The End of the Paper-Paper

This issue of the Anderson Valley Advertiser is the very last one you will ever hold in your hands. As a tangible entity the paper is done. For those whose routine includes a Thursday ritual of dropping into the Redwood Drive In to buy a paper, a cup of coffee and a donut and then settling in at this clean, well-lighted restaurant/gas station for a nice long read, it is indeed a sad day. Subscribers who receive their paper in the mail will experience a delayed version as the paper hits their kitchen table or lazy-boy and they assemble appropriate coffee, tea and snacks a few days later. 

Published since 1952 scarce a week has gone by without the AVA in hand. Bruce Anderson purchased the paper in January of 1984 and has been a slave to that weekly deadline for 2,100 editions. That’s a lot of perseverance and dedication. In a way it is like owning a dairy farm with contributors instead of cows requiring regular milking. The unrelenting-ness of it boggles the mind: 40 years of an immovable deadline. 

Mark Scaramella came onboard in June of 1990 and has been cheek by jowl with Bruce pounding out the paper ever since. Not forgetting that Dave Severn and his daughter Saffron stepped up from 2004-2007 buying the paper from Bruce and keeping it going with Mark until Bruce returned in 2007 to buy it back.

Looking up Bruce Anderson on Wikipedia you will find a fair amount of mixed information including, “The New York Times described the AVA as ‘One of the most idiosyncratic and contentious weeklies… Anderson has been in jail numerous times (i.e., twice), notably for allegedly withholding evidence in the Bear Lincoln murder trial and for punching a supervisor at a school board meeting.” 

The disagreement was around Bruce’s (colorfully critical) comments about the Mendocino County Office of Education. Mark Scaramella states that it was a mutual scuffle not an assault and that Bruce served 39 days for disturbing the peace which was the least of the 13 related charges leveled against him around the incident at the time. 

The letter-withholding case got him 13 days. Bruce wrote a wry account of his jail time titled “Ordeal by Oatmeal.” 

Many have noted that Bruce has quite the quirky sense of humor. On Wikipedia, “In 2022, Bruce Anderson received a Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN Oakland.” Also of interest is the fact that Bruce served as a Marine and also as a Peace Corps volunteer a pairing not often seen. It was during his Peace Corps stint that he met (in Borneo) and married his wife Ling. Ling has supported Bruce’s newspaper career at every point and has always been a very active working part of the paper’s staff while also raising their three children (among many other duties).

Bruce’s version of the AVA has moved its headquarters many times. First housed in outbuilding on his home property, “Fort Despair,” it later moved to more spacious digs at “Tom Town” in downtown Boonville. A larger space was assembled back at the Fort where the paper resided until Bruce left for an unsuccessful try at establishing a new paper in Eugene, Oregon. Dave Severn bought the paper when Bruce left and moved it to a trailer on Burt Cohen’s property. Returning to Anderson Valley Bruce moved the paper to an upstairs office in the Farrar Building where it resided until moving to a rented trailer where the paper’s new home was next to the Redwood Drive In. Currently the offices are housed in a much more modest residential building on that same property. 

The Ukiah Daily Journal used to do some outside printing and they printed the paper for years until they got peeved with Bruce over the infamous “Bosco Interview” and kicked his business out. Willits Printing took over until the days of electronic paste-up arrived at which time they moved to Healdsburg Printing where they remained until moving to the current printer, Folger Graphics in Hayward. 

Again, the primary thing here is the tenacity and persistence involved in keeping the heart of the paper beating through all the obstacles and upsets over 40 years, quite a feat. At one point some discontented reader apparently put metal shavings into Bruce’s oil case causing his engine to seize on Hwy. 253. Another non-fan once put sugar in his gas tank. A threatening note and a smashed computer terminal during the turbulent early 90s were other signs that the newspaper business isn’t always the easiest way to make a living.

Mark Scaramella first saw a copy of the AVA on his parents’ coffee table around 1986 when he was visiting in Irish Beach. Apparently his uncle former Supervisor Joe Scaramella was a regular reader from the day Bruce bought the paper who passed his copies onto his brother, Mark’s father. 

Mark subsequently joined the AVA in 1990 and has been onboard continuously since then. Mark is former Air Force, a chemist, an inventor and an early computer guy from the very early days of computers. 

While Bruce’s style as an editor is very big picture Mark has always been there to keep things real and moving right along. They are indeed an odd couple but obviously theirs has been a successful partnership, neither could have managed to accomplish separately what they have done together.

To my amazement I find that I have written 300 columns for the paper over the past 15 years. It is kind of like compound interest, a little at a time very regularly applied adds up. For the first five years I wrote a column called “School News” that reported on all the happenings in the School District with an eye toward convincing the community to vote yes on an upcoming school bond (which they did). Following that stint I began to write occasional columns about local happenings like a Quinceneras, the Wildflower show, and Valley Arts events. Eventually Bruce and Mark encouraged me to write weekly about pretty much anything I wanted. It was an offer I could not refuse. As a member of the AV Lion’s Club, I.C.W., and the Unity Club, I was well placed for local news. I also write as one who has worked in several wineries, Taylor Roberts, and the School District. 

Living in Yorkville and fairly active in that community also in my own neighborhood on Big Oaks Drive there are lots of perspectives for me to choose from. My appreciation goes out to the paper for serving as a community bulletin board over all these years. Many may not agree with their views but no matter what your persuasion the AVA is always open to publishing your views without prejudice as long as you are willing to put your real name on your opinion. I also appreciate their clever way of finding people they want to contact. I once got a letter delivered to my PO Box simply addressed “To Terry who lives in Yorkville where the Goat Lady used to live” also once alerted to contact the paper by an entry in Valley People that said, “White Courtesy Phone - will Terry Ryder please contact the AVA.” Clever.

As a paper that has a various times run on its masthead, “Fanning the Flames of Discontent,” “Peace to the Cottages, War to the Palaces,” Be as Radical as Reality,” and “Newspapers Should Have no Friends,” the AVA has attracted some interesting dissident people over the years. Bruce has a fondness for people who would not have a voice anywhere else. Some of us would consider these people — political gadflys a little (or even a lot) nuts. Regardless they find a soapbox at the AVA and often make for lively reading.

So, another paper-paper bites the dust and another nail goes into the coffin of local news. It just is never the same reading online where it is “all news all the time.” It is less likely that a person would clip a story about diamond mines in South Africa to hang on their refrigerator than one about their nephew’s award at the Anderson Valley High School awards banquet. Now there won’t even be a clipping. Something is definitely lost when you can no longer put your physical fingers on the pulse beat of things. The electronic versions of things are so fleeting with the next thing always breathing down our necks that it is almost as if they don’t exist at all. 

It may be a global world but we are local people. Nevertheless the “AVA Paper” will continue to report in an online version until it doesn’t anymore. An effort is being made to keep some of the features that the paper-paper readers enjoy like Valley People in the electronic version. If you are a subscriber you will be awarded an electronic subscription twice as long as your paper subscription to soothe the pain. 

Stay with the online version of the AVA for a while at least and see what you think. I will continue writing a column and am grateful for that. 

Long live Bruce Anderson and Mark Scaramella and their staff who makes our little berg a little brighter each and every week.