FATAL ACCIDENT IN NAVARRO
On May 11th, 2023, at approximately 12:54 AM, the California Highway Patrol responded to a solo vehicle crash on SR-128 west of Navarro. Based on the preliminary investigation, Timothy Marino, 43, of Ukiah, was driving a 2022 Isuzu box truck sedan on Highway 128, eastbound. For unknown reasons, Marino allowed the vehicle to travel off the south road edge of Highway 128. As a result, the vehicle collided with a tree. The vehicle sustained major front-end damage. The unidentified passenger sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene. The driver, Marino, sustained major injuries. At this time, it does not appear that alcohol or drugs were a factor in this collision.
HELLO FRIENDS OF SCOTT AND SAFFRON,
As many of you know, Scott has just been diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer. He now has to undergo many weeks of both Chemotherapy and Radiation simultaneously to reduce the size of the tumor. He is currently unable to eat so he is on a feeding tube. As his oncologist Dr. Wang explained the cancer is vaguely Stage 3 and a PET scan will make more determinations.
Scott begins this rigorous treatment protocol on Monday and he will be needing full time care and assistance to do so. He'll be traveling back and forth from their home in Philo to Ukiah. Saffron is taking a leave of absence with her work and their sons Otto and Angus will be available to help them.
As many of us know this journey is hard and costly and many of Scott’s medicines will not be covered by their insurance and the travel costs to Ukiah and back will be extensive. The funds raised will help both Scott and Saffron navigate all the expenses and unexpected costs of these many weeks of treatment and travel and daily life needs.
Let’s all give these two beloved friends our support . Many of us have asked them what to do, how can we help them, and this is the best way along with our enduring love, care and prayers for Scott’s full recovery and remission.
It’s a hard road ahead but with all of us together we can soften the ride for the Fraser family.
Thank you all so much for your love and generosity.
BOONVILLE QUIZ THIS THURSDAY
Hope to see you on the Third Thursday at Lauren’s at the Buckhorn, in Boonville. May 18th, 7pm. Cheers, Steve Sparks, Quizmaster
LINDA MACELWEE, watershed coordinator for the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (MCRCD), still receives numerous calls every fall as a bar of sediment builds up at the mouth of the Navarro River. She explained that the state used to open up this bar, which is created by low flows and big waves and blocks fish passage into the river.
ANTOINETTE VON GRONE
Memorial Weekend Open Studios just around the corner. If you have no plans yet this is a great event to visit (totally free and self-guided). With this late spring the valley should still be vibrantly green and our gardens full of flowers, an added bonus to the art on display. There are also some new members of the art group, check them out!
I am attaching my personal invite as well as the official map with participants addresses.
If you want to know more about individual artists go to the andersonvalleyartists.com web page.
ASSAULT ON AV WAY On Tuesday, May 9, at 10:19 A.M., Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to contact a 47 year old adult female regarding an assault that had occurred during the early morning hours in Philo.
The Deputies were unable to contact the adult female by phone, so they responded to the Boonville area. They searched the area of Boonville and Philo for the adult female and eventually located her in the Boonville area.
Deputies learned that shortly after midnight, the adult female was with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's friend, Pedro Saldana, 29, of Boonville at an address located in the 12600 block of Anderson Valley Way.
At one point during the night, Saldana threw an unknown item at the adult female, with no provocation. Saldana then began arguing with the adult female. Saldana retrieved a handgun from the residence and pointed it at the adult female. Saldana then fired one shot over the adult female's shoulder. The incident ended shortly thereafter.
Deputies searched the building Saldana was in and located a handgun, a personal usage amount of suspected methamphetamine, methamphetamine paraphernalia as well as other items of evidence. Saldana was booked into the County Jail on an array of charges and is being held on No Bail status.
THIS IS A NEW PIPEVINE SWALLOWTAIL - just dropped from its chrysalis this morning....
We pick them up so they don't get stepped on and attach to a warm wall next to nectar plants. In an hour the wings have inflated, in two hours they flit away. Dozens and dozens are busy in the garden.
(Valerie Hanelt)
CAPTAIN RAINBOW, MAESTRO EXTRAORDINAIRE
NORM CLOW:
I’ve read with dismay the recent articles concerning the County’s sabotage of the Senior Center. To quote St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, “May it never be!” The subject building many decades ago served as Boonville Grammar School. I’m not sure when it closed, although a) I’m certain someone who might read this does, and b) I suspect it was right around the time Indian Creek was closed in Spring 1956 precedent to the building of the current high school. (It was located on the site of the PG&E substation below Philo Market next to the Catholic Church.) During that two-year construction period, this building served for the first month of the year as home to our 1st and 2nd-grade classes for the first few weeks of school, until after the Fair, then we matriculated to the new Home Arts Hall on the fairgrounds. Once the high school was complete, all primary grades were consolidated at the current elementary building, with 4th-7th at the old long-missed high school next door. In any event, I believe the idea of somehow putting the Senior Center property under the CSD is a good one, although I’m sure the higher-ups will think otherwise. How the CSD became the owner of the Con Creek School was simply because we had access to grant money to acquire it, which we did, and then executed a long-term lease to the Historical Society. Probably too simple for some folks over the hill to comprehend, I imagine.
Signing off from Texas.
PS. Indian Creek School, 1921. Mike Prather and my dad are on the left end.
Not sure of the date, with the inimitable Blanche Brown on the back right in charge.
CURIOUS about this mysterious CCC project, now seemingly abandoned, I've wondered for several years what the heck was the point of it off 128 at mile post 35.17.
Val Hanelt lives in the area so The Major asked her. Val replied, “No, I don't know. But it was a CCC project. Or at least the work was being done by them. If we find out more we’ll let you know.”
FOR MANY YEARS ending in 1972 when she moved to San Francisco at age 81, Agnes Fleming lived with her disabled son in the hills west of Mountain House Road between Yorkville and Hopland. She and her son, Charles, lived in a stone house they built for themselves out of river rock. Agnes had purchased the Mountain House property when she returned from a life lived in Mexico. She was renowned in the Hopland area as a hermit lady who'd push a battered baby carriage into Hopland along the ridgetops once a month or so to re-supply, and then back again the onerous way she'd come. Her son died while they lived in the stone house and is believed to be buried on the property. The nature of his disability is lost to time but it is known he could not function independently. At age 81 Agnes, or Agnus in some spellings, sold the property with its unique and distinctive stone house surrounded by cactus to spend her last years in San Francisco. The sale occurred in 1972. Though all that is known of the intriguing Agnes Fleming comes to us in the faintest of rumors, one of which says that she moved in the highest circles of Mexican society when she was young, having lived a remarkable life before she bought her remote property in Mendocino County to live the life of a recluse. Her stone home, presumed to have been built in the 1940s, was decorated with replica parrots and other Mexican memorabilia. She is said to have earned some money by allowing outsiders to hunt feral pigs on her property. If someone, anyone out there can fill in some of the unknown parts of this interesting woman's life your information would help tell another chapter of Mendocino County's fascinating human history.
NORM CLOW:
Saying goodbye to Bay Area pitching legend Vida Blue, one of the nicest guys ever. These are my sister's and my favorite baseball photo. First is myself at the Marianas Ballroom at the Guam Hilton with Vida at the MCI Legends of Baseball tour on their way to Japan, 1995. I rattled off the starting line-up of the first Giants game at Seals Stadium in 1959, against Cincinnati, and he started calling more Legends over to hear about it. (Orlando Cepeda won the game on a lead-off home run in the bottom of the 9th over that low left field fence.) Second is about two months later at the “Build The Ballpark” office on Mission Street in San Francisco with Janice, who was a volunteer on the campaign and got to be on the field on Opening Day five years later. She knew he would be there for that day's activities, and showed him the photo, and his eyes bugged out, while he exclaimed, “Where did you get that? That was on Guam. Who is that?” “My brother Norm.” He grabbed her camera and got somebody to take the photo, saying, “We'll get your brother.”
THE REVIVED BOONTLING CLASSIC, organized by a second generation of Colfaxes, was a great success Sunday morning, drawing a crowd of runners and walkers from all areas of Mendocino County and even further abroad to run, walk, stagger a pleasant two-plus miles of Anderson Valley Way from the elementary school to the Philo end of the road and back. Zane Colfax has the full race results elsewhere in this week’s edition.
KUDOS and gratitude to Zane Colfax for reviving the Boontling Classic foot race, an event begun by his father and uncles more than a quarter century ago. The 5K contest, a hilly 3-plus miles, was won by Kenny Smith who covered the distance in 16:56. Swiftest woman was Maeva Riley, who zipped up and over the hilly three miles in 21:48. I'm curious who racked up the fastest time ever, assuming it was either Jim Gibbons or one of his two sons, who dominated distance running in this area for more than two decades. Last time I entered I think Yorkville's Bill Cook and I finished neck and neck in about 45 minutes, gasping and desperate for a beer.
COW RESCUE ON HIGHWAY 128 IN ANDERSON VALLEY
On Wednesday, AV Fire received a walk-in report of a cow in an old well. Chief 7400 and Rescue 7431 responded and were able to connect with the owner of the animal before carrying out a plan to assist it out of the well with a tow-strap and winch. AVFD provided the plan, the equipment, and assistance, but this was a group effort which included friends who'd heard about the rescue and took their time to help out.
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