AMY BALLEW KELLEY
It is with a very heavy heart, but also a joyful one, that I let y’all know that Mama went home to her Daddy, my Daddy, her precious Randy, her mama and all her family that went before her on Sunday, Father’s Day.
Visitation will be Thursday from 5-7 at Smith Family Funeral Home. Services will be Friday at 11 at Avant Community Church in Avant with burial to follow at Oakwood Cemetery.
I will post the obituary and video tomorrow when it is available. Mrs. Ballew is a former resident of Boonville where her son, Vince Ballew, still resides.
AV POMO PRESENTATION ON VIDEO
For those of you that missed David Severn, Elizabeth Knight, Jeff Burroughs and others talking about the AV Pomo, past, present and future, you can enjoy it from the comfort of your easy chair. Just click on this link from the Anderson valley museum youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1E0m5wf7M0
CALTRANS HAS PAVEMENT PLANS FOR BOONVILLE.
A semi-formal group of about two dozen Boonville residents and business owners (most with gray hair) met Monday afternoon on the deck behind the Paysanne ice-cream shop to discuss Caltrans’ plans to re-pave most of downtown Boonville with wide sidewalks and other “improvements.” Speaking for himself (and not the Communty Services District where he is a board member) organizer Sash Williams, a structural engineer by profession and downtown Boonville resident acting as a private citizen, said he had been working with a Caltrans rep who seemed receptive to local input. Based on experience, locals are skeptical of Caltrans’ plans and hope to have some influence on the plans. Williams said the repaving schedule at the moment looks like, maybe 2029, but is subject to change due to many factors, chief among them the possible installation of a water-sewer project over most of the same downtown area. A volunteer architect (first name Ned, last name illegible) has also been working with Williams laid out some topo maps of the area showing the 80-foot wide Caltrans swath down the middle of town, as measured from the center-line of Highway 128 to 40 feet on either side (basically the outside edge of where most of the existing private sidewalks are. Caltrans wants eliminate the current head-in diagonal parking along most of downtown and replace it with either parallel parking or back-in diagonal parking. Locals seemed to agree that they preferred to breakdown into at least three zones where the central area would be diagonal and the further north and south would be parallel. They also agreed that existing sidewalks should be incorporated, not destroyed; that as much permeable/non-concrete area as possible be left unpaved, that traffic calming and lane narrowing downtown would be safer. Other considerations might include a rounabout at the corner of Highway 128 and 253, more off-street parking, especially in underutilized areas, undergrounding of utilities and bike lanes, perhaps on one side only. Apparently there’s some kind of “time crush” to influence Caltrans even though the schedule seems pretty far off. More meetings are plaanned. Perhaps in the future organizers and/or Caltrans will put out a press release, develop a website, and invite Caltrans to a future meeting.
(Mark Scaramella)
NEW THRIFT STORE AT FLOODGATE
New thrift store opening soon serving the community of Anderson Valley and Mendo, having a rummage sale every Thursday through Sunday this month. Donations welcome! ’Cheap Weird Stuff’ at Floody’s, 1802 Hwy 128
EVERY DAY we grow a little more urban, a little less distinct as a specific place. Old timers and Not So Old Timers will remember when our postmasters stamped each outgoing envelope with the bold type date, time, and place of dispatch, and you’re getting to be a Valley Old Timer if you remember Melvin ‘Woody’ Wood at the Navarro P.O., Peggy Bates and Berna Walker at the Boonville P.O., Thelma Pinoli and Dot Becker at the Philo Post Office; and I’m probably wrong here but wasn’t the memorable Leo Marcott postmaster at Yorkville?
WOODY WOOD lived at Rancho Navarro. His life revolved around his art which, in my opinion, was of a very high quality but about which he was guarded, as if he wasn’t confident in his ability. I tried to buy a painting from him but he always put me off, a sure sign of a true artist never entirely satisfied with his work. (I’m happy to report I’m the owner of a Saffron Fraser original, and hope to buy another original piece from the talented Philo painter. For a small population of people, there’s a lot of talent in the Anderson Valley.)
DAYLA HEPTING perfectly captured Woody as Navarro postmaster in her paragraph: “Not long after that she [Pat Grim] quit the job, Melvin ‘Woody’ Wood took it. Woody had an entirely different view of it. He laughed a quiet chuckle as he tossed a new book of Postal rules into the trash and went off to have a beer with the boys under the drunk tree, actually drinking alcohol while representing the United States Post Office. Even I could not have done that. It was startling. And in sharp contrast to Pat’s reign.”
PAT GRIM. Never has a person had a more fitting surname. Ms. Grim was once an immediate neighbor of mine on Anderson Valley Way. She regularly popped up to complain about something happening at my place, always a happening address, especially the sound of children playing basketball. Jeez, I used to wonder, what else annoys her? A beautiful sunset? Bird song? Hendy Woods?
I’D SHINE HER ON because I felt sorry for her. “Come in and have a cup of coffee?” Which she’d of course refuse. So I’d say, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get right on it,” and then ignore her. One day she came over three times to complain about the merry hoopsters, as if they were being noisy at 3am. I remember complaining about her constant complaining to a person who shall remain nameless. “You don’t understand, Bruce, she’s depressed. Guys like you are too dumb to be depressed.”
I WASN’T SURPRISED when I learned that Ms. Grim had done a header off the Golden Gate Bridge. Trite as the advice is, and not that anyone has ever asked, I prescribe vigorous exercise as a sure-fire antidote to suicidal thoughts, or just plain mental funk. Walk until you drop! Hit the weights until your muscles scream. Works for me.
VERN PETERMAN: Heading toward the coast on Hwy 128, just past Josie's house, was a place in the road that we came to call 'Josie's Corner". The view from there looked like this:
STEVE DERWINSKI
Former Navarro Postmaster Woody moved north from Santa Barbara. He told me once that his taxes had gone up dramatically so he drained the pool in his back yard and filled it with dirt. But before he did, he threw all of his paintings in the bottom of the pool. Woody and Thornton Casey who lived out on the Nash Ranch would stop by Charlie Bass’s where I was building my boat, have a couple beers and talk about ART. ( Thornton was a watercolorist also)
One day while they were hanging out together I asked them “Why don’t you paint me a picture of my boat ?” The next day Woody showed up wIth an easel and all his watercolor supplies and gifted me with a great picture of my boat–The Red Star–in progress…
FIRST RESPONDER PICNIC, BOONVILLE: Nice First Responder appreciation picnic at the park yesterday. Well attended and AV Chief Andres Avila made a great presentation to our Cal Fire team. Thanks for all that both AVFD and Cal Fire provide for our Valley!
ONE OF THE AVA’S BEST INTERNS, Mayte Guerrero, was assigned to the paper back in the summer of 2013. Here’s what she wrote about the experience:
“One day at school I noticed that the summer internship descriptions had gone up in the hallway. I looked at them and at first I was naturally drawn to the most commonly applied for positions. Then the position of being an intern for the AVA caught my eye. Reading since the age of four, I’ve been an avid reader my entire life. Growing up I read anything I could get my hands on, and that of course meant I’d even read the newspaper. The newspaper internship seemed to be able to provide good experience. Fortunately, I was the only applicant for the position. Apparently everyone else was too scared of Mr. Anderson and Mr. Scaramella.
I got mixed reactions from adults when I’d say my internship was with the newspaper. A lot of people would smile and say “Oh that’s great, ” but I could tell some were not sincere. I did get a few good lucks and some people told me working with Bruce and Mark might be more than I bargained for. Actually, even Bruce and Mark warned me when I first walked into the AVA office for my interview.
They’re not the bad fellows some people made them out to be. Sure they both have opinions, opinions that can offend some people. But we are all entitled to one. When it comes down to it, it is your dollar and your choice to buy the newspaper. That’s the funny aspect of this world; you will never meet someone who agrees with you on everything. I find it entertaining to read a lot of what they write, probably because none of it has ever been negatively directed towards me.
I can honestly say that undertaking the internship with the newspaper was a very rewarding experience. Not only because I’ve learned a lot from both Bruce and Mark, but also because every time I go into the office there is an interesting conversation to engage in. The newspaper might be considered radical, but there is more to the two guys running it. There is a side that I got to be around this summer, a side that is not seen through the pages of their newspaper.
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