TO OUR READERS OF THE AVA'S PAPER-PAPER
We knew the day would come, and it has. We're old and ailing and no longer able to meet the physical and bureaucratic demands presented by the production of a paper newspaper. We will, therefore, cease production at the end of April but will live on on-line, a severe comedown for all of us who grew up with paper newspapers.
ANDERSON VALLEY VARIETY SHOW 2024: This Weekend (Friday and Saturday, March 8 & 9. Doors open at 6:30, show at 7pm, both nights.)
Get your tix for next weekend’s Variety Show at AV Market & Lemon’s in Philo! Bring an appetite to support the food sales provided by AV Senior class! At show intermission get your AV Grange snacks, popcorn, desserts & drinks! 50/50 raffle tix on sale at the event. We take cash, checks & Venmo!
SHORTY ADAMS, the famous Boonville School Bus Driver with more than three million safe miles, will be 95 on March 10, 2024. His family reports that he’s doing ok except for a few lingering mobility limitations.
HOSPITAL NOTES: Surprised that the medicos are still wed to those embarrassing open-back gowns. I guess there's a reason for them, but when I asked nurses they didn't know. Surgery socks, I did learn, are designed to prevent falls, in that they come with a sandpapery sole to grip the floor. Mine were way too small, and I felt like I was suffering frostbite when they wheeled me out of surgery, but a kindly nurse fished out a pair of thick socks I'd brought and slipped them over the ballet-like slippers the hospital provided. Patient rooms at Mission Bay come with huge TV screens — sports bar size — via which the gamut of negative information booms into the room and via which one orders one's meals. Many of the nurses seemed perplexed that I preferred the book I'd brought in anticipation of long hours awake to the jumbo-tron. Confined to my bed for a week, I got to re-read Clancy Sigal's great road novel of the late 1950s, ‘Going Away.’ I've found a huge old age bonus in books I read as a kid but could now re-read with that original delight the first time around. With every meal, which were sparse because I had no post-op appetite, I got a bottle of chocolate Ensure. I've become addicted. And the hospital provides free daily Chronicles for all the paper-paper reading geezers like me, an amenity I certainly appreciated. Voiceless, the only way I could communicate was by handwriting, which was frustrating because my script is indecipherable. It belatedly occurred to me to print in big letters to see if I could find out a little about all the people attending me. “Who are you? Can you tell me a little about yourself?” Of necessity, and perhaps fearing post-hospital stalkers or sex pest nuisances, everyone I asked did give me their basic cv's.
GREGORY SIMS WRITES: I would like to get an update in print about the Editor’s condition. How is he? Will he be around? Can we visit, talk to him, call him, etc.?
ED REPLY: Can't have visitors, big operation to come, hole in my throat, no speech beyond a whisper, catheter… But no pain and feeling good enough to bat out a few annoying opinions every day.
PETER BOUDOURES: Just after sunrise I picked up Monte Hulbert near the old cherry ranch on 253, I guess he bought a bottle of whiskey from Lemons Market the evening before which lead to a free ride over the hill. I’ve been wanting to talk to him since Thanksgiving when I rode my bike up Indian Creek on my way to Clow Ridge. I figured the well-kept cabins and trails were his hard work. Monte grew up nine miles out Low Gap from the Ukiah side before moving to Yorkville. He’s now been living up Indian Creek for 23 years.
CONGRATULATIONS to Gregory GP Price, AVHS class of '83, on the birth of his first grandchild, Lupita.
GP and his late wife Ethel Price
PETER BOUDOURES:
RE ed notes:
I was speaking with Gene Waggoner after 5am basketball this morning at Pomolita [yes he still plays] and he was telling me a story about Charlie Davis. I guess Charlie lived with you as a teen and had an interesting story growing to be around 7 feet by end of high school and went on to play college ball. Sounds like he came right before the Redwood Classic champions where Gary Bates, Charlie Hiatt, Dave Pronsolino, won the whole Thing in the 80s. I didn’t know you were very involved with the youth at that time.
ED REPLY: Charlie and Gene’s great AVHS team of the late sixties beat everyone around. Charles Davis came a few years later. He was 6’11 by the time he graduated from AVHS, a physical Adonis, hated sports. I had to force him to play basketball. “I don’t wanna play. It hurts.” I told him with that body God made him for the game. During timeouts he’d be chatting with girls in the stands. Paid zero attention to the game. Drove his coaches nuts. Dan Doubiago of Mendo HS was the dominant big guy in the area at the time, circa ’73-75. I remember my first men’s league game against Gene and Charlie, Rick Cupples, Tony Summit, LeRoy Perry, et al. We had a pretty good team affiliated with my group home, but these guys were a lot better. First game, Gene comes out and glasses a 35-footer, which our side assumed was a fluke as we wondered what he was doing firing away from a Steph Curry distance. He proceeded to rip up us for forty or so. But all those guys could shoot. The Ukiah match-ups between Gene and the great Kelvin Chapman were something to see. These guys would not embarrass themselves in an NBA game. Sad that men’s leagues for softball and basketball are gone in Boonville, but all of us who enjoyed them then will always have great memories of that time.
HEY, WE’RE THIRTY AUT SICKS, a punk band from Boonville, California!
We are interested in playing the Redwood Punkfest this year. I hope we can make the cut!
ANDERSON VALLEY SENIOR CENTER is hoping to find a new home for a FREE player piano.
Hamilton Player Piano and more than 100 music rolls. Aside from being a little out of tune, the piano plays nicely. The player part has never been used, and probably needs its hoses cleaned and aligned. It is FREE and 100+ music rolls. You move it. 707-972-5620
TRUDY SMITH, PHILO:
I recently went to the hospital for bad stomach pains, thinking I might have an intestinal blockage. After numerous tests and Xrays, and even an MRI were done, they found no blockage! What happened was I hadn’t eaten for three days. This made me feel very hungry, so I ate too much causing everything to back up in my stomach! There was no blockage!
A tube was pushed down my throat, and everything was pumped out. When all the results were in, they informed me that I have a Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm, which is a bulge in an artery that supplies blood from the heart to the rest of the body. This condition is very life threatening and should be treated immediately.
I was feeling great after everything was removed from my stomach, so they released me to come home. They told me to immediately sign up for the yearly life support chopper, which is $79. They said this aneurysm could rupture at any time! You have five years to live from the moment the rupture happens. The rupture I have is big and close to rupturing. It has been there for three or more years by the size of it.
I also found out that it was caused from my smoking. although I had stopped back in 1994, the damage was done!
They set me up with appointments to get it taken care of.
I have a 50/50 % chance of surviving this, I say 100%!
That’s where I’m at with this situation so far.
BOONVILLE BARN SALE
Spring is upon us and so is the next Barn Sale.
We will begin accepting donations again on Mondays, 10 am to 1 pm beginning March 4th. The next Barn Sale will be Saturday and Sunday, April 6 & 7 from 10 am to 3 pm.
As you prepare your donations please keep in mind that we do not accept baby furniture, mattresses, large appliances or sofas.
Clothing should not have stains, rips or frayed edges and ideally be washed before donating.
For large furniture items please check with me before bringing to the barn as we have limited space. We may not be able to accept everything depending on our current inventory. Message me or call 707-895-3053.
CUSTOM PICNIC TABLES
Top-end redwood tables with seating. Top is 8’ x 30”. Built to order. Smaller sizes available. Delivered in Anderson Valley. Adirondack Chairs available soon. Call Robbie Lane for more info or to order: 707-895-2546.
BOONVILLE BARN OLIVE OIL
Releasing our olive oil always feels like such a huge accomplishment because it is such a strange process. Back on November 27th, we harvested 2.75 tons of olives the Monday after Thanksgiving. Even with a crew of about 20 people and a mix of electric rakes and human powered rakes, we were all pretty exhausted by the end of it.
The olives get milled the same day they are harvested to ensure peak quality, as olives start to oxidize the moment they are harvested. The oil then sits in barrels for a few months to allow for solids to settle and the flavor to mellow a bit. Our oil was in barrels for 3 months and was bottled on February 21.
Nacho heading off to the mill…
Last week Friday, Nacho picked up our olive oil from where it gets milled and bottled, about 45 minutes away in Hopland. He had a moment of appreciation for the fact that the 7 and a half bins of olives only turned into a single pallet of olive oil. For us that means 704 bottles from about 500 trees that are managed for a mix of production, privacy, and beauty.
Because we have such a large mix of olive trees, each variety is at a different stage of ripeness when harvested. Less ripe green olives add spiciness while the more ripe purple olives are smooth and buttery in flavor. The flavor of the oil changes a bit from year to year. The 2023 harvest is a mellow and smooth olive oil with a bit of a grassy & peppery finish.
We're excited to share the November 2023 harvest with you!
– Gideon and the Boonville Barn Team
Get a bottle of olive oil
Boonville Barn Collective Olive Oil is made from olives harvested from the 500 olive trees on our family farm. The grove contains over 25 varieties of olives, including both Spanish and Italian types. Originally planted as a test plot for UC-Davis to determine the best varieties of olives to grow in our region of California, we choose to mill all the olives together as our production is quite low! The 2023 harvest produced just under 100 gallons of oil and was harvested and milled on November 27, 2023.
THE AV COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT is looking for an Admin Assistant. 20 hours/week at the AVFD Firehouse. The person in this role will be in a position to make a strong, positive impact on the community by facilitating day-to-day operations of the Fire Department, EMS, Recreation, and other branches of the CSD. Bilingual applicants are encouraged to apply! www.avcsd.org for more info. Resume & Cover Letter to: firechief@andersonvalleyfire.org. Applications due by March 13, 2024 at 6pm. $20-$22 per hour, merit & COLA increase, 3% SEP IRA match, medical insurance contribution. HS diploma or equiv, Microsoft Office exp., Admin exp. Working with public desired. Job Description at: https://www.avcsd.org/docs/AdminAsst.pdf.
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