COMING SOON to South Boonville! Christina Jones and her husband Satoru ‘Ru’ Christy, former operators of the popular Aquarelle restaurant in Boonville before it closed a few years ago, are in the process of opening a Sake Bar with snacks at the old Live Oak Building in Boonville called “Sobo Sake Bar.” SoBo residents have seen workers doing the prep work in the space recently vacated by Bee Hunter Wines on the south end of Boonville. (“SoBo”) Locals are already looking forward to the fare and chatting with the popular Valley couple at their new venture.
UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1975
(Thanks to Gary Smith of Hopland for finding this piece of County Fair history.)
WHEN KELVIN CHAPMAN popped up in the AVA the other day, justly remembered for his spectacular first at bat as the Met's second baseman back in '84 — he hit a grandslam against the Giants. But I remember the great Ukiah athlete as a basketball player, and the memorable men’s league games where Chapman and Boonville's Gene ‘Yewgene’ Waggoner went head to head, trading memorably improbable three-pointers before there were three-pointers. Both those guys would not have embarrassed themselves in the NBA.
ALL I KNEW about Mendocino County when some starry-eyed idealists and I leased a ranch south of Boonville in 1970 for the stated but laughably failed purpose of rehabbing city delinquents was that ranch and a market in the dusty little town down the road where we bought beer. We called ourselves ‘Fern Hil’ after the poem, not realizing the irony as applied to our chaotic operation. The next year, having become aware that Boonville was a real town with a vivid history and a very nice high school gym, we formed a basketball team to play in the local men’s league. All of us had played in high school, and some of us had played at the college level. We were a pretty good men’s league team in any men’s league.
FIRST FEW GAMES we mopped up the local boys. My sole memory of those early contests is being roughed up by Ken Hurst and Lindsey Clow, who played basketball like the football both of them had excelled at. After one of those lopsided wins over the local boys, the vanquished had left the court muttering, “Well, hell, we didn't have Yewgene.” We laughed for a week about ‘Yewgene,’ Boonville basketball's mystery weapon. “Uh oh, Yewgene's gonna get us!”
YEWGENE got us and then some. An unprepossessing dude who did not at all resemble an athlete at first glance, Gene Waggoner, a little over six feet, glassed a couple of thirty-five footers to kick things off as we mumbled, “Flukes. Lucky shots.” By the end of a long afternoon, Yewgene had rung us up for about 50 from all over the court, and his supporting cast — Charlie Hiatt; Leroy Perry; Rick Cupples; Tony Summit — made for a very strong Boonville team indeed. Us “hippies” were no match. (All newcomers were generically described as hippies by locals.) Boonville was still a real community at the time, a halcyon time given what’s become of community since, reconfigured, vanished.
Fern Hill
by Dylan Thomas, 1914 –1953
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
…The night above the dingle starry,
……Time let me hail and climb
…Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
……Trail with daisies and barley
…Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
…In the sun that is young once only,
……Time let me play and be
…Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
……And the sabbath rang slowly
…In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
…And playing, lovely and watery
……And fire green as grass.
…And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
…Flying with the ricks, and the horses
……Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
…Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
……The sky gathered again
…And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
…Out of the whinnying green stable
……On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
…In the sun born over and over,
……I ran my heedless ways,
…My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
…Before the children green and golden
……Follow him out of grace,
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
…In the moon that is always rising,
……Nor that riding to sleep
…I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
……Time held me green and dying
…Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
THE ANDERSON VALLEY RECORD?
Marshall Newman writes: Did you know about this? I remember the Anderson Valley Advocate, but this one from 1946 is before my time.
Ed Reply: I'm almost ashamed to say I've never heard of it, let alone seen a copy. I wonder if Held-Poage might have it. Very professionally done, too. Thanks, Marshall. I'm going to see if we can track it down.
AV PRODUCE STANDS & OUTLETS
Velma's Farm Stand at Filigreen Farm
Now Open On Sundays!
Friday 2-5pm and Saturday-Sunday 11-4pm
Mendough's Wood-Fired Pizza Pop-Up 11:30-sold out, on Saturday only!
For fresh produce this week: peaches, pluots (Flavor Queen, Flavor King, Dapple Dandy), french prune plums, apples, melons, watermelons, summer squash, eggplant, tomatoes (heirlooms, cherry tomatoes, new girls), sweet peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, sprouting broccoli, chinese cauliflower, green cabbage, hakurei turnips, new potatoes, celery, spring onions, green beans, arugula, spinach, beets, carrots, kale, chard, basil and flowers. We will also have dried fruit, tea blends, olive oil, everlasting bouquets and wreaths available. Plus some delicious flavors of Wilder Kombucha!
We also have tomato seconds available in 10 and 20 lb flats. Please email or reach out to Annie if interested!
All produce is certified biodynamic and organic. Follow us on Instagram for updates @filigreenfarm or email annie@filigreenfarm.com (mailto:annie@filigreenfarm.com) with any questions. We accept cash, credit card, check, and EBT/SNAP (with Market Match)!
Petit Teton Farm
Petit Teton Farm is open Mon-Sat 9-4:30, Sun 12-4:30. Right now we have sungold and heirloom tomatoes along with the large inventory of jams, pickles, soups, hot sauces, apple sauces, and drink mixers made from everything we grow. We sell frozen USDA beef and pork from our perfectly raised pigs and cows, as well as stewing hens and eggs. Squab is also available at times. Contact us for what's in stock at 707.684.4146 or farmer@petitteton.com (mailto:farmer@petitteton.com) . Nikki and Steve
Blue Meadow Farm Open Tuesday – Sunday, 10 AM - 7 PM
Closed Monday. Holmes Ranch Rd & Hwy 128 Philo (707) 895-2071. PS. We just received some delicious fresh peaches from the Hulbert Ranch !
Brock Farms, Boonville, M-T-W closed
Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun, open 10-6
Right now, I have potatoes, onions, some tomatoes, basil, cabbage, shishito peppers, and cabbage.
RON PARKER (photo historian)
ANDERSON VALLEY CASUAL GRAD GATHERING
The fair is celebrating 100 years and the fair flags are up. We had 30 people RSVP. It you missed the RSVP date and still want to attend now is your last chance.
If you just want to stop in to say hi we will be in the back of Mosswood Cafe (14111 CA-128, Boonville.)
Thank you Mosswood Cafe for providing a venue for this event.
RON PARKER, Local photo historian:
AV ATHLETICS
Games this coming week:
Tue: Volleyball @ Calistoga 5pm
Wed: Soccer @ Point Arena 4:30pm
Thu: Volleyball @ McKinleyville 5:30pm
Fri: Volleyball @ Fortuna 5:30pm
Sat: Soccer in Upperlake vs. TBD
GLEN RICARD, the Mendocino-based owner of fire-hazard/eyesore on the south end of Boovnille, long, long ago filed formal plans and a permit request to convert the old Spenard building into a two-building, two-story commercial store/office complex. The re-make would have totaled of 2900 square feet and an elevator to get to the second floor. The work would have included new foundations, plumbing and storage for the first floor as well as second floor offices. The contractor would have been Michael Casey.
WHAT HAPPENED? The County of Mendo happened, and Ricard, a curmudgeonly old coot in the most serene circumstances, grew so frustrated with county planners he gave up, and here his tinder pile rests almost thirty years later, Mendocino County's most obvious fire hazard, which Boonville's government annually refuses to order abated.
A READER WRITES of the late Donna Ronne, formerly of the Holmes Ranch, and once upon a time a vividly unforgettable manager of the Boonville Transfer Station:
“I saw the notice in the April 14 issue that Donna Ronne died. In 1963, there was a “Donna Michelle” Playboy centerfold model. Do you know if that was the same lady? (I ask because someone I knew had been very smitten by Donna Michelle. She was very beautiful.) It's odd that I'd feel loss over someone I never knew. She was supposed to be 17 when she was a centerfold, so she was 58 when she died. And she was a gymnast. If you look up “Donna Michelle” on the internet, you'll see how graceful and beautiful she was. The photos are still there, and they brought me back in time. The person I knew who was madly in love with her was my husband of the time, The Turk. It didn't bother me that he was so smitten because she was, after all, unattainable and besides, he'd just broken his ankle dancing the Lezginka in front of Miss California, so I knew he wasn't going to do anything outrageous in the (then) near future. Donna represented a new kind of female beauty — healthy, natural, athletic, no phony hair dyes. You might remember what the idealizations of female beauty were before 1963. For all I know, she was airbrushed. Playboy had a history of making women look different from how they really looked. But I don't think so. Playboy also had her saying that she was a freshman enrolled in a “smorgasbord of courses” at UCLA and claiming, as I recall, that she was taking something like 18 units. I was a 17 year old freshman at UCLA with more than average curiosity. In those days, students' records were like voters' addresses used to be, on cards, filed alphabetically. I could not locate her. Perhaps I thought her last name was Michelle. But no one at the university that I could locate had ever heard of her or seen her and how could they not have seen someone who looked like that? So, I wondered if Playboy made that up about her. Interesting thing to make up, indicating men were erotically interested in bright women, something I don't think has ever been true. (Men sometimes marry bright women but that's when they can't find anyone dumber.) Hugh Hefner certainly wasn't interested in smart women. What was her life like? Did her beauty and intelligence — did they do anything for her? Did she have a good life?
PS. Boy, am I going to get a lot of spam after researching Donna Michelle. I sure have been some weird places on the internet this evening. Donna Michelle (Ronne). Born December 8, 1945 in Los Angeles California. Measurements as playmate: 38-22-37. Playmate of the Year in 1964. Playmate in December of 1963. Acted in “Beach Blanket Bingo,” “One Spy Too Many,” “Mickey One” and “Goodbye Charlie.” There are a lot more pictures, but beware there is a modern Donna Michelle who says she's a playmate but isn't our Donna Michelle.
I’LL ADMIT I sit as close to the exit as I can at poetry readings, ready to flee when the solipsisms become too painful, but I'd pay money and sit right up front to hear Linda Noel read this one, the best Mendo-centric poem ever:
Maybe They Couldn’t Make
The Shoe Fit The Foot
(for Clara and those who waited)
Bring some shoes to the
…rancheria. They never did.
.
No,
…All the people waited though.
.
His gramma remembered.
.
They all washed their
…feet that day.
The man was coming all
…the way from Sacramento.
They waited and waited.
.
Finally he came, but he didn’t
…bring no shoes.
He took some paper and measured
…their feet,
Got their sizes and said he
…would bring shoes back.
.
And all the Indian people
…were glad ’cause they didn’t
Have no shoes.
.
They waited and waited.
.
He never did return.
.
Phil’s gramma would laugh
…remembering the story
Of the whiteman bending at
…the feet of old Indian women
Who had never before worn
…whiteman shoes.
.
They wondered what he thought.
.There was something about
…how he would measure the foot,
Then write it down and look
…at them as if to say
What odd and ugly feet.
.
The old woman’s laughter is
…our own as we speak:
…Maybe they didn’t know how
…To make shoes to fit Indian feet,
…Or maybe the sight of their feet
…Frightened him away.
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