LOGO SENTENCED. In a highly emotional court hearing Friday, a judge sentenced a former Santa Rosa Junior College coach to 15 years to life for a fatal DUI crash on Lakeville Highway.
I WASN'T SURPRISED, but I was certainly saddened to begin my globally-warmed Saturday with an account of Logo Tevaseu being sentenced in Santa Rosa to 15-to-life for his DUI that resulted in the death of a promising young woman. I've known Logo since he was a kid, and have always been fond of him. He married an Anderson Valley girl with whom he has two children, and he went from Anderson Valley where he was a dominant athlete — to say the least — to play at SRJC and then on to Division One football at TCU. Not quite tall enough to play in the NFL, Logo became an assistant coach at SRJC. Then he picked up a DUI when he crashed his car in downtown Santa Rosa, strike one, but his second resulted in the horrendous collision that killed one person and injured five others. Knowing Logo, I also know his remorse is genuine and will always burden him, but his sentence is not excessive given his criminal irresponsibility.
POWER was out in the Anderson Valley for nearly three hours last Wednesday afternoon, blinking off a little after 2pm before powering back up at 4:45pm. Relatively brief as the outage was, valley businesses took a big hit, many calling it a day with the first wave of outages a little after 2pm.
PG&E’S HOT LINE said power would be restored "between 6 and 7pm, an old PG&E manipulation that elicits groans from affected customers, then cheers when power returns much earlier.
A VISITOR said he thought the outage was in retaliation for Supervisor Williams' tough interrogation of the PG&E flack who appeared last week at a Supervisor's meeting to give us the bad news — the PUC will leave it up to PG&E this fire season to decide which areas get turned off, which doesn't. Williams had argued for local jurisdictions to decide the level of fire danger. I laughed. "Really? You think they'd off us for that?" The visitor replied, "They sure as hell would, and we're low priority up here anyway. LA turns on all their AC and they give LA our power. You watch!"
GWYN SMITH: “Time is flying by and our next Village meeting will be in just two weeks, on August 11th, a Sunday, from 4:00 to 5:30. Please note CHANGE OF VENUE: We'll meet at the Veterans Building/Senior Center in Boonville, not at Lauren's. Dr. Mark Apfel will be our guest and will speak to and answer questions about ‘End-Of-Life Issues and Options.’ Refreshments will be provided. I hope you can join us,”
BY GOLLY if Dr. Apfel has an option to The Reaper I’m certainly willing to consider it!
FOR SALE. 17-foot wood and canvas Chestnut Canoe Company canoe, meticulously maintained. $800. Can be seen at 1717 Hyde Street, San Francisco. (The editor and the canoe's owner paddled up to the headwaters of Big River in this baby and not a leak. It's a work of art, I'd say, as much as a canoe.) If interested, leave a message at 415 776-4224.
GOT UP to 103 in the shade here at the mighty ava one day last week and, as all locals know, when it’s 70 in Fort Bragg it’s a hundred here, 110 in Ukiah.
THE SMOKE drifting through The Valley past coupla days is from a large fire in southern Oregon.
SHEETROCKING THE FIREHOUSE FOR SAFETY: As we develop the upstairs crew quarters in the apparatus bay, we're working on ensuring the safety of our firefighters by sheetrocking the ceiling of the downstairs shop and storage, and making sure we have adequate flammable liquids cabinet space. The Sanchez brothers, Abraham and Isaac, came to the station every day after work and did a professional quality sheetrock and painting job. Many others pitched in to help, too. We'll post an update when the job is done. (AV Fire Chief Andres Avila)
THE MISSOURI-MENDO CONNECTION: Possible Missouri immigrants -- for a short time anyway -- were the James boys, Frank and Jesse. Susan Wallace, who had been studying family genealogy in the northern California hamlet of Boonville, came across a transcript of recently deceased old-timer Everett Sharkey Rawles in which Rawles says that as a boy he heard that Frank James once hid out on a farm in Boonville. "I heard my dad say several times that when Wells-Fargo and Pinkerton men were looking for Frank James in the mid-1870s, he spent 15 months in Boonville," Rawles said. He lived with Jeff Clement. My father told me he met Frank James. Jeff Clement was a pious old guy. I remember him well. He was always in church. I read later that the railroad company pensioned him and Cole Younger off so they would stop robbing their trains." Rawles said his understanding was that Jeff Clement was once part of the James gang back in Missouri. Jeff Clement was also the brother of Arch Clement, known as "Little Arch," one of the bloodiest members of Quantrill's band. Arch is best known for murdering unarmed federal soldiers at Centralia in Missouri on September 27, 1864. Although I haven't seen it, there is rumored to be Frank James' signature in the Boonville Hotel register. As it happens, the editor’s maternal great grandfather, surname Major, grew up with the James boys, fought on the Confederate side of the Civil War, became well-known post-war in the St. Louis area as a horseman and trick shot performer. He used to visit Frank James in Texas where Frank settled after his adventurous youth. Family lore says that Jesse James was crazy and would shoot a man just for the fun of it, at least that's what Frank James told great grandpa.
THE SLOW MOVING "hundred-acre fire" at Usal in the northwestern corner of the county has been partially contained, but one account by Kym Kemp said there was considerable confusion on the narrow, cliffside access road as campers tried to leave the area and fire trucks tried to get in. Last time I was at Usal that road seemed harrowing even though I was driving a 4-wheel drive pick-up. Beautiful site at the south end of the Lost Coast Trail that begins at its north end near the mouth of the Mattole River. But, as recent visitors will confirm, Usal is now unregulated by State Parks and the yobbos have taken over, ruining what was once an idyllic little camp site.
VELMA'S FARM STAND NOW OPEN!
- Blueberries (this weekend it’s “Misty”)
- Peaches (Blazing Star)
- Plums (Santa Rosa)
- Kohlrabi
- Early tomatoes
- Lemon cucumber
Hours for this weekend are:
- Friday: noon-6pm
- Saturday: 10am-4pm
- Sunday: 10am-2pm
- Closed Monday
INTERESTING COMMENT on homeschooling by Kathy Wylie: “Homeschooling only works academically as long as the parents can keep up. Most parents hit that wall with Middle school math textbooks and concepts. I started and ran a charter school – that’s when 'hardcore' home schoolers gave in and enrolled their kids in the 'regular' school setting. VERY often, homeschool kids like this, lagged behind academically, from their peers..."
THE LOST PARAKEET: "I Was just trimming horse feet at Mountain View Stables, at Helluvavineyard, and a little yellow parakeet with the red band on one leg flew in from the direction of Estates Drive. It appears to be a male (blue nose ceres) who hung around for about an hour on one of the wires holding up the grapevines. I went over as I was leaving at noon, to see if he would get on my finger. He let me get fairly close, before flying away further into the vineyard. Doubt it would do any good to look for him, cuz his wings were unclipped and he was enjoying flight. One gone bird.
30+ years ago I had a little yellow parakeet who did a perfect wolf whistle, talked a blue streak, and stole sips of wine from folks' drinks until he was too impaired to fly right. He got loose one day when the door bounced off the door jam instead of locking shut, and he flew to the neighbor lady's house to perch on her upstairs railing before finally flying away. Soon after, he was doing the wolf whistle to her as she swept her driveway. Her name was Flo Fleener. She said she was taught that a lady never looks when whistled at, so she ignored him, until she realized it was coming from her bannister above, and her hubby didn't know how to whistle. Then she looked up to see this little parakeet whistling at her." (Debra Keipp)
CEO CARMEL ANGELO has a new video out on the County’s “mendocino county video” youtube channel about what to do when PG&E shuts everybody’s power off. It seems more like an obligatory warning than any kind of real suggestions. The CEO suggests you plan for schools and daycare being closed (but no action suggested action), food spoilage (no actual suggestions). She also suggests topping off your gas tank, keeping cash on hand, have some water stored. She also points out that without juice, the AC will be off and oxygen machines for those who need them will not work. Oh and traffic lights will be out and work sites may be closed. The CEO mentions the possibility of generators, but if not she thinks you should have a plan b and a plan c, whatever they might be. See, without the CEO pointing it out, we’d never know that things like AC might be out if PG&E shuts off power.
THE CEO concluded by suggesting that viewers go to: www.ready.gov and www.prepareforpowerdown.com. …
Ms. Angelo said she “hoped” the advice was helpful.
NO, Ms. Angelo, not helpful.
(Mark Scaramella)
DR. BURNS FROM MENDOCINO ANIMAL HOSPITAL will be at the Anderson Valley Farm Supply seeing patients on Thursday, August 8th. She's there between 2:00 and 4:00 pm. People can always check our Facebook page in the events section for more information - it's always posted when we're going to be there.
Michelle Fetzer
Mendocino Animal Hospital
PAUL McCARTHY, Master of the eclectic, posted the above on his always interesting website. It was clearly a great event probably killed by "liability concerns." Lots of great shows have been similarly finished off. Right here in Boonville we had the Beer Run at the Boonville Fair, hugely popular with both spectators and participants, but the lawyers said, "Oh no. Way too dangerous." And that was it. Way back, as a 12-year-old, I attended a country fair at Hillsboro, Illinois. As a curious child — in both senses, I suppose — I paid a quarter to see a hermaphrodite, a viewing as sordid as anything I've seen since and doubly sordid as it was accompanied by a graphic patter as to the function of both organs I was too young to understand, but the show went over boffo with the assemble yokels. I desperately wanted to stay late enough to watch an ex-professional pugilist, as he was advertised, "take on all comers," meaning he effortlessly knocked out the local tough guys for a few bucks a head. Imagine paying to get beat up! When I complained to my mother that serial fights were a much more wholesome show than the "half man, half woman" she'd allowed me to see, although I'm sure she had no idea of what the exhibit involved, as a 12-year-old there was no winning an argument.
While a child in Anderson Valley in the early 1960s, I also was told Frank James had lived in the valley for a brief time and had – at some point – stayed in the Boonville Hotel. I cannot recall who told me, but there were still plenty of valley natives around who grew up during the 19th century, so the information probably was only one degree away from the original source.