Off the Record 12/16/2025

PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR (My Annual Remembrance)

by Bruce Anderson

Count me as one. I was two, my brother one, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

My brother and I were born in Honolulu, Our paternal grandfather, a Scots immigrant, was a principal in a successful business called the Honolulu Iron Works, with branches in Hilo and the Philppines. My father was a graduate of the Punahou School, same high school alma mater as President Obama three generations later. Pop, pre-War, spent much of his youth surfing and his evenings in white dinner jackets.

And then the world rushed in, along with reality.

By the end of the war Pop was loading submarines at Hunter’s Point in San Francisco. He’d cashed in his Honolulu chips because, like most Islanders, he assumed the Japanese would follow-up their successful aerial blitz of America’s Pacific defenses with a ground invasion so he loaded my mother and his two heirs on a evacuating troop ship headed for San Francisco while he wrapped up his affairs in his native Hawaii.

The morning of the infamous day, my brother and I had been up before dawn demanding, as family lore has it, ice cream cones. We were in the car as the sun rose and with it came wave after wave of low-flying planes swooping in over us and central Honolulu. We drove obliviously on as the invaders devastated the unawares American fleet where it was conveniently assembled in Pearl Harbor, their crews slumbering, many eternally.

“The planes were flying so low I could see the pilots,” my father remembered. “I thought it was some kind of maneuvers. There was smoke coming from Pearl Harbor, but most people simply assumed there had been an explosion and a fire. There were lots of people out in the streets watching the planes coming in.”

My father said quite a few of those spectators were recreationally strafed as the Japanese flew back out to sea. He didn’t know what was happening until we got home. It hadn’t occurred to him that the planes were hostile. That thought hadn’t occurred to much of anyone in Honolulu until they were either shot at or a stray bomb fell on their neighborhood. The Japanese, as always on-task, mostly confined themselves to military targets and, of course, forty years later, held the paper on our mortgages, including, for a spell, the Mendocino County Courthouse.

Some 20 minutes after the attack had begun, my father stopped to buy us our coveted ice cream cones, which were served up by an unperturbed clerk, and we drove on home. “Nobody had any idea that the Japanese would do such a thing,” my father said whenever he talked about December 7th. “They were too far away and America had no quarrel with them.” That he knew of, anyway.

Arriving home, my father famously complained to my mother that “These military maneuvers are getting a little too goddam realistic.” My mother, who’d always regarded her husband as something of a Magoo-like figure, informed her mate that the Japanese were attacking both Pearl Harbor and, it seemed, Honolulu, where errant bombs aimed at Hickham Field had already destroyed homes and businesses of non-combatants. She’d turned on the radio when she’d heard explosions. One of the first things she learned was that a bomb had obliterated the area where we’d made our ice cream purchase minutes earlier.

Years later, a hippie told me that I’d eluded the random wrath of the Japanese because I had “good karma.” I think it was more a case of God’s high regard for idiots and children.

My father was exempt from military service because he had a wife and children, but he was pressed into service as a member of a sort of impromptu Honolulu home guard called the Business Man’s Training Corps, or BMTC. Honolulu in 1941 was about the size of today’s Santa Rosa. My mother had much ribald enjoyment at the abbreviation, and was even more delighted at the sight of my father togged out as a World War One Doughboy, the only uniforms available.

The BMTC wouldn’t have been much of a match for the Japanese Imperial Army which, fortunately, never appeared on Waikiki. The Japanese had surprised themselves by the unopposed success of their attack on Pearl Harbor and had not prepared to land an occupying ground force.

December 7th was a major trauma for America. For our family, too. Pop made plans to head for the Mainland as soon as he could, but he wanted to accomplish both without being derided as a slacker for fleeing. It took him another year to make it stateside. He continued to spend his days surfing and sitting around in the dark at night behind blackout curtains.

My mother was a registered nurse who’d worked at Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu, my birthplace and also the birthplace of President Obama.

While surfer dude lingered in Honolulu, we'd been packed on to a troop ship headed for the Golden Gate. My mother remembers daily submarine alerts all the way across the Pacific during which everyone, including the women and children on board, trundled over the side by rope nets into lifeboats. Mom recalls that the two of us infants loved being handed off like a couple of footballs up and down the side of the ship, but the daily alarms and exertions terrified her and everyone else on board.

But we made it unscathed, and were soon ensconced in, of all places, the Fairmont Hotel, the evacuation center for people fleeing Hawaii.

SUZI LONG’S BLUE PELICAN GALLERY-ATELIER is now open at 401 N. Harbor Drive in Fort Bragg.

Former travel agent blue building! Stop by to say hi! And have a little holiday cheer! Paintings and other creative things.

Gallery and studio of Suzi Long, watercolors and other mediums. The gallery will showcase work by Suzi Marquess Long until January when other artists will be invited to exhibit; offer drop-in and scheduled classes; offer space for small groups (such as Collage Collective); sponsor occasional contests, etc.

707-779-8713
Regular hours 12-4 Thurs-Mon

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR: Excavated this photo from the detritus of my desk drawer showing Cockburn–bolo tie, Irish linen shirt, duct-taped eyeglasses – prophesying a plague of boils upon the rich during a talk (never "a reading") on our tour-stop for Whiteout at Powell's old store in one of Thomas "Bucky Beaver" Pynchon's favorite burbs, Beaverton, Oregon.

A READER WRITES: Anent A.I.: a society in which the citizens have no say in the technologies that are imposed upon them is not a democracy.

Didn’t ask for it, don’t need it, don’t want it. Yet the very people who tell a pollster that they consider A.I. a threat will be ‘talking’ to a chatbot a minute later. They are what the Boers called a “hensopper” — that’s Afrikaans for someone who gives up without a struggle. A hands upper.

“Well, here it is. Don’t need it. Let me start using it.”

It is hard work to learn to write, to draw, to communicate with others ex tempore in three dimensional space, face to face, to conduct one’s own research, to generate autogenous thought. A.I. promises to release us from the burden of being human. Like every other technological advance in the past 30 years or so, while debilitating us it also, just coincidentally, serves to ensnare us ever more tightly in the data net, allowing our actions, our movements, and our thoughts to be monitored and assessed.

THAT TERRIBLE CHILD ABANDONMENT CASE against Edward ‘Two Feathers’ Steele from 2022 went to trial this week. Steele, a member of the Hopland band of Pomo Indians, is accused of abandoning a one-year old infant leading to the child’s exposure and death. The child was the son of a woman Steele was dating at the time. Steele’s previous defense attorney questioned Steele’s competence to stand trial which partly explains the delays in the trial. Steele has plead not guilty from the outset. Previous police reports allege that Sheriff’s deputies arrested the mother on suspicion of domestic violence and battery, and Steele retrieved the children, who were with a babysitter at a Motel 6 on North Street in Ukiah. Investigators said deputies were advised that a babysitter was with the boys and child protective services would have been called if the children were present during the arrest and showed signs of child abuse or neglect. The mother was later released and reported that her children were missing. Later that day, a passerby found the victims’s two-year old brother who was taken to Adventist Health Ukiah Valley Hospital for life-threatening injuries but survived. The younger sibling was found nearby and pronounced dead at the scene. Questions of whether it was really Steele seen on an incriminating video, exactly what he knew and when, what his responsibility may have been, and the roles of the cops and child protective services are expected to arise. Steele has a long history of prior arrests. The trial is expected to take two or three weeks. Judge Victoria Shanahan presiding.

JULIE BEARDSLEY:

“Waste and inefficiency,” while likely true to some extent, is too generic a complaint to take seriously.”

Actually, let’s look at the past 10 years or so… First there was combining Social Services, Mental Health and Public Health under one umbrella as Health and Human Services (HHSA). Then when it became apparent that this arrangement wasn’t working or saving money, the departments were separated back out. Then came the push to combine Mental Health, or Behavioral Health and Recovery Service (BHRS) as it is now known, with Public Health, despite strong objections from Public Health staff and local community members who had a vested interest in seeing Public Health continue the work they were doing. Public Health spent over 10 years and thousands of dollars in resources and staff hours to try to become an Accredited Public Health Department. This effort was abandoned a year or so ago. Accreditation is like a road map for how to run a Public Health Department, but with Public Health being taken over by the psychologist Dr. Jenine Miller, it’s not doing what it should be doing and so can’t be Accredited. I have seen the waste of materials, overbuying, and actual fraud being committed to cover up purchases. Combining the Tax Collector and Auditor’s office, despite objections from the staff, and now un-combining them. – another example. The firing of several qualified Public Health directors is another example of waste and inefficiency. The firing ( or harassment until they quit) of so many staff members I have lost count, by managers who felt threatened because they were incompetent, and the staff members knew these supervisors and managers were in over their heads. Darcie Antle the current CEO is a classic example of someone who should not have been made CEO, and we the tax payers are on the hook for all the nonsense County management perpetuates. These terminations frequently get the County into legal hassles that cost the tax payers millions of dollars. The recent letters to this publication about managers at Social Services berating staff, and behaving in ways that should have gotten them immediately fired, is another example. When I was President of SEIU 1021, I talked to members of the Board of Supervisors about some of these problems, and got the response that they don’t want to get involved in staffing issues. So the problems continue because no one is willing to do anything about the bad behavior or stupid decisions. Everyone who cares about our Mendocino County community should be calling out this crap!

PS. Oh, and here’s another one – appointing members of a Public Health Advisory Board, and then never having meetings. Because they don’t want no advice.

MORGAN BAYNAM:

Re: The Supes’ Low Approval…

Maybe the board would have a higher approval rating if its members spent more time with the people they represent. It used to be normal to see our 5th District supervisors at local fundraisers, board meetings, potlucks, and other community events. Mendocino 4th of July parade. Come on Ted where are you. I remember meeting Norm De Vall, John Peterson etc, at the Great Day in Elk or the Mendo County Fair or the local fire department barbecues. It used to be that all of the county supervisors showed up at their County Fair.

Ted Williams has never been seen at any of these events. If the board wants the public’s confidence, they need to get out there, meet people face to face, and offer real updates about what is going on. This county is not that big, and the supervisors are paid well. Being visible and accessible should be part of the job.

MAZIE MALONE:

On Measure B and the so-called “accountability provisions…” Was that a belief by the authors of the measure or a trick? The measure promised an independent oversight committee, and then immediately stacked it with representatives from the Sheriff’s Office, the Auditor’s Office, the CEO’s Office, plus five “citizens” chosen by the Supervisors themselves. That is definitely not independence. That is political control dressed up as oversight, and of course that is why the committee never held anyone accountable.

There’s another point that needs to be straightened out. A PHF is not where someone “gets their meds straight.” A PHF is short-term crisis stabilization: safety, assessment, and acute intervention. Once someone leaves, the responsibility moves to outpatient psychiatric care. And while we technically have psychiatric care in this county, there is no coordinated system that connects PHF discharge to timely follow-up. That gap is one of the main reasons people end up back in crisis. Buildings don’t fix that. Committees don’t fix that. The system paid for by the County is entrusted to enact protocols that address the needs of people living with these conditions. They are the “experts.”

This is the real failure. Measure B should have focused on the structure, the protocols, and the support that exist outside the jail and outside the PHF. That’s where outcomes are decided. Without continuity, accountability gets misdirected, usually back onto the individuals dealing with these issues.

There are solutions, but they require protocols, intervention, transparency, and actual collaboration. Here are some very necessary structural changes that would address the gaps in treatment and care:

• A 24/7 clinician-led crisis team so people aren’t relying on law enforcement for medical emergencies.
• Psychiatric follow-up within days of a PHF discharge, not weeks.
• A coordinated medication-management system instead of leaving people to navigate the cracks on their own.
• Real detox and treatment options.
• Stabilization that includes a housing plan instead of sending someone straight back to the street.
• Systems that include family when appropriate, because when family is involved, the chances of recovery increase; everyone in the field knows this.
• Transparent data so the public doesn’t have to guess what’s happening.
• Funding that goes to services, not endless planning, committees, and meetings.
• Above all, protocols that match the severity of what people are actually living through.

Until the County builds those pieces into the real responsibility chain we’re going to keep getting the same outcomes, the same crises, and the same excuses. The PHF is a band-aid. It is not infrastructure. It is not support. That happens outside the walls of institutions, and we simply do not have it.

PS. Also in 2022 there was a pie graph circulated by Ted Williams via social media that showed where the Measure B funds were allocated. Some of those funds were allocated to NAMI who utilized a very small portion of the total $700,000 and then rescinded the rest, based on what I’m not really sure. The whole purpose of that organization is education and advocacy for individuals and their families who are experiencing mental illness, the education portion specifically for Serious Mental Illness! Then of course, the training facility that gets barely any use. I do not understand the point of that, literally. Those meetings can be held at a number of places in town. And the one that really gets me is the Psychiatric Aftercare allocation. Over $1 million for that I am assuming, since it is not transparent info that most of that is cost related to transport of patients to psychiatric health facilities via ambulance and transportation by RCS back to Mendocino County. So technically the new PHF here in Ukiah should cut that cost significantly. We have not seen such a graph since, so we have no idea if the cost of that went up. There is also the cost of mobile outreach teams that was $1,360,000. I wish i could post the graph but the important thing is that spending the funds in this manner gives the appearance of success. In actuality success means support, treatment and housing that is the infrastructure that is necessary to alleviate these conditions.

ADAM GASKA:

Cost of the Great Redwood Trail.

Phase 4, which is currently under construction, has $4 million appropriated for engineering, environmental compliance, and construction. It’s 1.9 miles so roughly $2 million a mile.

NEW LEGGETT POST OFFICE ALMOST READY

Roughly one year and nine months ago, the Leggett Post Office was destroyed when a freak lightning storm went ‘postal’ on a nearby redwood tree; zapping and dropping half of the tree into the building, which caused an electrical fire that torched the joint. Since then, the mountain hamlet’s P.O. box holders have been forced to pick up their mail and conduct postal business some 23 miles away, at the Garberville office. General contractor, Rick Wise, of Laytonville, shares that the building is essentially ready and now they’re waiting for the U.S. Postal Service to outfit the interior.

— Roland Spence, Mendocino County Observer, Laytonville

VIRGINIA SHARKEY: Happy to be chosen for the exhibition entitled ‘H20’ at MONCA (Museum of Northern California Art) in Chico. You can see it now until January 18th. This is an oil painting inspired by Vernal Falls in Yosemite titled Vernal Gold.

FIRST DISTRICT SUPERVISOR MADELINE CLINE:

Today was the first meeting of the Mendocino County Public Health Advisory Board! This included an update from the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program.

WIC is a nutrition program that helps mothers and young children eat health. Over 2600 individuals benefit from WIC in Mendocino County. It’s more than an EBT card, it’s also breastfeeding support and referrals to medical providers and other community services. Some of the progress in WIC included more certified lactation specialists including bilingual specialists!

From the website: “The Public Health Advisory Board shall serve as an advisory body to the Board of Supervisors, County Health Officer, and Director of Health Services on matters relating to local Public Health and will provide a structured mechanism for community members to advise the Public Health Department on the efforts to address public health issues affecting the community. The Public Health Advisory Board consists of 9 board member positions, as well as a representative from the Board of Supervisors, the County Health Officer, the Director of Health Services, and a County Public Health Employee.”

It’s a pleasure to represent the Board of Supervisors on the Public Health Advisory Board and see it established with such a well rounded membership.

OFF SHORE OIL?

Is it a real threat? They can't drill in state waters and are restricted in connecting onshore anything by CA. However, the Trump team thinks they have a loophole for some of California's federal ocean sanctuaries. I have gotten a legal opinon or two and congressional takes on it.

There is a way to follow the application process, but it takes more time than I have and I doubt anybody else is doing it. The Dems are making an issue of the massive map Trump put out (excluding his side of Florida) but they don't really want to be real about the specific threat to California, its a good political issue for Trump to pump up his base who think any polluting oil project means "owning the libs" and for the Dems too to fire everyone up, but neither side is really interested in how real the threat is

— Frank Hartzell

HUNDREDS OF YOUNG COHO salmon were spotted in the East Branch Russian Gulch, which runs through the Jenner Headlands Preserve, the latest success story for the imperiled fish species once found in waterways across Northern California.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] President Trump unleashed a xenophobic tirade against Somali immigrants on Tuesday, calling them “garbage” he does not want in the United States in an outburst that captured the raw nativism that has animated his approach to immigration.

He said Somalia “stinks and we don’t want them in our country.” He described Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, who came to the United States from Somalia as a refugee and became a citizen 25 years ago, as “garbage.”

“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.

[2] Nobody forced you to put the bottle or pipe to your mouth. You can blame whoever you want, or your environment, or your parents, but it is YOU who still chose to go through with it. When you can accept that, then you can work on your sobriety.

As far as treatment centers, yes, I’ll agree we’re sorely lacking on that. We don’t have enough. I’ve also seen people stay sober for 30 years and die from natural causes. But if you don’t want to quit on your own and find a way to check yourself in and go through the process of healing, you won’t. We on the other side can treat the effects of addiction; you have to do the rest. The alternative is keeping you locked up and away from hurting yourself and others for longer periods. Might not address the root problems, but at least you’re not out causing more problems for a while.

[3] Hopefully you're not confused about what it is about Hegseth people despise. I mean, it's one thing to accept a civilian with little high level leadership experience for anything running the show, but to accept a TV face who few would take seriously on much if he didn't have this job, in combination with him being, what, a 2nd Lieutenant? I mean, ask the top folks at your work if they want to suddenly serve under a CEO who until now was the mid level manager considered of average capability, but who admittedly does tell some great stories in the lunchroom.

[4] Has anyone proven that the ‘unnamed witnesses’ actually exist? A friend of mine saw an alien spacecraft landing in his backyard and chased it off with his garden hose. I can’t reveal his name because we’re under watering restrictions and he’s way up there in the city water department, but when I went over his yard was wet. So yeah The Post should really get the word out.

[5] Well, sheeit… I declared a couple of days ago I was going to disengage from current events, but I guess I'm too much in love with the sound of my own vaporings to shut up for more than a couple of days. I really mean it this time. I'm going silent. That's my Christmas gift to you all.

[6] Jesus…So the survivors were just trying to signal for help and clinging to the wreckage to avoid drowning but they killed them anyway. Supposedly the boat was headed to a mother ship that they decided to not bother with. So if they have all this intel why are they not waiting and boarding the mother ship? A ship unlike the boat strike boat, that could reach the U.S. Are we great yet?

[7] If you mistake a death cap for a cocora or a matsi you should not be out picking lol. There’s no outbreak it’s just uneducated pickers. The death cap has always been out there and it’s no more prevalent this year than any other. I’ve been picking for a little over 30 years, the only thing that’s changed is how many people are doing it. Telling people to avoid all mushrooms unless store bought is pure fear mongering. Simple solution is don’t pick unless you know what your doing or are with someone who does.

[8] If you’ve encountered, or talked to, or interacted with the homeless population you would know that they don’t want to be managed at all. Many are quite happy in their tents, don’t know how to live in a house, don’t want “help”. Those that do want help, find it, and fix their lives. Forcing them is against the law. It is not a matter of “allowing” at all. It’s their choice to live like feral cats.