MCT: Thursday, August 6, 2020

• Cool Day
• Another Death
• Weather Trends
• Elk Logging
• CSD Water Project
• Old Ukiah
• Covelo Cave
• Boonville ATM
• Regulating Cannabis
• Satchmo Sphinx
• Intoxicated Shopper
• Record Junky
• Good Apples
• School Reopening
• Ed Notes
• Job Fair
• Adams Interview
• Yesterday's Catch
• Biden Charade
• Flying Saucer
• History Lesson
• Art Important
• Butterfly
• Mail Vote
• Bombiversary Show
• Found Object

COOLER TEMPERATURES last through today as an upper level trough moves across northwest California. The deep marine layer, along with widespread and persistent coastal clouds, should slowly begin to shrink tonight as the trough exits the region. Inland temperatures will be heating back up starting Friday and continue through the weekend, while the coast may see a bit more in the way of sunshine. (NWS)

COVID-19 DAILY UPDATE – 8/5/2020

15 additional cases of COVID-19 have been identified in Mendocino County, bringing the total to 356. 1 additional death has been reported.

NOAA: WEATHER TRENDS OVER THE LAST DECADE IN NW CALIFORNIA

There were several significant events and trends in the past decade. The interior areas, including Ukiah, saw temperatures consistently above normal with some of the warmest years ever recorded. For reasons not fully understood, overnight low temperatures were higher than in previous decades. This contributed more to the warming of the last decade than the high temperatures. Near the coast two stations tied or broke their all time hottest record in September of 2017. In September of 2017 very hot weather enveloped much of the west coast including northwest California. This included both the coastal areas and the inland areas. Eureka tied the highest all-time temperature ever recorded of 87 degrees and many inland areas were around 110 degrees, although all time records were not set in most locations. 

On the precipitation side some of the driest years ever recorded were seen in 2014-2015. In the mountains some of the lowest snowpacks were recorded in 2015. This switched by the winter of 2016-2017 when some stations recorded one of their top 10 wettest years. One of the biggest rainfall events and worst flooding occurred the following year in 2019.

Full Report: wrh.noaa.gov/eka/misc/2010_to_2019_Weather_Summary.pdf

ELK LOGGING

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REGULAR MEETING OF THE WATER PROJECTS COMMITTEE

ANDERSON VALLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT

To be held via teleconference Phone # 669 900 6833 Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 Password 048078

Public comments or must be submitted by 10:00am on August 6^th, 2020 electronically to water.avcsd@gmail.com

August 6, 2020 at 10:30am

Call To Order And Roll Call:

Recognition Of Guests And Hearing Of Public:

Approval Of July 2, 2020 Regular Meeting Minutes

Changes Or Modification To This Agenda: 

Report On Drinking Water Project

Report On Wastewater Project

Public Outreach

Concerns Of Members:

Adjournment:

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Previously:

Minutes

Regular Meeting Of The Water Projects Committee

Anderson Valley Community Services District

To be held via teleconference Phone # 669 900 6833 Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 Password 048078

July 2, 2020 at 10:30am

Call To Order And Roll Call: Called to order by Chair Hanelt at 10:32am. Present: Valerie Hanelt, Kathleen McKenna. Staff: Joy Andrews

Recognition Of Guests And Hearing Of Public: Corey Limback, Jim Lutticken, Francois Christen, Janet Lombard, Yoriko Kishimoto, Deb Cahn

Approval Of June 4, 2020 Regular Meeting Minutes: Minutes were accepted

Changes Or Modification To This Agenda: None

Report On Drinking Water Project: No written agreements have been made so far, those will come later. Engineer is still looking for water sources, but most of the wells sites have been determined.

REPORT ON WASTEWATER PROJECT: This project has been designed except for the site since September. The engineer and a rep from the state and CSD Director Mailliard are meeting with owner of potential site week of July 20th.

Public Outreach

Report On Technical Assistance With RCAC: Nothing new 

Draft Drinking Water Information Letter: Draft presented and will be edited for board meeting

Concerns Of Members: None

Adjourned At 11:35a.M.

OLD UKIAH

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GOOD NEWS OUTTA COVELO

Hello Round Valley! My best buddy, and Covelo's favorite Italian, (Franco Tavazzi) are opening the "Old Drake's Inn" as the "Covelo Cave."

Our menu is your menu! So, please tell us what YOU want as food? We are a family and community establishment, that hopes to serve everyone's needs. Not to mention we have a fire stone pizza oven.

If you want to hold an event, birthday party, Christmas party, a meeting of the minds, or just celebrate the awesome people in your life, we will cater to your needs. We are building a community hub, and it starts with you. "It's not our restaurant! It's your restaurant!" So, tell us what you need. 

Our plans are to have a 3000 square foot outdoor area with dining, a stage and games. No more going to Willits just to get away. We will bring the bands, and excitement to you. 

We will also be hiring quite a few people, with the hope to see our community come together, and eat together. Whether it's over a live sporting event, or karaoke.

And yes, we are transplants. But if you know us already, you know you can't deny our charm, and lust for pizza. We are here to take your hearts, and fill your soul! 

So, Round Valley! What food, and/or events do you want to see? Our only success is based off your happiness. 

Open breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Brunch on the weekends!

Break bread with us Round Valley! Let us feed you homemade comfort food with an Italian twist!

Stay tuned for news on our grand opening!

COMING SOON TO BOONVILLE

POT CONFUSION & CONUNDRUMS: IT’S NOT EASY

by Casey O’Neill, HappyDay Farms

Folks have mentioned to me that they’ve noticed I’ve been quiet on the cannabis front for the last few months. We saw a huge uptick in vegetable sales this spring, and the process of expanding our production to match has taken every bit of energy we possess. This is the first time since 2014 that I’ve been on my farm full time and that feels glorious.

What doesn’t feel so glorious is the confusion and conundrums surrounding cannabis right now. The snafu of CDFW (California Department of Fish and Wildlife) delays on sensitive species and habitat reviews (SSHR), CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act), and land-use regulations has created a very real problem for the future of regulated cultivation in Mendocino County. I would like to offer some thoughts in regards to the various commentaries that have been floating around of late.

The County has worked with the California Department of Food and Agriculture to draft a checklist called “Appendix G” that would suffice for CEQA for some cultivators. This should be utilized wherever possible. For those businesses that are in process but cannot utilize Appendix G because of specific conditions on their parcels, the County should develop a streamlined land-use permit. For future new businesses, the county should continue its effort to develop a full land-use permit process.

I want to be clear that I am not taking a position around the question of expansion of cultivation size. I will say, however, that my farm would not pursue a permit above 10,000 square feet regardless of whether it were available.

It is important to point out the remaining stigma that exists around cannabis cultivation as indicated in recent opinions pieces in local publications. Cannabis is regulated in Mendocino County to not exceed a quarter acre (10,000 sq ft.) of flowering canopy. For all the talk of “big growers”, a quarter acre of production does not make a large farm in the eyes of agriculturalists.

And for all the hue and cry about big growers, the permitting system is the most rigorous of anything that exists in agriculture. California issues licenses to cultivators based on a great many criteria including water usage, permitting from various state agencies and permission from the local jurisdiction in which the farm is located. There is a dual licensing system that requires cultivators to apply for both state and local licensure.

There are large-scale unregulated operations that can have significant negative effects on the environment and the community. We’ve seen these types of operations face enforcement actions in Covelo this summer. Egregious environmental crimes are never acceptable.

The most important issue in local cannabis at this time is not expansion, it is the question of whether cultivators will be able to transition to State Annual licenses when the State Provisional licenses expire at the end of next year. Aside from their local permit application, most cultivators with state licenses in Mendocino County are operating under a Provisional license, which means that in the eyes of the California Department of Food and Agriculture we have not met our obligations under CEQA. We must do so in order to receive full Annual Licenses that are renewed each year for as long as we choose to continue in business. The deadline to get an Annual State License is January 2022. We cannot get Annual State Licenses without having the SSHR and other site-specific CEQA review.

I believe that county policymakers recognize that the priority must be to work with staff to help craft a way to completion of state annual licenses for the cohort of cultivators who are already in process. Those who wish to expand and those who wish to begin new cultivation must take a backseat to maintaining the current licensees. The businesses that are in process already are creating jobs and contributing significant tax revenue to the county at a time when budgets are in the red because of the pandemic.

My personal standpoint is that a streamlined land-use process that satisfies CEQA — whether through the Appendix G process between the County and CDFA [click here] or through issuance of a land-use permit — would be ideal. There is a problem of timeline, in which either of these options could take longer than the “provisionals” are in effect, forcing some businesses to close. The other problem is that CDFA has based the Appendix G on our current ordinance. Significant changes to the current ordinance have the potential to jeopardize the Appendix G process, although there is not clarity as of yet as to how effective this process might be. Until these problems are solved, we won’t be able to stay in business unless the state extends the existing provisional licenses, which at this point, they say they won’t do.

In short, the regulatory morass is real and will require some time to sort out. The rising note of concern from community members about cannabis is real, but should also be tempered by the reality that ending Prohibition is not easy and that this is perhaps the most complicated policy issue that the county will grapple with in this decade. More information on these issues can be found in the memos submitted by the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance (linked here). In the interest of full transparency, I serve on the policy committee of MCA, though my opinions in this letter are solely my own.

I’m frightened by the prospect of having to shutter my cannabis business. I’m concerned about the future of regulated cannabis in the state of California. I’m saddened by the public discourse that I see. I hope for better from all of us.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

LOUIS ARMSTRONG PLAYS TO HIS WIFE, Lucille, in front of the Great Sphinx and pyramids in Giza, Egypt, 1961

The Armstrongs were on a U.S. State Department-sponsored Goodwill Tour of Africa and the Middle East.

DRIVING DRUNK WITH A 7-YEAR-OLD IN THE BACK SEAT

On Tuesday, August 4, at approximately 6:12 pm, Ukiah Police officers were dispatched to Furniture Design Center, 1205 Airport Park Boulevard, for a report of a female adult who was intoxicated in the store and being belligerent.

UPD officers learned that the female had told employees of the store that she was planning to travel back to Covelo in her truck. Based on the female adult's perceived level of intoxication, a Furniture Design Center Employee contacted the UPD for fear of the female leaving the store and traveling on a roadway potentially injuring herself or someone else.

UPD officers arrived on the scene as the female adult, identified as Brooke Ann Halvorsen, 41 of Covelo, was pulling out of a parking space in her 2020 Chevy Truck. As the officer pulled up, Halvorsen immediately exited the vehicle and began walking around the vehicle while leaving the truck's engine running.

The officer contacted Halvorsen and immediately observed objectives signs and symptoms of alcohol intoxication while he and Halvorsen spoke. Halvorsen relayed to the officer that she was en route to Covelo after being in Ukiah for the day.

Additional UPD officers arrived on the scene and contacted Halvorsen’s 7-year-old daughter who was in the back seat of the vehicle. Halvorsen submitted to field sobriety tests and completed a preliminary alcohol breath test which showed her blood alcohol at over three times the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle in the State of California.

UPD officers advised Halvorsen that she was being placed under arrest for driving under the influence and attempted to place her in handcuffs. As the UPD officer was attempting to place Halvorsen in handcuffs she became extremely agitated and began physically resisting and verbally assaulting the Officer.

A second officer came to assist in arresting Halvorsen and she was placed in handcuffs without further incident. A UPD officer stayed with Halvorsen’s 7-year-old daughter after the incident as she was visibly upset after witnessing the above encounter.

Halvorsen was placed under arrest for Driving under the influence, Child endangerment and Resisting a Peace Officer.

Halvorsen was booked and lodged at the MCSO jail for the above charges and her 7-year-old daughter was released to the care and custody of Mendocino County Department of Child Protective Services.

The Ukiah Police Department would like to remind the great citizens of Ukiah that during the current COVID-19 pandemic we are still out in the city enforcing the law and keeping the public safe. As always, our mission at the Ukiah Police Department is to make Ukiah as safe as possible."

LETTER FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

To all of the men and women who wear the badge:

Each day that you put on your uniform and leave your family to walk and ride among us … we see you.

We respect you, and feel glad that you are here.

We know that your uniform points you out as an honorable champion of safety.

But

For a few who have no wisdom or understanding it makes you a target.

Of hate.

Of ridicule.

Of disdain.

They are loud … 

and their hearts plot violence.

They get - lots - of attention.

We do not.

So, it's time to write and tell you that if you should ever feel "the friends you thought you had" are nowhere to be found, remember this:

It's not true.

We are still here, standing right with you in heart and spirit ready to support you in any way you need.

Emotionally.

Financially.

Spiritually.

And physically.

That's right…

You can always count on us to answer the call if (God forbid) you should ever need to deputize us.

There are many more of us than them, with thankful hearts for you.

The blood and tears that have been shed, the brave lives lost, and the thousands upon thousands of hours of unseen laboring on our behalf are precious to us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you!

Semper Fi.

Hope, courage, and perseverance,

— Robert Forest

Mendocino

PS. We wanted to publish this letter in all of the local newspapers but they have censored us saying that it is "too controversial." Personally, I don't understand how expressing thanks to our local law enforcement family can be labeled this way. So, please feel free to share the hell out of it … (!)

ED NOTES

ANSWERING the telephone at a newspaper is a daily adventure. This afternoon a caller began, "I am the naked woman walking down the street in Yorkville. I am that person." I briefly wondered if a naked woman was presently walking down the street in Yorkville, a lightly populated area where even clothed pedestrians are a rare sight. Nope, the caller was the naked lady of two weeks ago who was taken into custody in Yorkville with Casey Hardison, the latter an internationally known (and wanted) drug figure. "I want everyone to know I'm doing very well," the caller said, as she identified herself as Victoria Carmen Clemente, a distant relative of the famous baseball player. "There was a lot of misinformation in that article," Ms. Clemente emphasized. "I was not held against my will. We're in a totally loving relationship. Any rumors that I'm a victim are false. What I did was me, my fault. I only complained about restraints when I was in the ambulance. When I read that report it demonized my partner and that is not true." Ms. Clemente said she and Hardison "used to live in Yorkville. We were visiting a friend there when this happened." Mr. Hardison remains in custody in the Mendocino County Jail.

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Original article (AVA, August 5, 2020):

ANDERSON VALLEY EMERGENCY PERSONNEL were dispatched to an initial report of a pedestrian being hit by a vehicle near Yorkville early last Tuesday (28 July) afternoon. While searching for the injured pedestrian, Sheriff’s vehicles materialized at Elkhorn Road to arrest two persons, one of whom was a highly intoxicated naked woman, the other an “high profile individual,” neither of them locals. The AV Ambulance took the nude woman into their care because of her level of intoxication and delivered her to Adventist Hospital in Ukiah. 

THE HIGH PROFILE INDIVIDUAL has been identified as Casey William Hardison, 49, an American citizen lately of Santa Cruz, formerly of Wyoming, formerly a resident of England where he got into big trouble involving illegal drugs. 

HARDISON was apparently being sought by outside jurisdictions, hence the large police response to Yorkville. He has a long history of drug offenses and is considered dangerous by law enforcement. The Sheriff's Department received a tip that Hardison was staying in the Elkhorn area of Yorkville. 

THE INTERNATIONAL DRUG BIGWIG corralled on Elkhorn Road near Yorkville last week was found with a distressed nude drunk woman. He is Casey Hardison but she remains unidentified because it appears she may be a victim of the grinning perp, noted by international police forces for his unfailingly jolly Joker-like demeanor. Hadn't been this much excitement on Elkhorn Road since Bill Cook drove off the road only to languish for some time before his cries for help were heard by a rare passerby on the lightly traveled road. Before Bill's mishap there was an old world murder on Elkhorn committed by a Mexican man, an uncle, entrusted with the care of his beautiful young niece. The niece had been relentlessly pursued by a young Mexican male. Warned to stay away from the girl by her guardian, the guardian shot the bewitched young man to death when he wouldn’t stay away from her.

WHY was Mr. International Drug Guy on Elkhorn Road? Even taking into account that Mendocino County can seem like an open air Witness Protection Program, and Yorkville having plenty of likely hideouts (and outlaws) if you have connections in the area, Mr. Big's presence in the Anderson Valley was unusual. 

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JOE BIDEN, challenged by ace test taker Trump, rolled out this non sequiter to a reporter as a way of saying he would not take a cognitive test. “No, I haven't taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? Come on man, that's like saying, before you got in this program, you're taking a test whether you're taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?”.

THE GREAT FORT BRAGG name change battle has gone sorta dormant, buried in an advisory committee process that will select the good and the pure to advise the Fort Bragg City Council on an “appropriate” name for the town. Come to think of it, Appropriateville might work. Or Hubrisville given the surplus of it in the Mendo-Fort Bragg region.

A READER ASKS, “What is Bushanksy-ism? You put that over the guy's resignation letter from Coast Park and Rec.” Uh, well, it's more of a kind of malaise than it is a coherent theory like, say, Marxism, but if you've ever walked into a Mendo public meeting on a beautiful spring early evening happy to be alive and one of the board members, all of whom take themselves very, very seriously, says, “We need an ad hoc committee whose focus is a proactive interface with our advisory board” and suddenly you're suffocating and you leap from the cancer-causing confines of the joyless, cruel room and the low-grade totalitarians dominating the space and all our spaces everywhere and you run for your life and all life! … Something like that.

FOR THOSE WHO VIEW the Albion incident as a law enforcement over-reaction (I don’t, and that no one is dead or badly injured and nothing got burned up, is evidence of a properly done intervention), try this one for a true and pretty surreal police over-reaction:

Worst Responders

From a 2017 complaint filed by David and Gretchen Jessen against Fresno County and the city of Clovis, California, for damages incurred during a police raid on their home. In June 2016, construction workers called the police after they witnessed a homeless man break into the Jessens’ house. The Jessens returned to find their home surrounded by law enforcement. The Jessens argue that damage to their home was “unreasonable and unjustified.” In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Fresno County and the city of Clovis.

The Clovis Police Department and the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office deployed the following:

• Fifty-five vehicles
• A K-9 unit
• Two helicopters
• Two ambulances
• A fire truck
• A crisis negotiation team in a motor home
• A SWAT team
• A backup SWAT team
• A robot

Law enforcement officers did the following to the Jessens’ home:

• Broke six windows
• Ripped out the front door and an interior door
• Pulled an office wall off the foundation
• Used a flash bomb in the office
• Ripped off the door to the laundry room
• Used a flash bomb in the laundry room
• Teargassed the laundry room
• Teargassed the kitchen
• Teargassed the master bathroom
• Teargassed the guest bedroom
• Teargassed the office bathroom
• Teargassed the sewing room
• Destroyed more than 90 feet of fencing with a SWAT vehicle
• Shattered a sliding glass door for robot entry

The homeless man did the following:

• Broke a window
• Stole milk, an ice cream bar, and half a tomato

(From: Harper’s, August, 2020)

A VANISHING BREED: RICKY ADAMS

Interviewed by Bruce Anderson (July 25, 2001)

There aren't many people left in Mendocino County whose lives are lived with the seasons, fishing and hunting and making split stuff when the rains come, logging in the summer months, with maybe an abalone excursion or two on a mid-summer Saturday morning if the tides are right. There are even fewer people whose livings derive from both the natural world's seasonal rhythms and its bounty. 

Ricky Adams of Boonville is among the last generation of Northcoast people who live the old way, and he knows he's the last. A married man with two grown children, the middle-aged logger scarcely recognizes the place he was born and raised. A familiar sight in the front yard of his modest Boonville home where he spends whole days chopping firewood and stacking it in precise cords, Ricky Adams talks about then and now.

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AVA: You remind me a lot of the late Buck Clark, Anderson Valley's legendary logger and split-stuff man. We'd see Buck out in his yard in all kinds of weather with his axe and his splitting maul.

Adams: I made a lot of splits with old Buck. He was a good friend of mine. He taught me how to make split stuff. He used to come down here and I'd have a bunch of splits made up and the scraps throwed out and he’d pick up some of my scraps and say, “You know, you’re throwin’ the best part of ’em away.” Anything you could make outta redwood, that old guy could make it. Dang right. 

AVA: How long have you been at it?

Adams: Probably 30 years. I went to work in the woods in ‘70. And I’m 50. Back then I started scrounging up ol’ redwood stuff, and I’d ask ol’ Buck, Howya do this, and howya do that? He’d come down and show me. When he got so old he couldn't work much, I made a lot of split stuff with Rex, Buck's son-in-law. We’d be the loader and chopper, and Buck’d be the boss, more or less. In the summer I’d fall timber, run cat. Winter time I’d cut wood; or if somebody comes around and needs some trees cut here or there, I'd do that. Plus about every November I take a month off and go stay with my cousin in Arkansas and we'd go deer huntin’. Come back here and start over again.

AVA: What was firewood going for in 1970?

Adams: I tellya what. I’ve sold it for 13 bucks a tier and there’s three tiers to the cord. That was in high school, mostly on weekends. We’d cut a load-a-wood, and get $13 bucks for it and think we'd struck gold. Heck, gas was only 30¢ a gallon too. With $13, me an’ ol’ Wayne we’d go find somebody who’d buy us a case a beer, fill our car up with gas and we’d still have money left over! 

AVA: Now?

Adams: I’ve been gettin’ $200 a cord for it. It’s goin’ up to $225 this year. 

AVA: Can you cut it fast enough to sell it to everyone who wants it?

Adams: Last winter I went through 70 cord. I was out of wood when winter was over. I’ve got a lot of people bought wood from me for the last seven or eight years. Plus, I got people goin’ campin’ somewhere and if they got room they’ll stop by and pick up a cord to take home with ’em. I’ve never had none of this wood rot! What I don’t sell — I got a wood stove and my wife’ll sure take care of it, I tellya.

AVA: Is that splitter fairly new?

Adams: I’ve had it for five years. I used to split all the stuff with a splittin; maul. And it just got to be too much work. It’s still a lot of work doin’ it this way, but it sure saves a lot of time. This here’s not too bad splittin’ tan oak, but you get some of this ol’ live oak… It just stays together, man. You can beat yourself to death on that. 

AVA: Is it gettin’ harder to find wood?

Adams: Yeah, it is. Most of the places they’re loggin’ they don’t want you cuttin’ firewood anyway. They’d just as soon see it lay there and rot. The vineyard people… every once in a while you run into somebody who lets you on to cut up down stuff. I used to cut stuff that blew down at Scharffenbergers. But most of these places now they don’t want you cuttin’ no wood or doin’ nuthin'. I can show you wood all around here that’s just wasted, just layin’ there and rottin’. Redwood, same way. Windfall like this , there’s a lot of this around here. They just won’t let you have ‘em.

AVA: The Valley isn't the same place. It's scary how fast it's changed.

Adams: When I was a kid I was raised up here where Jimmy Wellington is now. We’d take off and you could go up on them mountains and hunt and there wasn’t a road or nuthin’. Never run into nobody. Just point your gun any which way you want and that’s the way you went. Nobody never bothered you. Go up Conn Creek and stay up there from Friday night to Sunday. Me and Ronnie’d go up there and camp out and fish and eat ever what we got — we was really Daniel Boone. Any more you can’t go nowhere or do nuthin’. 

AVA: They hear a gunshot up there and they call 911 and here come the helicopters and the boys in the black jumpsuits.

Adams: Oh yeah! It’s not rural hardly anymore. 

AVA: So you’ll hear about downed wood, or people will call you…?

Adams: People will have a tree blow down, or… I got this up there in Manchester where they was loggin’. We cut the right away for the road, and there was a lot of old oak in there and they told me I could have it. They told me to take a few days off and if I wanted some of that oak, go up there and get it. They have the loaders right there, so I just loaded it into the pickup and haul ’em home. When I get time or feel like comin’ out here… If I get it in the yard, I can go at my own pace. If I feel like doin’ a little splittin,’ fine, if I don’t, that's fine too. I might go six months before I get a chance to get in and get some wood. You never know. 

AVA: The old Masonite would let people in to take downed trees, right?

Adams: Yes. I worked out on their property. If you needed posts they’d give ya a permit to get the old redwood logs and any firewood that was down or dead. You could get all you wanted. And then that even quit. Used to be able to get a huntin’ permit for out there too. Now, the people that own it are more like hunt clubs. If you wanna pay $1000 a year you can hunt on their property. Whoopee! The day I gotta pay $1000 here to hunt in this damn place, that’s when I quit! I Got a little buck right there in the backyard once. Damn right. Got horns about that high. If I need some deer meat, I know what happens. As long as it stays outta my garden, that’s fine. 

AVA: Wasn’t it L-P that stopped giving out wood cutting permits?

Adams: When L-P first took over from Masonite they’d give you a permit for a while. Then they said, No more. Used to be when a tree blowed down on the side of the road, you’d go down and cut it up. Now you’re supposed to go down and see the state, and they gotta go through a bunch of bull to get you a permit before you can cut wood even on the side of the road! I was cuttin’ some out in Yorkville when a guy stopped by and said, ' Ya know, you’re not supposed to be doin’ that. I personally don’t care how much you cut, but you need to go down there and get the piece of paper. They told me it’d take six months to get a damn permit and I said it’s not even worth it to fool around with it. 

AVA: And work in the woods is slowing down.

Adams: Last year I started April 4. This year I started June 4. We finished up cuttin’ a job Tuesday. We were supposed to be goin’ over on to another job Monday, but on account of the paperwork and what else, we're still not workin'. I think this is going to be my last year in the woods, anyway. I’ve been in there just long enough and it’s just gettin’ worse every year. Just work, work, work and I don’t feel like I gain anything. Except get crippled up, my back hurtin’, and… I’m not gettin’ no younger. It’s a young man’s job. When I was 25 or 30 I could… Now by God I’ll tell you, I cain’t do as much as I used to. I get tired quicker. I still got it here (points to head). I know how to fall trees and every other job out there, but dang it, I just can’t cut as many or do what I used to. 

AVA: Wood is still the best heat. Those Monitor heaters are good, but…

Adams: My cousin in Arkansas has that propane heat, or whatever. I don’t like ‘em. It’s just not wood heat. I’ve had wood heat all my life, even when I was a kid, wood heat. 

AVA: Still do some abalone-ing?

Adams: Yeah! I went three times this year. 

AVA: Special place?

Adams: Near the mouth of the river. Me and Jerry Smith go up there. He’s bigger and a lot younger in case I get down in there and can’t get back up. It’s a good place, but you need a rope to get in and out. Last time I went I didn’t go from here to that wheelbarrow and the first abalone I found was all good abalone. I got my limit early and those guys got theirs. It took me longer to get in there and back out than it did to get the abalone. But there aren't very many places any more. This place I go to, I’m not sure if it’s private or not. I’ve been goin’ there for I don’t know how many years and I’ve never had anybody give me no grief, or nuthin’. We used to go up there at Salmon Creek, and then they got to gripin’ and bitchin’ about that. I don’t even deer hunt around here anymore. Haven’t got a place to go. It ain’t worth it to me any more to have to argue with somebody, or get in trouble over something. 

AVA: Fishing?

Adams: I flat quit fishing down there in the river. $42 for a fishin’ permit? Why? I bought ‘em for abalone-ing. You go down there and you catch a fish and then you gotta let it go. I like to eat one once in a while! Go down there and freeze to death all day long and catch one fish and then have to let it go? I don’t like that too good. This year the water got up and them steelhead got up around up in here and then no more rain and it went down and there are still steelhead in these holes up through here. They ain’t no good now. They’d be real soft cause water’s got warm. Why don’t Fish and Game come up here and take them out and put them back in the ocean instead of letting them sit there? They’re complaining about no fish. Why don’t they do something like that? Instead, they took all them prisoners and cleaned North Fork out. Then the fish ain’t got any shade and they went back and put the stuff back in there for shade. Leave stuff alone and mother nature will take care of most of it. Start foolin’ with it and mother nature’s going to get unhappy.

Me and my grandpa used to fish up on Minnie Creek when I was maybe 7-8 years old, trout fishing up there. And them old logjams are still up there and you can go up there in the winter and there are steelhead clear up in there… How they get up there, I don’t know. But they do. You can go up there and see some nice trout too. These other creeks around here you don’t see ‘em because they cleaned all the shade out. The little fish have to have somewhere to go to get out of the sun or they’ll just die. Why can’t Fish and Game figure some of this out? A lot of stuff they do is good. But some of it just don’t make sense to me. They went to college and all that. Open up the book and the book says to do it and they do it.

AVA: How many cords have you cut already this year?

Adams: I got 20 stacked up here and I’m trying to buy some logs from a guy in Yorkville that’s sawed up in rounds. Got some more over here on Jack June’s that sawed up, maybe 15 or 20 cords over there. I’ll probably go through 50 or 60 cord again. 

AVA: You set chokers when you started in the woods?

Adams: Yup. Set chokers for Kay Hiatt. Did that for awhile and then he came by one day and asked, “Do you wanna run cat?” I said, I didn’t know how to run any damn cat. He said, “Well you know how to shift gears in that car! So he put me out on an old 6. And I’m tellin’ you, I just tore it up. I thought, Hell, I can go anywhere now. It was an older cat anyway. But when I got done with it, it was totaled out. He said, Well, since you totaled that one out, by golly, I’ll get ya another one. I think you’re gonna be a good cat skinner if you don’t kill yourself. 

AVA: Then you work up to fallin’ trees?

Adams: Old Jack Hiatt, Kay's brother, he was workin; with us. Me and him got along good. We fished together a little. When they used to have trap shoots up here, me and him would go up there and shoot. He’d get tired of fallin’ trees. If I happened to build a road or was skiddin’ around him or something, he’d say, Hell, you don’t know how to run cat anyway so go down there and fall some trees. He knew I wanted to start fallin’. That’s the way I learned, just go do it! He wouldn’t let anybody get ahold of his chainsaw so he must of figured I’d do all right with it. He was particular about his saws.

AVA: Isn’t it a lot more dangerous now, steeper slopes…?

Adams: The timber used to be thicker and better. Most times better ground. Now they got these yarders and stuff and they log some real steep ground. I try not to have nuthin’ to do with that. I cut one yarder strip once and that was enough. It was hard. Trying to buck stuff. Hell, logs are fallin’ all around you on all sides. You’re buckin’, you fall another one and the tree will hit and it’ll go down beneath the other logs, and you gotta try to get in there and buck in stuff, I… 

AVA: Any close calls setting chokers?

Adams: No. I set behind Kay. He just worked the hell out of me, is what he did. (Laughs) If I’d had a few beers the night before, the next day, that’s when he really made me work. He wouldn’t quit. “Pull that line! Sweat that beer out, boy!” I tell ya. 

AVA: How long have you lived in this house?

Adams: I’ve lived here 22 or 23 years. I’m renting. I missed buyin’ it by two damn days. Harold (Perry) here next door bought it. I didn’t know it was for sale. It sold for $20,000. I’d-a jumped right on it. I was livin’ down in the apartments across from you. I came down and tried to buy it. I said, I’ll give you $30,000 and you don’t even gotta do nuthin’. He wouldn’t do it. So I ended up renting. Hell. He could have sold it four or five times, but he said, Aw, you’ve lived there for so long I’m not going to sell it. I’d hate to have to see you move all that wood. 

AVA: That's a very nice fire wood for sale sign. Did you carve it?

Adams: Yeah. That’ll stop tourists and people from comin’ through here right on in to my house. They see the sign and me workin' here, they stop where they're supposed to stop. I got another one in my pumphouse over there that I finally took down. People were runnin’ me nuts! You’d be surprised how much wood I sell to people goin’ campin’. It’s not much, but sometimes they’ll get a couple of armloads and hand you a $20 bill. There was one or two guys goin’ campin’, I had a couple wheelbarrows full and they gave me $20. I said, That’s too much. They said, Where we come from that ain’t enough! He said they’d stopped down somewhere in the city in the Safeway store and it was $17 for a little old box a wood. They had a wheelbarrow full, but he said $20 ain’t enough for it.

AVA: Cords down below go for $400 or more.

Adams: I imagine. Friedman Bros. it was selling for $320 a cord last winter. 

AVA: And in the cold months you can go through…

Adams: This guy that bought five cords from me last year, he ran out of wood — I don’t know what kind of stove he’s got! He burns wood. He’s a good customer. I don’t know how much I burn. I just burn odds and ends. It all comes out ashes anyway. As long as it burns, I don’t care. I don’t know how much wood mom and dad burned when they was burnin’ wood. I couldn’t keep enough wood down there. They kept it stoked up! If it was snowin’ right here and you go down there you better start sheddin’ clothes cause it won’t be snowin in that house; it’ll be 110 degrees! 

AVA: When you visit Arkansas, “the old country” Jeff Short called it, do you go to Mount Ida? 

Adams: Story’s the name of the town I go to. Mount Ida’s the closest town to it about 13 miles away. There’s a lot of people here that are in the valley from back there. I meet relatives I never knew I had when I go back there. I know more about people back there now than I do here. 

AVA: All kinds of new people here. No place to hunt.

Adams: I don’t see as many deer as I used to. Goin’ over to Ukiah, you don’t see as many as you used to.

AVA: The impact of grapes?

Adams: They’ll pump water out of the creeks and stuff. Let somebody go up there and try to get a load with a water truck and they’ll be in trouble. It wasn’t that long ago the creek down there had quite a bit of water in it. It was crystal clear. I was telling Dad that Anderson Creek was looking pretty good for fish. Pretty clear for fishing. Next morning, I don’t know what they was doin’, but it was just as muddy as the middle of damn winter. These vineyards, I guess they keep a lot of people workin’ but they don’t do a damn thing for me! Every once in a while I can get a little bit of wood from one of 'em, but I don’t drink wine. They’ve made this valley where a person can’t hardly afford to live here anymore. The property just went up so high. They bought everything. Cain’t do nuthin’ no more. I know at one vineyard down there they catch deer inside in the grapes, they just shoot the hell out of them. And they're supposed to get the Fish and Game to do something with them. I have seen them deer get shot and just left out in the vineyard to rot. I don’t like that a bit. If you’re gonna kill something, use it. That’s what my grandpa always taught me. He said, you catch a fish, if you don’t want it, release it. If you’re not going to use something, then don’t shoot it or kill it. Because, if you do, one of these days you’re not going to have all this game. And it’s damn sure happened. But there’s still some. I saw two nice bucks near the fence back there when I got back from Arkansas. Somebody said, How come you didn’t shoot one of them? I said, I got plenty of deer meat. I don’t need no deer meat. Why in hell shoot it? 

AVA: Do you think you’ll get a little more woods work this summer?

Adams: Some. Start a new job Monday out at Orr Springs Road somewhere. That won’t be much, about 100,000 feet. Then we’re goin’ out there on the Libeu’s and log some more and that’ll ‘bout do it. It could be raining next week, who knows?

AVA: Pigs?

Adams: There was four rootin’ down Soda Creek the other day. That’s the first pigs I’ve seen in I don’t know how long. Used to see 'em on the way to Ukiah all the time, and you’d always see some deer. But not any more. On Van’s old place up there, it was so brushy you couldn’t see one if you wanted to. I wish it was like it was when I was smaller. When we lived up here on the hill we raised our own cows, chickens… Back then Dad couldn’t afford to run to the store all the time. He worked in the sawmill before he worked in the school. My grandson doesn’t do none of that. I guess I’ll buy us a little boat here. I’m gonna buy a 12 foot aluminum boat, and when he gets a little older we can throw it in the back and go over to the lake and fiddle around and I'll try to show him something. I don’t want him to get 20 and not even know how to catch a fish. But I was born in Ukiah and lived in this valley all my life. I’ve seen a lot of changes. Fish and Game used to tell me not to fish out in the open; that's the way they'd handle it. The game warden would tell my dad he knew I was hunting out in Yorkville years ago and tell my dad to tell me to quit parking his pickup right on the side of the road. Everybody around knows what he’s doing and they’re pestering the hell out of me! 

AVA: We've got a lot of government here in Mendocino County for only a few of us. 

Adams: You know it. Don’t get me started on that government stuff. Crookedest damn people in the world running everything. If we did some of the stuff they do, you know where we’d end up. I’ve been there! I tried to do some of the stuff they done! (Laughs) It didn’t work out for me, so I went straight. ¥¥

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 5, 2020

CASSIDY BAKER, Fort Bragg. Cultivation of more than six marijuana plants, probation revocation.

BROOKE HALVORSEN, Ukiah. DUI, child endangerment, resisting.

ANGELA LEBERT, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

NATHANIEL SECKER, Santa Rosa/Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

And seeing Biden’s handlers cut him off in mid-sentence because he is going too far-afield in his answers as he says, “Wait! I have more to say!” 

I have actually seen one of his handlers grab his hand and lead him off stage like a lost child.

This charade cannot last much longer. Something so blatantly off the wall will be said by Biden that even Rachel Maddow will have to say something.

Most recently he said, “While I was at Walter Reed a nurse leaned over and breathed into my nostrils and she brought me pillows from her home.”

Imagine three two hour debates between Biden and Trump with no ear pieces for Joe, no TelePrompTer for Joe and no handlers there to drag him out of the room.

There is NO WAY they will let Biden openly debate Trump even with Zoom or FaceTime or whatever.

Biden’s team is whistling past the graveyard. Only a matter of time before they get spooked.

HISTORY LESSON

Editor,

At a rally in Worchester, Massachusetts, 1,900 people crowded inside, with 500 more in an adjoining hall and several hundred more standing outside, the speaker walked to the stage to begin his prepared speech.

He started by pointing to the reporters in the front rows and saying, “The press of this country is becoming discredited because it does not publish facts, does not tell the truth, does not serve the mass of the people impartially.”

The man was obsessed with the idea that immigrants, especially Catholics, were taking over our country.

No, it wasn’t Donald Trump addressing one of his circus rallies. It was Eugene Farnsworth, a former stage hypnotist turned leader and recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. The date was Sept. 27, 1923.

This information comes from “The World’s Fastest Man: the Extraordinary Life of Major Taylor, America’s First Black Sports Hero” by Michael Kranish. This outstanding book reveals the extent and depth of racism since the Civil War and how difficult it was then, as it is now, for people of color to be succeed in America.

It could be a great lesson for our president, but since he won’t even read daily security briefings, I guess our only hope is to have Fox News prepare a cartoon version.

Gary B. Robb

Sebastopol

ART HAS TO BE A KIND OF CONFESSION. 

I don’t mean a true confession in the sense of that dreary magazine. The effort it seems to me, is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too — the terms with which they are connected to other people. 

This has happened to every one of us, I’m sure. 

You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discovered it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. 

This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that they are alone. 

This is why art is important.

Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important. Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark.

Nobody knows what is going to happen to them from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. 

And it’s true for everybody. 

Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. 

Artists are here to disturb the peace. They have to disturb the peace. Otherwise, chaos.

— James Baldwin

BUTTERFLY

You are the most magnificent butterfly in my garden

Though you no more belong to me than the sweet lemon scent 

Drifting on the breeze through my open window.

Like every butterfly you flirt with my flowers

Though the signature of your own fluttering wings

Eclipses the lesser, paler colors that adore you.

You never stay long.

There’s so much to do between chrysalis and pollination

We have only this moment to shine together, trembling, side by side. 

But you always come back to me, more seductive than before, 

The delicate fanning of your wings

Beating your song into my heart

Telling me I’ll never be alone.

— Marilyn Davin 

75 YEARS AGO TO THE DAY, AUGUST 6, 1945, THE UNITED STATES DROPPED A NUCLEAR BOMB ON HIROSHIMA WITH A SECOND BOMB TO FOLLOW AUGUST 9TH, DEVASTATING NAGASAKI JAPAN

To discuss this historic US action, hosts John Sakowicz and Mary Massey return with another program of Heroes and Patriots, Thursday, August 6, 9-10 a.m. PST on KMUD Community Radio, Humboldt County.

Appearing on the program is Peter Kuznick, Professor of History, Director, Nuclear Studies Institute, American University. He is a co-author (with Akira Kimura), of Rethinking the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Japanese and American Perspectives, co-author (with Oliver Stone) of the New York Times best-selling The Untold History of the United States (books and documentary film series), and author “The Decision to Risk the Future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb and the Apocalyptic Narrative <https://apjjf.org/-Peter-J.-Kuznick/2479/article.html>. 

During the second half of the program, John and Mary welcome Chuck Collins. Mr. Collins is the director on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute of Policy Studies. He co-authored the report: "Gilded Giving 2020: How Wealth Inequality Distorts Philanthropy and Imperils Democracy" and, "The Giving Pledge at 10: A case Study in Top Heavy Philanthropy."

The program will stream live on KMUD Community Radio www.kmud.org beginning at 9 a.m. PST. (Listeners may call or write in with questions for both guests.)

FOUND OBJECT