Mendocino County Today: Thursday 12/25/2025

---

---

ANOTHER STRONG STORM system will bring additional moderate to heavy rain, mountain snow, and strong winds Thursday into Friday. Shower and isolated thunderstorm activity will gradually to diminish through the day on Friday. Drier and colder weather is forecast for the weekend and should last into early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Merry Christmas weather fans ! Light rain & wind with 50F & a fresh .38" of rainfall brings our monthly total to 8" on the coast. More rain & moderate wind thru Friday then drying out until later next week. This PGE outage map is from Hwy 20 to Albion, outages looks widespread still today, yuck !

---

WOMAN WHO DIED AFTER BEING SWEPT INTO OCEAN IDENTIFIED AS FORT BRAGG RESIDENT

by Sarah Stierch

MENDOCINO CO., 12/24/25 – A woman who died after being swept out to sea at a Mendocino Coast beach Monday has been identified as 77-year-old Diane Wittig of Fort Bragg, a family member said.

According to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, Wittig was swept off a rock by a large wave and into the ocean. Bystanders pulled her from the water, but she became unresponsive and lost consciousness on the beach. Bystanders attempted resuscitation efforts before first responders arrived, but Wittig was pronounced dead at the scene, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The Sheriff’s Office requested help Tuesday identifying Wittig, who did not have any identifying documents with her at the time of her death.

Family member Kristen Loomer contacted The Mendocino Voice on Tuesday evening to confirm Wittig’s identity.

According to Loomer, a 22-year-old man dove into the ocean in an attempt to save Wittig. “We hope to connect with him to give our thanks and deepest gratitude for risking his life,” she said.

Born Diane Granskog, Wittig was a Fort Bragg native and attended Fort Bragg High School. Known to family as “Diney,” she was a petite, high-energy woman who was always up for an adventure.

“She was a force,” Loomer said.

(mendovoice.com)

---

---

ILLEGAL DUMPING CLOSES ROAD 500

CAL FIRE’s Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) has closed Road 500, between County Road 408 and JDSF Road 600, effective immediately.

The closure is due to an increase in illegal trash dumping along Road 500, County Road 408, and other forest roads. Closing the road will also help prevent damage during wet weather and protect the forest’s infrastructure.

During the closure, motorized vehicles are not allowed, including motorcycles and ATVs, in accordance with California regulations. However, the road remains open for non-motorized use, such as walking, biking, and horseback riding.

JDSF staff will continue cleanup efforts and evaluate long-term solutions. Road 500 will reopen once conditions improve, and the dumping issue is addressed.

Visitors are encouraged to help keep the forest clean by packing out trash and reporting illegal dumping.

For additional information, including a map of JDSF, please contact our office at (707) 964-5674 or visit the website: https://www.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/natural-resource-management/demonstration-state-forests/jackson-demonstration-state-forest

---

---

MITCHELL CLOGG:

Last night's storm drove Cat Ernie, terrified by howls and wails of wind, into his hidey hole in the closet that has the water heater and coats. 

There were serious gusts. Things moved and thumped on the wall and deck outside. I was tempted to go join Ernie. I thought I should bundle up, put on my headlight and go look. Bed and storm, the one seductive, the other forbidding, decided it. It could wait.

So this morning there is a bull pine sapling on the roof of Ellie's studio. Helluva lot better than the beast that fell there a few year ago, but new repairs to do, now. It was, apparently, the nighttime noisemaker, shifting this way and that in the grip of gusts. Saplings grow tall before they grow big. I wont try to measure it. Thirty to forty feet is what quick glances suggest.

Things were quiet, then, as I watched a sowbug this morning (sowbug, pill bug, wood louse, roly poly, dozens more names for it), forlornly quartering my bathroom floor, searching for decayed vegetable matter (sorry, Charlie) or another sowbug or ANYTHING.

I couldn't help but think about storms and sowbugs. The racket that scares our cat, our predator emeritus, doesn't register at all on the bug. (Not really a bug or insect at all. It's related to shrimp, lobsters, etc., a sea creature that came ashore, an arthropod, by God.)

I picked it up. They're like horseshoe crabs, kinda neat when you look at them from above, plennee creepy when you turn them over. Sowbugs have a slow gait, sniffing around for dinner, but this one, in my dry palm, hauled ass, trying to get away from the warm, pillowy surface. I opened a window. Bye bye. 

The older I get, the more Hindu. A tiny bug has consciousness like me, places to go, things to do. It doesn't sell itself short because it's smaller than a pinhead. It's as occupied by thoughts of food, shelter, family and survival as I am.

Maybe a gust of wind blew it through the open crack of the window--who knows? It was content in the maelstrom and terrified in the calm. I gave it back to the wind and water. As much as I can, I rescue things, like a Hindu sweeping the path ahead of him so as not to step on fellow creatures. This sounded silly to me once. Now it seems entirely reasonable. I dislike killing things. There are humans I'd kill with satisfaction, famous ones, but I don't like killing most of the Animalia Kingdom's subjects.

Power went out. I was standing beside my bed. It was midnight. There had been a couple of quick flickers, then darkness. I'm beside my bed, wearing a headlight. How unimportant a "plunge into darkness" when you're next to your bed and in possession of a think that makes bright light! I didn't turn it on, just clumb up on my high bed (high so I can see out the window without stretch or squirm).

And slep.

Christmas eve eve. Holiday observances were required of me. When we Clogg kids were little, Sandra, Judy and I, Christmas morning was radiant. The instant we gained the age when Santa Claus was no longer credible, we were ejected from Christmas myths and conscripted into the Santa's-helper force. As Daddy sat and drank wine and gave orders, we trimmed the G.D. tree. We had established lots of cumbersome traditions: "icicles" (strands of narrow-cut, shiny strips of some pesky material) were to be placed individually. Strings of cranberries, lights, popcorn, garlands of many colors and styles--all were lovingly placed.

Eleven years after having three babies, Mommy had a fourth, my brother Judsan, and then, to her dismay, a fifth, sister Chanel Number Five. Those younger siblings prolonged what had become an ordeal for Sandra, Judy and me, "decorating" 'til way past midnight. Daddy growing more obnoxious as wine and sleepiness and trifling sadism infected his attitude.

Then, THEN, I was in it again. My wife Linda left the kids and me for self-liberation and a Volkwagen salesman named Mark. She did this on the occasion of our third child's birth. Thus began my long existence as a single father. Remarrying was out of the question. Having a failed marriage, seeing the toll her abandonment took on the kids, I was disinclined to have another go at matrimony. I'd raise them myself, and did.

A man moves into the hood. No wife or mommy for his kids. Girlfriends instead. Not your typical neighbor. I was always aware of eyes on me, especially at times like Christmas, birthdays, Easter, summer vacation, Halloween, thanksgiving--the whole nine yards of family-centered occasions.

Gotta watch such a man. Immense potential for child abuse, child neglect, moral impropriety. At the same time, I was a target for ladies who did not want permanent commitments--just good times. They came, cooked, had fun with the kids, discreetly slept over, and went home. That helped. They were kind and generous. Sometimes they helped out with special occasions. I was not taken to task for this peculiar lifestyle, not shunned.

The kids and I survived my ham-handed parenting. I made a big deal of the obligatory celebrations. God knows I knew how to decorate a house. The scrutiny I sensed on the other side of fences and walls apparently found no reportable lapses.

God, how I love ignoring holidays! Ellie doesn't complain of deprivation.

Looks like a stormy Christman on Wheeler Street.

---

'25 THINGS

by Fred Gardner

• The frightened eyes of Kash Patel
• Elon Musk's chainsaw
• The Rubble in Gaza
• The Gulf of America
• The masked ICE agents
• The fires in Los Angeles
• The prison in the Everglades
• The red MAGA cap
• Tyler Robinson's rifle
• Jeffrey Epstein’s client list
• Lady Ghislaine's transfer
• Mark Zuckerberg's bunker
• The No Kings marches
• ]immy Carter's coffin
• The tariffs on
• The New York City mayor
• The Potomac mid-air crash
• Venezuelan petroleum
• Iranian plutonium
• Ukranian rare earth
• The Russian draftees
• Vanishing newspapers
• The National Guard deployment
• The Big Beautiful Bill
• The greatness of Ohtani
• The first American pope
• For-profit medicine
• Señora Machado'a Nobel peace prize!
• The deported immigrants
• The gilded Oval Office
• The laid-off workers
• The OKC Thunder
• "Diddy" Combs's sentence
• Cannabis rescheduling
• The impact of fentanyl
• The trial of Mangione
• GLP-1 diet drugs
• The WNBA
• The Department of War
• The East Wing demolition
• The net worth of Melania
• The government shutdown
• The death of Rob Reiner
• The crypto currencies
• The melting glaciers
• Starvation in Somalia
• The Emirates Cup
• Marjorie Taylor Green
• The ominous armada
• The latest mass shooting
• The Christmas Season

---

UKIAH’S CHRISTMAS FLOOD IN THE WINTER OF ‘64

Drivers navigate the 400 block of N State St during the Christmas flood of 1964. The pickup trucks belonged to the City of Ukiah, and the businesses shown on the east side of State St are Challenge Appliances and Darold’s Barber Shop, which were located in a building that would later be torn down in the mid-‘70s. You can see the Lamb’s Inn through the trees. Photo courtesy of Ed Bold

---

---

MENDOCINO’S CHRISTMASES PAST

At this time of year people ask us, “How was Christmas celebrated in the early days?” The answer is it was celebrated much as in all small towns across America. Christmas trees (Mendocino had plenty), church programs, children speaking pieces, and Santa handing out presents.

Katie Ford, born in 1857, wrote in her journal “At Christmas time we always had a tree for the Sunday School in the Church where each child had a book or box of paints or drawing instruments—and all had a cornucopia of candy. Some had presents on the tree there, but we always had our gifts at home; we always included the Chalfant, Denslow and Minister’s family in our celebrations.”

A few decades later Maurice Tindall, born 1893, had a memorable Christmas: “One Christmas there was a tree upstairs at Murray’s Hall and half the town was up there. I remember that one. There was a good-sized tree, 16 or 18 feet.

“The way they got the tree down to the Hall they’d get someone with some extra time, maybe Jim Bowman down at the livery stable; we’d take a couple of Packard boys, me, Allie Brown, and a crew and we’d go out above Fury Town somewhere in the woods and get the tree. The ladies would decorate it that afternoon and night. They lit it with candles all over the thing. At Mr. Beach’s house, yards and yards of popcorn were strung and a lot of people took half their presents down. When you came in there at night and looked at that brilliant tree standing there, I tell you it was a grand sight.

“Each member of the various departments, numbering considerably over a hundred, was provided with presents. The trees had been whitened and trimmed and around the foot of each tree the larger presents had been placed and covered with cotton and sprinkled with white sparkling tinsel to represent snow. After songs and recitations came a telegram direct from Santa Claus at the North Pole and in due time Old Nick appeared and delivered a portion of the presents. Then Mrs. Santa with her six daughters made her appearance to help.

“Al Henderson and wife took the parts of Santa and wife. At the conclusion of the program, the Rev. M L. Goff read a poem he’d written in appreciation of Mrs. Kelley and esteem on her 50th Christmas on the coast.”

The December 25, 1915 issue of the Beacon repeats this story: “The item which follows is taken from the maritime news column of a San Francisco paper and is evidence that the jovial captain of the Sea Foam is ‘right there’ with the Christmas spirit. This capable and well-liked skipper is just the man to enter into the spirit of the holiday season and be the first to follow the observance of a good old custom. The item follows: ‘Captain Henriksen this year as in the past, was the first master to bring his command, the little coaster Sea Foam, into port decorated with Christmas greens. The Sea Foam came in from Mendocino with a small Christmas tree at her bow and one at the fore and the main mastheads. The Christmas decorations are not so prevalent on steamers as they were in the old days of the windjammers, but there are still many skippers in steam from the sailing vessels who dress their commands in conformity with the old custom.’”

— From the Mendocino Beacon December 10, 1989 by Dorothy Bear

(kelleyhousemuseum.org)

---

---

LEAD STORIES,  THURSDAY'S NYT

Trump Says ‘Housing First’ Failed the Homeless. Here’s What the Evidence Says.

Republicans Who Backed Afghan Visas Are Mum as Trump Halts Them

Man Shot in ICE Confrontation in Maryland, Officials Say

Kennedy Center’s Christmas Eve Show Canceled After Trump Name Added to Building

Why Russia Is Likely to Reject the New U.S.-Ukrainian Peace Plan

‘Carol of the Bells’ Once Filled the Air Here. Now It’s Only Bombs.

---

CHARLIE BROWN: "I guess you were right, Linus. I shouldn't have picked this little tree. Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I don't really know what Christmas is all about. Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

Linus: "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please."

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Linus: “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

---