FROM a recent TWK column: “Does this mean she’s more upset about the way I fold towels than she was when I gave her the leaf blower for Christmas? Meaning, I think, that the towels in our house, the ones we mostly use to dry things, had undergone mal-folding. Mis-folding. Wrongly folded up and maybe put on shelves upside down.”
AS A LIBERATED MAN fully committed to gender equality, I’ve always tried to do my share of the household chores. But early on in my marriage, especially as I insisted I should regularly do the dishes, the little woman was suspiciously attentive. I could feel her disapproval as I scrubbed, rinsed and stacked.
WE had only been a team for a couple of months, and it was just the two of us. There weren’t many dishes to wash, but she finally said, “I don’t want you to do the dishes. You don’t stack them properly.”
SMALL irritations can grow into large ones, and washing and stacking the dinner dishes wasn’t an issue I was willing to go to the wall for.
GIVING up responsibility for kitchen duty wasn’t much of a sacrifice, but it quickly expanded to an informal kitchen ban. She simply didn’t want me in there unless summoned. In her view, if I wasn’t strictly supervised things were sure to go awry. The knives might get thrown in with the spoons, a lid might not be returned to its pot, crumbs could be maliciously left on a countertop.
THE KITCHEN BAN quickly expanded to the rest of the house. “You don’t care if your socks are in your underwear drawer?” Nope. “You just throw your trousers in with your shirts?” Yup.
(NOTE: In Marine Corps boot camp, circa ‘57, I learned that women wore pants, men trousers, a lesson I’ve never unlearned.)
MY HOUSEHOLD HEEDLESSNESS soon ended. She did it her way. Home management was hers. A feminist of the more judgemental type would write off my non-participation in household responsibilities as one more phallocratic stranglehold men have on women, nevermind that this particular woman had insisted that, in-house, I stay in my lane.
OBJECTIVELY, an outsider might consider our marriage improbable. Educated in British mission schools, Ling’s English was perfect, strictly considered better than mine. She knew very little about America or Americans. I was the first Yankee anybody in our jungle outpost had seen. I was a big hit, I can tell you, the first pale face to join right in with local society. The Brits had stuck to their own.
IN THE COURSE of adjusting to each other, Ling, an elementary school teacher, asked me if I knew how to diagram sentences. I was young but it had been years since I’d been force fed predicates and subjects as they were explicated on long ago grammar school blackboards. “Frankly, my dear, I never saw the point, but give me a sentence and I’ll try.”
I TRIED to fake it, but stumbled badly at sub-clauses in a long sentence she found in Jane Austen. Ling triumphantly corrected my diagramming scaffolding. “Aren’t you a college graduate?” Yes, but…
ONE night, which falls like a curtain on the equator — it’s light one minute, dark the next, and the wild things begin singing and whooping in the nearby jungle. (A brazen monkey the size of a chimpanzee, regularly made its way into our primitive kitchen. I caught the intruder one night, startling both of us, me into a scream, him into a truly frightening growl. He kept at it. Ling left bananas out for him, and I pretended not to hear him. )
I SUFFERED a terrible fright one afternoon on the town’s outside basketball court when, out of the corner of my eye, I’d caught a glimpse of a giant Monitor Lizard running upright. I sprinted in the opposite direction, to the huge merriment of the kids I’d been hooping with. I’d never heard of Monitor Lizards, let alone seen one about thirty feet from me. The wildlife could be intimidating.
ONE EVENING, as the little woman did the dishes, she dropped a plate, exclaiming, “Fuck a duck.” I froze. I guess I’d assumed she was familiar with the do’s and don’ts of basic English language profanity. I was wrong. “Hey! Watch it! Better not say that.”
“WELL,” she replied, “you say it all the time.” I’m not what you’d call a rhetorical role model, my dear, and the f-word is to be deployed cautiously and sparingly. She’s never dropped an f-bomb since.
OUR UNION was a long process of social adjustment, mostly on Ling’s part. We landed in the USA in 1967, by which time the few beatniks I remembered in North Beach had segued into a whole new beast, the hippie. Even I, as a native son, was a little disoriented. They were everywhere, especially where we rented an apartment at 199 Frederick in the upper Haight-Ashbury. The mainstem hippie accumulation was just down the street, but they wandered uphill at all hours.
LING was afraid to go outside without me. I assured her the hippies were merely harmless exhibitionists, not at all dangerous, but it took her weeks to get over the shock of coming from a traditional, conservative third world milieu into the first stages of the American crack up.
SHERIFF MATT KENDALL
The Editor outdid himself with this one! He definitely hit the nail on the head with the recital of a man attempting to do household chores!
Prior to meeting my wife. I had moved through life with a belief that I was doing OK on most things. My finances were stable my home was warm and for the most part acceptably clean. I made it to work on time daily. I truly believed I was meeting muster on all things.
Little did I know my overall rating was based on my standards, standards which I was grading myself on and therefore I could be lenient on the things I found to be less important.
After I met my wife I learned there was an entirely different level of what is acceptable. I also learned although I didn’t believe myself to be a complete slob and screw up, that was simply because I didn’t have an additional rater in the mix. So ks and handkerchiefs may be co-mingled but don’t try that with T-shirts and trousers!
I have attempted to complete my share of household chores, only to watch these tasks be repeated and completed “properly”. I often will vacuum the living room carpet and leave the vacuum cleaner dead center in the middle of the room for all to see. It becomes a beacon of my accomplishment which the wife is certain to see when she arrives home from work.
She often points out the fact I feel the need for a marching band and a round of applause each time I complete a task like vacuuming, the living room or mowing the lawn.
I do know one thing for certain. I can cut, split and stack firewood in a fashion most men can only dream of.
Each fall I find a reason to parade my spouse past the wood shed knowing full well there will be some kudos bestowed upon me!
AFTER WEEKS OF SITE PREPARATION (and after years of overall project planning and financing), the specially designed and built temporary bridge for the Lambert Lane Bridge replacement project arrived in Boonville Tuesday.
Installation of the custom one-lane temporary bridge is a project in itself since it has to span an awkward curve in Robinson Creek, not just the width of the creek, with no intermediate supports. The replacement bridge also has to be installed in very close quarters since the contractor was denied access to neighboring property and a couple of other possible temporary crossing points.
In preparation for installation, the bridge project contractor built a runway with a special launching platform where the bridge will be slowly scooted across the S-curve in Robinson Creek over a period of days, supported by a crane, a large counterbalance, and upside-down rollers until it reaches another specially built platform on the other side.
The temporary bridge was built and is being installed by a Central Valley engineering subcontractor (Arco?) to fit this specific span. The plan is for the temporary bridge to be in place until the fall while the new two-lane replacement bridge is built and installed where the old Bailey Bridge is now. Then the temporary bridge will have to be removed (another project by itself considering the tight space) and presumably returned to the County for, perhaps, another project/bridge washout.
So far we’ve been impressed by the contractor and subcontractor crews as they navigate the limited space available while taking a challenging number of external factors into account.
(Mark Scaramella)
GREAT DAY IN ELK 2025
The 49th annual Great Day in Elk will be held on Saturday, August 23, from noon until dusk. The noontime parade will travel through downtown Elk to the Greenwood Community Center for the day’s festivities.
All afternoon there will be game booths with prizes and do-it-yourself crafts projects for children, plus a greased pole with a $100 bill at the top. Watermelon-eating contests, sack races, and an egg toss will be held throughout the day.
This year’s live entertainment features belly dancing and live music by 2nd Hand Grass. There will also be a silent auction, a cake auction and a raffle.
Lunch options include tamales and Caesar salad (with or without chicken), hot dogs and focaccia with Moroccan lentil soup, and the Civic Club’s ice cream sundaes topped with fresh berry sauce. Drinks include fresh-pressed Greenwood Ridge apple cider, Elk’s famous margaritas, soft drinks, beer and wine.
This year’s dinner will be udon noodles with spicy chicken or tofu, prepared by Chris of Mendocino’s Gnar Bar. It will be served from 4 to 7.
So, come to the little coastal village of Elk and enjoy a fun-filled family day, while supporting the Greenwood Community Center, five miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1. Please leave dogs at home.
For more information email Mea Bloyd at [email protected] or visit the Elk community website — www.elkweb.org.
BROCK FARMS NOW OPEN IN BOONVILLE
Wednesday-Sunday, 10-6. Closed Monday-Tuesday.
THIS WEEK AT BLUE MEADOW FARM
Heirloom, Early Girl and Cherry tomatoes
Bumper crop of sweet Walla Walla Onions
Corno di Toro, Bell, Gypsy & Pimiento Peppers
Jalapeno, Padron, Anaheim & Poblano Chilis
Eggplant, Zucchini, Basil
Lisbon Lemons, local Olive Oil
Sunflowers & Zinnias
Blue Meadow Farm
3301 Holmes Ranch Road, Philo
(707) 895-2071
VELMA’S FARM STAND AT FILIGREEN FARM IN BOONVILLE
Friday 2-5 pm
Open Saturday & Sunday 11-4pm
This week’s offerings include: blueberries, peaches, ‘Strawberry Parfait’ ‘Red Gravenstein’ and ‘Zestar’ apples, ‘Charentais’ melons and mini red watermelons (from Paul’s Produce and Russian River Organics), tomatoes (heirlooms, cherry, new girls), eggplant, hot peppers, shishito peppers, carrots, sprouting broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce mix, arugula, hakurei turnips, onions, summer squash, cucumbers, kale, kohlrabi, celery, beets, cabbage, garlic, basil, parsley, olive oil, and dried fruit!
Notes from the field: We’re harvesting the last of the blueberries this week just as the apple season begins to kick off. Tomatoes are going strong, along with eggplant and the first wave of hot peppers making their appearance. Our own melons are still ripening, so in the meantime, we’re offering delicious ones from our local farming community. As summer produce rolls in, we’re glad to keep a steady supply of brassicas and root crops to round out the mix!
Follow us on Instagram for updates @filigreenfarm or email [email protected] with any questions. All produce is certified biodynamic and organic.
TONY SUMMIT:
The old J.T. Farrer store was still in business when we came to town in the early 50’s. When old man Farrer (JT) was tending the counter downstairs one day, my cousin Gary Waggoner was going to teach my younger brother Davíd Summit how to get some chocolate chunks of candy at a sharply discounted price. The chunks, to those who are old enough to remember were kept ón the counter on a large jar right next to the large half moon dish type weight machine. The key, Gary was to show and teach David, was to put your chunks on the weight machine dish and hold your finger under the dish as it pushed down to register the weight thereby the cost would show on the clerks side. He did this and old man Farrer (who wore coke bottle bottom glasses and shuffled instead of walked) bent down real close, looked, then looked again and said “according to what I can fígger here, it looks like I owe you some money”. Gary had pressed way too hard upward…….uh oh…busted……never tried that one again.
A SCOOTER ACCIDENT at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company in Boonville on Friday night resulted in major injuries, according to scanner traffic and the California Highway Patrol. The crash was reported around 9:50 p.m., when a person riding a scooter in the brewery’s parking lot reportedly struck a parked vehicle, sustaining a possible head injury. CHP logs indicate no other vehicles were involved in the incident. Emergency crews requested an air ambulance, which was instructed to land on Toll House Road, to transport the patient for treatment. (MendoFever.com)
NEW DIVE BAR in Boonville! Come check them out! The Buckhorn is so back:) Downstairs of The Boonville Distillery
TREEFROG LIVES ON
On Line Commenter D.N. Smith:
I was a prison guard at California Medical Facility for years. I ran across both Alex and Tree Frog there. High powered inmates had approached me a few days earlier about ” leaving an area unwatched ” for a few minutes. I told them I could do no such a thing. The next day I saw Treefrog leave his housing unit, by himself, walking very rapid. Looking behind himself. He went down stairs to the chow hall. I heard him scream like a woman as he was stabbed in the back. They were laying in wait for him. Unfortunately treefrog lived.
Background: https://theava.com/archives/211459
J.T. Farrer! Really long-time valley folks will remember his Model-A (?) pickup, which he drove at a snail’s pace on old Highway 128 – before the road was straightened – between Philo and Boonville . Often times there would be a parade of cars behind him as he drove, since passing on that stretch back then was a risky proposition.