TWO DEATHS of prominent citizens have cast a pall over the Anderson Valley. Bruce Longstreet passed away early Tuesday morning at his home in Philo, and Efren Mendoza died in Mexico on Friday, August 31st. Mr. Mendoza was interviewed by Steve Sparks of this paper in its edition of July 14th, 2010, a version of which will appear next week as a memorial tribute to a man crucial to the life of this community. As was Bruce Longstreet, a former manager of KZYX and, until he became too ill to work, the manager of the Anderson Valley Ambulance Service, a very nice man, and only 58 when he was carried off.
AND A FORMER long-time Valley resident, Candy Mabery, has passed away in Oregon. Many of us will remember Candy as the kindly proprietor of the old Boonville Lodge.
WE'VE ALL RECEIVED letters from Diana Van Duzer, PG&E's “Planned Outage Coordinator,” that are real doozies. Ms. Van Duzer warns us that the infamous power monopoly will turn us off the evening of Saturday, October 13th at 9pm, and turn us on again at 8am the next morning.
VALLEY PEOPLE and lovers of Hendy Woods wherever you are are invited to the Anderson Valley Jamboree at Hendy Woods on Saturday Oct 13-Sunday Oct. 14 at the park. We will gather to enjoy our beautiful park and celebrate the fact that it is still open! On Saturday there will be games, 5 pm potluck and Jamboree: songs, fun and stories by the campfire and overnight camping. Sunday will bring an 8:30 bird walk w/ Bill Sterling, 9:30 natural history walk w/ Linda MacElwee, coffee, donuts and a town hall meeting to plan and talk about the park. Come for the whole event or any part you want. Camping $35 (2 cars/8 people per campsite), day use $8 per car. To ensure a camping site, call Janet Anderson, 895-2575 or Deanna Apfel, 895-2307 (or just take your chances and show up!).
THE FIGURES VARY, but we understand some hundred (count 'em) derelict vehicles have begun to be removed from that notorious address on Gschwend Road, Navarro, where a major County abatement is underway.
THOMAS PLOWRIGHT II, occasionally a resident of Nash Mill, Philo, has been sentenced to 44 months which, under the new state guidelines, Mr. Plowright will serve in the Mendocino County Jail. The convictions involved possession of methamphetamine, firearms violations, receiving stolen property. Other state agencies have apparently settled matters involving Plowright's assault on a section of Mill Creek streambed.
FROM JOHN BONNÉ, Chronicle “wine writer,” in a piece called “Identity issues in Anderson Valley....... We've arrived at a curious time for Anderson Valley. It has hit critical mass for a Pinot-growing region, and with that has come a culture clash. There's more opportunity than ever for success. But perhaps the stakes are higher now than when Boonville was a quiet asterisk in California wine.” Gosh, John, I hope nobody gets hurt.
AN IMPRESSIVE log deck has been re-established at the Philo Mill, but insiders tell us that doesn't mean the mill is being reopened. The redwood is simply being stored there.
SEVERAL PEOPLE camping at Indian Creek stopped by to ask us about the pump in Indian Creek that kept them awake at night. The water is pumped up to the log deck at the mill site where it is constantly sprinkled on the logs to prevent them from bursting into flame.
JOIN US, invites Ms. Chrys Orianne Sagrada, at the Boonville Farmers' Market this coming Saturday, September 22, 10am-12:30pm at the Boonville Hotel for tomato tasting. Music will be provided by singer/songwriter Jay Watkins. Support and eat local!
IT'S NOT QUITE the resurrection of the Mannix Building but it's good to see Aaron Weintraub's new structure rising at the legendary site where Homer Mannix ran the Anderson Valley as everything from fire chief to school board president to justice court judge. We understand that All That Good Stuff will eventually relocate to Mannix Redux.
LIVELY LITTLE PARADE with long-time Valley residents, with Vera and Paul Titus as grand marshals, and we all applauded when the Panther football floats drifted by, and as soon as they had I knew that Palma Toohey had done her usual heavy lifting. I also particularly liked the mounted Sons of Mexico and the local little guys on great big horses with mom and grandma Hiatt hovering nearby.
CHP REPORT: “Barbara Jones, 52, of Ukiah was driving her 1999 Kenworth with semi trailer eastbound on Highway 253 a few hundred yards from Highway 101 near Stipp Lane. Ms. Jones slowed to about 25 mph as she approached two bicyclists riding single file along the eastbound edge line of Highway 253. As the bicyclists approached a wide dirt turnout Ms. Jones moved her vehicle to the left and onto the double yellow center lines and slowly started to pass the bicyclists. The first bicyclist (a man) thought the second bicyclist had yelled for him to stop, and he did. The second trailing bicyclist (Madeline Anderson, 21, of Ukiah), wasn't able to stop behind the first bicyclist. So bicyclist Anderson moved to the first bicyclist’s left and up against the right side of Ms. Jones’s semi-trailer. Ms. Anderson then lost her balance and fell to her left and into the path of the semi-trailer’s right rear dual trailer wheels. Those right rear dual wheels then ran over Ms. Anderson’s left leg, knocking her to the ground. Ms. Anderson was airlifted to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital with major injuries.”
IN ANOTHER DISASTER investigated by the CHP, “The driver of a water tanker was injured when his vehicle drove into a construction zone on Highway 253 and down a hillside. According to the, Ron Levy, 64, of Fort Bragg lost his brakes for an unknown reason while heading eastbound on Highway 253 at around milemarker 13 at about 1:40pm. Levy's two-axle truck hit a parked construction vehicle, then went over the north side of the road and down the embankment about 200 feet. An unknown amount of diesel fuel was spilled and a clean-up crew responded to the scene. Levy was transported to Ukiah Valley Medical Center for treatment of moderate injuries. “
DJ LARRY HACKEN alongside MC Papa Chukki from Jamaica. Reggae Dance! Friday 8.21.12. AV Grange, Philo. 8-10pm. Heavyweight Sound.
WHAT DO AV GRADS LULU McCLELLAN, Robert Anderson, and Zack Anderson have in common? They were all guests at a swelligant and vivacious wedding party that San Francisco police shut late Saturday night. Robert and Zack blame the copious amounts of Lulu’s fine Handley Cellars bubbly that led to ear-shattering disco music being blasted through the otherwise sedate Pacific Heights block, where the most typical late night sound is the metallic scrape of lonely Russian mistresses spooning caviar to ungrateful terriers.
THE LUCKY NEWLYWEDS are Patrick Kack-Brice and Lynsay Richardson, who will make their home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. Now a filmmaker in his own right, Patrick worked on the Mendo Noir classic Pig Hunt with Robert, who hosted the reception with his wife, Nicola Miner. Lynsay went to Cal-Berkeley with Philo native Lulu, who flew in from Maine for the occasion. Lulu is the daughter of winemaker and Valley luminary Milla Handley and the larger-than-life (and dearly missed) Rex McClellan.
THE NUPTIALS began at the Swedenborgian Church, one of California’s earliest examples of pure Arts and Crafts. Afterwards the guests marched in a chuppah-led procession up the hill to the Miner-Anderson compound, where the sparkling wine mixed with happy tears. Guests came from as far away as Brazil, Sweden and Australia, and included NAACP president Ben Jealous, Hollywood power couple Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton (stars of the hit TV show, The League), and Fairfax legend Leonardo (his last name is a mystery), who regaled strangers with his insider knowledge of hush-hush anti-gravity propulsion systems, and secret bases on Mars, and a wormhole accessed via ancient tunnels beneath Gibraltar.
BY THE TIME sleepy neighbors called the police, most of the party had retired to Zack Anderson’s perimeter bunker to dance and exchange slanderous gossip. Still radiant in her pearl-white gown, Lynsay went outside to negotiate with the police. But the pair of SF’s finest were overwhelmed by the shimmering vision of the lovely bride, and politely asked to keep the noise below D-Day levels while offering their official congratulations. As the party wound down, one gentleman inquired about the bottle of small-batch absinthe on the counter. Ever the gracious host, Zack poured a small glass, which the man downed in a single audacious gulp. Hand-crafted with real wormwood by a Philo sorceress, the absinthe is authentic Green Fairy rocket fuel. Three seconds later the man couldn’t form coherent sounds, emitting only hoarse gasps while turning increasingly blue-white. A quick-thinking witness bundled Monsieur Absinthe into a taxi, and instructed the driver to drop him “somewhere with shrubbery.” Mazeltov!
UKIAH isn't all unsightly, and who would or could have ever thought that the ghastly Thunderbird Motel at the south end of town would one-day be graced by the lush community garden that graces it today?
THAT LAST MINUTE parade substitution of Kyle Clark and David Severn, on foot, trudging along with a gurney and an ad hoc sign that identified them as the Anderson Valley Ambulance took the place of the real ambulance that had been called out to an emergency.
THAT FIRE CALL last weekend was a trailer destroyed by flame on Hulbert Lane, Yorkville.
STATE WATER RESOURCES has issued a stealth permit for a grape op to take a lot of frost protection water from Donnelly Creek, Boonville. Don't want to say until we know for sure who wants the water, but so far there has been no public notice unless you think public notice occurs via a pile of government papers buried on a wall in the County Admin Center, Ukiah, which is where Dave Severn just happened on it as he idled there waiting for another matter to begin. And what was posted was a “negative declaration” that did not include any of the maps or diagrams of where exactly the work would take place. And no mention of the size of the proposed ponds only that there are two of them. Looks like a done deal without the local public having any real notification or chance to comment.
THE MAJOR says he was underwhelmed by the banks of computers he and the construction oversight committee were presented with in the Elementary School's computer lab during last Wednesday evening’s walk-through. Part of the school’s $15.3 million modernization bond paid for the rehab of the computer lab, along with major work on several classrooms, bathrooms, “intervention rooms,” (euphemism for sequestering the more under-socialized little ones until they can sit down and shut the bleep up), and other edu-related space. Most of the work was completed over the summer just in time for the first days of school.
EVERYONE ELSE on the tour seemed pleased with the 30 or so computers (with room for at least 10 more) arrayed in closed ranks, each with its own set of headphones. What struck The Major, however, was the blind assumption that this stuff is now considered crucial to “the education process.” There was no awareness of the large literature that says gizmos actually retard the basic grasp of language and the mastery of simple mathematical calculations. But, presumably, thanks to this wonderful technology, Boonville Unified’s fourth and fifth graders can fiddle around on computers for hours without — and here's where the plot thickens — the need for adult supervision, not that the local educational leadership is selling it that way. But it really amounts to electronic baby-sitting. Mr. Roger's Neighborhood gone high tech.
EVERY STUDY not funded by the educational bureaucracy has shown that computers are much more of a distraction than learning tool. The assumption that putting the equivalent of youtube in front of kids while they type OMG and LOL and ROFLMAO, will somehow make them “job ready” is based on an assumption that they will use their screen time for academic purposes. Even if they do, techno instruction is, or should be, merely supplemental. But headphones? Even on the off chance there's adult supervision in the room, the students won't be able to hear it.
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