EVERY WEEK, a representative sample of suffering humanity appears in our office. One day, along with the usual tourists and kibitzers who stop in, an emaciated fellow called David Wood walked slowly through the door. For a panicked instant I thought he'd come to die, but as it developed Mr. Wood said he'd passed successfully through death's indiscriminate door some weeks prior to his arrival in Boonville. A resident of Fort Bragg, Mr. Wood said he'd found a cure for the cancer that had almost killed him and does kill thousands of people. “Just out of the corner of my eye,” he explained, “I once saw a reference in Harper's magazine to something called dichloroaceticacid, and when this tumor appeared in my chest, and the doctors were going to put me on chemo and all the other stuff I knew would kill me, I remembered that Harper's reference.” A little research soon took Mr. Wood directly to the magical stuff which, I believe, he said he'd found in Mexico. And here he was to urge me to pass along the good news about the miracle cure.
BLANCHE BROWN (L), STORIED LOCAL TEACHER AND WRITER, FOUNDER OF THE ANDERSON VALLEY WILDFLOWER SHOW
BILL KIMBERLIN
This is looking South from my place towards Boonville. The local fire department advised getting all tree debris off the floor of my trees so if a grass fire came through it would not have enough fuel to get up into the trees.
PG&E on the other hand, insisted on cutting trees and limbs down and leaving them on the ground. They told me this is what the fire department recommended. So, I asked the local fire department about that and they said that was not true, they did not recommend that.
So now, after words with PG&E my property is listed by them as "unsafe to approach".
PANTHER MEN’S VOLLEYBALL:
In our first ever boys volleyball game, the Panthers played to five sets against Ukiah, with Ukiah narrowly escaping with a win. The rematch is next Thursday in Our House. Fill the Gym!
DAVID KNIGHT, AV Panther Class of 1969
THE DEAD MAN WHO WASN’T. One summer evening about 6, bicyclists returning from a jaunt up Navarro Ridge Road saw that the silver Volkswagon Jetta they’d noted on their way up Navarro Ridge Road was still at the gate. The lycra posse paused to have a look around. They soon saw an elderly man asleep, perhaps permanently asleep, stretched out in a sleeping bag. An empty bottle of anti-depressants and a fully consumed bottle of alcohol lay within the apparent corpse’s reach. And there was blood on his neck. The cyclists hustled down to Highway 128 and soon flagged down the South Coast Ambulance Service’s emergency vehicle which, not so fortuitously as it turned out, just happened to be passing by. The cyclists accompanied the Gualala EMTs return to the presumed dead man in the sleeping bag. The Gualala EMTs said they thought the man was dead, but because they didn’t have their protective rubber gloves with them they didn’t want to touch him to make sure, a peculiar stance for emergency services personnel but that was the stance they took. Soon “1144 near Navarro” — dead body — was heard on scanners all over Mendocino County.
Anderson Valley EMT Holly Newstead was soon on-scene. Ms. Newstead quickly determined that the dead man was not dead. She also couldn’t help but see that the dead man who wasn’t dead had apparently cut his own throat with a boxcutter, which was also found within his reach along with the empty bottle of sedatives and the drained whiskey bottle. The dead man who wasn’t dead, it was surmised, had washed down the sedatives with the whiskey and had then cut his own throat, somehow managing to miss an artery. One might say he’d hit a triple without touching any of heaven’s bases.
Emergency protocols kicked in and soon the dead man, now retrieved from wherever we go next, if there is a next, had survived. He was soon wafted dramatically upwards by an emergency medical helicopter, perhaps wondering as he ascended if he’d won a charter flight to the Pearly Gates.
We later discovered that the dead man who wasn’t dead was 68 years old, that his surname was King, and that he was from Berkeley. We don’t know why he’d selected Navarro Ridge Road for his thwarted exit, but the view, especially at sunset, would be a pleasant place to die.
Did Mr. King live on? We don’t know, medical privacy and all, but if you survive all that he survived we have to assume he took the hint.
IN OTHER TRUE LIFE local adventures, a woman appeared in the AVA’s office doorway exclaiming, “Bruce! I’m not nuts anymore!” This bold claim is one that few persons in Mendocino County could make with full confidence they wouldn’t immediately be refuted. It was Catherine Filby who wasn’t nuts anymore. Catherine had certainly been a consensus Difficult Person during her two-year stay in the Anderson Valley, but never psychotic to the point where Deputy Squires had had to cart her off as a full-blown 5150. Catherine who wasn’t nuts anymore went on to say that she was living and working in Garberville, that her children were doing well, and that she was enjoying a day away from home and work revisiting her old haunts in The Valley. Best of all, and speaking here as an uncredentialed non-professional, but a person with many years experience with aberrant behavior, Catherine seemed no longer nuts. She looked good, laughed a lot, expressed remorse for acting like a nut when she lived here, and said goodbye after a visit of maybe ten total minutes. The true nut would have settled in for at least an hour’s monologue heedless of what you might be doing. I was happy to see the reborn Catherine, especially grateful that she didn’t wear me out with her reclaimed sanity.
CATHERINE who was no longer nuts said she was on her way to Comptche where the Beauty of Glazenwood that grows on the old post office was in full bloom. “It only blooms once a year,” she said, and if I hadn’t had to work I think I would have driven over to Comptche myself to see a sight I’ve never seen with her.
YOUNGER OLD TIMERS like me, having arrived here in Anderson Valley c. 1970, remember the Health Center’s modest beginnings in the already ramshackle Ricard building at the south end of town. A barefoot medico called Phranklin Apfel, cousin of Dr. Mark, was the sawbones with, as I recall, Judy Nelson and Peggy McFadden functioning as nurses. The old old timers grumbled that the enterprise was aimed at “the damned hippies” but soon discovered the damned hippies running the place knew their bunions. From those simple origins The Clinic, as it was then called, grew to what it is today, a little hospital with an array of services perched atop a wobbly pile of debt.
THE BOONVILLE AMBULANCE, circa 1970, was an old station wagon hollowed out in back to get stretchers easily in and out. Bill West and Roy Salatena seemed to be in charge, but that old meat wagon served us well, as did Jim Wellington, Carl Kinion, Ruben Thomasson Sr. and any number of other unsung heroes and heroines who volunteered in those days. They knew how to apply tourniquets but also knew that their primary mission was to get the seriously wounded over the hill to the hospital pronto. Which they unfailingly did. And they handled a lot of very serious injuries, what with a few of the mills still running and loggers still getting hurt in the woods, not to mention the recreational bar fighters and drunk drivers. The old crews did a great job, saved a lot of lives. Now, of course, the whole country, having been captured by lawyers and insurance companies, Ambulance volunteers have to have all manner of emergency training and equipment which, in my opinion, discourages a lot of people from volunteering who’d be perfectly fine scraping the injured up from wherever they’ve fallen and getting them into the Ambulance and over the hill. A “professional” Ambulance crew is only one among many suburban amenities the hill muffins can’t seem to live without.
BILL KIMBERLIN:
An Attractive Nuisance
We called it “the swinging bridge”; and it remains in my mind, along with the tank tower and the apple dryer, one of the icons of the Valley
This most improbable of transports in the modern age is still there.
There was an auto bridge at this point on the river, but once it was skidded out for winter, the footbridge was the only access across the Navarro.
This relic has become what an insurance company would call “an attractive nuisance”. I’m sure somebody is desperately trying to get rid of it for that reason. But it’s not gone yet.
For years you could just walk out on the swaying bridge’s rotted planking, testing your nerves. Especially testing them, when your brother started rocking the whole thing, once you had crept to the center.
The entrance is locked now, but the footbridge still has some magic to it. We don’t have our tree houses to retreat to anymore and we can’t build forts out of hay bales in the barn, but we can still look out at that rickety old bridge hanging precariously over the muddy Navarro, and see where we had lots of scary fun.
AV ATHLETICS
This Monday, our boys’ volleyball team will face Round Valley at home at 6:00 PM. Then, on Thursday, they’ll be back on the court against Ukiah, also at 6:00 PM.
In track and field, we have our opening scrimmage for field events only this Friday in Middletown.
Tennis is going strong, and junior high softball and soccer will kick off practices this week!
One small school, five competitive teams, this spring is shaping up to be our biggest in a decade! Lets Go Panthers!
Two AV FFA members participated in the Golden State speaking contests this evening.
Mariluna placed 3rd in the Spanish Creed Blue Division. Zoe competed in the Impromptu Speaking. She did not place but is ready for regionals next week.
Great job ladies!
NO GRANGE PANCAKE BREAKFAST IN MARCH
Patty Liddy (AV Village): I was informed Sunday morning that there is no pancake breakfast in March. I'm so sorry for any inconvenience.
ANDERSON VALLEY VARIETY SHOW, 2025
The Anderson Valley Grange #669 presents the 32nd annual Variety Show March 14th & 15th, 2025! A community showcase of local singers, dancers, musicians, storytellers, poets, acrobats and family skits! A few LIVE animals too? There will be locally baked goods for sale in the AV Grange fundraiser snack bar concession and some lucky winner will go home with a stash of cash from the 50/50 CASH raffle! The AVHS Senior class will have a Mexican food concession in the parking lot before the show so bring some cash and an empty stomach! Grange doors open both nights at 6:30, event starts at 7pm. Tickets are $15 adults, kids $5 and available soon at Lemons Market in Philo, Boontberry, and Anderson Valley Market in Boonville. A few tickets will be made available at the event door and we also take Venmo! @AVgrange.
Chay Peterson, Philo volunteer
Hey folks! The 32nd Anderson Valley Variety Show tickets will be available tomorrow (Wednesday 3/5) at Lemon’s in Philo and Anderson Valley Markets! Come ‘n get ‘em! (Cash or check only) “Best show in the universe!” ~Captain Rainbow
AV ATHLETICS:
Anderson Valley wins it’s first home game of the season 3 sets to 0 over Round Valley.
The team travels to Rio Lindo today to take on Windsor and host Rio Lindo and will be home again Thursday against Ukiah completing a 5 game preseason stretch this week before heading into league play. Let’s go Panthers!
A BOONVILLE RESIDENT reports seeing occasional bright lights at night in the hills toward the Coast west of Boonville up near or around Church of Christ ridge over the last few nights. The lights seem to be stationary in an array similar to a sports stadium which come on for a few minutes and then go off. No sounds accompany the lights. Could someone be up there scoping out the place, at night? There are areas in that vicinity that have been heavily logged in the past, but you can’t see large treeless patches from the Valley floor. Pot growers have been known to be in the area in the past, but not lately. Anybody seen any lights up in those hills recently?
BOB ABELES (Boonville)
I’d like to offer a counter-point based on my recent experience at the Adventist hospital in Ukiah. I had major surgery in October than required a 5 day hospital stay. Everyone, from the kind lady that checked me in and banded me, the pre-op surgical staff, my fine surgeon, the kind anesthesiologist, the OR nurses, and the nursing staff that cared for me post op, treated me with care and compassion. Yes, I was woken up every few hours to check my vitals. Yes, there was noise on the hallway from other patients. The big but here is that the first was absolutely necessary and the later falls under the heading of “Really, What Do You Expect?” I came out of surgery in “guarded” condition, a state that requires constant care and monitoring. Wake me up, take my vitals, rinse and repeat. As far as the noise goes, a hospital is a place where there are sick, confused people in pain. They will not be on their best fine resort behavior.
Nurses are the backbone of any hospital. Without exception every member of nursing staff I interacted with really loved working there, and it showed. I felt a deep connection with many of them.
I think the big difference between my experience and what a big city hospital might offer is scale and size. In this case, smaller is most certainly better.
BOONVILLE ANON:
A white dodge durango has been speeding through town and its the second time I see them speeding. It is unacceptable and dangerous to be driving this fast especially in our small town. Seems like a young kid.. please parents have a serious talk with your kids about not speeding and ensuring to keep not only themselves but the people around them safe!
STEVE DERWINSKI has produced a unique autobiography, an abbreviated history of his life which, I'm here to testify, fascinated me front to back. I've always been beguiled by the guy, who I first became aware of when he built a beautiful sailboat and parked it in the parking lot of the Boonville Hotel for all to see. Or maybe he built it there in between constructing the Hotel's attractive outbuildings. It was then that I realized Derwinski is one of these rare persons who can do everything, from building houses and boats, to making music in rock and roll bands, to designing and making absolutely original furniture, and even writing haiku strictly within its rigid forms. He made my wife some original curtain rods, which some acquisitive vulture snagged when we moved before we could retrieve them. The man's been around, and you will for a slam dunk fact enjoy ‘Blowin' My Own Horn or 100 things I've done in the last 75 years, a random collection of people, places and events.’ Not sure where this nifty little bio is available, but if you email the author at stevederwinski@gmail.com he will likely get you a copy.
ELIZABETH KNIGHT:
For the new people; The indigenous Pomo people of Anderson Valley continue to thrive. One family in particular, my family, has remained in the area for an impressive eight generations or more. We are still here!! We just moved from Yorkville towards Philo/Navarro.
BETTY MCCORMICK:
Happy to see Val Muchowski at the Women’s History Month celebration in Ukiah. Have so much respect and appreciation for all she does…the first event was 1983 in Boonville.
WALTER GSCHWEND
Postcard caption: “Walter Gschwend: The most legendary wagoneer and spinner of tall tales that Anderson Valley has ever known. — From the collection of Ray Pinoli.”
Walter ‘Bub’ Gschwend lived 1882-1948, and was the son of John Gschwend, Jr. and grandson of John Gschwend. He passed in Boonville at age 65, but does not appear to have been buried in Anderson Valley. (Other family members are interred at the Shields-Studebaker Cemetery near Philo.)
(Marshall Newman)
DUNLAP ROOFING
Seniors: Ditch the Ladder! Let Our Full-Service Roofing Team Clean Your Gutters for Free! Safety first—leave the heights to us. This offer covers most coastal and valley homes.
A READER WONDERS: “Congratulations? I hear the actor who played you in ‘The Brucelist’ won the Oscar. Are congratulations called for? Where is Emily Post when we need her?”
REQUEST FOR BID
Housekeeping Services – Anderson Valley Fire Station
The Anderson Valley Fire Department (AVFD) is seeking bids for monthly housekeeping services at the Anderson Valley Fire Station. The selected individual or company will provide thorough cleaning once per month as an independent contractor. All cleaning supplies will be provided by AVFD.
Scope of Work Includes:
Dusting and sanitizing surfaces
Vacuuming and mopping floors
Cleaning restrooms and kitchen areas
Emptying trash and recycling
Additional thorough cleaning tasks as requested
Bid Submission Deadline:
All bids must be received by 4:00 PM on March 18th.
Submission Details:
Mail bids to:
AVFD
P.O. Box 398
Boonville, CA 95415
For further information and details, please contact AVFD at 707-895-2020.
AVFD reserves the right to reject any or all bids.
SOME OF US will remember when the French-owned Roederer Winery workers went on strike here in Anderson Valley, the first and, so far the last strike of farmworkers in Mendocino County.
THE FIELD WORKERS struck when they were suddenly nickel-nosed by the billion-dollar family-owned Roederer right at harvest time when Roederer suddenly announced they’d pay the people who make their huge annual profits possible somewhat less than Roederer had always paid people for picking their grapes. Which had to be picked right now. (They suddenly demanded that the vineyard workers pay the gondola drivers out of their own pockets.)
ROEDERER had sprung the pay decrease on the workers as they’d arrived in the Boonville vineyards at the crack of dawn. But the workers didn’t take the crumb bum pay reduction. They struck. Roederer shipped in workers from over on I-5 somewhere and, when they learned what had happened, they struck, too.
THE BOONVILLE STRIKERS contacted the UFW, and a dramatic union vote was held in the fields with Roederer’s gimlet-eyed French lawyers, flown in from Paris for the occasion, looking on. The workers, unintimidated by a process entirely stacked against them, voted to affiliate with the UFW.
IN A FEW MONTHS, the Anderson Valley UFW leaders had been systematically picked off and blackballed by management, while single union guys were expelled from Roederer’s single guy housing in retaliation for daring to go union, Roederer again had it all their own way.
ROEDERER had hired Littler-Mendleson, a Frisco-based group of union-busting legal gangsters who “advised” Roederer on the finer points of union-busting, including hiring a Mexican stooge to mingle with the workers and spy on who was leaning union. And soon the Wine People all over Mendocino County were holding Littler-Mendleson seminars on how to keep unions out of the fields and, to this day, the Wine People have kept the unions out.
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