After More Than 70 Years: The Last AVA Print Edition

A READER ASKED, “Are you sad the print ava is over?” More resigned and nostalgic than sad when I think of the crucial people who truly got it done every week all these years, which excludes me. I fired off a few hundred often ill-chosen, unnecessarily combative words every week, and I could be trusted to deliver the paper the length of the Anderson Valley every Thursday morning. And I also served as front man and flak catcher, but it was Mark Scaramella, Renee Lee and my martyred wife, the former Esther Mowe of East Malaysia, who did the unending work-work of production. Without them the Boonville weekly would have faded years ago.

REGRETS? I never believe old people who say they have none. I have lots, not that I'm going to share them because I don't want to give my many enemies any additional ammo, but there have been instances, provocations, quite a few of them, I wish I would have ignored, and people I wish I'd never met. But overall, the ava has, I think, accurately reflected the times and place it appeared in for forty years. Check that: Early on I produced an issue that I thought was so bad, so dumb, so utterly without interest that I promised myself I'd quit if I couldn't do better. There have been some weak AVAs since but I can't remember any but that one that was as utterly hopeless, as cringe-inducing.

LEGACY? Who cares? I think people who think (and worry) about future opinions of them are laughable. I'd be reluctant to go if I thought opinions weren't a true mix of seething hatred for me personally and my newspaper, and grudging respect for simply staying at it for so many years. But, but, but..... but don't you want to be remembered and loved? Only by my heirs and assignees. Beyond  them, indifference, much as I am fond of many of you. 

WHEN I bought the Boonville weekly 40 years ago, I published the promise below on the front page of my first issue. Bold as it reads, bold is not how I felt. I didn't know if I could make a go of it, by which I meant sell enough papers to at least pay the print bill. Almost all the advertisers fled the first month, and the local authorities had to be hounded to send me legal ads rightfully belonging to Anderson Valley’s “newspaper of record.” The first of many ensuing libel threats appeared. Our downtown office was vandalized. My vehicles were destroyed. But the paper grew, and if it has never exactly prospered, it has survived for four decades. Why? Because right from the start, really good writers sent us really good writing, as lively a weekly collection as any publication in the country, and within a year or two the Boonville weekly was perhaps the best known small town paper in all the USofA, not that that specious fame brought in much hard currency, but it did bring in even more good writers. As all of you know, print has been swallowed by telephones, and lively prose of the type appearing here is less valued, and we're old and unable to continue the hard slog of weekly print production. I thank all of you who made this adventure the wild ride it has been, and I hope you'll stay with us in our cyber-form.

SCARAMELLA REMINDS ME: “I think we should give some recognition to the named and nameless individuals, many of them in local government, over the years who took the opportunity presented by the AVA to speak to us on or ‘off the record’ about scandals and insider deals without whom we would not have been able to produce some of our best stories.”

CERTAINLY TRUE. If it weren't for people alerting us to events that would otherwise remain unrevealed, our paper would have been majorly deficient. I can also say we never, ever revealed a source who requested anonymity.

PS. Scaramella calculated last week that the AVA cranked out 2,100 editions of the paper-paper in the 40-years plus since we bought the paper. That includes our two special editions on the Bear Lincoln case and the Zapatista papers in the 1990s.

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Intents and Purposes (AVA, January 4, 1984 Vol. 32, Issue #1)

This newspaper stands against wealth, privilege and all branches of local, state and federal government. These positions are subject to change should the management of the Advertiser become either wealthy or privileged. Since there isn't any wealth to speak of around here, and less privilege, government, especially local government, will be the focus of much attention. 

We will print the stories that go untold in Mendocino County because of the timidity and allegiances of the existing press.

We are neither liberal nor conservative, believing that ideology is for idiots and dictators. We are enemies of dogma and rigidity for which we will roll out the big guns. 

We will attempt to publish articles and features of interest to all segments of our diverse community, something for everyone. 

We will present lengthy features on such subjects as the likely impact of the Roederer Corporation on Anderson Valley; what it is like to be an illegal Mexican worker in Mendocino County; items of historical interest; the economics and problems of: sheep ranching; licensed children’s homes; the Mendocino County Schools operations in Anderson Valley; the local schools: interviews with local movers and shakers; and lots of gossip, the life's blood of the small community.

lf there are stories you'd like to see, let us know: If we become shrill, boring or humorless, let us know. When we’re dumb or dishonest, let us know. Better yet, sue us.

But make no mistake about it, we fully intend to do as we please, mollifying no one, least of all our advertisers and subscribers.

Bruce Anderson, Editor