had six or seven horses and in those days you could ride all over the hills around here. I would meet the school bus at Lemons in Philo, collect three or four kids, bring them here and it would take fifteen min­utes to saddle up and then we’d go on a forty-five minute ride. The Moms would then pick them up. It was a great time and we had so much fun.”

Over time there was not enough room on the property so the horses were moved to The Fairgrounds in Boon­ville and the lessons continued out of there. Susan’s time was now taken up with horseshows and lessons for kids such as Sophia Bates, Lily Apfel, Essie Baltins, Sarah Bennett, Christy Charles, Naomi Boutillier, the Mize kids, and many others. Paul was at that time working for Jerry Blattner at the Unicorn Ranch School for older wayward boys and Paul’s son from a previous relation­ship, Matt Williams, often lived with the family off and on for several years, becoming an older brother and very close to Nathan. However, Matt tragically passed away in 1994.

In 1995, Steve Williams offered Susan barn space on Mountain View Road just outside Boonville, which she grabbed immediately. “It was not easy dealing with The Fairgrounds and they had just raised my rent for what were very small stables. For the next few years I contin­ued the horse lessons, which become my life, and I met many more nice parents and kids. Then, in 2000 while walking the dog on the road up here, Paul collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 52. His father had passed at 54. If someone you know is not feeling well with certain symptoms, do not let them walk the dog. I had told him that if he ever died I would leave the Valley but I realized that there was so much for me here, a huge ‘family’ and I couldn’t leave, although what followed was a fuzzy, messy year with lots of drunkenness.”

Nathan and partner Deanne lived on the property for a time in what was the former horse barn. Susan had been cutting back on the horse business a little and had begun to work part-time at Husch Winery since 1999, where she still does one day a week. “After Paul died I did keep the horse business for a year or so. My two horses kept me going during those dark days — Jabbar, who is now 30, and a marvelous, fabulous horse, and one white pony from the old days of lessons,Roxy who is now 35. So many kids in this Valley learned how to ride on her. I also had Mr. Peanut until he was 52!”

One evening in 2001, Susan had finished dinner at Lauren’s Restaurant and needed to walk off the wine so she and her friend Janice went down the street to The Buckhorn for a beer. “I went to the bathroom as the bar­man said he’d get me a drink. When I came out there was a man sitting next to my purse at the bar. He thought he’d like to meet a woman who had drinks bought for her. His name was Michael Wilson and we chatted for a time and he then walked me to my car and opened the door for me — very polite. We started living together a week later! When I got home that night I turned on the radio to listen to KZYX and there was a guy, a jazz pianist, who had stopped by to talk to Mary Aigner and now he was on the air talking about how he’d just met a woman in town called Susan Spencer! It was Michael.I couldn’t believe it. A few days later my pony was very ill and I wanted to put it down but Nathan was dead set against that. He had lost his father and stepbrother in recent times. It was a traumatic day and in the evening I decided to go into town to meet the guy Michael again. He was a volunteer at the Wild Iris Music Festival that was in town and after his shift we went for drinks at the Boonville Hotel. We had an intense talk and learned so much about each other in a very short time. Lily Apfel was working and she bought us a drink/ Again Michael was impressed. Two days later he had moved out of his place a few miles outside Ukiah and was camping at the Dimmick campgrounds. We had a dinner date and I asked if he was homeless. He said he pretty much was so I asked if he’d like to move in with me. I shocked myself. I called my Dad and he told me to go for it. Michael and I have been together ever since.”

With Michael’s encouragement, Susan began to do her art once more. He signed her up for a show at Glad’s Café in Boonville without her knowing but she did it and gradually came more on board with pursuing her art once more. Then when Nathan and Deanne moved to Florida she converted the barn into an art studio. They are still there, where they have about twenty horses and Susan now also has grandson, Finnian Bryce, who is 18 months old. Her art has moved from working with watercolors to assemblage work, collages in 3-D, and she has done shows all over the County at various galleries and of course she always has some pieces at Husch Winery. Michael has now joined her in this hobby.

“I love the Valley. The Redwood trees are so special and the whole community here seems to be like one big family. I have known many of them for thirty years now and even though I may not see them for long periods I still count them as my very best friends… Michael and I are quite reclusive although we do get down to the live music in Navarro sometimes and attend some of the Valley events. My art is displayed at a gallery co-opera­tive in Ukiah and we try to get over there quite often and I am now also taking pottery lessons with Alexis Moyer at The Pot Shop north of Philo.

“One thing that bugs me about the Valley is that I can’t get off a flight in San Francisco and be home. There is still that three hour car journey to make. Of course our isolation keeps many people away so that is the trade-off I guess, but it does bug me that our access to public transport is limited.”

I asked Susan for her response to some of the Val­ley’s issues.

The Wineries and their impact? “I’m not really happy with them as I question how many of them the Valley’s resources can support. Of course many winery owners care about the Valley but some are only interested in the bottom line and their corporate practices and attitudes are not to my liking. The monoculture nature of the winery business here is not good and the number of absentee owners is an issue for me.”

The AVA? “I have always enjoyed the paper’s local perspectives although I have sometimes questioned the editor’s justification for selling papers without always presenting all the facts. It’s fun to read as long as you’re not the one being affected unfairly.”

KZYX&Z local public radio? “I listen when I’m in my studio. I like the ‘Jazz on the Wharf’ program.”

Changes in the Valley? “The climate here has changed a lot in the last 30 years. We often used to have fogs as the redwoods brought in the weather system from the coast. Fewer trees, less fog. It’s something I miss.”

The school system? “I’m not involved anymore but with Nathan, who had some problems, the teachers such as Jim Tomlin, Val Muchowski, and Wendy Patterson did a great job.”

Drugs in the Valley? “I’ve seen it go from marijuana, to cocaine, to methamphetamines — very nasty stuff that effects the Valley in ways we do not know yet. Ways such as waste that seeps down into the water table from the meth labs. I do not drink water that has come from anywhere on the Valley floor. Some of the wineries too, with their spraying, may be doing some sort of harm to our water supplies at this point.”

To end the interview, as I have being doing each week, I posed a few questions to my guest and asked for her replies off the top of her head.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Being exposed to exciting art.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “When people are too quick to judge others’ actions or their art. I do it sometimes and don’t like it in myself. With art, I do not like to hear people’s creativity being criticized.”

Sound or noise you love? “Owls at night.”

Sound or noise you hate? “Machinery running at night.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “My Mom’s cherry pie and ice cream.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “Louise Bourgeois, an assemblage artist — my idol. She did that big spider in Jack London Square in Oakland. She always said what she felt. I can’t wait to be like that one day.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “A good book to read; an artist’s sketch­book; and a box of good #2 pencils.”

Do you have a favorite film/song/book or one that has influenced you? “A book would be some sort of fantasy. The Dragonriders of Pern’ by Anne McCaffrey perhaps; a film is ‘Grand Canyon’ starring Danny Glover and Steve Martin — a powerful human condition film; and a song would be one written by Michael called ‘Pacific Valley’.”

Smell you really like? “Honeysuckle and lavender.”

Favorite hobby? “Gardening.”

Profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Your fantasy job, perhaps? “A forensic scien­tist.”

Profession you’d not like to do? “Some asshole’s sec­retary.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “The day my son was born.”

Saddest day or period of your life? “When I lost my stepson.”

Favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “That I am so enthusiastic about learning. People probably get sick of me at times when I am talk­ing about something I have learned or am in the process of learning.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “I think if he said ‘Nice job’ that would be good. It’s better than ‘Nice try’ anyway.” ¥¥

(To read the ‘stories’ of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be the Val­ley’s ‘Mr. Fix-it’ — Mike Crutcher.)

]]> http://theava.com/archives/7871/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/7807 http://theava.com/archives/7807#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:14:30 +0000 Steve Sparks http://theava.com/?p=7807

On a sunny Friday morning I met with Pilar on the deck behind the Ferrer Building in downtown Boonville and with a much-needed cup of delicious coffee that she had provided from her Mosswood Market store we sat down to talk.

Pilar was born in January 1980 in the rural town of La Laguneta in the Mexican State of Michoacan where the vast majority of the Valley’s Mexican community have their roots. Her parents are Jose Cruz Echeverria and Consuelo Barragan who both grew up in La Laguneta and whose families had been in the region for several generations. Her father has spent most of his adult life since the age of seventeen working for six months of the year in California, initially for many years in Manteca and since 1986 in Anderson Valley with the Hiatt logging and construction company. He had been born in the State of Jalisco but at the age of three his family had moved to Michoacan. “La Laguneta is similar in appearance to Anderson Valley with its hills and val­leys. I went to the local school there until I was twelve but then it would have meant traveling to another town to go to the next school and it would have been expensive too so I left school at that age. I was a good student and liked school, especially Mexican history, but not math.”

Pilar is the second oldest of four siblings, Victor the oldest, and two other girls — Elisabeth and Celeste, who all live in the States. She also has two half sisters, Azucena and Blanca, who live in Mexico. “As the oldest girl I had to do lots of the housework with my mother and also helped make the meals. I was always making tortillas. In the afternoons I would get to go out with my friends and we’d play lots of volleyball but I had to make sure I was home by nightfall otherwise I would be told of and spanked. The girls were watched more closely and had to help in the home. That is our culture and I under­stand that now. Being the oldest girl meant that I did a lot of housework although Elisabeth helped a lot too. Celeste was much younger than us. We had chickens and three cows and everyday I had to help my mother and grandfather with the milking by hand and then we also made cheese.”

Growing up, the family would sit down for meals together — breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and were always joined by her mother’s father, Antonio Barragan. “With my father being away working in the States so much of the time, my grandfather became like a father to me. He was a very important person to me and to our family. Once I had left school I never really thought about any more education or college. I just had a dream, like so many other people in Mexico, of gong to the United States and achieving something there. Most families in La Laguneta are applying for the whole fam­ily to come here. I did not think it was fair to just go through childhood, get married, and then start a family with someone who might be a bad husband. Everyone there had to do this but most did not want to. That was our life there. We did it because we had to.”

From the age of twelve to seventeen she stayed at home, dreaming of coming to the United States. “Mexico was not going to be my life; I was not going to be happy there. Now that I am here I try hard every day to do my best.” At seventeen her father got papers for the family to move and Pilar was the first to come, on March 17th, 1997. “On my last night there I went to say goodbye to my grandfather, I was very sorry to have to do that. He would not come out to see me, saying from behind the door that he would be there in America soon. We were both very upset. He was having some passport problems but planned to come to America in three months or so. But he died of a heart attack in that time and I never saw him again. I was very, very sad. I had always been with him since I could walk, at his side or standing just behind him. Every night I saw him; I would make him tortillas and we would talk together for a long time. I feel him with me here in America — telling me to work hard and that he will be always here for me.”

At his point Pilar was a little upset and so we took a short break. I, too, had been very close to my grandfather and we commiserated and shared a few tears together. It was a special moment.

“My aunt, Angelina Baroza and I went from La Laguneta to Guadalajara and then we flew to San Fran­cisco. We then came up to Anderson Valley where she had lived for more than 20 years. In Anderson Valley I knew many people from La Laguneta and had some friends here from there — Liz Jimenez, Ada Fernandez, and Yolanda Mendoza. They all helped me with my grief after my grandfather’s passing. This was a very different world for me and I felt a little lost and cried a lot at first. I lived with another aunt, Noelia, who is now the baker at Mosswood Market. By May that year my mother and sisters had also arrived and we all lived with Noelia and other family members before by about the late summer we had found a house for our family on the Vista Ranch between Philo and Boonville. I knew no English except ‘Hi’ but after a month I had found work through Tony Sanchez at the Day Ranch working in the fields. My friend Liz wanted me to go to the school but I was afraid and did not want to face up to the problem of my poor English. I also thought of my father and all the years of work he had done and that I should support myself and may be he would be able to work less if I had a job. All the time I was also thinking I wanted to do something other than work in the fields.”

Her first step in that direction was when she took a job with Stephanie and Chris Tebbutt as a nanny for then-eleven-month old Theo. She was to stay with the Tebbutt family for eleven years during which time they had another child, Saba. For a short time she also worked in the packing sheds at Gowans’ apple orchards and did some part-time baking at Glad’s Café in Boonville (before it became Mosswood Market). There she did four mornings from 4am before going to the nanny job in the afternoons, resulting in her working twelve-hour days. She also gave the adult school a go for a time to improve her English but quit after three months. She began to socialize a little more at various weddings and quincean­eras and was always kept busy keeping the house clean and was now in a steady relationship with Javier Men­doza, a boy she had known for many years who was one year older than her. Their families had known each other for a long time and she had been seeing him back in Mexico before he had come to the States about a year before she did — another reason for her wanting to come here, she suggested with a smile.

“Javier and I got married in 2001 at the Catholic Church in Philo and Stephanie found us a beautiful house next to their house. Javier was working at the Navarro Winery and then later for Stephanie and Chris at their home as a handyman and in their vineyard. I was happy being there but did not feel complete and still felt I had to do something else. Our daughter Miranda was born in 2004 and she was almost the same age as Saba so that was great and I was with all three kids everyday. Then when she was five months old, Miranda started to suffer with a severe case of the skin disease eczema and also from food allergies. She would not stop scratching herself, causing her to bleed so I had to be with her for 24 hours a day for the next five years. It was a very bad experience for Javier and me. She did finally grow out of it although I was ‘just’ a mother for all that time and was unable to really work apart from at the Tebbutts. I dreamt every day that all would be better one day.”

In 2008, Pilar got a job at Mosswood Market working for Sharon Hurley two days a week while still doing the nanny job part-time, although she gradually did more at the Mosswood and less as a nanny, over the next year or so once Miranda started going to kindergarten. Around this time she completed her GED exam at the adult school. “I did that in six months and was so proud of myself. I wondered why I had waited so long to do this. I thought that if I could do this then maybe I could do so many things. it completely changed my perspective. I am very proud of my graduation picture and I then went to Mendocino College for one year to continue to study English.”

In October 2009 they moved to Signal Ridge in the hills above Philo where they had been able to buy some property back in 2005. “It is 20 acres with just a little space where we can build. It was very hard to leave our lovely home in Boonville and move to a mobile home on the property. We have been clearing some trees and the brush and hope to have a real house there one day. For now we have a generator and have to turn that on every day for a shower.”

In November 2009, Pilar approached Sharon about maybe buying the Mosswood market and they had a meeting. However, nothing came of it other than Pilar saying she would be interested in buying if Sharon ever wanted to get out. “I love the job and the people working there and dealing with the customers. I was working very hard at it and then in May of this year Sharon asked if I was still interested in buying and we went from there. I got a loan from my cousin and finished negotiations with Sharon. We then called a staff meeting and Sharon told them that there was good news for both them and us and she introduced me as their new boss. I took over on June 1st.”

“I feel like I have everything now, nothing is missing and I feel complete. We are making no real changes to the business just adding a few things to the menu, such as the pineapple Danish that was basically Javier’s idea and I added some coconut and it’s really good. My brother-in-law, who is an accountant in Sonoma, does the books as I am still terrible with numbers. My aunt Noelia is the baker; Erica my sister-in-law is the cook; my sister Celeste is the counter person; Estella, another family member, is the cleaner; and we have Madeline Gasaway and Jamal Essayah also at the counter at differ­ent times. I have many friends here; I love living here in this beautiful countryside, and I love my work. It is a dream come true.”

Pilar loves the weather here and the people and the sense of freedom she gets from walking around the Val­ley and she thanks God every day for that. “I am not a practicing Catholic but God is in my heart and I do not need to go to church. I want to give something back to the Valley and I donate cookies etc to school events and other fundraisers. My parents are now both living here, on Lambert Lane, and we have a family reunion at their house every year. It’s a wonderful party and I drink plenty of tequila that day and have a very happy time — not that I need tequila to be happy of course!”

I asked Pilar for her thoughts on some Valley issues that are frequently discussed in these parts.

The wineries and their impact? “They are definitely good for businesses such as ours but cutting trees and taking water is not a good thing.”

The AVA? “I don’t have much time to read it but I do sometimes and will do more as my English gets bet­ter. I really had never spoke much English in my life until two years ago when I started at Mosswood.”

KZYX local radio? “Listening to English on the radio is good for me but I only do it when I am driving to work.”

Changes in the Valley? “I like the changes. More peo­ple visiting is good for us but I do not like cities and don’t want it to get too big here. I am very social and I do like meeting people from other places.”

Drugs in the Valley? “Marijuana is not a big problem in that it is not harmful. Other drugs are bad and it is very sad what they can do to people. I try to do a little by keeping some of the kids here a little busy by working for me. In Mexico the drug problem is very big and even in my little hometown we just had the first killing related to drugs. It was my uncle, an innocent man who had no connections to drugs, but he was killed with a machete. Back there the drug cartel, La Familia, are very powerful but many people see them as like Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor. In La Laguneta every­one is nice but the bad people are having more influence. People are afraid, so even though they may see ‘things’ they do not want to say anything to the government or police because those people may be involved too.”

I posed a few questions to my guest from TV’s “Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton” and some I came up with myself.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “My work. But I don’t know for how long I will feel that way! For now, it is important that each day I do my best.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “When there is a big mess in my house. Miranda is too young to clean up and maybe Javier is too old! I can give Javier a look and he will know and the next day it all has been cleaned.”

Sound or noise you love? “The birds singing in the morning.”

Sound or noise you hate? “Big trucks coming through town with trees on them.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “I just love Mexican food, but sometimes the simpler is better. I will say frijoles de la olla con crema — just home-cooked beans in a broth with sour cream. I am not a good cook. What I do best at the café is dealing with the staff and customers.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “My grandpa. Just one afternoon with him once again would be so special.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “I don’t value possessions that much. How about my make-up?! No seriously, my family pho­tographs; my Grandfather’s handkerchief which I have kept; and my spectacles.”

A smell you really like? “Natural smells and flowers, not perfume.”

Favorite word or phrase? “Work for your dream.”

A book that you have particularly enjoyed or that has influenced you? “The books of Isabel Allende. I used to read a lot and have read most of them all I think.”

Favorite hobby? “Exercise, but I have little time for it now. It used to be volleyball.”

Profession other than your own you’d like to attempt if you were given the chance to do anything? Your fan­tasy job, perhaps? “An author. I have a story to write about Javier’s father who led a very interesting life.”

Profession you’d not like to do? “A nurse or a doc­tor.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “When I had my daughter.”

Saddest? “When my grandfather died.”

Favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “That I am generous and like to give to oth­ers what I have. I send money to sisters and aunts in Mexico. It always seems to come back in different ways. That I do my best and no longer feel afraid about the future.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “If he said, ‘Welcome, I’m so happy to see you because you did your best on Earth,’ that would be very good.” ¥¥

(To read the stories of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Susan Spencer, local artist and former horse-riding teacher.)

]]> http://theava.com/archives/7807/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/7754 http://theava.com/archives/7754#comments Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:09:01 +0000 Steve Sparks http://theava.com/?p=7754

I met with Charlie at his home on top of the Holmes Ranch and after admiring his orchids, we sat down to talk with twenty-year-old Fritz the terrier and nine year old Woody not far away either.

Charlie was born in 1943 and named Charles Joseph Hochberg II after his grandfather whose Prussian Catho­lic family had come to the States in the late 1800’s and settled in eastern Pennsylvania, an area of silk mills and coal mines. His grandfather had managed a hardware store and later built houses in the Hazelton area and also many cabins, often on streams with plenty of trout fish­ing, with Charlie’s father, Arthur. “I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. He was a big influence on me and we’d often fish together. I was not close to my Dad and we rarely got along. He was quite ambitious and at one time had temporarily quit parochial school and become a bookkeeper for a coalmine. When he did leave school for good he worked his way up into a job with the govern­ment’s Federal Reserve department as a bank examiner and eventually became the Deputy Controller of Cur­rency for the First Federal Reserve District.”

On Charlie’s mother’s side, Dorothy Goldis, was just six when her family left the pogroms of the Ukraine and moved to settle in New Jersey in 1906. The Goldis fam­ily had been quite well off in their homeland where they had a successful garment business. “My mother was very smart and attended the Philadelphia Academy of the Arts at fourteen years of age. At 19 she ran the art and adver­tising department for the local phone company. My par­ents met in Philadelphia. Dad was a straight-up banking type, very handsome, a ringer for the aviator and national hero at the time — Charles Lindbergh, whereas my Mom was always hanging out with artists and musicians (she was engaged to one for a time) and she played classical music on the piano. They were married and lived in Bethlehem, an hour or so away from Philadelphia.”

Charlie’s older sister Isabel was born in 1940 and then eight years after he was born another sister, Doro­thy, came along in 1951. Due to his father’s job, the family moved around often, although mainly in Pennsyl­vania. “As I said, my father and I did not get along, even when I was a toddler, and I loved it when I was sent to stay with uncles or my grandfather. My parents didn’t pay much attention to me and I was often left alone to my own devices. When we lived near to Villanova Uni­versity in the Philly suburbs, I would catch the nearby train and go into the City alone where I’d get to watch the rehearsals and matinee performances of the orchestra. I was fascinated with classical music and was learning to play the flute and piccolo at the time, and later the bas­soon when at junior high. I also listened to a local radio station that played world music and as I slept alone in the attic I could play it through the night.”

When he was about fifteen, Charlie’s older sister started to attend a Lutheran Church and soon the whole family was going too. “My father thought it was a good move for social status reasons and soon got into it for re­ligious reasons too. I had been interested in religion for some time, with my Catholic father and Jewish mother, and it was during this time that I met a girl, Linda Hor­ner, at church — my Dad was thrilled that I had a girl­friend. I continued to go into the City for concerts and was now getting tickets from the teachers of my two favorite subjects, physics and music, who were getting them donated to the school by a music publishing com­pany. As for school studies, if I liked a teacher and the topic then I would do well and get A’s; otherwise I’d get C’s. My parents were not too concerned and never went to parent/teacher meetings. I was a good, well-behaved kid, although my Dad my have thought differently. I enjoyed working with model airplanes and playing a little basketball, and most of all I was in to machine shop where I once built a rocket launcher and came third in the State Fair after coming second the year before with a project that determined the size of molecules based on Millikan’s oil drop experiment.”

Charlie graduated from high school in 1960. ‘I had been a national merit scholar since junior high and was determined to go to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), one of the best science schools in the country. I wanted to be a physicist. However, my father ripped up my application for a scholarship and insisted that I would be working my way through school. ‘You’ll learn more that way,’ he said. What can I say? We just never did get along. I had worked in the summers when at high school at a hotel in New Jersey’s Cape May resort town as a busboy, doing kitchen prep, as a bellhop, and as the night clerk. I remember coming home after one summer with $700 that I had saved. My Dad asked for it and I gave it to him. He took it and said, “Sucker, let this be a lesson to you.”

With two suitcases and $1000 in cash, including the $700, Charlie’s father drove him to Allegheny College in north west Pennsylvania about four hundred miles away where he began his studies in math and physics with chemistry. He worked in the dining hall, doing three two-hour shifts a day, to pay for tuition and then later at a portrait photography shop as a photo finisher amongst other things. He was the President of the Young Chris­tians and also joined in the beginnings of the anti-war movement that was developing. Then, following after his sophomore year, he and Linda, the girlfriend he had met at church, were married and he took a sabbatical from school. “Initially I dropped out because I needed more money so that I could continue to pay for my studying. Working and studying was too much to do at the same time so I had to do one first so that I could pay for the other. We were married in 1962 and I found a job work­ing for Boeing in their helicopter test division as an engineering assistant.” Linda who had been at a college elsewhere in Pennsylvania, now transferred to nearby Bryn Mawr for her studies.

While living on the outskirts of Philadelphia, Charlie also worked at a coffee house called ‘The Edge’, which he eventually managed. It featured a thriving music scene so he began playing his banjo there. “My favorite uncle had taken me to see The Country Gentlemen at Rutgers University when I was about sixteen and I became hooked on the banjo from then on. Then I was at my girlfriend’s relatives one day and we found this funky old banjo in the attic and I started to play it, even­tually taking my first formal lesson in my freshman year in college.”

Two years went by when suddenly everything changed. “I got a call from the Dean of Students at Alle­gheny College telling me to get back there and resume my studies because the draft board had called him and he’d told them I was a student there. Around that same time, Boeing had begun to install grenade launchers to the helicopters in preparation for war in Vietnam so I had quit. Then the coffee house backers had pulled out and it was closing down and as we were living upstairs we had to get out. It all just fell into place and I returned to school for my junior year in the fall of 1964.”

Charlie got a job at a jewelry store to support his stud­ies, “or may be that was to help with Linda’s studies! Anyway, I also took a job as a custodian in the art department and these two jobs covered my tuition and gave me some wages to live off. I had also changed my major to art and sociology and that was far more man­ageable now that I did not have the five-hours labs a few times a week. Besides, being at the coffee shop had changed my focus significantly and I was a different per­son in many ways. Then, just as school was starting Linda announced that she had had an affair with a mutual friend of ours and we split up. I was very upset. How­ever, my student advisor, who was also a painter, set me up with a model of his called Cornelia. We had a wild affair and a year later got married. Soon after, with just two semesters to go in school, I was drafted for the sec­ond time.”

Charlie had applied for his Conscientious Objector (CO) status several times and after a long struggle now had his card. Many CO’s were going to jail at that time but his sister, who lived in the Bay Area, had a friend connected to the Glide Foundation, and they found him work that the draft board would accept as ‘alternative service.’ Therefore, to avoid the draft for a second time, he was sent to work in south San Jose and East Palo Alto as a community organizer and together with others put together the funding and organization to get a health center established in the city of Alviso. “It was an incredible education to be involved in such a project.” Also at this time, with his service work providing no income, he found a job in the basement of paint and wallpaper shop as a picture framer in order to have at least some money coming in.

When this service was completed he got in his VW bus and returned to school for his final two semesters, finally graduating in 1968. “We had really liked our time in California so we returned there and met up with our friends we’d made when living in San Jose, Doug and Judy Nelson, who had bought property in the Santa Cruz hills. While there we met with a neighbor of theirs and she asked if we wanted to buy a house. We were very interested but I needed a job before we went any further. That same day we went in to town and parked outside a store that had a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window for a part-time photo finisher and a picture framer. I had done both jobs before and so I applied and got them both and ended up being there for about six years — we basically got a house and a job on the same day!” By this time he and Cornelia had had two children. Timothy born in 1969 in San Jose and then Anna, whom Charlie helped deliver, who was born when they lived in the Santa Cruz area in 1974.

Over that time Charlie became a more serious photog­rapher and, along with Doug Nelson, opened their own gallery with jewelry and photography, adding a few more people over time to become a co-op. He also became very involved with the Home Birth Movement. However, by the mid-seventies he and Cornelia decided to split up and she left, with the two kids joining her about six months later. She wanted to return some time after that but Charlie was not prepared to accept that situation and so when she said she wanted half of what the house was worth he had to sell it. Over the next few years he got to see the kids just a couple of times a year and that was very hard to deal with.

In the early 70s Charlie had taken a motorbike ride through Anderson Valley and was entranced by it. The Nelson’s bought property here and throughout the sev­enties he would visit them regularly up here and nearly bought property next to theirs but the deal fell through. Following the sale of his house in Santa Cruz, he had met a woman called Suzy and they moved to Humboldt County near to where his sister Dorothy lived, close to Dinsmore on Hwy 136. “At college I had worked as a carpenter part-time and had some work in construction in Santa Cruz too, so I got my contractors license and found carpentry jobs. I also drove the ambulance and was on the local health-center board but there were few people around and not much work overall. Suzy and I were together for about two years during which time we built a house together. Then she took a ride back east to see her folks with a friend of mine. On their return she wanted to break up with me as they had got together but it turned out he didn’t want to do this — he was married. She was upset and left anyway and I was not at all happy with life at that point.”

“Sometime in the early 80s, through my work with the ambulance, I became friendly with a cute young nurse by the name of Maureen — a tough cookie of Irish descent. Then one day she brought a casserole to my house and we started dating shortly after! She worked in Fortuna about 40 miles away, and by having me visit her there she was maybe testing my commitment, but she did eventually moved in with me and in 1982 we had our daughter Deirdre.”

“In the late 80s an old friend of mine called from the Bay Area and offered me work down there in construc­tion. I was there for a few months and it made me realize that where we lived was not right for us. I missed playing music. I had met and played with several Anderson Val­ley musicians on my visits. There was not enough work up in Humboldt. I had never had a problem finding work in my whole life and I often had two jobs. We found a place to rent in the Valley and moved here in 1989, by which time I knew quite a few folks — the Nelson’s, Willie Sutton, George Gowan Sr., Harold Hulbert Sr., etc. I loved hanging out with the old folks and hearing their stories. My first job was to build the pottery studio for Chris Bing that I did with Steve Derwinsky. I had taken our kids to the Methodist Church and met Pat Hul­bert there. She told me some work was needed on the church and so Dennis Toohey and I worked on upgrad­ing it. I also worked for John Burroughs and it was while working on a job with Joe Petelle that he asked if I’d like to play some music with him and some friends. That was the beginning of many years of wonderful times.”

Charlie met up with Diane Hering, Lynn Archam­bault, Brian Woods, and Joe and they called themselves ‘The Apologists.’ They jammed and did the occasional gig and then Dave Dart joined and announced one day that he ‘had nothing to apologize for’ and they became ‘Off The Cuff.’ Later, after Lynn left, they were to be known as ‘Wild Oats’ and are still paying regularly today. They practice every Wednesday and recently on Mondays Charlie has been joined by Brian on mandolin and Dean Titus on guitar, sometimes with Alan Kendall on fiddle, and another little jam session is enjoyed.

Charlie found steady work in construction and also volunteered as a math tutor for high school kids. One of these was the daughter of Charlie Hiatt who came to him one day and asked if he’d like to buy some land in Holmes Ranch. “He showed me 20 acres and I took it for $50K. We lived in a trailer for a time before Joe and I put in the foundation and then I got five friends round one morning and we framed the whole thing in a day except for the roof, which Joe and I finished. Since then I have designed and built several homes and have had many of the Valley’s carpenters work with me, including Mark Triplett, Steve Woods, Bryan Huggins, and Bill Rafael, and some of the jobs have included the kitchen at the Apple Farm, author Alice Walker’s house, the Fehr’s wonderful home way up on Peachland Road, and the beautiful home of the Gage’s in Rancho Navarro that appeared in ‘ Fine Home Building’ magazine. I guess I have done about one home a year for the past dozen years or so.”

Apart from his music, while he and Maureen are not that social, they do enjoy attending some of the Valley’s many events such as the potlucks, the crab feed, and sometimes the County Fair, and he has remained close social friends with clients whose homes he has built. “Anderson Valley has got a wonderful sense of commu­nity that is somewhat rare. People here will always step in to help others. And the idea of sitting down to a meal as a community, as with the crab feed, pot lucks, and other events, is a very special thing.” Charlie was on the founding board of the local radio station and was able to turn the old buildings they acquired into a working sta­tion and office space. After asking many times, and with further pressure from Geraldine Rose, Charlie finally got a ‘Yes’ from Maureen and they were married in 1989 with Eric Labowitz performing a ‘quickie’ ceremony in his living room over dinner, with daughter Deirdre as ring bearer, and Doug and Judy Nelson as witnesses.

I asked Charlie for his responses to some of the issues that Valley folks frequently talk about.

The Wineries and their impact? “It was very different without them here when I first visited in the early 70s and it has been strange to see the other crops and sheep disappear; very sad in some ways. However, they do provide lots of work. I am not a fan of absentee winery owners. That is bad news, and house buying for many people living here is no longer an option with land prices driven up so high. Furthermore I see lots of people driv­ing big cars far too fast in the valley, many of them tipsy. I guess I’d rather see it otherwise but the wineries are the result of the economic reality of our times.”

The AVA? “I have always loved the AVA. Having a local paper is a great thing.”

KZYX&Z radio? “I think it is brilliant and we are just so lucky to have it. Anyone can get involved. That’s great. However like the AVA there is a certain amount that you just have to ignore.”

The School System? “I was on the school board for five years and I have to say that our school is better than others around here to where some kids are being sent. I am so impressed with what they do here.”

Changes in the Valley? “I kind of like the changes. I think people are trying to do more than just catch the tourists and I still know most of the people in these new places.”

Drugs in the Valley? “Well speed is the worst of drugs. There’s nothing good about it. It’s horrendous. As for pot being a ‘gateway drug’ that is because it is illegal. It is not a ‘gateway drug’; it’s so innocuous and medical people agree with that. It should be legal.”

To end the interview, I posed a few quick questions to my guest.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Music and sex in equal amounts.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Greed.”

Sound or noise you love? “My cat, Holly, purring.”

Sound or noise you hate? “A mosquito in the ear; jets flying over the Valley.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “Sturgeon with black truffle sauce cooked by Margaret Fox who used to own the Café Beaujolais in Mendocino. I had it once and it was my most memorable meal ever.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “Well, I had the most wonderful hug from the Dalai Lama many years ago at UC Santa Cruz so a conversa­tion and words are not always the most important thing in a meeting. Therefore, I would say my newest grand­son, who I have yet to see, is the person I really want to meet — soon I hope.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? — “My banjo, some drawing materials, and a camera with film.”

A smell you really like? “Baking bread.”

Favorite word or phrase? “That would be ‘you bet.’ It just pops out often.”

What is your favorite hobby? “Most of what I do is hobby/work to an extent. I guess my orchids would be my favorite pure hobby.”

Profession other than your own you’d like to attempt? Your fantasy job, perhaps? “I have no answer to that. ‘Anything that I would feel good about doing’ is the best I can come up with.”

Profession would you not like to do? “An execu­tioner; or may be somebody who makes decisions on house foreclosures.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “It’s very difficult to rank the happiest. The most glorious would be the birth of my children, one of which I delivered myself.”

The saddest? “Probably when my first wife left.”

Favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “That I have tried since a child to live a life that I wouldn’t feel bad about. I have made mistakes and have regrets but I have always strived to do the right thing. That I try to be generous and give of myself.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “Well if he said ‘Oh, you again’ with a smile on his face that would be good.” ¥¥

(To read the ‘stories’ of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Pilar Echeverria, new owner of Mosswood Market in down­town Boonville.)

]]> http://theava.com/archives/7754/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/7664 http://theava.com/archives/7664#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:52:27 +0000 Steve Sparks http://theava.com/?p=7664

I met with Mary Pat at her home at the Philo School of Herbal Energetics which she runs in the Christine Woods area between Philo and Navarro. Her two dogs, Bear and his mother Sola, along with Mary Pat, greeted me and after a brief look at the wonderful garden we sat down to talk.

Mary Pat (Patricia) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylva­nia in 1946 the second of three children born to Frank Palmer and Amy Neumann. Mary Pat has an older brother, Frank, born in 1942, and a much younger brother, Johnny, born in 1954. The Palmers are of Eng­lish descent and fought on the side of the British in the War of Independence. Her mother’s side of the family had also been in the States for several generations, hav­ing originally come from Germany. “My paternal grandmother was a rebellious New York City girl who divorced her first husband, my father’s father, and then married a Cherokee Indian. My father went to graduate school at Pitt on the G.I Bill to study psychology. My mother’s family was based in Illinois and her father was a tyrant although her mother was a perfect grandmother. During the Second World War my father, who had served as a Captain under General Patton at one point, worked for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the C.I.A.) and my mother was in the US branch of the British secret services, MI5. They met during this time and were married and soon after my older brother was born.”

The paternal side of the family were originally from Sag Harbor, NY. “One of my earliest memories is from the early 50s when my Uncle Jack ‘the Communist’ was being hounded by the McCarthy communist ‘witch hunts’ and of the fear in our house of us all being accused of communist sympathies. We actually left the country for a time and moved to Ontario. In the end my Dad called Patton to get us back and to sort the situation out. This worked well and we returned without any repercussions.”

When she was five, her father moved the family to California where he was initially stationed at Fort Ord before getting a job in Monterey with the military’s Human Research Organization (HUMRO) as a psy­chologist and they lived in Carmel where Mary Pat went to the Woods School. “Being from the East coast I was seen as a bit of an oddity, in the way I spoke and dressed. I wore long pants under my dresses. unlike the California kids. It didn’t take long to fit in though and it was a won­derful place to grow up. Dad was very regimented and wanted the house to be in order and kept very clean, although he was not particularly strict or a stern discipli­narian. However, after a drink he could get very angry and had a lot of rage. We had a neurotic dog named Riley, a Red Setter, who could do no wrong in my Dad’s eyes. We kids were also somewhat unruly and often up to mischief but it came under ‘creative mischief’ to Dad and he didn’t seem to mind too much. Many people in the Carmel Highlands at that time had moved there from Hollywood following McCarthy’s operations — black-listed screenwriters particularly who continued to work and send their scripts in to the studios under ghost writ­ers’ names.”

During that time Mary Pat was molested at rifle point while walking to a friend’s house through some woods. “It was not ultimately violent, more of a sexual power thing.” Following 2nd grade they moved a short distance and she entered the River School. “It was near to the ocean and those were some idyllic years when I had some wonderful teachers, particularly one who intro­duced me to Native American culture. My brother and I continued to push limits but we never got into serious trouble, although along with many of the kids in the town we were spoiled brats. From 5th to 8th grade I attended the Sunset School that was very near to our house and I spent most of my leisure time riding my bike and swimming in the Ocean. Around that time I was molested for a second time. this time by the local pet storeowner who also ran the child matinees at the local cinema. god only knows how many kids he traumatized. I didn’t tell my parents about either of these incidents. my father would have killed both and on some level I knew that. My father was brilliant and a very charming man, a horrible womanizer, and very narcissistic, but everyone loved him and he was very different socially than when at home. Mom too was very self-involved but much quieter, withdrawn even- they weren’t really pre­sent for us and had many rows, mainly about Dad’s phi­landering in and around the Carmel cocktail hour scene and it’s wife-swapping activities. When I was about 14, she threw him out after an affair with a woman from his work and refused to take him back. He moved in with the woman in Richmond in the Bay Area and joined the fac­ulty at Berkeley and he’d visit us about once a month.”

“Frank and I were encouraged to be independent as my parents thought that was the right way to raise kids. We both did very well at school and had high IQs. Dad had told me from a very young age that I was going to go to UC Berkeley. We were not allowed to read any trash and he read Shakespeare’s Hamlet to me when I was 12. He did however think ‘Mad Magazine’ was OK for us to read. I spent many hours in the Carmel Library and knew the people working there very well. It was a safe place for me and after the molestations I liked being there and also Riley the dog became very important to me as my protector and he slept with me every night. I loved the beach and had many friends. we had a little ‘gang’ called the ‘Keen Teens’ and we’d get together for dancing and swimming. It was both boys and girls but we were all just friends.”

Mary Pat has mixed feelings about her high school years. She enjoyed being on the swim team but she arrived the year after her brother graduated and had something of a reputation after his exploits. She did maintain good grade for a couple of years but then things changed. “I think I got bored and then after my father had left I really cut loose with a boyfriend (Gary) who was nineteen and began drinking too much when hang­ing around with his friends. On my birthday I got as drunk as a skunk and stayed the night with Gary. We were both freaked out and though my parents knew they said nothing. I told my mother we would get married and have seven children. My Mom had remarried and my stepfather and I didn’t get along. Going into my senior year, she told me that if I was going to behave like my father then I would have to live with him and she booted me out. My father had moved to New York to teach with his third wife-to-be, Petie, and I was sent there after spending that summer of 1963 in Sag Harbor. It was devastating — basically I was forced to leave my life.”

It turned out that Mary Pat’s father didn’t really want her around and so he put her in an old people’s hotel in Manhattan. He married into a very wealthy family and was now becoming a famous psychologist. “I was in this hotel with my new stepmother’s sister, Jonnie, who was an alcoholic, and her eight year old daughter. It was very lonely although I did learn to be ‘hip’ and go out exploring Greenwich Village. One day Jonnie caught me drinking and asked if I wanted to end up like her. It really affected me and I stopped pretty much there and then.”

After her senior year at Walden High, a very elite private school attended by the children of New York’s artistic types because her father thought art was her des­tiny, Mary Pat graduated in 1964. “The educational quality at the school was phenomenal and being new and different from the other kids I dove into the liberal arts and academics on offer. I had one real friend, Janice Sokoloff, and we both ace’d our SATs and decided to go to Berkeley. I spent the summer at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, studying welding and clay and then entered UC Berkeley in the fall of 1964.”

This was the time of the Free Speech Movement and Mary Pat became very active in that as she studied Sculpture, English, and History. She had her brother Frank there and also her stepbrother Bill (Petie’s son) and after a short time in the dorm, which she hated, she moved in with them and another friend, Bernie, who was to drop out and become the sound manager for The Grateful Dead. “I became increasingly political and lis­tened to the music of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, a former Carmel resident. I was on the picket line preventing trucks bringing food in to the campus in a protest against the university’s backing of the government war policies and generally treating the students badly. The truck driv­ers were in the Teamsters Union and wouldn’t cross the line. I was never arrested in any of the protests I took part in. The police were horrendous and that summer they were out to get some of us in the movement. We had safe houses and I stayed at the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) house in Oakland. I was on of three who stood on the train tracks to prevent a troop train from leaving for San Diego. Scores of protesters lined up alongside the track and watched as the train ran through without stopping. We barely got off the track. The police and army were everywhere and it brought home the enormity of the opposition facing us. This wasn’t just some protest on campus. that was child’s play in com­parison. I was very, very upset and could only observe the next troop train demo where hundreds of protesters were steamed on the track. It was very traumatic, very moving. I was a mess. My mother was still very upset with me and had by this time had a breakdown. I fled to my father’s in Sag Harbor. I got a job through him as a social secretary for a friend of his in East Hampton. He was a relentless social climber. He and my stepmother were very good to me. At that time I read a book, ‘One Dimensional Man’ by Herbert Marcusse. It was the book of the ‘New Left’ and it changed my life. I knew I had to study with this man.”

During this time Mary Pat met a teacher at Hunter College in New York City, Bruce, and they began dating as he went through a divorce. Marcusse was now teach­ing at UC San Diego so she applied to go there with Bruce applying to do his Ph.D. at UC Riverside, not far away. Bruce did not get accepted but Mary Pat did so they embarked on a long distance relationship for a time. “It was a very exciting political scene and I studied political history and a philosophy class with Marcusse. I had never doubted my ability to understand his classes and we were in the mid-60s so there was political dis­course everywhere.”

Around this time Mary Pat’s mother committed sui­cide. “She had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for attacking her husband. my abusive stepfather who had been having an affair. I hated him from the get-go. My brother Frank was in the Peace Corps in Panama and my father refused to help. I visited her but not long after­wards, at Easter 1967, she jumped off the Bixby Canyon Bridge in Big Sur. There was nothing anyone could have done, I was told. I didn’t want sympathy and returned to college where I began drinking. I became quite ill and decided I needed a complete change of scene. I thought a trip to England would be good for me, where I could study with a sculptor I admired, Anthony Caro. I caught a plane from L.A. to New York but on that journey I met a guy, Howard and we just connected. We stayed in New York for a few days, met each other’s families, and then returned together to San Francisco and found an apart­ment in North Beach.”

Mary Pat found work as an apprentice sculptor and Howard attended the Art Institute. “Then I suddenly thought I wanted to be a mother and knew Bruce would be a good father. I flew to New York, Bruce agreed, and we returned to SF and told Howard. He was under­standably upset. I was very wrong to Howard, but my mind was made up. Bruce and I moved to live in a con­verted chicken shack in Sebastopol an hour or so north of SF. He got a job teaching at Santa Rosa JC and one weekend we took a trip to Arcata in northern California where Maia was conceived under an apple tree on Fickle Hill Road. She was born in July 1969.”

Bruce hated his job and worked for a time at the Bodega Bay Marine Lab but he didn’t like California either so when a friend of theirs wanted to invest $50K to start a commune Mary Pat and Bruce were ready. They bought land in Vermont on the Canadian border and moved in to the thirteen feet of snow that greeted them there. Soon they had eight adults and four children in the commune in what was a true back-to-the-land family commune with horse drawn equipment, herbal medicine, and growing everything they ate. “I was there for four years and working to provide food became my life. That was enough so with two other women, Maia, and another kid, we moved to the Burlington suburbs. In September 1975 my second daughter, Courtney, was born. I enrolled in a graduate program studying psycho­therapy and graduated in 1979. Bruce moved to Boston and I followed. he was a good father even if he and I didn’t always get along. We separated and I started my work as a psychotherapist and also did a part-time job fabricating plastics which paid my way. Working with my hands provided a good balance for me. I also started a community garden and my life pretty much revolved around that for my twenty-plus years in Boston.”

During those years Mary Pat worked mostly in psychotherapy jobs and carpentry, and also helped to organize a pain and stress management clinic for the eld­erly and disabled at a public health hospital, involving acupuncture, meditation and expressive therapies such as dance, art, and music. For a time she had a steady rela­tionship with Phillip, the lead guitarist in a rock band. “That was one of the best things to happen to me; he was a very gentle and brilliant man and we dated for about three years in the mid-eighties.”

In the mid-nineties, Mary Pat met Bill Taylor at the community garden and after living together for a time they were married in 1999, honeymooning in Peru and climbing the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. I was homesick for California and even after I had started my own pri­vate practice I still wanted to return here. Then in April 2001 I was diagnosed with cancer. a two-inch tumor in my large intestine. I now thought I’d die if I didn’t get back to California and refused chemotherapy, deciding I wanted to go with herbs and acupuncture instead. The doctors back there said I would die without chemo and would have a 40% chance of surviving if I did have it. Neither was an option to me. Bill and I split up and for a time my younger brother took care of me but we semi-reconciled and I told him I was leaving for California. My brother Frank knew Anderson Valley and thought it might be a good fit for me. I flew out alone to San Fran­cisco and drove up to the Valley and into Boonville. I stopped at The Drive-In and asked where the nearest real estate agent was. That was Mike Shapiro across the street and he showed me a home in the Christine Woods region near to Gschwend Road between Philo and Navarro. It was 16 acres including 13 redwoods and I had decided that if you wanted to save the redwoods you would have to buy them so I did. I fell in love with the Valley imme­diately and it was not an issue at all that I knew nobody in the Valley. It was my mission to get well and be a steward of the redwoods. I moved here in September of 2001. Bill then came out to join me in January, 2002.”

Mary Pat worked hard on the garden at her new home and on the house too as she continued her treatment for the cancer. She and Bill managed the Boonville Farmer’s Market and this led to the development of friendships and a social scene. She taught a little yoga and then one day she had a conversation with Cynthia McMath at Lauren’s Restaurant who told her of a job with Commu­nity Care in Ukiah. She got the job and was there for a year before moving within the department to a job as a social worker in Fort Bragg working with the elderly and disabled, where she remained for five years, working three days a week. The rest of the time she started and developed the Philo School of Herbal Energetics, some­thing similar to a school she had run in Boston.

Meanwhile, following two years of couple counsel­ing, it became apparent that she and Bill would both be better off apart so they split up. “It was for the best and Bill moved out. . My herbal treatment was working and while I am someone who can accept death, it would have been difficult in Boston. Here it would have been in peace. After two years of treatment a colonoscopy revealed all was clear and it had not metastasized any­where else! I am now in the Valley’s Women’s Cancer Support Group (contact Linda Brennan at 895-3587) with several other local women who have suffered with cancer.”

Mary Pat is in many groups and organizations in the valley including being on the board of the Chamber of Commerce; in the Food Shed Group; the Unity Club. gardening section; the Boonville Farmer’s Market, Men­docino’s too; and the Independent Career Women (I.C.W.) of which she was President for a time. She also works once a week, Wednesday mornings, at Boont Berry Farm in Boonville, both behind the counter and also available for any herbal questions customers may have. She has made many friends, including Mary and Ron O’Brien her near neighbors “who have been wonderful”; Monica and Beverley at Philo Pottery Inn, George too; and Sandy Creque. She enjoys the weekly trivia quiz at Lauren’s and tries to get to other various Valley events but is too busy to attend as “the garden and the school take up a lot of my energy and so I can’t get out as often I’d like.”

Daughter Maia is now a licensed psychotherapist herself, married to Karl, a teacher in Palo Alto. They have two children, Mary Pat’s grandkids. Mikaela aged five and four-month old Theo. Courtney meanwhile is a world-class ceramicist in Helena, Montana. Along with the two dogs Mary Pat has three cats. Auralius Legalos, Ami, and Calendula Caledonia. She loves the community here in the Valley, along with the redwoods of course, which she attributes in part to her recovery. “They brought me back.”

I asked Mary Pat for her brief responses to some Valley issues.

The wineries and their impact?. “I do appreciate the positive economic impact, I really do, but I grieve for the loss of the other plants and fruits and the monoculture aspect of the wineries’ dominance. As for the noise they make at night with their frost protectors and spraying equipment, it is terrible. It sounds like the middle of LA with a bunch of helicopters landing. It is horrible! As for the water issue, unlike many here, I believe in catchment ponds and water tanks. Fill them and use them. There is still an impact on the creeks and rivers but not to the same degree as directly pumping the water out. A spring is the most sensible and desirable thing. something I am fortunate to have. Others have them too but they are not used.”

KZYX & Z local public radio? “I love it. I am starting a complementary medicine program soon, to be called ‘Community Health’.”

The AVA? “It took a time for me to get to enjoy it. Then when Bruce Anderson gave a talk at the Unity Club there was a level of humility about him that I did not expect. I liked him. I don’t read the whole thing but do enjoy the local pages, the interviews, and the sheriff’s log.”

The School System? “Our teachers work very, very hard and, like teachers in general, are by and large exploited for their generosity, kindness, and the way they care for the children.”

Changes in the Valley? “I live a relatively sheltered life here and what strikes me more is what doesn’t change. Lots of things are the same as they were ten years ago. Stability is good for me. I appreciate that aspect of living here. The many long-term married couples who live here are a great thing, although it can be a tough place to live for single people.”

To end the interview, I posed a variety of questions to my guest.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Other people.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Other people.”

Sound or noise you love?. “The singing of birds.”

Sound or noise you hate?. “Vineyard frost protectors.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “Salmon. broiled or grilled.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “Jazz musician John Coltrane. His work ‘A Love Supreme’ is perfect.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “Seeds that would grow there; the works of novelist William Faulkner; and a musical instrument that I could learn. The flute perhaps.”

Favorite film/song/book or one that has influenced you? “Well I mentioned the Marcusse book earlier; then for music perhaps the Mozart Horn Concerto or may be the music of Kurt Weill, or Richard Thomson’s or Joan Baez songs; no one film stands out but I am currently watching this Canadian television series called ‘Intelli­gence’ a little like HBO’s ‘The Wire.’ It’s quite fantas­tic.”

A smell you really like? “The flower of the Butterfly Bush.”

Favorite hobby? “Reading; gardening; making herbs with my still; crochet; making jewelry; I still sculpt. I do like to work with my hands.”

Profession other than your own would you like to attempt if you were given the chance to do anything? Your fantasy job, perhaps? “A sculptor.”

Profession you’d not like to do? “An accountant in a large corporation.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “The birth of my two children.”

Saddest? “My mother’s suicide.”

Favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “That I have compassion for people; an abil­ity to like many different sorts of people.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “Well I don’t think you can go wrong being good to others, and providing a place for animals, birds, and plants to thrive. So if he said, ‘You did a good job taking care of the land that you worked with’ that would be fine.” ¥¥

(To read the stories of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Charlie Hochberg.)

I met with Loretta one evening a couple of weeks ago at her new bookstore in the heart of Boonville  — Laughing Dog Books. A couple of customers stopped by but we were able to have our conversation without too many interruptions at that time of day.

Loretta was born in Prescott, Arizona in 1955, the eld­est of two daughters born to Patsy Ruth Allen and Laird McClellan Betts. Three years later sister Nancy was born but when Loretta was four her parents split up, and then another couple of years after that, when her mother had remarried, a brother, Robert was born. All four grandparents were born in the U.S. but Loretta has little knowledge of their heritage other than that her mother was of Welsh descent and had been born and raised in Hollywood, while her father was born in Mis­sissippi and his family had some Scottish blood.

“We grew up about 50 miles north of Phoenix in the hills on the way to Flagstaff. It was a lovely town then, just a few thousand inhabitants, whereas now it has 50,000 and is a bedroom community to Phoenix. My father was a cowboy/ranchhand and competed in rodeos. My mother had been a secretary in Boise, Idaho and after they were married she worked as the ranch cook wher­ever my father found a job. When they separated, fol­lowing my father’s affair with the babysitter, the family split up and I went with my mother to Los Angeles where she became a secretary at Lockheed Martin. I never saw my father again. My mother met and married my stepfather, forever known as the stepmonster and the nightmare began.”

Over the next few years Loretta found herself living in Alabama, Georgia, and various other states as her stepfather could not hold down a steady job due to his drinking and erratic behavior and it was not until 7th grade that she completed a full year in the same school. They lived in downtown Detroit for a time in the early sixties — a very tough place at that time. “At the age of seven I ran away and found myself at Tiger Stadium in the center of Detroit. I thought it was a zoo — ‘Tiger’ stadium — not the ballpark and couldn’t work out why I couldn’t get in. My stepfather was a very, very abusive man and this continued for years. Ultimately I was the only one who came through relatively unscathed. My sister turned to heroin and prostitution and my brother also went off the rails. I have not seen her for 27 years and I have seen him every eight years or so and he looks just like his father.”

In October 1964, Boeing in Seattle hired the stepfa­ther — “he must have lied seriously on his resume” — and Loretta’s mother also got a job there. The world seemed to open up for Loretta at this point and she felt it was the beginning of a new life. The family lived in the suburbs of West Seattle for two years before moving to Auburn, Washington in 1967, about 20 miles south where they bought a house in the town, which was about the size of Ukiah. From the 7th grade until graduating from Auburn High in 1973 Loretta went through the same school system.

In 1969, the ‘stepmonster’ left and was later arrested in San Jose. The police called the house but Loretta’s mother did not want to speak to him and hung up. She never spoke to him again, although in 1975 he did come and collect his son, Robert. However, not long after­wards Robert had his arm broken in a fight with his father and returned to Auburn. Loretta did well at school, enjoying math, reading, and languages — Spanish and German. She was for the most part a straight A student although occasionally she did rebel against certain teach­ers, one in particular who reminded her of the ‘stepmon­ster.’ She generally cruised through her studies without much effort while also helping the Principal with some of his paperwork as the local Lions Club Chairman. In her final two years she started to smoke pot and in the end she graduated with a disappointing ‘C’ average although she never got into any serious trouble. She earned a little money as a babysitter then later got a summer job in the schoolbook depository, and between her junior and senior years she worked at the Big Scoop Ice Cream Parlor — her first restaurant job.

“I had a friend, Joan, who grew weed in her closet and I hung out with other kids who smoked and listened to the Rolling Stones. Joan’s dad was a car dealer and so she had a car and we’d drive around town and during that summer of 1973 we just hung out with older dope-smoking guys. My mother arranged for me to have an interview with the ITT School of Business and, as I wanted to travel, I enrolled in a business course for the airlines — hotel work, stewardess training, flight book­ings, etc — hospitality and travel stuff. Then at the end of the nine-month course, United Airlines went on strike and the whole industry stopped hiring, not a single graduate from the course found work and I found myself in a few different secretarial jobs for the next couple of years.”

In 1976, at 21, Loretta took a job as the hostess at a new restaurant in Seattle. She got herself an apartment and worked hard in the business for a couple of years during which time she started dating John who worked for the phone company. It was the beginning of an extended ‘on again; off again’ relationship. She was now also bartending and found a new job at Club 401 in the city. “It was a great place to work but in early 1978 John was transferred to Pasco, Washington so I ended up moving there with him and enrolling at the Tri-Cities Community College, studying business accounting and German… On my birthday in May 1979 he proposed and I said ‘Yes’ but then in July he kicked me out. I decided to leave town and hitched across country with a friend to her family home in Tennessee before we continued on to Daytona Beach, Florida. Now the fun started… We lived in a beach house and found work as a cocktail wait­resses. It was a really fun time for about eight weeks but then John called, crying and begging me to return. I caught the Greyhound bus to Phoenix where he met me and we took a couple of weeks driving back up to Washington, playing golf at various places on the way. We settled in together and were married on February 14th, 1980. Our whole time together was like very unstable. He’d often disappear for a few days at a time — let’s just say he had many issues.”

Daughter Jennifer was born on November 15th, 1980 — “Yes, she was conceived on our wedding night!” — and Loretta became a housewife and mother, taking a few classes at night school which became her social life too. In 1983 they moved to Spokane, Washington with John’s phone company job and were there for two years before the company split up and they moved to Seattle where Loretta went back into office work. “We began to fight a lot and when Jennifer was still in kindergarten, in September 1985, John and I decided to split up and Jen­nifer spent time between us. We basically let her choose — she was an old soul and more mature than us! John then married a woman who had a son close in age to Jennifer so she moved in permanently with her father and his new family. I went off the deep end.”

For a couple of years Loretta was a ‘wild and crazy girl’ in the bar/restaurant business, earning great money but spending it almost as quickly as she earned it. By 1987 John and his wife had separated and he and Jenni­fer had moved into a house and wanted Loretta to join them there. “It was a very hard decision. I felt this person could not control me any longer. It was a sort of abuse; different from that which my mother had endured but everything was always on his terms and it was not healthy for any of us. One day in December 1987 I walked Jennifer to school and told her I was leaving town. I then got on a Greyhound bus to Spokane, about five hundred miles away.”

Loretta had a place to stay with a bartender friend and a job at a fun bar/restaurant called Cyrus O’Leary’s. “It was a high-energy place that rewarded the best work­ers with the best shifts. I did very well there for a couple of years but it had been very hard to leave Jennifer and by 1989 I wanted to move back to Seattle. When I was visiting there for a basketball game between the Super­sonics and the Celtics, I applied for a job as a server at Ivar’s Acres of Clams. They hired me and I moved back to Seattle, by which time John and his wife had reunited and Jennifer was living with them.”

While working at Ivar’s, Loretta became friends with another server by the name of Dan Houck and over the next several months or more they hung out with a group of fellow bartenders and servers, including Dan’s wife who became a good friend. Then in March 1990 Dan and his wife separated and Loretta took Dan to the airport as he departed for a new job on a crab processing boat in Alaska. The following August, Dan returned and then he and Loretta spent the Labor Day Weekend camping in Ashland, Oregon before deciding to make a trip to Key West they had often talked about.

“I had wanted to take a dog on the trip but as we were hitching that would have been tough so we took a bird instead — Jonathon Livingstone Cockatiel. It was a totally, totally amazing trip with many great memories. One of those is of being invited to stay at the home of a woman who was a park ranger at the Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah. She was a modern witch, a Wicca actually, who lived in an amazing place with lots of dogs and cats. We’d put the cockatiel in the bathroom but then found him drowned in the toilet. I gave him ‘mouth to beak’ resuscitation and brought him back to life. However, the story has a sad ending because he flew into the ocean a few weeks later in New Hampshire and we never saw him again.”

They arrived in Key West in late October with a plan to get work on the shrimping boats but there was nothing available. Instead they both started work in the famous bar/restaurant owned by Jimmy Buffet — ‘Margaritav­ille.’ “We had a blast and lived on a boat for about a month before getting an apartment on Duval Street, the main drag on the island. We made lots of friends and then in April 1991, when Jennifer, aged ten at the time, visited us for spring break, I was at the airport putting her on a plane home when my name was called on the public address system. It was a call from John who told me he would not be picking her up at the other end and so she stayed with us. It didn’t take us long to realize that the Key West scene was not the place to raise a kid so we said our sad ‘goodbyes’ to our friends and all got on a bus to LA where we were met by Dan’s parents who took us to their home in Bakersfield. We were restless and thought about the Oregon coast as a destination with a job at the Rogue Brewery as a possibility. Jennifer and I went there and I found a little work at the brewery and we lived in a tent at nearby campgrounds. Meanwhile Dan found work with his brother’s landscaping business and a place to live in Sacramento. Jennifer returned to Seattle and I joined Dan in the July and found a restau­rant job at a comedy club in ‘Old Sac’ with Dan working a second job in the evenings at a gas station.”

“In April 1992, Dan and I flew to London to begin our pre-arranged trip to meet with our Key West friends in Amsterdam for the summer solstice of 1992. We had brought all the cycling gear with us and assembled the bikes in the hotel room and set off for a few wonderful weeks riding around England, camping in people’s fields — everyone was very friendly. From there we caught the ferry to France and despite having difficulties with both bikes we managed to get around, visiting the Normandy beaches and war sites, enjoying the wonderful bed and breakfast places with their delicious bread and cheese, and finally getting to Paris and staying in the dorm room of a college where a professor friend of ours was teach­ing. That first night in Paris, before we found the room, was magical — playing cribbage all night on the Champs d’Elysee.”

After selling both bikes, Loretta and Dan set out with their backpacks and hitched to Frankfurt in Germany where they heard they of work at the nearby American army base. “Dan worked in the sewing section of the Post Exchange store and I became a waitress at Chi Chi’s Mexican restaurant on the American base in Germany! We also hitchhiked to Amsterdam and back to meet up with our friends for the Solstice on June 21st. I had been calling Jennifer quite often during the trip but she was not interested in really talking. Then in July I called John and found out that he had succumbed to crack cocaine and was totally out of it. His wife had kicked him out and Jennifer was now at her aunt’s house and wanted me to come home. I left Europe and Dan stayed on. I got back to Seattle, collected Jenn and fortunately, as fate would have it, Dan’s ex was moving out of their old apartment so Jennifer and I moved in, with Dan joining us that September.”

For a time Loretta returned to the restaurant business at ‘Merchant’s Café’ but in May 1993 she thought it was time to go back to the office world again and she was hired by the Sharpe Law firm as a legal secretary while she and Dan they lived in an apartment on Phinney Ridge in Seattle. “In December of that year we were at a lawyer’s Christmas party when I proposed to Dan, he said ‘Yes’ and we were married on a ferry boat in Elliott Bay, Seattle on April 1st, 1994. The reception was the next day at our local bar — the Eastlake Zoo.

In August 1997, they bought a house and then Dan became a professional brewer at the Pyramid Brewery in town. Two years later he got a call from the owner of a brewery in Kauai, Hawaii offering him a job there. “He had become a little tired of the routine at the brewery and wanted a fresh challenge so he went over for a couple of weeks and then took the job on a permanent basis in September. I had been at the law firm for six years and felt like a change too and moved over to join him in December 1999 but Jennifer, now nineteen, stayed at home. Once again we made some great friends but the job wasn’t great – the owner was not really a ‘beer man’.”

One of their friends from the Seattle beer community, Fal Allen, was now the general manager at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company. “He wanted to bring the entire Seattle crowd to the Valley but in the end only Dan and I made it. I moved to the Valley on August 14th, 2000 and Dan came a month later, neither of us knowing much about the Valley and its community at all. We moved in to a place in Yorkville but as it turned out there was no brewing job so Dan became the cellar man before taking a job in construction with Jeff Fox who was working on various projects at the brewery such as the tasting room, the horse barn, the storage cooler building, and even the disc golf course. Meanwhile I job hunted and found work with Organic Wine distributors in Ukiah, then I did some marketing at the brewery which lasted a month, before I settled at Yorkville Cel­lars where I stayed for two-and-a-half years working for Deborah and Ed Wallo. I then worked at Glad’s store in Boonville for a year or so before getting a job as the high school career counselor for about six months in 2004.”

Loretta went on to work at KZYX&Z local public radio in various guises, as the membership and volunteer co-coordinator, running the auction, the underwriting, and then, while still holding these positions, she was the morning voice with the news, as well as starting the ‘woo-hoo, it’s Friday’ thing. She left there in January 2007 and in April took a bartending job in Hopland at the Brutacao Restaurant and then later at the Walter Café in Ukiah, before finally settling in a job at the County as an office assistant in October 2007 which she did until July 2008 when she was promoted and worked in the Area Agency on Aging department, a job she still has today, along with running her new bookstore of course. “I guess I’ve always been a ‘gypsy queen’ — always on the move.”

As for her social life here in the Valley Loretta believes that if the Valley opens up and let’s you in then a social scene can happen in a big way. “I had social jobs here in the Valley and have had a fabulous time here. We would visit San Francisco about once a month but that is much less now. I have thought about moving on but Dan is grounded here. I’m very used to moving, obviously, and for a time it felt weird to be in one place but now I’m much more settled and can say to myself ‘this is it.’ I feel very comfortable and happy here.”

“I love this community; everyone knows fun things about each other. I loved Seattle but it was not the same as knowing people here. We are part of this real commu­nity and I really value that. My biggest complaint was that there was no bookstore in the Valley so on May 21st this year I opened one! I actually always thought I’d have a restaurant — I nearly bought Glad’s at one point and twice inquired about The Buckhorn bar/pub. The opportunity here happened so quickly. After I noticed the new patio and thought of people reading outside I went for it and had a crazy few months but it all came together as it needed to and I am very optimistic about its success. I am a pretty positive person and think that perhaps I was always meant to be doing this. I enjoy it very much.”

“One ‘complaint’, I guess, is that I have always been able to catch a bus or walk to where I want to go and here that is hard to do here. I love live music and per­formance but here we have to drive everywhere — it’s been a big drawback on my drinking life! I have come to terms with it and realize it is one of the trade-offs but it took a time for me to accept and now we live just five miles south of town and it works. If I had to change anything it would be to add a bank, improve the bus system, and a little more grocery shopping choice — the less time in Ukiah the better, even though I still work there.”

I asked Loretta for her views on some of the Valley’s talking points.

The wineries and their impact? “I am disappointed that the Valley has turned into a virtual monoculture at this point. Their arrival, and the subsequent effect on property values, has also totally negated the chance we will be able to buy property here and that is very disap­pointing. However, the jobs and tourism that come with the wineries keeps many businesses and individuals in work. There’s always trade-offs.”

The AVA? “It’s an interesting newspaper shall we say. I love the local stuff and it seems to grasp the flavor of the community.”

KZYX&Z local public radio? “I love that radio sta­tion almost as much as it frustrates me.”

Drugs in the Valley? “The methamphetamine scene troubles me but marijuana is fine. Anything in modera­tion is fine with me.”

Changes in the Valley? “In my ten years here there have been many openings and closures. It seems to be a place on the verge of becoming something quite big and may be that will happen.”

I posed a variety of questions to my guest.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “The sun always coming up. A puppy dog kissing my face in the morning. I’d love to do the bookstore full-time and it excites me to move towards achieving that.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Negativity.”

Sound or noise you love? “The sound of the ocean and seagulls.”

Sound or noise you hate? “An animal in distress.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “My turkey dinner.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “My biological father, who left when I was four and I never saw him again.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, with unlimited provi­sions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “A photograph album with Jennifer, Dan, the dogs; the complete collection of the works of Edgar Allen Poe; a copy of the movie ‘Harold and Maude’ to watch over and over.”

Favorite film, song, book or one that has influenced you? “The song would be Tom Petty’s ‘Running Down the Drain.’ It has influenced me a lot in recent times. The movie I mentioned above. And a book would be ‘The Tao of Pooh’ by Benjamin Hoff, an introduction to Tao­ism.”

A smell you really like? “My turkey dinner cooking.”

Favorite hobby? “Reading — mysteries mainly.”

Favorite word or phrase? “I love the words ‘Anything can happen child; anything can be’ from ‘Listen to the Mustn’ts’ by the poet Shel Silverstein.”

Profession other than your own you’d like to attempt if you were given the chance to do anything? Your fan­tasy job, perhaps? “A movie actress — what might have been if we’d stayed in Hollywood?”

Profession you’d not like to do? “A nurse. I admire them but couldn’t do the blood and gore. I couldn’t work in a nursing home either.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “Jennifer’s birth. Arriving in Europe and then spending that first night in Paris.”

The saddest? “The ‘dark ages’ with the stepmonster from 1961 to 1967.”

Favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “My openness to the magic and wonderment of the universe.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “Well, if he said ‘Welcome home, daughter’ that would be great.” ¥¥

To read the stories of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee will be Mary Pat Palmer.)

I met with Efren at his home in downtown Philo, the house alongside the beautiful roses that he grows, oppo­site the post office. As we sat in his lovely back yard and began our conversation, his wife Dary and father Juan served up some truly delicious fresh corn tamales (“I prepared the corn this morning”) with sour cream and homemade spicy hot sauce and sweet corn bread to fol­low.

Efren was born in 1958 in the rural town of Capilla de Milpillas about twenty-five miles from Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco to parents Juan Jose Mendoza and Maria de Jesus Mendoza — second cousins. The Men­doza’s had been in that area for generations, mainly working in agriculture in the cornfields, sometimes wheat, and with a few cows always around. Efren has seven siblings, three brothers and four sisters and most were raised in the country. However, when he was five the family moved to Guadalajara, Mexico’s second most populated city, where his father got a job as a dairy worker, milking cows by hand while his mother also worked at the same place in the city taking care of the pigs. “Over the years most of the family moved into the city although a few did stay in the countryside and we’d visit them there.”

Efren attended a couple of different elementary schools and then spent three years at a junior high school. He liked school; mainly math, English, and Spanish and he played all the sports — basketball, vol­leyball, and futbol (soccer). “As is the custom in our culture, the girls, my sisters did most of the housework with my mother and we boys helped out our father. He had to be at work at 2am and we would each take a turn to go with him. That was tiring work; milking by hand and I remember falling asleep against the cow’s warm udder on many occasions. We had a good upbringing but never had much money for toys and things. I never owned a bicycle until I came to the US.”

He graduated junior high and went to a two-year high school but after being there for just one year, he quit at the age of 17. “I wasn’t a very good student and I had decided I wanted to go to the United States and make some money. My brother Felipe, two years older than me, had gone a year earlier and had found work in north­ern California in a place called Anderson Valley at an orchard called Gowans. I also had a cousin who was in Fort Bragg and there was another apple orchard in the Valley at the time, Schoenahl’s, and so we thought we’d get work somewhere. In the summer of 1975, along with four cousins, we paid a ‘coyote’ about $250 each and crossed the border one night at a place called Chula Vista. There was a hole in the border fence and we all just ran through and hid under bushes as helicopters flew above with searchlights. Others were caught but at sev­enteen I could run pretty fast and moved inland to a place where a car picked us up and took us to Los Angles. We then met a different ‘coyote’ and two days later we left town, slowly driving up to Fort Bragg, which we reached about a week after crossing the bor­der.”

With one of his cousins, Efren moved to Philo but there was no work for them in the apple industry at that time so for a few weeks they found a little work planting grapes for Ted Bennett at Navarro Vineyard for $3/hour, very good money at the time, which was very helpful because they still had to pay the ‘coyote.’ “You never paid the ‘coyote’ up front as there would be a good chance you’d never see him again. Of course, if you didn’t pay him later he would not be happy and some people have bad stories about that situation but it never happened to me. Some of those guys are really bad but not all them. They hang around bus stations in Mexico and ask people if they want to go to the US. We trusted each other, I guess, and I always paid them. We then had to wait until the grape harvest before James Gowan hired us at $2.10 hr to pick grapes. We lived at ‘La Casa Café,’ the brown dwellings on the Gowan property, but after six months my cousins wanted to go back to Mexico so I went too.”

On his return to Mexico, Efren became sick with severe food poisoning and had to spend his $600 in sav­ings from his time in the US on hospital bills. He lived at his parent’s house and couldn’t find work so in April 1976 he crossed the border once again with his brother and two cousins. He arrived in Philo a few days later but there was no work for a couple of months until Gowans hired him to work the harvest. In November that year Efren moved to Fresno for work and stayed with his father’s sister there. There was no work in the fields so he got a job as a dishwasher and cleaner in the restaurant business for $2.50 hr before moving to just outside Fresno where there was a promise of a good job. Once again nothing was available so in April 1977 he returned to Philo and worked for Gowans with a 25¢ per hour increase. By this time Gowans had workers from differ­ent states of Mexico but mainly Michoacan, with quite a few from Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, and a few ‘Chilango’s’ from Mexico City.

By the end of 1977, Efren had returned to Mexico again. “My time in the States had not been great but I had saved some money, played a lot of soccer, and even dated a girl briefly. We’d go to Fort Bragg on a Saturday night and all day Sunday, going to the movies some­times, but most of my time was spent working.” In March 1978, Efren crossed the border once again, this time in the trunk of a car with four others. “It was a terri­ble time in that trunk. I thought we’d suffocate, but we got through the Border Patrol’s inspection place in San Clemente and headed up to Philo once again. I worked for Gowans until October then at the Lathe Mill in Philo owned by the Island Family. I got two days off a week there!”

At one point, Efren hitched to San Francisco on his weekend off and made his way to Mission Street where he had cousins. “I had planned to return the next day but they told me there was a good job in construction so I stuck around. A month later and I was still there with the only jobs available being $6/hour in restaurants instead of the $13/hour construction work. Looking back that would have been fine but I was young and ‘proud’ and decided to return to Philo. There was no longer work at the mill so once more I went to Gowans where I worked for the next year until November 1979 when I went back to Guadalajara for a couple of months. During that time I bought a house with some money loaned from my Uncle. Then, once again I paid the ‘coyote’ and crossed into the States with my brother, Felipe, on January 1st, 1980.”

This time Efren stayed for three years at Gowans, apart from one trip back for a couple of months over Christmas 1982/83. By December 1983 he was basically unhappy with his life and felt he needed a change from this lifestyle of uncertainty. He returned to Mexico and while out in the Guadalajara one day he stopped by the mercado (outside market) where his cousin’s wife worked on a store selling milkshakes, orange and carrot juice, and pastries. “Working alongside her was her sis­ter, Dary Alvarez — she was beautiful. I’d been looking everywhere for such a girl and here she was, right here in my home town. She had recently broken up with a boy­friend and was not sure if she wanted a new one and so after a few dates she broke up with me. I was very upset. It was a tough time for me, and besides that, I felt like a stranger in my neighborhood as I’d been away for basi­cally over eight years and had no close friends there. I found a job in a wood shop and began training as a car­penter. I really liked it and six months later Felipe and I opened our own wood shop. We got lots of work, saved a lot of money, and had six employees. I bought a car and suddenly girls seemed interested in me! In June 1984 I decided to ask Dary out one final time and she said ‘Yes’. I proposed to her in December 1984 and we were married in February 1985 at the registry office and then a real wedding in March in the big church in the city. It had been a dream of Dary’s to get married in that church one day; she had been baptized there. We moved into the house I had bought a few years earlier and for a time everything went well. The business did well and I even had enough money to buy tickets for the World Cup that was to take place in Mexico in 1986. Then over a few months worked dried up and a friend said it would not change and that I should go back to the States. I wanted to stay. I was happy there after being back for almost two years and was finally settling down; plus Dary was preg­nant. A cousin kept saying ‘let’s go’ but I was very unsure. But, with work not going well and the chance to raise a family in the States, I decided we should leave Mexico. In August 1985 we contacted a ‘coyote’ once again and with Dary five months pregnant we crossed real slow – there was no running this time. A car met us and we were taken to a hotel, had a shower, changed our clothes and went to the San Diego airport and flew to L.A. Both of us were very afraid and instead of telling the coyote to get us a flight to San Francisco I had just said LA without really thinking about it. My brother Pepe picked us up in LA and drove us to Philo. I was back in the Valley again!”

Efren and Dary lived on Indian Creek Road for three months before finding a house on the Gowan property just before son Ivan was born in December 1985. In time Dary worked as a babysitter for Ivan and other children while once more Efren was back at Gowans and this time he was in charge of the vegetable gardens, a job he held for sixteen years, until he finally left in 2001. In Novem­ber 1987, now with a Resident Card granted to him as an agricultural worker, Efren, Dary, and their baby boy were able to visit family and friends in Mexico without worries about border crossings anymore, returning in January 1988 with no problems. They have continued to visit Mexico every other year since. Efren’s life became much more settled and routine as he attended mass every Sunday, regularly played in informal pick-up futbol games (cascaritas), and went to many of the weddings, birthdays, and quinceaneras that were more and more frequent as the Mexican community in the Valley quickly grew in size.

Another son, Michel, was born in 1988 and then a daughter, Veronica, in 1991. They moved into a seven bedroom, two-storey house owned by the Gowans near to Hendy Woods State Park (the yellow one not far from the entrance) and Efren continued to work for the Gow­ans all through the nineties. However, in 1993, on one of their visits to Mexico, they discussed whether they should move back there permanently. Dary wanted to and even enrolled Ivan in the school. Efren was then offered the opportunity to run his own ice cream busi­ness with other family members working for him. “I really thought this might be a chance for me to make it there and seriously considered it. In the end the invest­ment would have been too much and, even though the kids had been looking forward to ice cream every day, I felt I needed more money to be comfortable with the decision and I was not convinced. We returned to the States. Maybe one day we will return to live there but not anytime soon… My father, Juan, first came to the states in 1953 on a 45-day permit. He came back every couple of years but then was able to work here from 1981 and came every year until he retired. In 2002 he moved into our house here in Philo with us and my mother spends her time in both Mexico and here.”

By 2001 Efren was earning just $6.25/hour at Gow­ans and, at that time, a new job opportunity came along, working on clearing a large amount of acreage to plant grapes on the Piper Ranch. It would pay $12.50/hour. “I told the Gowans and they accepted the situation, saying they could not pay me anymore. That was fine and I was given a month to find somewhere to live. I could not find anywhere in the Valley and was very upset. I would have regarded a move out of the Valley as a defeat, as if I had been a failure after all this time. We even began to look in Fort Bragg. Then, Mary O’Brien, a teacher at the school, said we could stay at her two-bedroom home in Christine Woods until it was sold. We ended up being there from August 2001 until May 2002 during which time, with Dary now working at the lathe mill for Gary Island (she is still there after eleven years), we had saved enough money to begin looking to buy our own place.”

Efren saw a ‘For Sale by Owner’ sign at a home in downtown Philo opposite the post office. After lengthy and often confusing negotiations, in which both Efren and the seller thought the other was doing the paperwork, Efren’s offer was accepted. “I had no idea about this process but we really liked the house, although there was lots of work to be done on it. We borrowed some money from my brother Pepe and added it to our savings for the down payment. I learned a lot about the process and now people ask for my advice on these things. We were so very happy when the deal went through and we moved in on June 1st, 2002. We felt so lucky. This was our house!”

Efren continued to work on the Piper Ranch for three years, getting overtime for any day he worked more than eight hours, which he often did. Then in 2004 his boss, Chris Stone, wanted him to work at his vineyard at the south end of Ukiah. He did that for four years before taking over the management of Stone’s housing complex in Ukiah where he has worked for the past two-and-a-half years. “Chris wanted to buy a vineyard in Chile and I went there twice with him to look around. Eventually he left to live there and his partner, who I did not know very well, became my boss. It was a little strange at first but I pointed out that Chris had trusted me, so he could too. It’s five days a week and I am in charge over there and like my job.”

Over the years Efren has been involved with a few of the organizations in the Valley. For eight years he has been President of Sueño Latino, the Hispanic organiza­tion that helps the community in its dealings with the Health Center, the Housing Association, and on other social issues, and he is a member of the Health Center Board. For three years he was the Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus and was a member for nine years. He is vice president of the Church Council at the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church and started the chicken bbq fundraiser at The Fairgrounds and organized many dances for the church. When Gloria Ross became Presi­dent of the Council she started the spring Crab Feed and for a time Efren ran the Mexican Fiesta Dinner in the fall by the Mexican members of the congregation. “The con­gregation is about 3% Anglos — Gloria, The Schultzess and Eva Holcomb — ‘The Beautiful Lady’ as we have always called her. They work so hard and we as a com­munity have to help more at the Church and stop putting all the responsibility on others. We sometimes just go to church and expect all the events to be organized by others.”

For the past three years Efren has taught Spanish at the adult school and for a time he was in the Fire Department. He attends many Valley events and he and Dary love to dance. He works very hard on his garden and is very proud of his wonderful roses that brighten up downtown Philo for all. “The rose is the most beautiful flower — the most rich and full and most beautiful. This whole Valley is a beautiful place. I thought it was para­dise when I first came here. The vineyards look beauti­ful; I know many people here and have many friends. On the negative side, the fact that there are so few affordable houses is not good. Then there is that terrible building at the south end of town in Boonville — the first thing visitors see. It should be taken down. And the drug situation is a concern. Marijuana has my people involved but that is not nearly as bad as the cocaine and metham­phetamine that have come here in the last 20 years or so. It seems to attract outsiders here who do no good at all.”

I asked for Efren’s thoughts about various Valley issues.

The wineries and their impact? “They provide employment for many people but I feel that they should provide housing for their workers. Some do of course but more should do this. They need the people to work for them so they should do a little extra for their people.”

The AVA? “I read it once in a while.”

KZYX local public radio? “I listen sometimes. Alma Latina on Saturday at 3pm, and sometimes when I’m driving.”

The school system? “Well, since my son Michel was born on the same day and at the same hospital as Princi­pal J.R. Collins’ son Devin, I am good friends with him. My own kids are proof that the school does a good job. They all graduated and Ivan graduated college at U.C. Riverside, Michel went to Sonoma State, and Veronica is at U.C. Davis.”

I posed a few questions from a questionnaire featured on television’s “Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton” plus some I added.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “Being in good health and saying my prayers every morning.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “The continuing battle between the ‘narcos’ and the government in Mex­ico making it unsafe and leading to the death of inno­cents. It is so sad.”

Sound or noise you love? “Music — all sorts. I do love the Beatles; I’m a Beatlemaniac.”

Sound or noise you hate? “Rap music.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “Birria de Chivo — goat meat with lots of peppers, onions, and spices.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “He’s dead, I know, but I’ve always admired Che Guevara and his ideas. I would love to talk to him.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, with unlimited provi­sions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “Pictures of my family; rosebush clones so I grow and tend my flowers; and a soccer ball.”

Do you have a favorite film/song/book or one that has influenced you? “I love the film ‘The Gladiator’ and have watched it many times; I cannot of think of just one song; I’m not much of a reader but I did enjoy Homer’s ‘The Iliad and the Odyssey.’ I watch too much TV these days; I watch Mexican soaps with my wife. They are addictive.”

A smell you really like? “Jasmine and gardenia flow­ers.”

Favorite hobby? “Woodworking; gardening — a hobby and a job; and playing guitar. I’m not very good.”

Profession other than your own you’d like to attempt if you were given the chance to do anything? Your fan­tasy job, perhaps? “A civil engineer or an architect.”

Profession you’d not like to do? “Underground in a mine.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “The day I was married.”

The saddest? “When one of my cousins died at 19. He and another cousin grew up together with Felipe and me and we were all very close.”

Favorite thing about yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually? “That’s very difficult. I don’t like to say such things. (I pressed Efren for an answer.) Err, that I like to help others. I teach Spanish here because the community has given so much to me. And that I try to be cheerful. I even have a crazy laughing sound on my phone that I play if I feel a little down or stressed.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “I think going to church gives you a solid foundation for life. It means that you may be less likely to mistakes and will treat others well. So if I get to heaven I’d like him to say, ‘Welcome, Efren, come in,’ then I’d know I’d done right and it would make it all complete.”

(To read the stories of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Loretta Houck of Laughing Dog Books in Boonville.)

I met with Tex at the Scharffenberger Winery where he has been the winemaker for the past 21 years. We sat down in the conference room overlooking the vines with some delicious cheeses, prosciutto, and crackers, and began our talk.

Tex was born Willis Frank Sawyer V in San Antonio, Texas in 1950, the eldest of five children born to Willis ‘Bill’ Bruner Sawyer and Virginia Helene Yardley. His grandmother called him ‘Tony Tex’ (‘San Antonio Texas’) and the Tex part stuck, so about twenty years ago he legally changed his name to Willis Tex Sawyer. The Sawyers are of English/Scottish/French descent. “I suspect my grandparents had sex once and the result was my father, born in 1917, who was often dumped off at neighbors’ houses as a child. They separated and my grandmother moved to California and my Dad followed her. He was often fostered out before she arranged for him to be raised by a family in Glendale. My grand­mother was a 7th Day Adventist and lived in poverty by choice, giving her money to the Church and the P.T.L. Club (Praise The Lord) of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Because my father was left-handed, his mother and grandmother were concerned that he was influenced by the Devil, tying it behind his back so he had to use his right. He had a tough, strange upbringing.”

After the separation, Tex’s grandfather moved to Kan­sas, remarried, and had two more children, Charlotte and Tom, but Tex’s father kept in touch, often visiting his father and half-sister in Kansas. Tex’s father attended Pacific Union College in Angwin, California and then went to West Point. Following his graduation with a BS in Military Engineering, and a college career featuring lots of fencing, boxing, and developing expertise with small arms, he joined the Army Air Corps where he hoped to be a fighter pilot but ended up flying B-24 bombers in World War II.

The Yardleys, meanwhile, were of English/Native American and German heritage and Tex’s mother was born in 1928 in Topeka, Kansas. Her father was a bus driver and then later was employed at the sporting goods store on a local military base. “My mother liked men in uniforms and dated military men. She attended Wash­burn University in Kansas and was introduced to my father, visiting from California, by his half-sister, Char­lotte, who was my mother’s best friend. They had only dated for a week when my Dad went on assignment to China and asked her to join him. My grandparents said no at first but after a proxy wedding using a stand-in they relented and my mother moved to China in 1948.”

Tex’s father, posing as a Chinese Language Student, was working under cover establishing the USAF intelli­gence network there because of the perceived Commu­nist threat. In 1949 the Communists began their takeover and he was responsible for getting many State depart­ment and Military families on a ‘requisitioned’ C-47 plane, being captured twice by the Communists. He was released once but then held for five months on espionage charges during which time he was interrogated every day in Chinese but never cracked. Tex’s pregnant mother was evacuated and lost the baby following a stressful voyage back to Kansas.

“My father was by all accounts an excellent soldier, however, he had a hard time relating to his family and communicating with us. He wanted to do the family thing right but couldn’t. On reflection, knowing what he went through, this is perhaps not surprising. He had a very odd upbringing and this meant that he was not good at some of the family and interpersonal stuff. He was trained to get information and if necessary torture and kill for it. With the family he was a very stern discipli­narian and basically talked to us like we were his sol­diers, asking for reports and giving directives. He returned to the States in 1950 to a base in San Antonio, Texas and I was born there. We were there for six months, and then Dad was assigned to Japan where we lived for three years while he worked under cover behind enemy lines during the Korean War. We lived on base and my mother had to know all the rules contained in the Air Force Officer’s Wives’ Manual and how to ‘behave’ at tea parties and bridge nights. She pursued her hobbies of the arts and crafts and had assistance from servants and a nanny in raising my sister Cassandra and me. We returned to the States in 1954 and my other three sisters were born in the next few years — Aenor, Claryce, and Virginia Marie.”

For a time Tex’s father taught counter-insurgency and guerilla warfare while attached to the Pentagon in Washington DC where Tex attended a Catholic Elemen­tary School but the family were always moving and lived the military life. “People in that world are always learn­ing to adapt to new surroundings. That’s what military brats do, frequently ending up as outsiders. My siblings and I were close but I was unable to develop any long-term relationships with friends as you have no shared histories except with your family and, although you become very resilient, it is difficult to maintain any attachments.”

For three years, from 1958-60, the family lived in Florida where Tex’s father was in charge of the US’s guided missile project. “I had lots of fun there. I’d enjoyed the woods and playing in the snow in Maryland but this was very different and I got into sailing and playing on the beach right next to our house. I was not a good student and didn’t like school but I did a lot of reading on my own and learned that way. I had more freedom and as long as we were there for dinner at pre­cisely 6pm all was fine. My Dad was a Colonel by this time and I was ‘in-training’ to be a military officer myself. If I misbehaved in any way I would get a belt on the ass. We all had to be very correct in everything we did, including my mother. My father’s ‘Efficiency Report’ could contain no negatives.”

In the winter of 1960/61 the family moved once again — this time to Thailand where Tex’s father was one of the US ‘advisors’ in Vietnam and Tex attended the International School in Bangkok. “That was really cool for a couple of years and we lived off-base in a compound. The country was not ‘Americanized’ at that time and Bangkok, ‘The Venice of the East’, was a great city to explore — as long as I was home for dinner at 6pm! However, my mother was not happy as an officer’s wife and had slipped into depression and began to take sedatives. She left one day and I though she would not come back but she did later that night. She continued to love the arts and drama, becoming involved in commu­nity theatre, as she had been in Florida, and enjoying her horses. I loved Thailand and was able to make the first real friends of my life there. I loved swimming and was trained in all aspects of horsemanship at the Bangkok Riding and Polo Club. I was very sad when we were transferred back to the States in 1963.”

Following a wonderful six-week family trip through Asia and Europe when he was about thirteen years old, they settled near Dayton, Ohio at the Wright-Patterson AFB. “My father was by now very high up in military intelligence in what was a very volatile period, and he made sure that we as his family knew we were vulner­able. I started to carry and sleep with a knife at all times. My mother was now an alcoholic and addicted to seda­tives, bordering on the suicidal. At some point in my mid-teens she went cold turkey on the drugs but kept drinking, although she still functioned as our mother very well and kept the family together. My father away so often and not really there for us even when he was around. She still was into theatre and her horses and much later she succeeded at AA and was sober the last 15 years of her life. Meanwhile my Dad did what he thought was right and was certainly a good provider.”

Tex progressed through Junior and High School in Fairborn, Ohio, where he played a little soccer, enjoyed the drama class, and lettered in Band where he played trombone, although he had been playing the piano since he was six. “To my father’s chagrin I did not play sports to any significant degree and was a ‘C’ student. However I was a Boy Scout, progressing to the Eagle Scout rank and so my father’s ‘plan’ to see me continue the Sawyer military tradition was moving along nicely, I guess. He was always telling me little rules of life such as ‘2nd place is the 1st loser’ and ‘Don’t get close to your men as you might have to send them to their death the next day’.”

As a senior in high school, Tex took and passed the West Point entrance exam. Despite poor grades at school his father had arranged an appointment for him but the day before the entry physical he told his mother he did not want to go. His father was in hospital for high blood pressure and she said he would have to tell him person­ally. “I told my father and left the hospital immediately. We had a very estranged relationship after that; lots of long silences existed between us.”

Tex graduated in 1968 and attended Wright State Uni­versity in Ohio. His father retired as a full Colonel and moved the rest of the family to California’s central coast where he had bought property many years before. “I wanted to be a veterinarian and went to study at Kan­sas State University. My father said if I also took the ROTC (reserve officer training corps) course at college he would ‘loan’ me money for school. It was legal to drink at eighteen and I really partied and did terribly on my pre-vet’s course, failing chemistry and biology. However, I ace’d the ROTC courses because of what I’d learned in my years in the scouts. I was also becoming politically aware and into the new music of the time — The Doors, Santana, the whole Woodstock thing, and had worn a badge of the peace symbol after High School — ‘the footprint of the American chicken’ my Dad called it.”

In May 1970 the Kent State Massacre took place in Ohio and Tex began demonstrating against the war, being on the periphery of the protests at the ROTC building. “I protested with an American flag that had peace symbols instead of stars on it and one night in a bar with friends I burned my draft card. I was prepared to go to Canada if I’d been drafted. I told my father I was applying for conscientious objector status, telling him I did not want to kill people. He told me the family would not support a CO and hung up the phone. Our relation­ship remained very strained for a long time. I credit my mother with keeping my humanistic side to the fore during that time although she was very worried about me — I had become sort of numb with all that was going on in Vietnam and the protests around the country. After my sophomore year at college she drove out to ‘rescue me from the Communists’ and took me back to the Califor­nia coast where I found a job at the W.T. Grant’s sport­ing goods store in San Luis Obispo.”

At the age of 21, following an unrewarding year in retail, Tex was laid off and began to pick up small car­pentry jobs, using some of the basic skills his father had passed on to him. He returned to college at Cuesta Col­lege and continued to live at home. “I finally focused on school and supported myself through the carpentry and some work at a pizzeria. I signed up for pre-med at Cal Poly with a Biochemistry major and did very well. My father mellowed somewhat and co-signed my student loan, slowly accepting my not going into the military. In my senior year I took some extra electives including meat processing, archeology, and most significantly, making beer — with plans to make my own and save a lot of money!”

Tex graduated college in 1974 and was still planning on going to medical school. He had been working at high end restaurants and working in carpentry to pay off loans. At one point he thought his grades might not be quite good enough to get into medical school, a point also made to him by a med school interviewer. “I appre­ciated his honesty but was not sure what to do. Wine­making seemed to fit somewhere between my interest in beer making and my science degree but getting my con­tractors license was another option. I was very unsure. I applied to U.C. Davis, and it could have gone either way, but they accepted me to their Food Sciences program and that’s where I went.”

He married Diane Weaver, whom he’d met at col­lege, and he worked at their rocky relationship for sev­eral years. “My father had always said that ‘if you make a promise you die before you break it’, so I stuck it out. After graduating from Davis, I got a job in the cellar at the Hoffman Mountain Ranch Winery in Paso Robles and learned a lot in a nine-month spell there before being laid off. The money was very poor ($3.50/hr) when I could have been earning $10 as a carpenter but I needed a job in the wine industry if I was to progress.”

Tex returned to carpentry as a cabinet-maker and homebuilder, living in San Luis Obispo, before hearing about and applying for a job at Navarro Vineyards in Anderson Valley. “I had never heard about the Valley but came up for an interview and immediately thought I could live here. Owner Ted Bennett checked my refer­ences, a very bad one from the people at Hoffman who I had not got along with, but a classmate from Davis, Don Baron, who was vineyard consulting for Navarro, put in a good word for me and I was hired as consulting wine maker in February 1979. Diane’s parents had bought a cabin on Holmes Ranch Road and offered it to us to live in. However, we split up and Diane moved out, but her parents kindly let me stay on there. That was a tough winter and I learned a lot about myself, but I did think, even then, that I’d never leave this place.”

“I was an emotional basket case and Ted and his wife Deborah were very good to me. I soon made friends with Rainbow Hill and her husband Henry, with whom I would go to black powder shoots. They had formed ‘The Clowns’ a forerunner to ‘The Magic Company’ who performed at The Philo Café (now Libby’s Restaurant) and over time I expanded my social scene to include the crowd whom regularly played ‘Jungle Ball’ (a version of Volleyball) at the Cheesecake complex on the Philo/Greenwood Road, which included people such as Doug Read, Don and Judy Smith, Buckhorn Bob, Cap­tain Rainbow, and Steve Tylicki. Around this time my divorce from Diane was finalized.”

Tex had seen Lynne around the Valley with her friends at Jungle Ball and particularly at the Cafe with her husband. They had split up in 1980 and Tex’s friend Dan Baron told Tex about this — “Ted Bennett, Deborah Cahn, and Dan are responsible for the happiness in my life. I thought it was too soon but then I heard a David Bromberg song with the words, ‘If you don’t do it some­body else will’ and I called Lynne and asked her to a concert in Ukiah. She said ‘I can’t talk now but can you call me back tomorrow?’ A little later I asked her to brunch at The Boonville Hotel when it was owned by Verne and Charlene Rollins and we had our first date on September 7th 1980. A few weeks later I moved into her mobile home on Whipple Ridge Road in Philo and thirty years later we’re still here. I have always thought that if you get it correct in terms of whom you live with, where you live, and what you do for a living, then you will be fine — it’s the secret of happiness in a simple way.”

Tex was offered a substantial pay increase to go and work for the Cloverdale Wine Company and with Ted’s blessing made the move. He and Lynne moved there for a year during which time, as they washed dishes one evening, he proposed. “She was shocked that I asked because I had said I wasn’t go to do that again. She said ‘Yes’ and we were married on July 31st, 1982 in a Native American-style ceremony with Henry Hill as the officiant. I was in the Cloverdale job for two years but it didn’t really work out so when the winemakers position opened up at Edmeades Winery I jumped at the chance to return to the Valley, becoming their winemaker a few months later. However, by 1986, the winery had gone out of business here and I was unemployed.”

During that time Tex and Lynne’s two sons arrived — Justin in September 1983 (“the middle of harvest!”) and Aaron in February 1985, both born in the same midwife’s house in Caspar, while Tex’s parents contin­ued to visit them in the Valley over these years. Lynne was the bookkeeper at Handley Cellars and as a result Milla Handley graciously offered Tex a job driving a tractor and installing pipes, later helping in the winery construction with local contractors Dennis Toohey and Kurt Morse. A few months later Tex started a new job as the winemaker at a winery in Los Gatos with another healthy increase in pay, although it meant him living in a hotel for a time. Eventually the family joined him in Blossom Hill and stayed for three years before, with sales dropping, he was once again laid off.

In April 1989 Tex heard that John Scharffenberger was looking for a production manager in Ukiah where he was making sparkling wine. Tex got the job and a few weeks later he became the winemaker too when the per­son in that position quit. The family now moved back to the mobile home in the Valley and the boys attended the A.V. Elementary School. In 1990 the winery bought 640 acres in Anderson Valley, right next door to where the Sawyers lived, and the first harvest there was in 1991, a few months after Tex and Lynne completed their new house. Ted could walk to work!

John Scharffenberger left the winery in 1994 to make chocolate and in 1998 the new ownership decided to change the name to Pacific Echo. Following a significant drop in sales, in 2003 Roederer bought them out and reinstated the Scharffenberger name and things began to turn around. “That was a wise move. The Scharffen­berger name had come to mean quality in both chocolate and wine, and sales increased. I have been the wine­maker since 1989 and this will be my 22nd harvest. I think it is the perfect job for me.”

“I was involved with school activities for many years as the boys went through the school system and have been active with the Education Foundation too. We socialize and have traveled with the Mike and Susan Addison and Lanny and Sandy Parker, visiting Kauai all together on a few occasions. We also like to go to vari­ous Valley events such as the Crab Feed and Lions Club bbq’s, and for about six years I was an E.M.T. volunteer and I’m now the Ambulance Board. I also play poker monthly with a great bunch of guys. I love the natural beauty of the Valley and the wonderful sense of commu­nity. It is so diverse, yet tightly knit and very suppor­tive.”

I asked Tex for his responses to some of the Valley’s issues.

The Wineries and their impact? “I believe the winer­ies have been responsible for the economic renaissance of the Valley, The logging and apple industries were in decline and now everybody’s ‘boat’ has risen with the success of the wineries. I will say, however, that at this point we may have set aside enough land for vines, par­ticularly with regards to water usage, and the addition of any more is not the way to go.”

The AVA? “I have always enjoyed it. The writing is good and perhaps one day I will actually subscribe. Bruce used to push buttons for the sake of it but it has changed in recent times and it’s a good thing to have a community paper without a doubt.”

The School System? “It is great. It’s amazing what is accomplished here and we have an extraordinary group of teachers. I think it is misguided of parents to pull their kids out of our school and send them elsewhere.”

KZYX radio? “I like some programs such as ‘Hum­ble Pie’, ‘Lunch on the Back Porch’, and Fred Wooley’s show. Mostly I listen to KOZT — The Coast.”

Changes in the Valley? “It hasn’t reached a point that concerns me. I can’t see Napafication happening here, thanks primarily to the natural ‘defense’ we have in the bends and curves of Highway 128.”

I posed a few obvious, and some less obvious, ques­tions to my guest.

What excites you; makes you smile; gets your juices flowing creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “When my wife says, ‘I love you’, and the same from my kids.”

What annoys you; brings you down; turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally? “The constant news that we humans are still fighting all of these ridiculous wars.”

Sound or noise you love? “The sounds of the ocean — large and small waves.”

Sound or noise you hate? “The screech of metal rub­bing metal; dripping water from a faucet.”

Favorite food or meal? Your ‘last meal’ shall we say? “My wife’s mother’s ravioli with her Grandmother Non­nie’s sauce; rare beef, warm in the middle; roast potatoes with sour cream and butter; hearth-baked bread and sweet corn-on-the-cob; chocolate decadence cake or strawberry shortcake. Or the carnitas plate from Libby’s Restaurant in Philo would be a very good option.”

If you could meet one person dead or alive, one on one for a conversation, who would that person be? “President Jimmy Carter. I always liked the guy.”

If you were to be left completely alone indefinitely on an isolated island in the ocean, but with unlimited provisions, what three possessions would you like to have with you? “A sailing boat, a knife, and a musical instrument that I could learn to play, such as a ukulele or a harmonica.”

Favorite film that has influenced you? “That would be ‘The Great Santini’ — it provided me with a view of what I’d experienced growing up in a military family. It spoke a lot of truth to me and helped me start to review what my life had been like… A poem that has had a great effect on my life is ‘Look To This Day’ by Kalidasa. He was an Indian poet and playwright from 370-450 AD.”

A smell you really like? “Plumeria blossoms; roast­ing meat; rosemary; and wine of course!”

Favorite hobby? “Surfing and working on the house.”

Profession other than your own you’d like to attempt if you were given the chance to do anything? Your fan­tasy job, perhaps? “A marine biologist”

Profession you’d not like to do? “A sewer worker in Mumbai, India… Or an executioner anywhere.”

Happiest day or event in your life? “When I married Lynne and when our sons were born.”

Saddest day or period of your life? “I was lost for a time after my first wife and I split up. I had no idea what to do. And I was pretty down after I left Kansas State and moved in with my parents, working in retail.”

What is your favorite thing about yourself, physi­cally, mentally, spiritually? “I like to think that I have a positive effect on people’s lives. That I enjoy my friends. My dedication to my family, which is the primary thing in my life.”

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “I am an atheist but if he is was there and said, ‘You’re not done yet; I’m sending you back’ that would be fine with me.” ¥¥

(To read the stories of other Valley Folk, visit the archives at www.avalleylife.wordpress.com. Next week the guest interviewee from the Valley will be Efren Mendoza.)

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