Bruce Anderson:
It was about 3:30 the morning of Monday, April 14th when a passing motorist saw a tall figure tying a rope to the railing of the Perkins Street overpass, instantly concluding that it looked like the man was about to hang himself. The man was indeed about to hang himself, and he did, the rope snapping his neck when he hurled himself over the side, his body swept away in the Russian River three hundred yards downstream where it was found the next day.
The last time I saw Roger Schoenahl he was walking south from Boonville, headed for the junction to hitch a ride to Ukiah. I stopped to say hello. “Sorry, Bruce, I'm kinda pissed off at you so I don't want to talk to you.” I was a little offended because I had no idea what I'd done to anger him. He'd walked off fuming.
I'd known Roger, and his brother Freddy, since they were children. A native son of Boonville, Roger was in the last class to graduate from the Little Red School House in a kindergarten class, and the last class of any age to have received instruction in that iconic structure. And Roger, a wild child, was a graduate of Anderson Valley High School which, by that time, offered a continuation class for its more difficult students.
I saved my old clothes and shoes for Roger, who was roughly my dimensions before he moved permanently to Ukiah to become a vivid addition to the town's street population. Roger often stopped by my office to show me his latest poems and paintings. He was a kind of savant with a real ability to capture his life in his art. I liked one of the water colors he gave me so much I slapped it into an old frame and put it up on the office wall. “If you look real carefully at it, Bruce, you can see the faces in the clouds.” It was so well done, so subtle, that if a pro had done it the painting would still have been exceptional. Roger had talent he didn't know he had, sharing his art with people he knew would appreciate it, and I was always flattered that he shared it with me.
“You should take some art classes at the college, Roger.” I don't have time for that, he said, and everything he said was said at top volume and often did not correspond to anything you thought was the conversation. He simply delivered a live stream account of whatever he saw on his crowded mind screen. And he told it straight. When a local told me he thought he'd seen Roger steaming along on his bicycle late at night on the Manchester end of Mountainview Road I confirmed that Roger rode or walked great nocturnal distances late at night, explaining, “I like the peace at night.”
I knew the family back to Roger's grandparents, Archie and Myrtis Schoenahl. The Schoenahls were one of the Anderson Valley's lead, post-War families. Their apple orchards and packing shed had been significant local employers. At harvest time many Valley housewives earned seasonal money working for the Schoenhals. But they got in too deep financially, and by the early eighties they'd lost most of their properties.
Roger and Freddy, in their middle teens, were semi-abandoned in Boonville in a dirt floor Caltrans structure hauled up from the Caltrans yard and plunked down opposite the Boonville Methodist church. The boy's father appeared regularly to drop off food, otherwise they were on their own. But they got by in a community that's very good about taking care of their own.
For several years, knowing he had no money and was way beyond conventional or even unconventional employment, I encouraged him to apply for SSI. “But I'm not nuts, Bruce.” Just go in and apply, Roger. Of course you're not nuts, I said, knowing he'd be approved by simply presenting himself as he was. Finally, he did apply, and one day he mentioned that he had a payee, a name I didn't recognize, and I could only hope his payee was making sure Roger had an income and a place to stay, although Valley people were pretty sure he was homeless in Ukiah where, occasionally, the Ukiah police picked him up as drunk and disorderly and booked him into the County Jail.
I would not have thought Roger was suicidal. Mental health services being what they are in the county, I doubt he was getting any help, which probably isn't fair to the mental health people because Roger was not amenable to sustained assistance. It's a sad day for all of us who knew him.
ROBERT ANDERSON: So sad…
It seemed he was arrested for something (again!) and was out on parole before trial. Defacing property? Something heavier than drunk and disorderly. Do you think facing time got him even more down?
Who knows?
I have way too many friends who have killed themselves… I still remember him as a too tall gormless happy kid with a sly smile and so happy to be included like a puppy into any group we had going and talk about fractals on the way to the river or beach in Mendocino. Or just that oppressive summer heat and hang where time moves so slow and you talk about what’s coming to the Ukiah Theater or music and sports. (Rog wasn’t big on sports exactly…) Or anything, with too long walks when the car broke down or there was no car and you thought something might be happening somewhere like the high school or a swimming hole or water source to wade in maybe, so out we went soldiering down the road to Manchester Road or downtown or Hendy Woods or another winding road or just down the road to Eugene Waggoner's place or the Market or any place hoping for shade and glorious air conditioning and looking for a garden hose or spigot because we’d get bone dry and cotton mouthed and once in a while an ice cold soda…
Rog was a good outside poet and artist too. If he had been trained, he could have become a painter too. Obviously, given different circumstances, he probably would have gone to college and caught on at some tech start up as he had a brain for computers and probably some autism, so would have fit in and worked out of a garage for 16 hours a day, living on Red Bull and take out Chinese.
I felt so bad for him to be living in that sty of a house with his psycho brother Freddy, waiting for his father to drop off a box of food, cans of jack mackerel and creamed corn, crackers and miracle whip…
I remember he walked/biked to Fort Bragg to see if he could catch a glimpse of the Japanese girl who was there as a foreign exchange student. He was a huge fan of that all-girl Japanese band, Shonen Knife. I have some video I took of him once, explaining his art work that he kept in a bag amidst the squalor of his bedroom and him talking about Shonen Knife.
Another rural story of a family’s fall, and his generation feeling it worst of all. There is Faulkner in it. Snopes. Sutpens. Sadness down by the river…
And they say with hanging, the person wants someone to find them, to see them, to acknowledge their body and death and suffering. And to cut them down.
Ukiah Old Folks Home
High noon enjoying joints of iindica
And not sharing any of it with dad
I try to get stoned as fast as I can
Because my dad tells me to hurry up.
.
Traveling to Ukiah is the form
Of entertainment which reminds me of
Why I almost never stop to look at
Those stupid things called television sets
.
Dad stops at the library and I
Get out, shut the door, enter the building
And then read a book about redwood trees
For half an hour and then dad returns.
.
Me and dad leave the library and go
To the old folk’s home where dad drops me off
And I am surprised to be awed to such
An extent by the panoramic view.
.
The sight of the hills west of Ukiah
Remains fresh in my mind as I open
The door, walk down the first hall, greet the staff,
Negotiate the corridor, Enter
Another room and say, “Hello Grandpa!”
— Roger Schoenahl
Two video clips of Roger reading his poems:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ESOD5BUnE0M
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NdTxqye0OLs
Saffron Fraser, March 2006
I ran in to Roger Schoenahl in Ukiah last week. Roger has been kicked out of his overpriced, no utilities rental trailer in Boonville. He is looking for some affordable housing, probably in Ukiah. It makes me sad that Roger, a third generation Boonvillian and a well-recognized fixture in the Valley, can't find a place in the only place that's been home to him all his life. The Schoenahl family came to Anderson Valley soon after the 1906 Earthquake. Roger says they were the first to plant grapes, but old grampa Archie didn't like the hooch so he tore them out and planted apples. Anyway, was sad to see the apples ripped from the Valley, and now it’s sad to see Roger ripped from the Valley.
Dave Severn, February 6, 2007
Roger Schoenahl spent seven days in Howard Hospital in Willits to repair a broken hip he sustained while skateboarding in Fort Bragg. Showing off for the girls he admits. He is back in the Valley on crutches looking for a place to stay since he no longer can hike to the Ukiah side camp he has been living in for some months. Other sleeping arrangements have also dissolved, so with the rains coming ole Rog is a might desperate.
Archie Schoenahl
Funeral services for George ‘Archie’ Schoenahl, 86, were held on Tuesday, November 25, 2003, in Ukiah. Interment was in Evergreen Cemetery, Boonville. Born October 27, 1917, in Philo, Mr. Schoenahl grew up in Yorkville, attended high school in Boonville and, after a childhood spent on his parent’s ranch off Haehl’s Grade, Yorkville, on what is now called Pomo Tierra, lived the rest of his life in Boonville where he owned andoperated Anderson Valley’s largest, most successful apple business. The Schoenahl orchards and packing shed thrived up through the 1970s. Mr. Schoenahl’s wife, Myrtis, died six years ago. Mr. Schoenahl is survived by his sons, Larry Wayne Schoenahl and James Schoenahl; by his grandchildren Martin Schoenahl and wife Nanette; Matthew Schoenahl and wife Morgan; Mary Schoenahl; Andrew Schoenahl and wife Amber; Roger Schoenahl and Fred Schoenahl, and three great grandchildren.
Renee Lee: A Roger Schoenahl original graces the walls of the senior center.
Be First to Comment