CYNDI WILDER WRITES: The AV Senior/Community Center has an expanding vegetable garden that is providing some of the produce for the meals there. All community members are encouraged to take advantage of this local food opportunity. For meal schedule and more information see the Senior Center ad in this paper or call Gina at 895-3609. Also, restaurants in Anderson Valley that support our local farmers by using locally grown produce are Boont Berry Farm, Boonville General Store, Boonville Hotel, Lauren’s Café, Paysanne, and Mosswood Market.
THE HAZARD of year-end remembrances is leaving someone out, and we somehow forgot to include Jim Clow on our roster of Valley people who left us this year.
DAVID EPPSTEIN, a Frisco computer specialist with senior Wikipedia chops and Mendo connections, has done a nice update of the Hendy Woods Wikipedia entry, with new information about the Occupy Hendy Woods activity and the status of closure resistance. Look it up on Wikipedia under Hendy_Woods_State_Park. We expect that Mr. Eppstein will continue the updates.
THE SIXTH ANNUAL Crab Feed Fundraiser for the Senior Center will be Saturday, January 14th. Happy Hour at 5:30, dinner at 6:30. $25 per ticket. Call 895-3609 for tickets! (PS. Mileage reimbursements are available to drivers taking seniors to necessary medical appointments. Volunteer drivers are needed. Call the Senior Center 895-3609 for details.)
LAST THURSDAY NIGHT, about six miles up the Ukiah road, the rural peace was rent by a sudden, the repeated explosions of gun fire. Soon, someone from the Toll House was at the gate of the shooters shouting for a cease fire. The shooters, the same people who plunked down that eyesore shipping container beside the road a couple of years ago, shouted back insults and continued shooting. Deputy Squires being out on disability, and deputy Walker on vacation, there was no one available to mediate. Fortunately, the shooting subsided, the irate Toll House guy retreated and there was again quiet in Bell Valley.
REBECCA JOHNSON, the talented Navarro sculptress, has made a short film called "Change Over Horse Haven Ranch," which will be shown at the Anderson Valley Film Festival the weekend of January 27th at the Philo Grange.
HORSE HAVEN, as us locals know, has transmogrified into Rhys Vineyards, vineyards that would not be there if Mendocino County had a grading ordinance. (A grading ordinance for Mendo was discussed for twenty years, but...) Even the wizards of Silicon Valley aren't allowed to plant grapes on precipitous Sonoma and Napa hillsides, but in Mendocino County the One Percenters have it all their own way.
BOB SITES is fit again and back at his Yorkville home after holiday gall bladder surgery at the Vet's Hospital in San Francisco.
BAD ROLLOVER crash Monday evening about 7:30 just south of Philo. The driver, still not identified, was medi-vacced to Santa Rosa with serious head injuries.
THE MAJOR took a midnight stroll around Boonville to watch Boonville celebrate the arrival of 2012. “Departing AVA headquarters high atop the Farrer Building, a precautionary pistol in my pocket, I walked into the chilly night air of Boonville's sedate streets. It was just before midnight. All was quiet at the brewpub next door. Four pickups were in front of the Boonville Saloon. A thin dark-haired drunk, female type, stumbled out of PicNPay, east down the alley and on into the laundromat. I thought back to a time when I did my laundry at midnight in a New Year's laundromat. I'd almost called the Suicide Hot Line that time. The pleasant sound of a bass guitar trickled out of the Saloon. Country guitar emanated from Lauren’s Restaurant down the street where the ever popular Dean Titus and the Coyote Cowboys were entertaining. A drunk leaning against the Valley Bible Fellowship Church asked me if I was looking for trouble. 'Are you looking to get knocked out?' I snarled back. 'This isn't like you, Major," he said. 'What's up with you?' Another drunk asked me to keep his booking photo out of the Sheriff's Log. 'Cost you fifty bucks, punk,' I said, walking on. 15 to 20 revelers appeared in front of the Boonville Saloon. Firecrackers exploded. 'Anybody here need a serious punch in the mouth?' I asked. Someone said, 'Dude, cool all the way out.' A man produced what looked like a flare gun and an umbrella of multicolored sparks instantly lit up the sky. Within the minute three of these brightly hued umbrellas had appeared above Highway 128. Between the firecrackers, a burst of gun fire seemed to be coming from the house next door to the Saloon. More fireworks went off and several more gunshots were heard, some of them in bursts of 10 or 12 rounds. Firecrackers again, but not quite as loud. I kept my trigger finger on my piece. You never know who might go off in Boonville. You can't have too many guns in this place. Nothing seemed immediately threatening, however. All good clean celebratory noise. A solitary reveler in a cardboard top hat blew into a paper noisemaker. I stifled a sob. A quintet of drunks screamed incoherences into the sky. "Go, Giants!" I shouted, finally into the evening's spirit. I could hear muffled gunshots deep in the hills. Smoke drifted up into the night air from the last of the street level fireworks. By 12:30 it was quiet again. 2012 was already half-hour old.”
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