Mendocino County Today: Friday 9/12/2025

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DRIER AND WARMER conditions today and Saturday, followed by a period of more light rain for the North Coast on Sunday. The synoptic weather pattern trending warmer and drier early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy - foggy 56F this Friday morning on the coast. The NWS uses the word "sunny" more than the word "foggy" in the forecast for the next 7 days, & as always, we'll see.

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PETER LIT: Thomas Kendall died earlier today (Thursday). He was fortunate enough to die at home, cared for and doted on, by his partner Carol. He died gently in his sleep. He was pain free, thanks to Adventist hospice care. He was giving, a good man, a crackerjack shuffle drummer, an avid catch-and-release fisherman. I will miss him very much. The world is now a smaller place.

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EXIT STRATEGY NABS ARSONIST

On Thursday, September 11, 2025 at approximately 4:44 A.M., Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to an agency assist call with the South Coast Fire Protection District in the Manchester area. The South Coast Fire Protection District had been dispatched to a residential structure fire in the area of the 21000 block of Rancheria Road accessed off Mountain View Road.

Upon arrival of fire personnel at the scene, they were informed the fire had been intentionally set by a next-door neighbor. Deputies arrived and were informed by one of the victims that the primary tenant of the property, Steven Harper, 41, of Manchester, was intoxicated and had been harassing his sublet tenants and threatening to burn their cabin and tent throughout the night if they did not leave his property. Harper later set fire to the cabin and tent and vandalized a vehicle belonging to one of the other tenants. Harper had since left the scene of the fire and hid from law enforcement inside his residence approximately 30 feet away.

Sheriff’s Office Deputies developed a tactical plan to extract Harper from his residence and began calling out to Harper, requesting that he surrender. Harper eventually complied by exiting the residence and was taken into custody without further incident. The cabin, tent, and personal belongings of the victims were completely destroyed by the fire. No other structures or wildland were threatened by the fire. An arson investigator from the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority responded to the scene of the fire and conducted an arson investigation into this incident.

Harper was arrested without incident on charges of Arson of an inhabited structure, Felony vandalism over $400, and Violation of probation. Harper was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held on a no-bail status due to him violating the terms of his probation.

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MARY CRAIG KENDALL (PRITCHARD)
24 February 1948 - 13 July 2025

Softly and in love she was called home.

Raised in the LA Valley by her Mother Dorothy & loved by her sister Lisa, she took a fancy to long board surfing, modeling, among other adventures.

Following her heart, with her son Justin by her side, she married Tom Kendall in her newfound home Comptche. Vita June followed a short 2 years later. Fully engrossed in her new community she rode horses, played bridge, and started making life a little better on the Mendocino Coast. Great Friends were made at the Casper Inn while Tommy played. Her dance card was always full.

Opened small businesses, The Texaco station (Red Rhino), Kendall’s Auto Wrecking. Elected to city counsel then sitting as mayor. Ft Bragg Destruction Derby Queen! She nurtured many ‘extra kids’ and friends with lots of chili and love. Her legacy in this community will continue in Project Sanctuary, the facades on Franklin Street and the groundwork for the skate park. We are all blessed to have known her.

Mary was interred with her mother at Evergreen Cemetery, Mendocino on September 7th.

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JAYMA SHIELDS SPENCE:

Hi All,

I present to you the second edition of The Observer since my dad departed this physical space. I wish I could reassure you that "all is well", but right now it's far from that.

The gravity of my father's death is incredibly overwhelming, and it's still hard to believe we can't pick up the phone and ask him for advice, or rely on him to solve a problem.

I would like to thank those of you who wrote in your "Love Letter to Jim", this issue is a wonderful tribute to someone who gave so much to this life. My dad's first wife wrote so beautifully of him "Throughout his life Jim had a strong commitment to social justice and tried to help achieve those aims in various ways."

Next week's paper will continue the tributes, some I quite frankly forgot to put in, what can I say, it's been a week! If you meant to send along your contribution, please do so. Thank you to those of you have expressed your well-wishes and words of encouragement and support, it makes the dark days a little brighter.

Until next week,
Jayma

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FEMA FINALIZES FLOOD MAPS, widening high-risk areas across Mendocino County

by Matt LaFever

Updated federal flood maps for the City of Ukiah and Mendocino County will take effect on Thursday, Sept. 19, according to the City of Ukiah.

The new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps expand the areas designated as flood risk zones. City officials appealed the preliminary maps earlier this year, but FEMA made only minor revisions before finalizing them.

With winter storms approaching, city staff urged residents to review the updated maps and make sure their flood insurance coverage is up to date.

For more information about FEMA’s flood mapping process, Letters of Map Amendment or Revision, and insurance options, residents can contact the FEMA Mapping and Insurance eXchange (FMIX) at 1-877-336-2627, email [email protected], or visit floodmaps.fema.gov/fhm/fmx_main.html.

Information about the city’s appeal of the preliminary maps and its discussions with FEMA is available at www.cityofukiah.com/flood-maps.

For additional details, residents can contact Traci Boyl at (707) 467-5720.

(mendofever.com)

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COASTAL COMMISSION UPHOLDS FORT BRAGG’S APPROVAL OF 83-UNIT MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT

Main Street project cleared to move forward.

by Elise Cox

The California Coastal Commission on Wednesday approved a new 83-unit mixed-use development on Main Street in Fort Bragg, affirming the City Council’s decision despite multiple appeals citing concerns about the project’s scale, environmental impact and consistency with local coastal plans.

The Commission issued a “no substantial issue determination” on the appeals, meaning Fort Bragg’s amended permit for the project at 1151 South Main St. is now final and effective.

The project, developed by Akoshdeep “Kosh” Grewal of Kosh Petroleum, sits on a 2.6-acre vacant lot on the west side of State Highway 1, just south of the Noyo River Bridge. Initially approved for 87 units, the plan was reduced to 83 residential units across seven apartment buildings ranging from 32 to 38 feet tall. Eight of the units are designated as affordable housing for very low-income households.

To meet mixed-use requirements in the Highway Visitor Commercial (CH) zone, the development also includes a 1,000-square-foot commercial/retail space and four visitor-serving hotel suites without kitchens. One suite will be offered at a low-cost rate and managed by Grewal’s adjacent Emerald Dolphin Inn. Additional features include a 107-space parking lot, an outdoor play area, landscaping, a 5-foot sound wall along Harbor Avenue, and a public access path with signage to Pomo Bluffs Park.

Controversy and Appeals

The development has been described as Fort Bragg’s “biggest new project of the 21st century.” The City Council first approved it on March 24, 2025, subject to 37 special conditions. Councilmember Scott Hockett recused himself due to a financial interest in nearby property.

Seven appeals were filed with the Coastal Commission by individuals and groups, including Paul Clark, Judy Mashhour-Azad, Guy R. Burnett, Mary Chamberlin, Teresa and David Skarr, Annemarie Weibel and Hamid Zarrabi. The appeals prompted the council to issue an amended permit on July 14, 2025, intended to address some of the concerns.

Key issues raised included:

Visual resources: Residents argued the 38-foot height was inconsistent with Fort Bragg’s rural character and obstructed public views. Some criticized the city for not requiring story poles.

Traffic and public access: Appellants cited inadequate mitigation, an outdated traffic study and risks to coastal access.

Water quality and hydrology: Concerns included unsealed bore holes from past site investigations and reliance on an outdated groundwater report, an unknown impact on the Todd Point aquifer.

Land-use and zoning: Opponents said the project puts private residential units over visitor-serving uses in a zone where the latter are prioritized.

Process and transparency: Critics alleged a flawed noise study, poor noticing of hearings and improper CEQA exemptions. The Commission deemed these “invalid contentions” because they did not directly allege inconsistencies with the Local Coastal Program (LCP).

Commission’s Findings

Despite the breadth of the appeals, Coastal Commission staff recommended a no substantial issue determination, finding “a high degree of legal and factual support” for the city’s approval.

Their reasoning emphasized:

Affordable housing: Eight affordable units qualified the project for state density bonuses, allowing increased building height and reduced requirements for ground-floor visitor-serving uses.

Visitor-serving balance: The inclusion of retail space, four hotel suites (including one low-cost unit) and a public path to Pomo Bluffs Park aligned with the intent of the CH zone.

Visual resources: The site is not designated as a potential scenic view area. Existing development and vegetation already limit ocean views, and landscaping was found to minimize visual impacts.

Traffic mitigation: The project’s traffic was deemed insufficient to reduce service levels below acceptable thresholds. Caltrans did not require a new study. Conditions included signage, street improvements and a possible transit or school bus stop.

Water quality protections: Conditions required stormwater capture in cisterns, bioswales and underground pipes to reduce runoff, as well as a Water Quality Management Plan, trash capture devices and infrastructure upgrades to offset demand.

(If you enjoyed this Mendo Local post, you can tell Mendo Local that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments. [email protected])

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BAINBRIDGE’S CHEMICAL STEW PLAYGROUND

Editor,

I was just at the Library picking up books, and saw a huge black puddle of some sort of petroleum-based slime, underneath a gurgling mixing machine. I asked one of the workers what it was, and he said it was the adhesive to bind the ground-up tires and plastic they are now covering over the “Wiggly Giggly Playground” with.

I went to get a friend with a camera, and by the time we returned ten minutes larter, they had already covered up the illegal spill with sand.

I don’t think anyone will be giggling when they end up taking their kids to the cancer ward.

David Gurney

Fort Bragg

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A PUBLIC CITIZEN

To the Editor:

My deepest sympathies to the children of Jim Shields: his daughter, Jayma Shields Spence, and his son, Jim Shields.

Whether at the Laytonville Water District plant, where he was an expert on county water politics, or at The Mendocino Observer newspaper office, where he was a first-rate journalist, investigator and muckraker, your dad served us all.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the founders of our country enshrined what was best about America in the phrase “public citizen”. Public citizens protect us all. They oversee our government, our democracy, and our health, safety and wellbeing.

Your dad was Mendocino County’s Public Citizen.

Another term for the same concept is “overwatch”.

Overwatch is a force protection tactic in modern warfare where one lone sniper supports his unit, usually a platoon, while the platoon executes fire and movement tactics. The term was coined in U.S. military doctrine in the 1950s.

An overwatching sniper typically takes a vantage position (usually a high ground or tall structure with good defilade) where he can observe the terrain far ahead, especially likely enemy positions and movements. This allows him to act as a warning system against hostile aggression and provide effective covering fire for his platoon.

Jayma and Jim, your dad provided overwatch for the rest of us here in Mendocino County.

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

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PETIT TETON FARM

Petit Teton is harvesting a bounty this year:

Pears:Warren Orcas, BarlettCal Airaing

Fig: Kadota

Apples: Elstar, King David, Russet, Rubinette

Meats: pork, sausage, bacon, wide selection of beef cuts, squab

Also available are: garlic chives, scallions, lemon grass, eggplant, California sungold tomatoes

Come visit daily between 9-4:30 (except Sunday noon-4:30)

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VELMA’S FARM STAND AT FILIGREEN FARM

Friday 2-5 pm

Open Saturday & Sunday, 11-4pm

Follow us on Instagram for updates @filigreenfarm or email [email protected] with any questions. All produce is certified biodynamic and organic.

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THE APPLE FARM

It’s membrillo time! The first quince is on the shelf. We also offer kitchen grade at half price—you’ll have to ask. Philo Golds have finally made an appearance, along with Jonathans. Still have a fair amount of Ashmead’s Kernal and Belle d’ Boskoop. Soon to be gone—Pink Pearls and Connell Red. Every day it seems something else is ready, like Sweet Sixteen and Fireside, Comice and….?

The Apple Farm

18501 Greenwood Rd

Philo CA 95466

707 621 0336

philoapplefarm.com

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BROCK FARMS

Brock Farms is open on 11960 Goodacre Lane off Peachland Road in Boonville, Wed-Sun 10-6, closed Mon and Tues. 895-3407.

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FORT BRAGG TO HOST PUBLIC SCOPING SESSION ON WATER STORAGE RESERVOIRS AND COMMUNITY FOREST

The City of Fort Bragg will host a Public Scoping Session for the proposed Water Storage Reservoirs and Community Forest Project on Tuesday, September 16, 2025, at Town Hall. To encourage maximum participation, two sessions will be held: 12:30–1:30PM & 5:30–6:30PM

Both meetings will be broadcast on Channel 3 and streamed live on the City’s Facebook page. Please note: public comments will only be accepted in person at the meetings or in writing.

Meeting Links

12:30 PM Session - https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81413793703

5:30 PM Session - https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88139626522

The 30-day public comment period will open on September 16, 2025, and close on October 15, 2025, at 5:00 PM. Written comments may be submitted at any time during this period.

Project Overview

The project proposes construction of three new reservoirs (each approximately 45 acre-feet, similar in size to the existing Summers Lane Reservoir), along with related infrastructure such as piping, access, storage, and a caretaker unit. The reservoirs would occupy about 30 acres of a 582-acre parcel located off Summers Lane at Highway 20 (the former MCRPD property).

The site is heavily forested with redwoods, pines, and Mendocino cypress trees—a special-status species that is a critical component of the Mendocino Cypress Woodland, as mapped by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). The renowned “pygmy cypress” are Mendocino cypress adapted to nutrient-poor soils.

To minimize environmental impact, the reservoirs are proposed for the most previously disturbed areas of the property. The remaining acreage will be considered for conservation easements, community forest development, and other potential amenities and uses.

Project Partnerships

The City is working closely with:

Mendocino Land Trust (MLT): Conservation easement and community forest planning

Rincon Consultants: Environmental evaluations

Waterworks Engineers: Reservoir design and infrastructure

WRA: Biological analysis and support

The City invites the community to take part in this important planning process and share their input on how best to balance critical water storage needs with the protection and stewardship of this unique natural property.

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Fort Bragg Garden Club invites one and all to the Fall Garden Fair on Saturday, September 27, 10 am to 3 pm at the First Presbyterian Church parking lot at 367 South Sanderson Way in Fort Bragg. Plants for sale will include native perennials and fall and winter vegetable starts. Enjoy great deals on gently used garden tools, pots, and books. Learn about fall and winter gardening tips while sipping a cup of hot cider. Raffle prizes that appeal to gardeners will be available, and all proceeds will support the Garden Club’s community fund.

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JEFF BURROUGHS:

My great grandfather, Harwood June

Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show history

In 1937 Mr. Harwood June traveled to Sacramento to convince the powers that be to give the award of “Mendocino County Fair” to the Anderson Valley Apple Show. After some entertaining conversation, a few cigars and a hardy handshake, Mr. June had warmed over and thoroughly convinced the Sacramento State Capitol boys to make Boonville the site for the Mendocino County Fair. As Harwood was leaving the capitol building that afternoon, with signed and notarized papers in hand, he passed the Ukiah delegation running up the steps on their way to disappointment. When Ukiah later found out that the little town of Boonville had “aced them out” they were outraged and to this day they haven’t gotten over it.

Along the back side of the race track field there used to be a number of horse barns and corrals where visiting horses and riders would “bed down” during the course of the fair weekend.There was another fellow who used one of the horse barns during the fair weekend. He was a professional clown of sorts that participated annually in the fair parade. It seems this clown had a very interesting supporting cast in a strange but amusing crow and an equally entertaining goose. The crow was well trained and it used to hop about the ground and up into the lap of anyone holding a food item which kept the curious crowd entertained the entire fair weekend.

When it came time for the parade on Sunday, the clown, his goose and the little black crow became the center of attention because the crow, who was now standing up in the front of a tiny red wagon, was being pulled along by the goose. It must have been a hilarious sight to see as the crow, with a tiny ,white, straw hat on his little bird head and tiny leather reins strapped around its shoulders and wings, guided the goose and wagon through the crowded main streets of Boonville. The local children would run alongside the wagon, laughing and yelling, “Talk Mr. Crow, Talk!!”, the Crow would answer back with a “caw-caw !!” , first to its left and then over to its right, sending the crowd into hysterics. It was said that for weeks after the parade and fair weekend had passed, Boonville youths could be found dangling from just about every low limned oak tree growing in the Anderson Valley, in a desperate search for baby crows in nests to train to talk and maybe even drive a little wagon.

One night, back at the race track barn, the clowns trained crow had become an issue of serious concern and a major nuisance with its indiscriminate bird droppings and constant cackling at all hours of the night. The other occupants of the barn that night were the remains of a small group of tired and dusty old rodeo cowboys who seriously considered “doing the bird in”, so the clown and his birds quickly loaded up their stuff into the tiny Ford Model T Miniature car that they had arrived in and made a quick getaway into the night, never to be seen again.

In 1941, the Fair ranked fifth in the State of California for the number of entries, and since that date the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show has been thought of as one of the last, true country fairs.

Photo #1 is of my great grandfather, Harwood James June when he was Justice of the Peace and the Apple Show Chairman.

Photo #2 is Harwood June in his apple orchard looking at A.V.’s first dwarf apple trees that he planted a few years earlier. Harwood passed away not long after this photo was taken in 1967.

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THE APPLE SHOW IN BOONVILLE

In the fall of 1925, at a farm center meeting, Chester Estell brought up the matter of a putting together a community celebration for the fourth of July. Everyone at the meeting agreed that Anderson Valley should have some kind of community celebration but the Idea of sparklers, roman candles and bottle rockets being carelessly tossed around in such a dry environment was not the type of one day only celebration that the struggling 3 year old organization had in mind. It was suggested by someone that perhaps the successful Cloverdale Citrus Fair and the Sebastopol Apple Show be a model for consideration, so in the spring of 1926 some of the members traveled down to the Citrus Fair in Cloverdale to take a look at the beautiful agricultural displays and get an idea of how the whole operation worked. The members were quite impressed by the success achieved at the annual Cloverdale agricultural fair and so it was decided that the 4th of July celebration idea be dropped and a celebration of agriculture be adopted and that is how the Anderson Valley Apple Show took form.

At that time my great grandfather, Mr. Harwood June, was the Farm Center chairman and along with the approval of the other Farm Center directors they appointed Donald McIntosh as the first manager.

Enthusiasm began to build however the lingering question of an appropriate location needed to be addressed and a solution was soon found through the generosity of Mr. “Doc” Caldwell who agreed to sell an acre and a half of his property that was located near the center of Boonville. Money was tight so the fledgling Farm Center asked Mr. Caldwell if he would take payment for the land after the fair and he agreed. The people of the valley donated money and in no time the farm center had collected $650, which was a substantial amount for those days. The first building was started with volunteers and donated lumber and when it was completed the farm center had a building 100 feet long and 60 feet wide. The dance floor was 40 x 60 with a small stage and the remaining space was given to the exhibits.

The first farm exhibit (a three farm feature exhibit) was made by Harwood June, Sam McAbee and Jack Fenton and as it was the only feature exhibit entered in that first year of the Fair and Apple Show, it won the 1st place award for most artistic, original design and arrangement of booth. Montgomery Ward graciously donated the award trophy that was a beautifully engraved pewter silver clad trophy cup which can be seen today in the glass case at the main office of the fairgrounds in Boonville.

The following year the Fair and Apple Show property was expanded to take in all of the original “Doc” Caldwell property that ran from the Caldwell home, (still standing and owned today by Mr. Gary Johnson) near Lambert Lane, to the junction of hwy 253 & hwy 128..

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In 1936 horse racing was legalized in the state of California making way for the much needed funding for the fair to continue. The area for the 1st race track was located just west of the junction of highway 253 and highway 128, just south of Boonville. Consisting of about 5 + acres the land had been donated to the Fair and Apple Show by Mr. Edward Singley, a long time resident of Bell Valley. The horse races were actually sponsored by the State of California in the early years of the apple show that created a great deal of excitement for the residents of Anderson Valley. At one of these races a young man by the name of Delmar June entered his horse, much to the delight of the locals of Boonville. Delmar’s horse was as fast as greased lighting but it seems that it had been deemed an outlaw and too wild to ride. The horse had gotten this reputation because of an incident at one of the race tracks in the Bay Area where the wild horse had killed the jockey. The horse had been sold and put out to pasture at Mr. Hotel’s ranch just south of Boonville where Delmar June saw the horse streaking through the brushy meadows faster than anything that had ever run at the race track. Delmar begged and pleaded with his father, Harwood June, to buy the horse and after some time Harwood finally relented and paid the $25 for the wild horse.

Delmar was just a little too big to ride against the other , smaller and light jockeys so Delmar enlisted the help of a young black man ( probably Albert or George Jeans ) who was the right size and weight to ride the horse. The first day of racing at the track was on a Saturday and as Delmar and the young jockey readied their horse for the first race, into the arena came the most beautiful, slim legged and obviously well trained horses ever seen at the Boonville race track.

All day Saturday Delmar, his wild horse and timed young jockey were beaten soundly in every race and by the time Sunday rolled around, the odds on Delmar’s horse had risen to 100 to 1. Deciding that the jockey wasn’t using the horse to its full potential, young Delmar June saddled his horse with a big heavy high horned saddle and climbed up on it himself. The professional riders snickered at the young inexperienced Delmar as they all lined up at the starting gate.

A member of the Rawles family, having been up most of the night and still a little high, plopped down $5 dollars on Delmar and his so called wild horse. Holding a drink in one hand,and a hearty “thumbs up” with the other, the bell chimed and they were off. Delmar’s horse spooked and made a few circles in the dust before he could get it going down the track. To this day, people say there had never been so much screaming at the race track as when Delmar and his $25 wild horse rounded the first turn he had already caught up to the pack, and by the time they had reached the second turn Delmar was quickly gaining ground, weaving through the pack of well groomed and expensive horses. Then down the stretch they all came ,the crowd yelling louder and louder, the horses going faster and faster but as the checkered flag waved over the finish line, it was Delmar and his $25 horse that had won by a good 4 or 5 lengths! The crowd went wild and Mr. Rawles collected the largest amount of winnings ever recorded at the race track in Boonville.

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MENDOCINO’S TEMPERANCE LIBRARIES

edited by Averee McNear

It’s hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t abundant access to books through schools, libraries, and bookstores, if a person could even afford books! In the late 19th century and early 20th century, public libraries began opening nationwide, many boasting the Carnegie name in honor of the Scottish American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who donated a significant sum of his fortune to building libraries. However, on the Mendocino coast, as with many other rural places, libraries were community endeavors. In Check It Out! A History of Mendocino Coast Libraries, Karen McGrath, Katy Tahja, and Sarah Nathe delved into the history of the many libraries here. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 3: Mendocino’s Temperance Libraries, written by Karen McGrath.

While there was a reading room in the Odd Fellows Hall on Ukiah Street in the late 1870s and 1880s, Mendocino’s first public library came a little later. Called the Free Reading Room, it opened in April 1883 on the second floor of the Templar’s Hall, one of the now-gone buildings owned by the Mendocino Lumber Company, across from what is now the Mendocino Hotel.

Ed Fairfield, a skilled cabinet maker and its first librarian, crafted a bookcase to display an assortment of donated books to be read in the room. Racks held newspapers and magazines from all over California, the West, and the eastern U.S.—veritable portals to worlds beyond this remote coastal town.

The organization behind the first library was the Independent Order of Good Templars (IOGT) a forceful group that advocated a temperate life—one without alcohol. Along with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the lOGT played a major role in making Mendocino City a “dry” place in 1909.

For temperance groups and other civic organizations, reading rooms and libraries were seen as a positive way to keep the town’s many single men out of the saloons. The Templar’s room was usually open every day in the afternoon (a time ‘convenient for the ladies’) and also for several hours in the evening for working men.

Despite its attractive qualities, this reading room endured only a few years. Like so many of the public reading places that followed, it suffered from a lack of financial resources to pay staff and maintain the collection.

After a few years, another free reading room opened in the Masonic Hall, supported this time by the WCTU. It was patronized by so many that a notice published in the newspaper requested children be kept at home during the evening hours. But it, too, lasted only a few years.

Mendocino’s next reading room was sponsored in 1895 by the Christian Endeavor, a Protestant youth fellowship, again in the IOGT Hall. This group took a more fun-loving approach to its mission and put on regular entertainments featuring music, literary recitations, and farcical plays to fund the librarian and purchase the periodical subscriptions. However, by 1905, the Beacon was reporting that Mendocino was again in need of a good reading room.

Three years later, another group and another library association emerged, this time backed by the new Mendocino Library Association. The executive committee was composed of members from the WCTU and two associated religious youth groups: the Baraca young men and the young ladies of Philathea.

The MLA negotiated a lease at a new location for the library in a structure that once stood immediately west of the Kelley Pond. In renovating it, they no doubt took satisfaction in turning the former saloon into a space more suitable for the public’s betterment. Like the Christian Endeavor before them, they put on plays and concerts to benefit the library, but their funding strategy also included patron subscriptions to pay for magazines and newspapers. The MLA also had an arrangement with the California State Library to receive a rotating stock of literary volumes every quarter.

A few months after its opening, a Mendocino Beacon article reported that the library was well patronized and that the number of book borrowers was increasing. One year after this new library started, the temperance movement the WCTU and others had been championing for decades finally had its desired effect: Mendocino City’s saloons were closed in 1909 when citizens voted to ban the sale of alcohol. Then there arose an even more pressing need to provide recreation for the men who might otherwise have been finding their way to the “wet” communities that remained up and down the coast.

Check It Out! A History of Mendocino Coast Libraries is for sale at the Kelley House Museum and on our website. Celebrate Oktoberfest with a live homebrewing demo and beer tastings from Foggy Coast Brewers and North Coast Brewing Company. See how brewers turn grain into your favorite craft brew, pick up expert tips, and sip beer while taking in the stunning Mendocino Bay view from the Kelley House Museum lawn. Grab your ticket and raise a glass to the art of homebrewing! Saturday, September 13, 12 PM — 4 PM.

(kelleyhousemuseum.org)

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RON PARKER/ELIZABETH KNIGHT: Ladies laying out the Picnic at Navarro. 1921. In the first photo you can see the bridge along the Navarro river in the background.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, September 11, 2025

JAMES BROWN SR., 59, Redwood Valley. Petty theft, probation violation.

AMANDA FIGG-HOBLYN, 25, Willits. Vandalism, trespassing, controlled substance, concealed dirk-dagger, probation revocation, resisting.

AIDAN GUILFORD, 22, Sacramento/Ukiah. DUI.

STEVEN HARPER, 41, Point Arena. Arson of inhabited structure, vandalism, probation revocation.

KENDALL JENSEN, 38, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ANTHONY LOPES SR., 55, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

TASHA ORNELAS, 39, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

PEDRO PORTILLO-VALLE, 46, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery, intimate touching against the will of the victim.

JUAN RIVERA, 35, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SALVADOR ROMO, 28, Sacramento/Ukaih. Failure to appear.

TRISTON THORNTON, 29, Willits. Probation revocation.

WILLIAM YOUNG, 37, Willits. Failure to appear.

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JUST IN: Charlie Kirk 'killer' identified as Tyler Robinson after assassination in Utah

by Shawn Cohen, Will Potter, and Rachel Sharp

The suspect in Charlie Kirk's assassination has been identified as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident.

Law enforcement sources told Daily Mail that Robinson was taken into custody as the alleged assassin who killed Kirk at a rally at Utah Valley University in Utah on Wednesday.

The alleged killer confessed to his father Matt, who is a a 27-year veteran of the Washington County Sheriff's Department, sources told Daily Mail. His father then contacted authorities and secured his son before he could be taken into custody.…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15086467/Tyler-Robinson-Charlie-Kirk-killer-identified-Utah-Trump.html

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BROAD COALITION DEFEATS GOVERNOR’S TRAILER BILLS TO FAST-TRACK DELTA TUNNEL

by Dan Bacher

A broad coalition of Tribes, environmental justice groups, family farmers, fishing groups, conservationists, Delta communities and elected officials celebrated victory today in their campaign to stop Governor Gavin Newsom’s trailer bills to fast-track the Delta Tunnel, a project that would destroy the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin River ecosystem and Delta communities.

At midnight, Gov. Newsom’s Delta Tunnel trailer bills died after no legislator stepped up to carry them forward because of the massive opposition to the bills.…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/10/2342788/-Victory-Broad-Coalition-Defeats-Governor-s-Trailer-Bills-to-Fast-Track-Delta-Tunnel

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RON PARKER: On 9-11 Nancy and I were sitting in the San Francisco airport waiting to board a flight to Baltimore Washington airport to visit family near Baltimore. We were watching CNN and heard a report an airplane had flown into one of the twin towers in New York. A few minutes later a second aircraft had hit the second tower. At that time a stewardess came out of the boarding ramp crying. When a second stewardess came out I stopped her and asked what was going on. She said everything everywhere was being shut down. We had used the airport shuttle to get to the airport so we had no transportation. We called our daughter Kelly and she took us to a motel in Burlingame. Early the next morning she took us to Hertz and we arrived to an empty office and I was given a batch of keys to try several cars to see which one I wanted. By the time I got to the second car there was a line all the way out the door and the Hertz employee rushed out to get back the keys. We selected a nice large Chevrolet and drove to Baltimore. Three days on the road observing American flags hanging from overpasses and wonder people all demonstrating unity and patriotism all the way to Baltimore.

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WHALE GULCH RATS

by Paul Modic

Jason was babysitting the harvest out in the hills, running the generator all day to power the dehumidifier and was concerned he was annoying the neighbors. He asked if he could insulate the genny shed to keep the sound down, I reluctantly said okay and lived to regret it.

A year or so later I discovered a nasty nightmare: rats in the generator shed were living in a stack of condos, shit and pissed-stained antique grape boxes, after making nests of weeds mixed with sticks and insulation.

After halfheartedly trying to get my handyman Hugh interested I figured I better do my own dirty work, dragged the nasty boxes out and dumped the rat shed detritus onto a sheet of old plastic.

The next trip out I wrapped myself in a home-made bio-hazard suit: long shirt, pants, hat, gloves and a silly paper mask. I waded in there and took everything out including redwood slabs, a painting, gas cans, generator, work bench and more including a rusting folding bike I had won in a field goal kicking contest after a Cal Bears game decades before. (I hauled the mix of insulation, twigs, and rat shit to the dump.)

Garberville Rats

Last year the rats got most of my tomatoes. They would just take a bite out of each one but that started the rotting process. I had left the door of my shed open to dry it out after a rain (the roof leaked) and then haplessly left it open all year.

The rats took over. I could hear them clanging around noisily in the metal shed just under my bedroom window for hours at night which sort of pissed me off because I figured they were fucking like rabbits, I mean rats, while I was alone in my bed. (That was insulting.)

It was autumn, I wanted to deal with the rats before winter and started setting the traps. Within a couple weeks I had killed about thirteen and in the process the rats either broke or disappeared all seven of my traps. (One day I left the peanut butter bait jar with the lid off outside and the next day it was gone.)

I hired the neighbor kid Abram to go in there, take everything out, and then muck down the floor, ceiling and walls with great splashes of vinegar. Not one to take advantage by paying cheap for a dirty job, I gave him fifty dollars an hour, which came to $75 for ninety minutes to do it all, including re-installing the hosed down shelves and re-stashing the tools inside. (After the job I neglected to close the doors and when I went out at twilight to shut them a big rat scurried out, already re-inhabiting!)

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ODDS OF LA NIÑA DEVELOPING HAVE INCREASED

by Jack Lee

Chances have gone up for La Niña conditions developing in the coming months, according to an update Thursday by the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. Forecasters say there’s a 71% chance that La Niña develops this fall, up from the 53% chance given in the agency’s August outlook.

“This is a significant shift, especially in the near term,” said Climate Prediction Center scientist Michelle L’Heureux.

The updated forecast calls for La Niña conditions lasting into winter, when the climate pattern typically has its biggest influence on U.S. weather. Forecasters say there’s a 54% chance that La Niña continues into winter, up from the 45% chance described in last month’s outlook.

La Niña is defined by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures along the equator in the central and eastern Pacific. These ocean waters can influence atmospheric activity: During La Niñas, the jet stream typically shifts northward, particularly in winter.

The relocated storm track generally means wetter-than-normal conditions in the Pacific Northwest. By contrast, it means drier-than-average conditions along the southern tier of the U.S., including Southern California.

In the past month, forecasters have gained confidence that La Niña could develop.

“We’ve seen a fair bit of cooling across the central and eastern Pacific, both at the surface of the ocean and the subsurface,” L’Heureux said. Atmospheric circulation has also changed in ways consistent with La Niña, including stronger-than-normal low-level winds blowing from east to west along the equator.

The latest Climate Prediction Center precipitation outlook for November through January matches what’s expected across the U.S. during a La Niña, with wetter conditions more likely to the north and drier conditions more likely to the south.

Forecasters are less certain how La Niña conditions affect Northern California. The seasonal outlook provides equal chances for below-normal, near-normal and above-normal precipitation for much of the region, including the Bay Area. By comparison, there’s a stronger signal for drier-than-average conditions in the southern half of the state.

The precipitation outlook for December, January and February indicates a tilt in the odds toward drier conditions for much of the Bay Area.

Whether this part of the state experiences wetter or drier weather in the next few months depends on how far north the jet stream shifts. There are also other factors to consider, from additional climate patterns to a marine heat wave off the Pacific coast to natural variability.

A La Niña precipitation pattern could influence drought conditions across the country. Wetter-than-average conditions could alleviate severe drought in the Pacific Northwest. But drier-than-normal conditions could exacerbate ongoing extreme drought in the Southwest.

The Climate Prediction Center forecasts that if La Niña does develop, the event will likely be a weak event, with sea surface temperatures just below the threshold used to define the climate pattern. Weaker events generally have lower chances for impacting California weather, though individual La Niña events can buck trends.

Weak La Niña conditions were present last winter, when far northern California experienced wetter-than-average conditions and much of Central and Southern California faced drier-than-normal weather.

When the probability for La Niña peaks from October to December, forecasters give a 45% chance of a weak La Niña and a 26% chance of a moderate or stronger event.

The latest update continues the La Niña Watch issued by the Climate Prediction Center in August. “We’ll see whether these probabilities (and) the favored category shakes out,” L’Heureux said.

(SF Chronicle)

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THE 49ERS have lost 11 of the last 14 games George Kittle did not play, and they’re 7-12 without him since 2017. Hamstring injuries kept him out of losses last season at the Los Angeles Rams (Week 3) and against the Seahawks (Week 11). The earliest Kittle could return is Week 6 at Tampa Bay, which is the likeliest spot also for wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk to make his debut off the Physically Unable to Perform list.

(Cam Inman, Bay Area News Group)

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KIDS AT WINERIES?

A few years ago, a friend relayed a story about pulling up to her appointment at a Napa Valley winery with her newborn in tow. “Dog or baby?” the host asked, pointing to the stroller.

When she informed him it was a baby, they told her she couldn’t come in, as the winery had a 21-and-older policy. Had it been a dog, however, it would have been fine.

This was one of several anecdotes that inspired my 2022 article on why Wine Country was suddenly less kid-friendly than ever, which sparked a heated debate about whether children belong at wineries in the first place. While breweries are seemingly overrun with babies, many California wineries began enforcing 21-and-older policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they kept them in place even after restrictions were lifted and vaccines rolled out.

Recently, however, my colleague Esther and I have noticed a shift. Wine sales and tasting room traffic are down, so wineries are looking for new ways to attract visitors: Some have lowered tasting fees, offer non-alcoholic beverages and are back to accommodating walk-ins. Others have added new, family-friendly experiences, and so today, we published an article highlighting 18 of the best wineries that allow kids.

In the three years between these two articles, I became a parent. My personal perspective on whether children belong at wineries has changed — and it’s probably not what you think.

Over the past two years, I’ve taken my son to more than a dozen wine tastings. He’s accompanied me on excursions in Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Anderson Valley and Paso Robles. The first few visits went great. My baby would sleep through the entire tasting in his stroller, and other guests would comment, with genuine surprise in their tone, about how “good” he was. As he got a little older, I’d plop him down on a blanket with some toys to keep him busy. When he was hungry, I’d feed him a bottle with one hand while sipping wine with the other, a skill I was a little too proud of.

Then, at 10 months and just in time for a trip to Paso Robles, he started walking. Everything changed. From that moment on, nothing — not toys, snacks nor even YouTube virtuoso Ms. Rachel herself — could keep my kid by our table. So my husband and I take turns following him around, ready to intervene when he inevitably approaches something dangerous (these are often functional wineries, after all); toddles into staff-only areas; bothers other customers; or finds a fountain, his favorite winery pastime.

Most recently, we took him on Cakebread Vineyards’ daily Family Tour, which included two other sets of parents and four additional children who were all older than my son. While these kids spent most of the tour on their parents’ phones and frequently interrupted the very patient host with complaints, my child completely refused to participate in the half of the tour that was indoors. We even tried to distract him with a broom, one of his favorite “toys” at home, but he chucked it on the floor.

I’ve realized that since he became mobile, there hasn’t been a single wine tasting where I was able to give my winery host the attention they deserved and thoughtfully contemplate the wines. It certainly hasn’t been relaxing, and I’ve typically left feeling at least a little embarrassed, even at places that market themselves as kid-friendly. Plus, wine tasting is expensive these days; why spend that much money if you’re not going to get the full experience?

I am now in the camp that breweries and wineries are not the same. My visits to breweries are almost always for social purposes. I’m usually imbibing by the pint, and even if I order a flight, there’s no one walking me through the terroir of the hops, the production process or the flavor nuances in each glass. While wine tasting can be social, that’s not its main purpose. That’s what wine bars are for.

As a wine reporter, I do think it’s smart that wineries are starting to prioritize accessibility. But as a parent of a cute, yet feral 2-year-old, I’m hiring a babysitter next time.

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What I’m Reading

The alcohol industry is celebrating the fact that a controversial government report, which warns of a link between alcohol and cancer, will not be used to influence the upcoming update to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Roni Caryn Rabin of the New York Times reports on this significant development.

We’ve reported quite a bit on Gen Z’s drinking habits, or lack thereof. (See Chronicle intern Nava Rawls’ recent article in the “What Else We’re Writing” section.) But the San Francisco Standard’s Lauren Saria and Kevin Truong talked to 20-somethings at a bunch of San Francisco bars in an attempt to debunk the stereotype. My takeaway: They seem more into matcha piña colada slushies than wine.

In addition to our kid-friendly winery guide, the Chronicle Food + Wine team also just published a guide to the Bay Area’s most kid-friendly restaurants. Some even offer free meals!

(Jess Lander, SF Chronicle)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #1

So much has been made of the Kirk shooting, but little of the right-wing evangelical shooter in Minnesota on Rumpus’ birthday this year. Trump said barely anything of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark who were assassinated in Minnesota on his birthday this year, nor anything about Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who were shot and injured the same day. They were also deemed political shootings, but for Orangie’s side, so no big deal I guess. No half-staff flags, barely a word on FOX–AND they WERE political figures, unlike Mr. Kirk who had never been elected to any office. Still, we must decry this violence, just as we did against the right-wing shooter of the President in Butler, Pennsylvania. These shootings must end.

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JUST SITTIN’

Just sittin’ here in Washington, D.C. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library on a public computer, listening to Electric Ladyland. Voodoo Child is playing.

What was your question?

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

Trump changed the entire MSM landscape from credible to laughable simply because he challenged their authority and journalistic objectivity. The Russia-gate and Fine People hoaxes exposed their blatant political bias early on to anyone curious enough to do a little research. The more he called them out, the deeper they dug in. It became farcical. ‘He wants you to ingest bleach!’ Now, no one under 65 trusts MSM. It may be Trump’s greatest legacy accomplishment: He broke them, and good riddance.

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“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”

― D.H. Lawrence

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LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT

Investigators Share New Video in Hunt for Charlie Kirk’s Killer

Scrutiny Mounts of F.B.I. Under Patel as Kirk’s Killer Remains at Large

Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison for Plotting Coup in Brazil

Nepal’s Young Protesters Find an Unlikely Partner: The Army

States Want to Ban ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Cookware. These Chefs Say Don’t Do It

Their Schools Banned Phones. Out Came the iPods and Cassette Players

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THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLIE KIRK

Martyrs are used by messianic movements to sanctify violence. To show any mercy or understanding toward the enemy is to betray the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.

by Chris Hedges

The assassination of Charlie Kirk presages a new, deadly stage in the disintegration of a fractious and highly polarized United States. While toxic rhetoric and threats are lobbed across cultural divides like hand grenades, sometimes spilling over into actual violence — including the murder of Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband and the two assassination attempts against Donald Trump — Kirk’s killing is a harbinger of full-scale social disintegration.

His murder has given the movement he represented — grounded in Christian nationalism — a martyr. Martyrs are the lifeblood of violent movements. Any flinching over the use of violence, any talk of compassion or understanding, any effort to mediate or discuss, is a betrayal of the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.

Martyrs sacralize violence. They are used to turn the moral order upside down. Depravity becomes morality. Atrocities become heroism. Crime becomes justice. Hate becomes virtue. Greed and nepotism become civic virtues. Murder becomes good. War is the final aesthetic. This is what is coming.

“We have to have steely resolve,” said conservative political strategist Steve Bannon on his show “War Room,” adding, “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”

“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” wrote Elon Musk on X.

“The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting bullshit. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell,” wrote commentator and author Matt Walsh on X. “Put the personal squabbles aside. Now’s not the time. This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country.”

Republican Congressman Clay Higgins wrote that he will use, "Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk…" He further states "I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination."

Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale capitalized on Kirk’s death to advocate for a takedown of the “red-green alliance” of “Communists and Islamists” who he claims have united to destroy Western civilization. He proposes an app where citizens can upload pictures of crime and homelessness in exchange for “property-tax rebates.”

Far-right comedian Sam Hyde, who has nearly half a million followers on X, wrote in response to Trump’s announcement of Kirk's death that it is, "Time to do your fucking job and seize power… if you want to be more than a footnote in the ‘American Collapse’ section of future history books, it's now or never.” In his tweet, he tags members of the administration and private military contractors.

Conservative actor James Woods warned, “Dear leftists: we can have a conversation or a civil war. One more shot from your side and you will not get this choice again.” His tweet was reposted by almost 20,000 people, received 4.9 million views and over 96,000 likes.

These are a sample of the slew of vitriolic sentiments shared and cheered on by tens of millions of Americans.

The dispossession of the working class, 30 million who have been laid off because of deindustrialization, has engendered rage, despair, dislocation, alienation and fostered magical thinking. It has fed conspiracy theories, a lust for vengeance and a celebration of violence as a purgative for social and cultural decay.

Christian fascists — like Kirk and Trump — have astutely preyed on this despair. They stoked the embers. Kirk’s killing will set it alight.

Dissidents, artists, gays, intellectuals, the poor, the vulnerable, people of color, those who are undocumented or who do not mindlessly repeat the cant of a perverted Christian nationalism, will be condemned as human contaminants to be excised from the body politic. They will become, as in all diseased societies, sacrificial victims in the vain attempt to achieve moral renewal and recapture a lost glory and prosperity.

The cannibalization of society, a futile attempt to recreate a mythical America, will accelerate the disintegration. The intoxication of violence — many of those reacting to Kirk’s killing seemed giddy about a looming bloodbath — will feed on itself like a firestorm.

The martyr is vital to the crusade, in this case ridding America of those Trump calls the “radical left.”

Martyrs are memorialized in ceremonies and acts of remembrance to remind followers of the righteousness of the cause and the perfidy of those who are blamed for the martyr’s death. This is what Trump did when he called Kirk “a martyr for truth and freedom” in a video message on September 10, awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until Sunday. It is why Kirk's casket will be flown back to Phoenix, Arizona on Air Force Two.

Kirk was a poster child for our emergent Christian Fascism. He peddled the Great Replacement Theory, which claims liberals or “globalists” allow immigrants of color into the country in order to replace whites, distorting immigration trends into conspiracy. He was Islamophobic, tweeting “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and that it is “not compatible with western civilization.”

When children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel said “Jesus says to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself,” Kirk retorted that “Satan has quoted scripture plenty” and added “by the way Ms. Rachel, you might wanna crack open that Bible of yours, in a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture is in Leviticus 18, is that thou shall Lay with another man and be stoned to death.”

He demanded we roll back the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and disparaged civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. He was demeaning towards Black people, “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman…is she there because of affirmative action?” He said “prowling Blacks” are targeting white people “for fun.” He blamed Black Lives Matter for “destroying the fabric of our society."

Kirk insisted the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. He founded Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist to purge professors and teachers with what he called “radical leftist” agendas. He advocated televised public executions which he insisted should be mandatory viewing for children.

The idea that he championed free speech and liberty is absurd. He was an enemy of both.

Kirk, who was a cheerleader for the cult of Trump, embodied the hypermasculinity that is at the core of fascist movements. This was perhaps his primary attraction to youth, especially white men. He claimed there is “a war on men,” fetishized guns and sold Trump to his followers as a man’s man.

“There’s a lot you can call Donald Trump,” he wrote. “No one has ever called him feminine. Trump is a giant middle finger to all the screeching hall monitors that attacked young men for just existing. He’s a giant F YOU to the feminist establishment that was never challenged before he came down the golden escalator. Most of the media missed this. Young men did not.”

History has shown what comes next. It won’t be pleasant. Kirk, elevated to martyrdom, gives those seeking to extinguish our democracy the license to kill, just as Kirk was killed. It lifts what few constraints still exist to protect us from state abuse and vigilante violence. Kirk’s name and visage will be employed to accelerate the road to tyranny, which is as he would have wanted it.

(chrishedges.substack.com)

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[Public Service Announcement: As the violent chaos grows, the following poem informs us what is truly happening, not that the AVA recommends you reconcile yourself to it.]

THE SECOND COMING

by William Butler Yeats (1919)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He belonged to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority that had controlled the economic, political, social, and cultural life of Ireland since at least the end of the 17th century. Most members of this minority considered themselves English people who happened to have been born in Ireland, but Yeats staunchly affirmed his Irish nationality. Although he lived in London for 14 years of his childhood (and kept a permanent home there during the first half of his adult life), Yeats maintained his cultural roots, featuring Irish legends and heroes in many of his poems and plays. He was equally firm in adhering to his self-image as an artist. This conviction led many to accuse him of elitism, but it also unquestionably contributed to his greatness. As fellow poet W.H. Auden noted in a 1948 Kenyon Review essay entitled “Yeats as an Example,” Yeats accepted the modern necessity of having to make a lonely and deliberate “choice of the principles and presuppositions in terms of which [made] sense of his experience.” Auden assigned Yeats the high praise of having written “some of the most beautiful poetry” of modern times. Perhaps no other poet stood to represent a people and country as poignantly as Yeats, both during and after his life, and his poetry is widely read today across the English-speaking world.

In 1885, an important year in Yeats’s early adult life, his poetry was published for the first time, in the Dublin University Review, and he began his important interest in occultism. It was also the year that he met John O’Leary, a famous patriot who had returned to Ireland after 20 years of imprisonment and exile for revolutionary nationalistic activities. O’Leary had a keen enthusiasm for Irish books, music, and ballads, and he encouraged young writers to adopt Irish subjects. Yeats, who had preferred more romantic settings and themes, soon took O’Leary’s advice, producing many poems based on Irish legends, Irish folklore, and Irish ballads and songs. As he explained in a note included in the 1908 volume Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats: “When I first wrote I went here and there for my subjects as my reading led me, and preferred to all other countries Arcadia and the India of romance, but presently I convinced myself … that I should never go for the scenery of a poem to any country but my own, and I think that I shall hold to that conviction to the end.”

As Yeats began concentrating his poetry on Irish subjects, he was compelled to accompany his family in moving to London at the end of 1886. There he wrote poems, plays, novels, and short stories—all with Irish characters and scenes. In addition, he produced book reviews, usually on Irish topics. In London, Yeats met with Maud Gonne, a tall, beautiful, socially prominent young woman passionately devoted to Irish nationalism. Yeats soon fell in love with Gonne, and courted her for nearly three decades; although he eventually learned that she had already borne two children from a long affair, with Gonne’s encouragement Yeats redoubled his dedication to Irish nationalism and produced such nationalistic plays as The Countess Kathleen (1892), which he dedicated to her, and Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), which featured her as the personification of Ireland in the title role.

Gonne shared Yeats’s interest in occultism and spiritualism. Yeats had been a theosophist, but in 1890 he turned from its sweeping mystical insights and joined the Golden Dawn, a secret society that practiced ritual magic. Yeats remained an active member of the Golden Dawn for 32 years, becoming involved in its direction at the turn of the century and achieving the coveted sixth grade of membership in 1914, the same year that his future wife, Georgiana Hyde-Lees, also joined the society.

Although Yeats’s occult ambitions were a powerful force in his private thoughts, the Golden Dawn’s emphasis on the supernatural clashed with his own need as a poet for interaction in the physical world, and thus in his public role he preferred to follow the example of John Keats, a Romantic poet who remained—in comparison with Romantics William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley—relatively close to the materials of life. Yeats avoided what he considered the obscurity of Blake, whose poetic images came from mystical visions rather than from the familiar physical world. Even so, Yeats’s visionary and idealist interests were more closely aligned with those of Blake and Shelley than with those of Keats, and in the 1899 collection The Wind among the Reeds he employed occult symbolism in several poems.

Most of Yeats’s poetry, however, used symbols from ordinary life and from familiar traditions, and much of his poetry in the 1890s continued to reflect his interest in Irish subjects. During this decade he also became increasingly interested in poetic techniques. He befriended English decadent poet Lionel Johnson, and in 1890 they helped found the Rhymers’ Club, a group of London poets who met to read and discuss their poems. The Rhymers placed a very high value on subjectivity and craftsmanship and preferred sophisticated aestheticism to nationalism. The club’s influence is reflected in the lush density of Yeats’s poetry of the times, culminating in The Wind among the Reeds (1899). Although Yeats was soon to abandon that lush density, he remained permanently committed to the Rhymers’ insistence that a poet should labor “at rhythm and cadence, at form and style”—as he reportedly told a Dublin audience in 1893.

The turn of the century marked Yeats’s increased interest in theatre, an interest influenced by his father, a famed artist and orator who loved highly dramatic moments in literature. In the summer of 1897 the author enjoyed his first stay at Coole Park, the County Galway estate of Lady Augusta Gregory. There he devised, with Lady Gregory and her neighbor Edward Martyn, plans for promoting an innovative, native Irish drama. In 1899 they staged the first of three annual productions in Dublin, including Yeats’s The Countess Kathleen, and in 1902 they supported a company of amateur Irish actors in staging both George Russell’s Irish legend “Deirdre” and Yeats’s Cathleen ni Houlihan. The success of these productions led to the founding of the Irish National Theatre Society with Yeats as president. After a wealthy sponsor volunteered to pay for the renovation of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre as the company’s permanent home, the theatre opened on December 27, 1904. It included plays by the company’s three directors: Lady Gregory, John M. Synge, and Yeats, who was represented that night with On Baile’s Strand, the first of his several plays featuring heroic ancient Irish warrior Cuchulain.

During the first decade of the 20th century Yeats was extremely active in the management of the Abbey Theatre company. At this time he also wrote 10 plays, and the simple, direct style of dialogue required for the stage became an important consideration in his poems as well. He abandoned the heavily elaborated style of The Wind Among the Reeds in favor of conversational rhythms and simpler diction. This transformation in his poetic style can be traced in his first three collections of the 20th century: In the Seven Woods (1903), The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910), and Responsibilities (1914). Several poems in those collections use style as their subject. For example, in “A Coat,” written in 1912, Yeats derided his 1890s poetic style, saying that he had once adorned his poems with a coat “covered with embroideries / Out of old mythologies.” The poem concludes with a brash announcement: “There’s more enterprise / In walking naked.” This departure from a conventional 19th-century manner disappointed his contemporary readers, who preferred the pleasant musicality of such familiar poems as “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” which he wrote in 1890.

Simplification was only the first of several major stylistic changes. In “Yeats as an Example?” an essay in Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968-1978, the prominent Irish poet Seamus Heaney commended Yeats for continually altering and refining his poetic craftsmanship. “He is, indeed, the ideal example for a poet approaching middle age,” Heaney declared. “He reminds you that revision and slog-work are what you may have to undergo if you seek the satisfaction of finish; he bothers you with the suggestion that if you have managed to do one kind of poem in your own way, you should cast off that way and face into another area of your experience until you have learned a new voice to say that area properly.”

Eventually, Yeats began experimenting as a playwright; in 1916, for instance, he adopted a deliberately esoteric, nonrealistic dramatic style based on Japanese Noh plays, a theatrical form to which he had been introduced by poet Ezra Pound. These plays were described by Yeats as “plays for dancers.”

While Yeats fulfilled his duties as president of the Abbey Theatre group for the first 15 years of the 20th century, his nationalistic fervor was less evident. Maud Gonne had moved to Paris with her husband, exiled Irish revolutionary John MacBride, and the author was left without her encouragement. But in 1916 he once again became a staunch exponent of the nationalist cause, inspired by the Easter Rising, an unsuccessful, six-day armed rebellion of Irish republicans against the British in Dublin. MacBride, who was now separated from Gonne, participated in the rebellion and was executed afterward. Yeats reacted by writing “Easter, 1916,” an eloquent expression of his complex feelings of shock, romantic admiration, and a more realistic appraisal.

The Easter Rising contributed to Yeats’s eventual decision to reside in Ireland rather than England, and his marriage to Hyde-Lees in 1917 further strengthened that resolve. Earlier, in an introductory verse to Responsibilities, he had asked his ancestors’ pardon for not yet having married to continue his Irish lineage: “Although I have come close on forty-nine, / I have no child, I have nothing but a book.” With marriage came another period of exploration into complex and esoteric subjects for Yeats. He had long been fascinated by the contrast between a person’s internal and external selves—between the true person and those aspects that the person chooses to present as a representation of the self. Yeats had first mentioned the value of masks in 1910 in a simple poem, “The Mask,” where a woman reminds her lover that his interest in her depends on her guise and not on her hidden, inner self. Yeats gave eloquent expression to this idea of the mask in a group of essays, Per Amica Silentia Lunae (1918): “I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one’s self.” This notion can be found in a wide variety of Yeats’s poems.

Yeats also continued to explore mysticism. Only four days after the wedding, his bride began what would be a lengthy experiment with the psychic phenomenon called automatic writing, in which her hand and pen presumably served as unconscious instruments for the spirit world to send information. Yeats and his wife held more than 400 sessions of automatic writing, producing nearly 4,000 pages that Yeats avidly and patiently studied and organized. From these sessions Yeats formulated theories about life and history. He believed that certain patterns existed, the most important being what he called gyres, interpenetrating cones representing mixtures of opposites of both a personal and historical nature. He contended that gyres were initiated by the divine impregnation of a mortal woman—first, the rape of Leda by Zeus; later, the immaculate conception of Mary. Yeats found that within each 2,000-year era, emblematic moments occurred at the midpoints of the 1000-year halves. At these moments of balance, he believed, a civilization could achieve special excellence, and Yeats cited as examples the splendor of Athens at 500 B.C., Byzantium at A.D. 500, and the Italian Renaissance at A.D. 1500.

Yeats further likened these historical cycles to the 28-day lunar cycle, contending that physical existence grows steadily until it reaches a maximum at the full moon, which Yeats described as perfect beauty. In the remaining half of the cycle, physical existence gradually falls away, until it disappears completely at the new moon, whereupon the cycle begins again. Applying this pattern both to historical eras and to individuals’ lives, Yeats observed that a person completes the phases as he advances from birth to maturity and declines toward death. Yeats elaborated the scheme by assigning particular phases to specific types of personality, so that although each person passes through the many phases during a lifetime, one provides an overall characterization of the individual’s entire life. Yeats published his intricate and not completely systematic theories of personality and history in A Vision (1925; substantially revised in 1937), and some of the symbolic patterns (gyres, moon phases) provide important background to many of the poems and plays he wrote during the second half of his career.

During these years of Yeats’s esoterica Ireland was rife with internal strife. In 1921 bitter controversies erupted within the new Irish Free State over the partition of Northern Ireland and over the wording of a formal oath of allegiance to the British Crown. These issues led to an Irish civil war, which lasted from June 1922 to May 1923. Yeats emphatically sided with the new Irish government. He accepted a six-year appointment to the senate of the Irish Free State in December 1922, a time when rebels were kidnapping government figures and burning their homes. In Dublin, where Yeats had assumed permanent residence in 1922 (after maintaining a home for 30 years in London), the government even posted armed sentries at his door. As senator, Yeats considered himself a representative of order amid the chaotic new nation’s slow progress toward stability. He was now the “sixty-year-old smiling public man” of his poem “Among School Children,” which he wrote after touring an Irish elementary school. He was also a world-renowned artist of impressive stature, having received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

Yeats’s poems and plays produced during his senate term and beyond are, at once, local and general, personal and public, Irish and universal. At night the poet could “sweat with terror” (a phrase in his poem “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen”) because of the surrounding violence, but he could also generalize those terrifying realities by linking them with events in the rest of the world and with all of history. The energy of the poems written in response to these disturbing times gave astonishing power to his collection The Tower (1928), which is often considered his best single book, though The Wild Swans at Coole (1917; enlarged edition, 1919), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), The Tower, The Winding Stair (1929); enlarged edition, 1933), and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932), also possess considerable merit.

Another important element of poems in both these collections and other volumes is Yeats’s keen awareness of old age. Even his romantic poems from the late 1890s often mention gray hair and weariness, though those poems were written while he was still a young man. But when Yeats was nearly 60, his health began to fail and he was faced with real, rather than imaginary, “bodily decrepitude” (a phrase from “After Long Silence”) and nearness to death. Despite the author’s often keen awareness of his physical decline, the last 15 years of his life were marked by extraordinary vitality and an appetite for life. He continued to write plays, including Sophocles’ King Oedipus and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (translations performed with masks in 1926 and 1927) and The Words upon the Window Pane (1934), a full-length work about spiritualism and the 18th century Irish writer Jonathan Swift. In 1929, as an expression of gaiety after recovering from a serious illness, he also wrote a series of brash, vigorous poems narrated by a fictitious old peasant woman, Crazy Jane. His pose as “The Wild Old Wicked Man“ (the title of one of his poems) and his poetical revitalization was reflected in the title of his 1938 volume New Poems.

As Yeats aged, he saw Ireland change in ways that angered him. The Anglo-Irish Protestant minority no longer controlled Irish society and culture, and with Lady Gregory’s death in 1932 and the abandonment of the Coole Park estate, Yeats felt detached from the brilliant achievements of the 18th Anglo-Irish tradition. According to Yeats’s unblushingly antidemocratic view, the greatness of Anglo-Irishmen such as Jonathan Swift, philosopher George Berkeley, and statesman Edmund Burke, contrasted sharply with the undistinguished commonness of contemporary Irish society, which seemed preoccupied with the interests of merchants and peasants. He laid out his unpopular opinions in late plays such as Purgatory (1938) and the essays of On the Boiler (1939).

But Yeats offset his frequently brazen manner with the personal conflicts expressed in his last poems. He faced death with a courage that was founded partly on his vague hope for reincarnation and partly on his admiration for the bold heroism that he perceived in Ireland in both ancient times and the 18th century. In proud moods he could speak in the stern voice of his famous epitaph, written within six months of his death, which concludes his poem “Under Ben Bulben”: “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!” But the bold sureness of those lines is complicated by the terror-stricken cry that “distracts my thought” at the end of another late poem, “The Man and the Echo,” and also by the poignantly frivolous lust for life in the last lines of “Politics,” the poem that he wanted to close Last Poems: ”But O that I were young again / And held her in my arms.”

Throughout his last years, Yeats’s creative imagination remained very much his own, isolated to a remarkable degree from the successive fashions of modern poetry despite his extensive contacts with other poets. Literary modernism held no inherent attraction for him except perhaps in its general association with youthful vigor. He admired a wide range of traditional English poetry and drama, and he simply was unconcerned that, during the last two decades of his life, his preference for using rhyme and strict stanza forms would set him apart from the vogue of modern poetry. Yeats’s allegiance to poetic tradition did not extend, however, to what he considered an often obscure, overly learned use of literary and cultural traditions by T.S. Eliot and Pound. Yeats deplored the tremendous enthusiasm among younger poets for Eliot’s The Waste Land, published in 1922. Disdaining Eliot’s flat rhythms and cold, dry mood, Yeats wanted all art to be full of energy. He felt that the literary traditions furnishing Eliot with so many allusions and quotations should only be included in a poem if those traditions had so excited the individual poet’s imagination that they could become poetic ingredients of the sort Yeats described in “The Tower”: “Poet’s imaginings / And memories of love, / Memories of the words of women, / All those things whereof / Man makes a superhuman / Mirror-resembling dream.”

Yeats wanted poetry to engage the full complexity of life, but only insofar as the individual poet’s imagination had direct access to experience or thought and only insofar as those materials were transformed by the energy of artistic articulation. He was, from first to last, a poet who tried to transform the local concerns of his own life by embodying them in the resonantly universal language of his poems. His brilliant rhetorical accomplishments, strengthened by his considerable powers of rhythm and poetic phrase, have earned wide praise from readers and, especially, from fellow poets, including W.H. Auden (who praised Yeats as the savior of English lyric poetry), Stephen Spender, Theodore Roethke, and Philip Larkin. It is not likely that time will diminish his achievements.

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