KATHY VAN TASSEL of Boonville suffered major injuries Sunday morning about ten when her westbound 1994 Ford Escort unaccountably careened off Highway 128 not far from Navarro and rolled over. Ms. Van Tassel was taken by ambulance to Ukiah Valley Medical Center where, as of Tuesday, she remains in serious condition.
THIS POSTER was sent to us by a young guy who said it was an “art project” designed to elicit “community response.” It sure did. The artist, a high school kid, was deluged with responses, which he recorded and which range from “That's a possum, you retard” to “I've been looking everywhere for my cat. Thanks for finding him.” Most, however, simply pointed out that the animal is a possum, not a cat.
MENTION of the animal kingdom reminds me of the many times I trapped raccoons, possums and skunks in my Have-A-Heart to relocate them in the woods near an enemy's house. The skunks were a lot easier to deal with because they're slow to get into spray position. You can out-maneuver them while they're backing around to open fire. Possums, as the above photo illustrates, are much quicker and a lot more aggressive. Raccoons? No prob.
MIKE KALANTARIAN of Navarro writes: “Listening to the World Series on the radio this year has certainly been entertaining, but I would also add disappointing, in that neither team has played very well, on a consistent basis. Thus far, it feels like neither team really deserves the title. Which brings to mind last year's Giants, who sailed through their final couple months of baseball at a consistently elevated level of play. It was such a joy to watch them play out that 2010 season, as if they were riding destiny. Anyway, the other interesting thing is the best radio signal I've found for listening to the games. Out here in the boondocks of the Northern California Coast Range it is difficult to pick up radio signals. Before the Series started, I went online to research how I might be able to listen to the games on the radio. Well, these days, few people care about radio, so the information available was very sketchy, and all I was really able to ascertain was that the Series would be aired on an ESPN radio station. I found a map of ESPN radio stations, wrote down the frequencies of the ones in our general area (southern Oregon to central California), then took an evening spin around the AM dial. As dusk settled in, one station rose to the fore, and continued gaining strength and clarity into the night. To my surprise, it was from Rosarito, Mexico! So, I've been listening to the World Series on a Mexican radio station (XEPRS AM 1090) — which makes sense, in a funny way, when you consider how Mexicans (and their Central and South American brethren) fairly dominate the league these days. I guess this is because boys in these countries still grow up using their entire bodies (rather than thumbs only). One interesting economic development from this is, with big-league salaries the way they are, the vast amount of baseball dollars that must be flying south every year. It's become a pathway for sharing the wealth.”
JULIE WINCHESTER has gotten a welcome start on the Christmas season with strings of gloom-alleviating lights on her house next door to Anderson Valley Market, and gotten them up just in time for this weekend's storms when night time sparkle is just what we need.
UPDATING PLOWRIGHT. Plowright's the guy in lots of trouble with lots of public agencies, from the cops to Water Quality to Fish and Game, all of it arising from a tractor discovered early last year stuck in Little Mill Creek off Nash Mill Road. From there a multi-agency task force raid was soon rummaging through the Plowright property where a suspected meth lab, guns, stolen construction equipment, and the usual evidence of a marijuana farm were discovered. It took me six calls to finally arrive at the historically resonant Mr. Huey Long, esq. of the State AG's office after futile calls to the hopelessly elusive Fish and Game and a curt fellow at Water Quality from whom I learned that although the case was active with them he was unaware of the rumored fresh violations involving Plowright at Mill Creek. It is also known that Plowright, who is not in custody, has hired an experienced local contractor to “remediate” the damage he or associates did to Little Mill. Mr. Long said Plowright would be in Mendocino County Superior Court on the 16th of this month where the case would either be settled or set for a preliminary hearing. (I got the impression from Mr. Long that it would settle.) Plowright, incidentally, is represented by former Mendo DA Duncan James. He had been represented by present DA David Eyster. Eyster had to turn the matter over to the State Attorney General when Eyster was elected DA, deftly making the transition from defense lawyer to chief prosecutor.
REUBEN BROWN and Maria Kaplan are in business on Greenwood Road as Mendoscenic Ridge, accommodations about two miles up from Hendy Woods.
AS ARE Dennis McSweeney and Leslie Osman at The Navarro Mill Guest House, Wendling Street, Navarro, and they've been there for five years, which I was unaware of because I haven't been on Wendling Street for at least ten years.
AND, YES, you qualify as an old timer if you remember the Navarro Dump at the end of Wendling Street.
GOT A KICK out of the Rastafarians at the General Store the other day as Mom and Pop Rasta, dreadlocks flowing, called out to their two careening little dreadlocked Rastas to be a little less careening, “Freedom! Justice!” (Boy, are those kids going to have some 'splaining to do.)
THEN THERE'S the mom who says she felt like screaming when her daughter informed her that she and her husband planned to name their child, 'River.' (Hippie! The beast that won't die!)
TERRY RYDER lost her keys at Lauren's last Trivia night.
“They're on a dark blue strap, Terry tells us, “that says CADCA and have a large beaded strawberry charm attached to three keys: a car key with black Honda plastic on it, a post box key and a heavy key with a squared-off top.” Reward for return: Terry Ryder 894-8429.
UNCLEAR on two concepts in one sentence? The Ukiah Valley Medical Center will be offering a free drive-thru diabetes screening test on Monday, November 14th “in honor of World Diabetes Day.” I don't 'honor' is the word we want here, and if you think you might have diabetes you ought to be walking up to the drive-thru window, not driving.
TWO MUCH APPRECIATED gifts arrived last week, the first being a sample tasting of Mary Pat Palmer's truly wonderful absinthe brewed by the master mistress of potions herself at Navarro, and a package of gift cards illustrated by the brilliant South Coast painter, Jane Head, depicting one of the famous Point Arena zebras.
BY NOW you've voted, and I hope you've voted to liberate the school board from a quarter century of 5-0 votes. Naturally, the 5-0's and their agents have been hustling around The Valley pulling aside the credulous and the uninvolved to say, “Here's who you should vote for and why,” and that of course would be Marti Bradford and Dick Browning, 5-0's to their very marrow. There are lots of people who think 5-0 management practices and all that they imply are just fine, and lots of Russians still yearn for Stalin, but I daresay most parents, especially parents of high school students, would like to see major changes in Boonville management practices.
HOW GOOD are our schools? No one will confuse the high school with Eton, but they're about like most American high schools — not so hot, and not so hot for lots of reasons ranging from low parental expectations, to uninspired instruction, to the overpowering effects on young people of our idiot-making popular culture (often encouraged by idiots running the schools), to the separation of teenagers from the rest of us like they're some sort of interim sub-species, to the prevalence of dope, to really bad management by really dumb, lazy people. (cf Paul Tichinin of the Mendocino County Office of Education, walking testimony that we're talking failed system here.)
AND THEN THERE'S the big local one. Which in our case is that 80 percent of our students are the children of immigrants still learning the ropes here in GringoLandia and, despite their large prevalence in the student body, still lack any representation at any level of local government, and certainly aren't represented at the school board level. What do the Mexicans really think of the local schools? I have no idea (note to self: get a translator and find out). All we get from the school bloc is a lot swellness rhetoric.
WHAT I'VE ALWAYS found especially irritating about the local school apparat, as dominated by J.R. Collins and Mrs. Pierson-Pugh, and their gofers like Mrs. Bradford, Browning, is its impenetrably smug assumption that they're not only simply swell in themselves and doing an even sweller job educating “America's future,” but there's something seriously wrong with anyone who doesn't share that assumption. Lots of people don't. If Bendini gets elected to the school board Bendini will be representing the many local people, especially Mexican and Anglo parents, who think the local schools could be a lot better.
TIME FOR THE USUAL disclaimer which, if not issued, the fuzzy-warms get all upset and go around saying, “There he goes again, Mr. Negative.” I like J.R. and Donna on a personal level. They're capable, nice people. Dick Browning seems like an affable old gaffer, and I'll always be grateful to Marti Bradford for picking me up that scorching afternoon twenty years ago when I was hitchhiking back from Ukiah. I know how excruciating the next 16 miles must have been for her. But golly willikers we're all adults here, aren't we? Can't we talk about this stuff without everyone getting all het up?
I ESPECIALLY appreciated Ernie Pardini's interview remark last week putting school things in historical perspective by pointing out that teachers used to be obligated to at least one extra-curricular activity or sport as part of their contract. That's long gone. If it weren't for community-minded volunteers we wouldn't have all but one of the sports programs.
COACH STEVE SPARKS has lost four starters from his league champ and playoff-bound soccer team because they couldn't manage a 2.0 gpa. You'd think they'd at least have tried to stay eligible given their success this year, but....
THE FOOTBALL PANTHERS travel to Point Arena this Saturday for a crucial 2pm game with the Fog Eaters while Sparks' champion soccer team is again in the regional play offs here in Boonville, also at 2pm Saturday, against either the Bay School or Emery School of Emeryville.
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