Mendocino County Today: Saturday 2/28/2026

Sweaty Conk | Chance Showers | Planetary Parade | Mendo Schools | Evacuation Route | Larry Parsons | Mendo Depression | Yesterday's Catch | Sitka Spruce | Marco Radio | After Transitioning | Humco Bust | Marijuana Growers | Watch NY | Doug Peacock | Hospital Ship | Broccolini Harvesters | Roundup Lies | Guthrie Kidnapping | Vance on Trump | Brain Damage | Ethical Life | John Steinbeck | Face Things | Lead Stories | Yertle Turtle | German Fanatics | Without Purpose | Never Perfect | The Bridge | Robert Crumb

---

---

SHOWERS with areas of thunderstorms develop over the weekend. The best chance for showers and isolate thunderstorms will be north of Mendocino county and way from the coast in the afternoon. Mainly dry weather is expected Monday and Tuesday with more light rain possible Tuesday night or Wednesday. Dry weather is expected to return later in the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A mostly cloudy 53F on the coast this Saturday morning. A 50% chance of a shower today, then another chance Sunday night, then another quick shot late Tuesday night. Otherwise cloudy, dry & warm.

---

A PLANETARY PARADE will march across the sky this month!

Mid-February, Saturn will drop down toward the horizon as Venus and Mercury climb upward in the sky, meeting together in the west to southwestern sky.

Jupiter will find itself high in the sky.

And even Uranus, found in the southern sky, and Neptune, found nearby Saturn, will join the parade—though you'll need binoculars or a telescope to spot these two far-off planets.

The planets will be visible soon after sunset throughout the month of February, but they’ll be lined up best toward the end of the month.

So, go outside and see how many planets you can find!

(science.nasa.gov)

---

ARE CALIFORNIA STUDENTS READY FOR UC ADMISSIONS? HERE’S HOW EVERY PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL SCORES

by Danielle Echeverria

Bay Area high schoolers are more likely than students from other states to have completed the requirements to get into a California public university, according to a Chronicle analysis of state education data.

Students in Marin and San Francisco counties have the highest completion rates of the set of 15 high school courses that they must take and pass in order to be considered for admission into the California State University or University of California systems. The data only includes students who graduated from public high schools.

The courses, known as the A-G requirements, cover seven subject areas, like math, English, science and history. Students must complete a certain number of years for each subject, passing with a C or better. A-G courses at individual high schools are approved by the UC and CSU systems.

Statewide, just over half of students who graduated completed these courses in the 2024-25 school year. In Marin and San Francisco, roughly two-thirds of students completed them. Placer, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties also had relatively high completion rates.

Notably, the Chronicle previously found that San Francisco had the highest A-G completion rate, followed by Marin. In the most recent school year, the ranking flipped.

Completion rates shift slightly from year to year across counties. But in the 2024-25 school year, after hitting a high of 72% last year, San Francisco’s A-G completion rate fell down to 67%. A closer look at the data doesn’t reveal any major declines at one particular school that would be driving the change alone. Instead, relatively small drop-offs at a number of schools collectively brought the total for the county down.

At the same time, Marin’s completion rate increased from last year to 69%, bringing it to the top spot.

Completing the A-G courses through high school classes isn’t the only way to satisfy the requirements. Achieving certain scores on the SAT, ACT, AP or IB exams can also suffice, as can completing college-level courses through the increasingly popular dual enrollment — where students enroll in college courses while still in high school.

The requirements are a minimum threshold to even apply to a California public four-year university, explained Sherrie Reed and Michal Kurlaender, both faculty at the UC Davis California Education Lab who have researched A-G completion rates. That means students who haven’t completed them are not even considered for admission.

The Chronicle previously found that A-G completion rates were strongly correlated with application rates to UCs, but not admissions rates. Application and admissions data was not yet available for the 2024-25 high school graduating class.

Increasing the number of students who complete the A-G courses has been a persistent challenge for the state, with research finding racial and socioeconomic disparities even within schools.

Making sure students have access to the A-G courses and the support to complete them is essential, Reed and Kurlaender explained, even if those students might think, as freshmen, that they aren’t interested in a four-year university. Completing the requirements gives students the option to change their mind and decide to apply to UCs or CSUs. And if they don’t want to attend college, the courses are still a helpful baseline of education.

“A certain bar of reading, writing and mathematical ability is good no matter what career field you go into,” Kurlaender said.

While access to courses is still a problem at some schools, Reed and Kurlaender explained, most schools actually do offer a complete set of A-G courses. Students who miss the requirement are often just a class or two off, their research has found.

In order to boost completion rates, school districts can ensure that their A-G courses align with their graduation requirements, and can get classes on other popular pathways, like career technical education, approved as A-G courses as well, the researchers said.

Tracking students’ progress over time is also essential, so that teachers, counselors or administrators can intervene early if a student is falling behind. Often, students who don’t pass a class with a C or higher have a hard time catching back up to complete the requirements, they explained. They recommended that schools offer more options for credit recovery to help students make up those credits before it’s too late.

Also key is making sure students are fully aware of the A-G requirements and how to complete them early on, and that they have the ability to fit all the necessary classes into their schedule.

“When you raise the expectations, students can rise to the occasion and meet those with the support and safety nets that it’s the school’s responsibility to provide to ensure that they’re successful,” Reed said.

---

Mendocino County Completion Rates

---

PUBLIC MEETING – EAST HILLS EVACUATION ROUTE UPDATE

The County of Mendocino, in partnership with BKF Engineers and Psomas, invites the community to a public meeting on the proposed East Hills Ukiah Evacuation Route Project.

Thursday, February 26

6:00–8:00 PM

Ukiah Bible Church

140 Arroyo Rd, Ukiah

This initial planning phase includes preliminary route alignment and early design concepts for a potential secondary evacuation route serving more than 300 residences in Deerwood Estates, El Dorado Estates, Vichy Springs, and Guidiville Rancheria.

At the meeting:

• Overview of the proposed route
• Review preliminary route maps and road designs
• Project timeline and next steps
• Q&A with BKF Engineers and the project team
• Light refreshments provided

Community members are encouraged to attend, review the plans, and share input.

Learn more: Visit the direct link: https://mendoready.org/east-hills-ukiah-evacuation-route…/

Or go to MendoReady.org and click the East Hills Ukiah Evacuation Route project link in the ticker.

Questions? 707-234-6032 | [email protected]

---

THE LITTLE BLIND WINEMAKER

(Notes on the tumultuous life of Larry Parsons)

Pepperwood Springs was in some ways typical of the new wineries in Anderson Valley in the 1980s. Larry and Nicki Parsons had bought their hillside vineyard land in 1980 and had turned to winemaking as a way to make the most of their wine grapes. They got the name of their winery from springs that had been developed for livestock that were grazed on their land during the depression of the 1930s. What wasn't typical about Pepperwood Springs was that winemaker Larry Parsons was blind.

The Parsons had won design awards for their labels, but they were also unique in that their labels sported braille writing. The small, family winery attracted a lot of attention in the news media because of Larry’s blindness.

Reading Brad Wylie's vivid portraits of the Anderson Valley circa early 1970s, one of the characters who fascinated me was Larry Parsons, the blind winemaker, as unsympathetic a handicapped person as you are likely to meet. But to those of us who possess what might be called an elastic tolerance for unreasonable activity, the guy was the source of endless amusement.

I remember encountering Larry one night at the bar of the Boonville Hotel, where he was allowed one drink before he was led across the street to the more down-market Boonville Lodge. More than one drink and Larry became… uh, unruly. Before his gentle ejection from the hotel bar I had asked him about the tragic recent death of a blind friend of his. A couple of Parsons’ blind pals were visiting him from the Bay Area where they and Parsons maintained lucrative blind man concessions in federal buildings. The three blind guys had gotten drunk and drove around The Valley from one place to another getting drunker.

Blind men driving? It happened.

As Larry explained, one of the blind men had had enough and asked to be driven to a place on the west side of Anderson Creek where he was staying. To get there one had to drive across an ancient redwood bridge some 60 or so feet above the streambed. bed. The bridge itself seemed to defy the laws of both physics and gravity; it was hard to tell what was holding it up. At the east end of the bridge, the blind guy being driven home asked Larry to stop the car so he could relieve himself. Larry was at the wheel, although even at high noon on a cloudless day he could barely make out shadows of objects around him. The next thing anybody heard was a startled yelp and, a split second later, a thud. The blind man had stepped off the bridge and fallen to his death on the rocks below.

I asked Parsons what had happened. With a sinister little chuckle Larry said, “Heh-heh. I told him to watch that first step. Heh-heh.”

Parsons began life in the Anderson Valley as a pot grower, but had also installed a few grapevines at his home at the top of the Holmes Ranch as cover for his dope op. I first met him when an alarmed neighbor called me. “I just saw that blind guy’s kid driving him around up here while the blind guy shoots out the window of his truck. He told me he was hunting quail.” Larry’s son was ten or eleven at the time. He’d drive and aim Larry’s fire at wildlife. “Over there, Pop! A little more to the left…”

Parsons said he was originally from Oklahoma where his father had him selling light bulbs door-to-door, “when I was in the first grade.”

As an adult, Larry got a blind man’s concession in the Oakland federal building, which he parlayed into country property and then into his famous Pepperwood Springs winery.

Philo's enterprising blindman became nationally famous when his inspired braille wine labels not only made his wine a must-have among the trendys, the little blind winemaker became something of a media sensation, and soon there was a steady stream of traffic up the subdivision’s dusty roads, a subdivision that never expected a busy tasting room at its lofty ridgetop.

With his fame followed some shocked calls to the AVA from wine tasters, especially women who complained that Parsons had been “inappropriate” when they stopped in at his tasting room. “Inappropriate” could have been his middle name, because inappropriate occurrences were synonymous with him. A typical complaint went, “I was with my husband. We’d read about him in the New York Times, and being wine enthusiasts we wanted to meet him and buy his famous wine. We had a very hard time finding the place, and when we finally got up there it looked like a private home so we knocked on the door. A man yelled at us to ‘Come the hell in,’ like we were intruding. He was drunk and slumped in a corner of the room, but as soon as I entered he started saying things like, ‘Oh baby, this must be my lucky day. Sit right down next to me, honey. You sure smell good.’ Well, we just turned around and left.” There were several iterations of this experience from other! women.

Larry died in an odd car crash on the far side of Yorkville in the middle 1980s. His underage daughter was driving, his girlfriend was in the passenger seat, little Larry was in the backseat with big Larry, but big Larry was the only person injured in the crash, and he was dead on impact when the car left the highway and hit a tree.

Larry Parsons, the famous little blind winemaker of the Holmes Ranch, creator of the braille wine label, died in something of a fluke. His underage daughter at the wheel with Larry in the back seat, daughter piled into an unyielding madrone on the far side of Yorkville. Of the four persons in the car, only Larry died. Not a scratch on anybody else.

---

LARRY PARSONS, The Blind Winemaker Of Pepperwood Springs

Interviewed by Bruce Anderson (November, 1984)

What is most impressive about Larry Parsons is his utter lack of self pity. There are people who say that not only does Parsons lack self pity but that he is feisty and aggressive, standing on its head the stereotype of the dependent sightless. Parsons was born to a family of prune and cotton pickers in Bakersfield 37 years ago. He has overcome the double whammy of extreme poverty and his disability to achieve an enviable and unique place among California winemakers. It’s been a tough road but Parsons is a tough cookie.

---

AVA: I must say I admire you enormously. You are not regarded as a handicapped person by the locals, which means to me that your strength of personality has caused people to forget or ignore it. The quiche eaters seem rather fearful of you, another plus. Right off I wanted him to tell me if this story was true. I’d heard a lot of Larry Parsons stories, but this one was my favorite:

One day, deputies were called to the Holmes Ranch because a posse of immediate neighbors.was claiming that he was hunting quail by leaning out his window and blasting away while the kid who was driving directed fire by shouting, “Left, right, up more, down…’’ and so forth.

Parsons: Absolutely untrue. I happened to be in the vehicle of a local high school student who was hunting. I was just along for the ride.

AVA: How do you account for the extreme hostility directed your way by certain persons?

PARSONS: I think some of it arises from the fact that people resent me because I have something going and they don’t. That along with mistrust of business people generally and the fact that my winery is out of sync with the neighborhood. They would probably rather have me down on 128 with all the other wineries. The have-nots have to learn that the haves will not be pushed around. I won’t tolerate any kind of harassment.

AVA: When did you move up here to the Holmes Ranch?

Parsons: We arrived in May of 1980. There was a barn-like structure on the property we connected to the home we built. Five acres of grapes were here, planted by an airline pilot and a school teacher.

AVA: What attracted you to Anderson Valley?

Parsons: It’s a wonderful mixed bag of people. We have an opportunity for relationships of any and all styles. In the city you tend to associate only with people like yourself. It’s the variety that makes living here very attractive. Plus, I’m not far from business interests I maintain in the Bay Area.

AVA: I’m trying to inform myself about wines and the wine industry so I hope you will tolerate some of the dumb questions coming up. What attracted you to making wines?

Parsons: I come from a family of alcoholics! I think the interest grew naturally out of my family circumstances. I started tinkering when I was about six, trying to make wine and beer at home.

AVA: Why did it take so long for Anderson Valley to become a recognizable area for growing premium grapes?

Parsons: Probably because of its isolation. The Napa Valley is much closer to the markets and only recently has there been an awareness of the unique growing conditions of Anderson Valley. There is now much more awareness of quality wines.

AVA: Is the Valley well-known among people who fancy wine?

Parsons: It is still little-known. Anderson Valley is often confused with Alexander Valley in Sonoma County. But it is obviously becoming more and more identifiable as a distinct area. The New Boonville Hotel, the wines, the wineries, your newspaper, Boontling, all seem to be putting the place on the map.

AVA: It seems to me, as a person ignorant of the industry, that every weekend there is a wine contest somewhere and all the wineries award one another gold medals, sort of like little league awards dinner, everyone gets a trophy. Last year, there was a very amusing story in the Press Democrat about a hot-shot European wine writer whose trip out here was financed by Napa Valley wineries. In the course of a talk, the wine critic said that 80 percent of American wines weren’t worth a damn. He quickly reneged when he realized that wineries weren’t going to pass out freebies to their critics. So what are the standards? How can you tell a mediocre wine from a good one?

Parsons: We are influenced by marketing strategies. Probably most people’s wine buying is determined by advertisements of one kind or another. The truly sophisticated let their palates be their guide. There are four and five dollar bottles of wine superior to twenty dollar bottles, let me tell you. But there are all sorts of prejudices at work that determine the success of certain wines and wineries. A number of California winemakers know that our wines are as good as any European wine. But many Europeans have a bias against anything American, especially wines because they have seniority in the field. A good wine is one you like. It can be that simple. Don’t let the experts tell you different. My advice is to stop reading and start tasting!

AVA: How about the wine experts, the judges at all these contests?

Parsons: Most are terrifically prejudiced. They taste all day. Their palates are overwhelmed. Many of them don’t have the same taste as John Doe Public. The small wineries have to compete for the attention of the wine-buying public so competitions are important, like them or not.

AVA: Did the fact that Reagan took Husch wines to China with him make any difference?

Parsons: Of course it did! The publicity and resulting name recognition that came to Husch as a result of Reagan’s purchase was invaluable to Husch.

AVA: Are wine critics corruptible? Can you buy good press?

Parsons: If you can I’ve never heard of it happening. They must get tons of free wines but I’m not aware that gifts of wine influence their opinions.

AVA: Is it possible for these huge wineries to make quality wine?

Parsons: It’s possible, but the bigger you get, the more difficult it is because of the increase of variables, more things can go wrong.

AVA: Do you make any attempt to sell your wines locally? .

Parsons: Vernon Rollins, at the New Boonville Hotel, helps all the Valley wineries enormously because he stocks them all. But some places, like the Heritage House, still have all out-of-county wines for sale. I understand, though, the Heritage House will soon go local. I’m the new kid on the block in this business so I’ve got to work hard for recognition.

AVA: Will you still be making wine when you’re an old man?

PARSONS: Yes! I love wines and winemaking. I love the romance of the industry.

AVA: How dependable is your labor force? I understand there was intense competition among wineries for pickers this season.

Parsons: The Mexican workforce is becoming more sophisticated. Harvests are their big chance of the year to make some real money and they informally have banded together to get top dollar. More power to them. They are wonderful. hard working people. Some entrepreneurs of engineering should move to the Valley to employ these people. They wouldn't regret it.

AVA: Have you a parting remark or shot for us?

Parsons: Yes. If more people would learn braille, all the blind drunks could find my wines on the shelves easier!

---

Larry spent his final hours enjoying the company of a new lady friend in his rented home on Manchester Road. Larry had separated from his wife, Nikki, leaving her and his winery at the top of the Holmes Ranch for a rented house west of Boonville. Dale Campbell, a Boonville realtor, was the property agent for Larry's new love interest. Piling irony upon coincidence, Campbell was himself to die the same afternoon Larry died in a car crash. Campbell was carried off by a massive heart attack not long after his place was raided by the marijuana cops.

Lots happened in the Anderson Valley in those days.

Early the Saturday morning of his death, Larry and his new lady friend, Christy Williams, had decided to take their children to Marriott's Great America. Miss Williams had just moved herself and her two children in with Parsons.

Somewhere between Boonville and the crest of the little rollercoaster hill outside of Yorkville, Miss Williams became incapacitated and unable to drive. Larry’s daughter, Michelle Parsons, a fifteen-year-old student at Anderson Valley High School, who was living on Manchester Road with her father and his new love, found herself at the wheel of the little car, which contained Larry Parsons senior and Larry Parsons junior, Michelle Parsons, Miss Williams and her two children. The underage and unlicensed chauffeur, Michelle, had lost control of the speeding vehicle, which went airborne, turned over twice before slamming into an ancient madrone. The blind winemaker was dead.

Passersby dragged the injured parties from the wreckage. Michelle, in a state of shock, pleaded with them to wait for the EMTs before anybody attempted first aid. She said she was going for help and was next seen at Ukiah General Hospital an hour later being treated for her injuries. The little red car was crushed like an accordion.

The first call from the scene was placed by a weekender who called for the 911 emergency number from the 894- Yorkville prefix. Rescue units were therefore dispatched from Sonoma County while units from nearby Yorkville and Ukiah were called some minutes later. Soon, Anita DeWitt and Renee Diamond from Yorkville were on the scene. Their deft first aid work was noted by the crowd of onlookers.

Altogether, 33 specially-trained personnel were to appear at the accident, including two helicopters. The aircraft ferried off the most seriously injured who turned out to be, aside from the deceased Larry Parsons, Miss Williams and her nine-year-old daughter; the child suffered two broken arms, two leg fractures and a ruptured spleen. Her mother was in serious condition with a variety of injuries from which she eventually recovered. The two thirteen-year-old boys sustained cracked ribs and broken hips. The rescue and removal of the injured was coordinated by Fire Chief Dave Hutchinson and Cecil Gowan of Anderson Valley. Larry Parsons was the only fatality.

---

The county belatedly discovered that there had been a sort-of tasting room at Parson’s place when the Widow Parsons sold the place to an about-to-be beleaguered couple named Kaliher, who apparently bought the blind winemaker’s property without being aware that most neighbors, and most members of the Holmes Ranch Housing Association, did not want a tasting room at the top of a ridge served by a dirt road that they all had to pay annually to maintain. The increased traffic would probably mean increased road maintenance, and road maintenance was expensive. The Kalihers, weary of fending off the Holmes Ranch Association, sold to a family named Sterling who re-christened the blind winemaker’s ridge-top winery, Esterlina. Their tasting room controversy, never having been resolved to the satisfaction of anyone, lives on.

The Anderson Valley went fast from 19th century old timers to arky and oakie loggers and millworkers in the fifties to hippie back to the landers in the late 60s, to the wine and gastro mania dominant today.

Larry Parsons, the little blind winemaker of Anderson Valley came back to the land in the middle 1970’s to grow dope, not wine,

Parsons bought property deep in the subdivided hills of the Holmes Ranch near Navarro — him, his battered wife and their two little disturbed special ed kids, a fire-starting little boy and a little girl who wore lipstick to pre-school. Larry was four miles off the pavement, up on a ridge pretty much alone for a few years with his marijuana business until wealthy people began buying in around him, which is when I began to get calls about him. “Mr. Anderson, I'm new to the valley and my neighbor is this alleged blind man down the road who I just saw driving around shooting at quail with a shotgun from inside his car. His little boy was apparently telling his father which way to shoot. “A little more to the left, dad. That kind of thing.”

Larry was sometimes blinder than he really was, depending on the situation. When the authorities, such as they were and are in Mendocino County, came snooping around he’d put on impenetrably black glasses and stumble around with his blindman cane, tapping his way to the intruding vehicle as if he were barely familiar with his own driveway.

We got to be friends. Larry said he was a dust bowl oakie who grew up in Bakersfield where his dad “beat me like a dog and blinded me then he made me sell light bulbs door to door and beat me again if I didn’t sell enough of them. I got a blindman concession in Oakland. Another blind guy runs it for me so I can stay up here most of the time.”

A lean man with reddish-brown hair who managed a steady but unmistakable menace, Larry talked low and slow out of the side of his mouth, looking straight ahead. He kept his place so brightly lit at night it looked like a spaceship from down on the valley floor. Locals knew he regularly beat his wife and wondered why she couldn't get out of the way of a blindman. But this blindman was as agile as a cat, and who knew how blind he really was?

One night this sorely abused woman retaliated by setting Larry’s shirt on fire. Larry called 911. Deputy Squires, who had a low opinion of the famous winemaker, promised the injured man, “I’ll meet you at the bottom of the hill and take a report.”

Parsons walked four miles down to the highway in the dark, drunk, tired, burnt up his back, hurt.

Deputy Squires arrived and, faking concern, took a cursory look at Larry’s back.“You’ll be all right.”

”Can I have a ride back up the hill, Keith?”

”Sorry, Larry. Gotta go. Got another call.”

Larry got popped a couple of times for pot growing. The authorities were still arresting and prosecuting people for growing back then, and there seemed to be more people growing in the Anderson Valley than not growing.

Then Larry had his epiphany.

After several pot arrests at his house, which was a cross between a yurt and a swiss chalet, he bought a load of grapes, brewed up some wine and, genius on top of genius, slapped a braille wine label on the bottle. Took the New York Times about a month to find out about the little blind winemaker of Anderson Valley. Larry was instantly famous. He couldn’t make enough wine fast enough. And he quickly became a legend at wine and cheese events, disrupting more of them than any ten upscale drunks could do.

Which is when a woman called one day to say, “Mr. Anderson I read about your little blind winemaker in the New York Times so my husband and I drove up to your beautiful Anderson Valley to visit his tasting room.”

I was already laughing. Larry’s tasting room was his down market livingroom where most afternoons his unsavory pals hung out with him, the whole gang drinking themselves into stupors on Larry's seconds.

The visitor went on. “I knocked on the door. Someone yelled out for me to ‘come on the fuck in.’ At which point we should have left, but like a fool we walked on in and there was Mr. Parsons with his dark glasses on. The first thing he said to me was, ‘Oh baby, I like someone’s perfume. This party just keeps on getting better! God damn! What’s that I smell, honey? I think I'm in love.’ Then one of the men in the room tried to start a fight with my husband. Mr. Anderson I really don’t think your chamber of commerce should have Mr. Parsons’ tasting room in its visitor’s guide.”

When Anderson Valley went suburban, tolerance for aberrant behavior, aka local color, decreased dramatically. It's just another place these days.

— Bruce Anderson

---

THE GREAT DEPRESSION HIT MENDOCINO COUNTY HARD

by Averee McNear

The Great Depression hit Mendocino County hard, and like many other areas, residents felt the effects before the “Great Crash” in 1929. Following World War I, farmers began struggling as prices plummeted and remained low. One Point Arena resident claimed, “We have a theory that the real depression started on the ranch way before 1929, and by 1929 we were starting to recover, except that we didn’t have much of an income.”

In the late 1920s, construction nationwide began to slow down and demand for lumber declined. The Glen Blair mill closed in 1925 and the Albion mill in 1928. After the economic crash, this decline became even sharper. Caspar and Mendocino lumber mills closed in the early ‘30s, and the Fort Bragg mill laid off many workers due to production cuts. The value of products manufactured in Mendocino County (primarily lumber) fell from five million dollars in 1929 to two million in 1933. The average annual wage for a worker in the county fell from $1,864 to $878.

People found creative methods to cope with the difficult times. In 1932, the Mendocino Beacon reported that one unemployed mill worker attempted counterfeiting dollar bills and fifty cent pieces. Some tried their hand at bootlegging alcohol. Prohibition had been law in several communities on the coast, including Mendocino, since 1909, 10 years before the 18th Amendment was passed. Rum-runners were found off the coast, and an estimated $15,000 worth of liquor-making equipment was found in Barton Gulch near the Navarro River.

To put food on their tables, people relied more on hunting, gathering and gardening. Jake Jacobs remembers, “If somebody saw a deer track they talked about it for weeks, that there was at least one live deer left in the county. And as far as jack rabbits, if they didn’t have the boils, they went into the pot.”

Seaweed, blackberries, and huckleberries were common foods people gathered to sell and eat. Young men went into the redwoods to trap raccoons and bobcats to sell furs, which didn’t bring in a lot of money. Emery Escola claims to have made two or three dollars on furs in a good month. Clarence Simpson claims to have made double that “bagging” gophers for Daisy MacCallum, whose rose garden was frequently overrun with the rodents. Clarence may catch four or five gophers for $1 each.

Mendocino County residents had to adapt quickly to make ends meet. It was only when the New Deal programs hit Mendocino County in the mid-1930s that conditions slowly began turning around.

(kelleyhousemuseum.org)

---

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, Febuary 27

JOEY BONNER, 38, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

DALE CROOMS, 57, Ukiah. Resisting.

MANDI EDER, 48, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, switchblade in vehicle, no license, failure to appear, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER FRANCE, 29, Willits. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, failure to appear.

JOEL GARCIA, 36, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, disobeying court order, probation violation.

FOREST GASTELLUM, 52, Fort Bragg. Taking vehicle without owner’s permission, stolen vehicle.

IRA REYES, 40, Covelo. Felon-addict with firearm, loaded firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, suspended license for DUI, post-release community supervision violation.

MARK SMITH, 33, Ukiah. Controlled substance, concealed dirk-dagger, failure to appear, probation revocation.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, 54, Ukiah. Parole violation.

---

---

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all Friday night on KNYO and KAKX.

Soft deadline to email your writing for Friday night's MOTA show is six or eight. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to approximately 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

They asked Canada if it would like to be part of the United States. Its answer, paraphrased: "I'd rather drink my own spleen." Greenland feels the same way about becoming a U.S. state or territory: over eighty-five percent against. Periodically a poll is done in the U.S. to measure sentiment for literally releasing snakes in Congress; it's been steady for years at around fifteen percent in favor. Though those in favor are not the cohort that actually breed and keep venomous snakes in numbers. They use them for handling them in church, to demonstrate faith. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2026/02/canadians-support-of-idea-of-canada.html

The admirable beaver and its important work. https://laughingsquid.com/beaver-fells-tree/

And Eye of the Tiger if it were by Dire Straits. https://laughingsquid.com/eye-of-the-tiger-dire-straits/

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

---

---

HUMCO CANNABIS RAID UNCOVERS MORE THAN ILLEGAL WEED

On Feb. 26, at approximately 10:30 a.m., the California Highway Patrol (CHP), with assistance from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, the California Department of Cannabis Control and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, executed a search warrant at a cannabis cultivation operation [in the Fruitland Ridge area of Southern Humboldt] as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into stolen vehicles with altered Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN).

After securing the property, the Department of Cannabis Control found the site operating illegally. Investigators identified multiple environmental violations, including the unlawful diversion of water for the irrigation of the cannabis operation. Officers also found unpermitted structures used for cooking and habitation.

Based on those findings, investigators obtained and executed a second search warrant.

Following service of the second warrant, officers seized the following items as evidence:

• 3,395 pounds of processed illicit cannabis
• One fully automatic AK-47 assault rifle
• One short-barreled shotgun
• Four pistols
• One rifle
• A stolen 2022 Polaris RZR
• Four VIN-switched stolen vehicles: 2025 Ford F-350 King Ranch (approximate value $90,000), 2020 GMC Sierra AT4 (approximate value $38,000), 2023 Cadillac Escalade (approximate value $67,000), 2020 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Trail Boss (approximate value $39,000)
• Hundreds of rounds of ammunition
• Counterfeit identification documents
• Cellular phones
• One mounted wolf seized as contraband by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Investigators also located a safe containing high-end jewelry and approximately $15,000 to $20,000 in U.S. currency within the residence and other structures. Authorities seized the property under asset forfeiture laws. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department will handle asset forfeiture proceedings in coordination with the CHP and the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.

During the operation, investigators located three cannabis-processing workers at the site. Following further investigation, officers determined the individuals were likely victims of labor trafficking. Authorities provided the workers with information and support services from the Northern California Coalition to Safeguard Communities.

“This case highlights the evolving nature of organized criminal enterprises operating in our rural communities,” said CHP Northern Division Commander Chief John Pinoli. “What began as an investigation into stolen vehicles uncovered an illicit cannabis operation, illegal firearms, environmental crimes, and individuals who may have been exploited for labor. Our personnel and partner agencies remain committed to protecting the public, safeguarding natural resources, and holding those who profit from criminal activity accountable.”Prosecutors will file all criminal charges via complaint.

---

MARIJUANA GROWERS I knew started a health clinic, a credit union, a radio station, multiple environmental organizations, were Little League coaches and grocery store clerks. I even know one who publishes your news. There are bad actors in every job including cops and preachers. But, in my experience, marijuana growers I know are generally good folks–outlaws and criminals are not necessarily the same thing.

— Kym Kemp (Redheaded Blackbelt)

---

WATCH NEW YORK

Editor:

Our progressive leaders and the voters who support them should pay close attention to what’s unfolding with Mayor Zoran Mamdani in New York. He campaigned on an ambitious socialist agenda filled with generous new benefits, insisting the wealthy would foot the bill and promising that no one earning less than $1 million would see higher taxes. The catch is that New York’s mayor can’t raise income taxes and Gov. Kathy Hochul opposes doing so. His fallback plan is to raise property taxes — a direct hit on the middle class he claimed to protect.

California should take note. The proposed billionaire tax here is billed as a one-time levy on the ultra-rich. But our state budget already leans heavily on high-income earners for a large share of revenue. If those taxpayers leave, they take their tax payments and jobs with them, blowing a hole in the budget. And when that happens, where will lawmakers turn to fund their ever-expanding programs? To the only group left: the middle class. And somehow we are expected to pretend this is progress.

Richard Harder

Santa Rosa

---

---

HOW ABOUT A HOSPITAL SHIP FOR US?

Editor:

President Donald Trump has announced his intent to send a U.S. Navy hospital ship to Greenland, saying that many people there are sick and not receiving care. Greenland’s prime minister responded with, “It’s a no thank you from here,” as Greenlanders enjoy free health care guaranteed by the Danish government. Instead of Greenland, I suggest the president send the hospital ship to Florida, where 13.9%, or 3.3 million Floridians, are without health care. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is in Palm Beach County, where over 265,000 residents receive no health care assistance at all. This year, Greenland has a population of 55,029. If Trump makes this happen, how much will it cost the American people?

Jim Coleman

Santa Rosa

---

BROCCOLINI HARVESTERS

by David Bacon

Driving on the frontage road beside Highway 101, just south of Salinas, I was looking for the memorial to the braceros killed in 1963. Fifty eight workers had been riding in the back of a flatbed truck, where their labor contractor had bolted down two parallel benches for them to sit on as they rode to and from the fields. The truck's driver, Francisco Espinosa, couldn't see a train coming at 67 miles an hour, as he inched slowly across a railroad track on Thomas Ranch Road in Chualar. When the lead engine hit the truck, almost all were thrown into the air, many crushed beneath the steel wheels. Thirty two died.

Because they were braceros they were only identified by a number that corresponded to their work contract. It took weeks to know their true names. Over 9000 people came to their funeral in Salinas. Espinosa was charged with manslaughter and acquitted. The grower and labor contractor were never charged, although Southern Pacific Railroad, the Growers Farm Labor Association, Harden Farms and the Myers Corporation were sued and settled for $1.5 million.

The terrible crash, the anonymity of the workers, and the disgraceful conditions in which they worked and died, all led to a huge outcry. Ernesto Galarza, the longtime opponent of the bracero program, wrote a damning report to Congress, to assign responsibility. That helped end the program two years later. Today two crosses erected at the crash site remember the dead.…

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2026/02/photographs-from-edge-28-broccolini.html

---

THE TRUTH ABOUT ROUNDUP HERBICIDE

by Jim Goodman

Mark Twain supposedly once said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”, but there is a difference between a good story told in fun and a story (supposedly backed by independent scientific research) that people are led to believe because, well, science is supposed to be true. And so we come to the story of Roundup, the herbicide developed by Monsanto that swept the world because it worked and was the “safe” alternative to widely used weedkillers like Dicamba and 2,4-D,– it was said to be safer than table salt!

Roundup was developed in the 1970s as a non-selective herbicide, meaning it would kill almost any growing plant it touched. It was an effective burn-down herbicide farmers could apply prior to planting and it assured an almost weed-free field at the beginning of the growing season. Roundup could be used in non-agricultural situations as well, to kill weeds and grass growing in sidewalk and patio cracks, around buildings etc, but care was needed because, as noted, it was non-target and could kill whatever plant it touched.

For farmers, it worked well, except while it did kill growing weeds, buried weed seeds were not harmed, so a weed-free field at planting time did not ensure a weed-free field throughout the growing season. Weeds would continue to sprout and more herbicide applications would be needed during the growing season.

Then Monsanto developed their big fix released in 1996, genetically engineered (GE) soybeans resistant to Roundup, followed by GE versions of other commodity crops, corn, cotton, sugar beet and canola. Over the top spraying of these GE crops would kill everything but the crop and Roundup became one of the most widely used herbicides in the world and GE crops came to dominate world commodity crop production.

While Monsanto sold Roundup with the slogan “one spray is all you’ll ever need”, in time, it became clear that some weeds were developing resistance to Roundup and farmers were right back where they started, looking for herbicides that worked consistently. More genetic modifications were made to commodity crops, making them resistant to other herbicides, like Dicamba and 2,4-D, the herbicides Roundup was supposed to have replaced. These multiple GE or “stacked” crops could be sprayed with a cocktail of herbicides, hopefully ensuring weed-free fields for the entire growing season.

Farmers are using more herbicide, even on the GE crops, and costs for GE seed have risen much faster than non-GE seed. Of course, the motive was never to reduce the farmer’s production costs or agricultural herbicide use but to increase it – that’s where the profit is.

For farmers who didn’t jump on the GE bandwagon, finding non-GE seed is often difficult. Even more onerous, some farmers have found it necessary to plant GE seed as a preventative measure because non-GE crops can be damaged by chemical drift from neighboring GE fields.

So much for effectiveness, what about the safety of Roundup? In 2000 a study was published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology that deemed the active ingredient in Roundup (glyphosate) was safe and not a human health risk. Since then, that study has been cited consistently as proof of Roundup’s safety. Numerous other studies have shown that glyphosate could cause cancer and that the inert ingredients that are part of the patented Roundup formulation increase the toxicity of glyphosate. Further, the practice of using Roundup as a desiccant on small grain crops (oats, wheat and barley) prior to harvest, puts Roundup directly on grain that enters the human food chain.

Since acquiring Monsanto in 2018, Bayer has paid out about $11 billion to settle almost 100,000 cancer-related lawsuits, with approximately 61,000 still pending. In December of 2025, another blow to the claimed safety of Roundup when the Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology journal withdrew the 2000 article that had touted Roundup’s safety. While the study claimed to be independent and peer reviewed, it has come to light that Monsanto’s scientists played a significant role in conceiving and writing the article. Oops.

For decades, Roundup has been sold as an effective herbicide, one that was safe to humans and the environment and without it, “consequences would be dire”. Companies like Bayer have to protect their product and their profit even if they have to tell a few lies to do so. They claim to produce safe products that help farmers thrive — real independent research refutes that. Bayer and the agribusiness industry may be thriving, but farmers are not and in these times, too few people seem to care that lies are accepted as truth.

(Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer from Wonewoc, Wisconsin.)

---

THE NANCY GUTHRIE KIDNAPPING, EXPLAINED

how the mother of a mega-famous news anchor can go missing for a month with no trace

by Drew Magary

In any other news cycle, the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie would be the biggest story in the universe. “Beloved morning show anchor’s mom was kidnapped, and now the ransom negotiations are playing out in full public view” is full-on unprecedented. But you and I are living in the Trump age, in which cries of “this should be the biggest scandal ever!” are a daily occurrence, to the point of fatigue.

Thus, it’s been difficult for me to focus on the plight of Savannah Guthrie and her family when I’ve also had to keep tabs on ICE agents killing people in broad daylight, the Trump administration actively suppressing information about history’s most star-studded human trafficking ring, a looming megawar with Iran, and — Christ, I’m tired. The human mind has only so much bandwidth.

Yet: Holy S—T, Someone Kidnapped Savannah Guthrie’s Mom!

If you, like me, had only heard about this wild affair in bits and pieces, you’re in the right place. I did us all a favor and went down the headline hole to cobble together a quick explainer to get all of us situated. Let’s get started.

Who is Savannah Guthrie?

A 54-year-old journalist who has served as the co-anchor of NBC’s “Today” show since 2012. The female co-host of “Today” has long carried the burden of being America’s unofficial sweetheart, going back to the days of Jane Pauley hosting alongside Bryant Gumbel. That’s a lot of tacit pressure to put on a single person and their megawatt smile. Making Guthrie’s job even trickier was the fact that, five years after she got the “Today” gig, the Matt Lauer scandal blew wide open, with Lauer facing multiple sexual assault allegations. It was Savannah Guthrie who had to publicly steer the “Today” show, and all of NBC News by extension, through that period. And she succeeded. You could argue that Guthrie is the reason “Today” is still even on the air. Given what she’s enduring at the moment, I’m not really in the mood to hear opinions to the contrary.

What’s happened?

At the beginning of this month, Guthrie vacated her duties at NBC when her mother Nancy, 84, went missing from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Shortly thereafter, authorities in Pima County said the elder Guthrie’s home was officially a crime scene, and that Nancy Guthrie did not leave the house on her own. Savannah Guthrie then went on Instagram to ask that everyone pray for her family.

Jesus Christ.

That’s just what I said. It gets even scarier when you take a look at the doorbell cam footage the FBI released of a masked man outside Nancy Guthrie’s home the night in question. The intruder disabled that camera, and Nancy Guthrie’s blood was found on the porch after she’d gone missing. Crime procedural tropes quickly ensued: roadblocks, helicopters, search dogs, the whole deal. All that turned up was a glove. The ghost of O.J. Simpson swears the glove is not his.

How can you make jokes at a time like this?

Sorry. After Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance was made public, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos made it clear to everyone, and to the kidnapper(s) possibly watching, that the elder Guthrie wouldn’t survive captivity without her daily meds. Nancy Guthrie also had a pacemaker implanted in her chest, which consequently became disconnected from her phone.

Jesus Christ! Again!

Yeah. Two days after the vanishing, Savannah Guthrie posted another video in which she and her siblings appealed directly to the kidnappers, begging for their mother’s release, or at least for proof of life. None came. Instead, the family got ransom notes. As did, uh, TMZ.

Did they figure out who wrote those notes?

Not as of this writing. When the sheriff’s department and FBI attempted to track the man at the door down, they ended up collaring the wrong guy.

How did the FBI screw that up? This is the most visible missing person case since the Lindbergh baby!

Because FBI Director Kash Patel’s only interest is in using agency resources to fly himself to bitchin’ Olympic locker room celebrations. Did you really expect an appointee of Donald Trump to be against crime? Come on now. If Savannah Guthrie and her siblings wanted to see their mother again, they were going to have to continue to appeal directly to the kidnappers.

Did they?

Many times. After authorities initially offered a $2,500 reward for information related to Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, they quickly upped the bounty to $50,000. In a subsequent video plea that she posted to Instagram on Tuesday, Savannah Guthrie herself increased it to an even $1 million.

Is that how much the kidnappers are asking for?

Unclear. According to that TMZ report (grain of salt), they’re asking for millions. Supposedly in bitcoin, as that’s the preferred currency of all modern criminals. Savannah Guthrie told them that her family was willing to pay whatever ransom they were asking for. Despite multiple reported deadlines passing, no exchange has been made.

That’s not good.

It’s not. That’s why that $1 million offer that Guthrie made this week was for her mother’s return dead or alive. As a seasoned journalist, Savannah Guthrie knows that the odds of finding a missing person plummet dramatically after the first 24 hours. Factor in Nancy Guthrie’s pacemaker, her dire need for medication and the collective boobery of law enforcement, and the odds have only grown longer. That’s what makes Savannah Guthrie’s latest video plea such a tough watch. Savannah Guthrie is not only desperate but now somewhat resigned to the idea that her mother “already may be gone,” as she puts it. This poor woman and her family have been left “blowing on the embers of hope,” in her words. I’m hoping right there with them. Anyone who’s even vaguely familiar with this story is.

Ugh, him. Yes, Donald Trump wants vengeance for Savannah Guthrie. Or, more accurately, he’s enjoyed watching the whole saga play out on the teevee at 1600 Pennsylvania:

If you’re asking yourself how the mother of one of the most famous women in America can go missing for almost a month without ever being found … well, this is how.

---

---

'LET'S BE HONEST. People don't really get all that upset when athletes get hurt. Football players break bones all the time, pitchers ruin their shoulders, hockey pIayers get concussions, and even when a career is ended by injury, we just think it's part of the game. Sad, sure, but they knew what they were getting into and it was their choice. Few people say, 'See what happened? You shouldn't have played.'

But when it comes to boxing, it's a different story, because the general public isn't worried about broken legs or missing teeth. What scares them is brain damage. The term 'punch drunk' came from the boxing world, and now there's even a formal medical name for it: pugilistic dementia. Like l said, there's nothing new about fans and writers trying to get guys out of the ring before it's too late.'

— Evander Holyfield

---

“TO BE A GOOD HUMAN is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertainty, and on a willingness to be exposed. It’s based on being more like a plant than a jewel: something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.”

– Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy

---

“THERE WAS A FELLER that knew us Oakies, and he knew what it was like in Oklahoma, and he knew about the dust and the debts that covered us up, and he knew why we blowed out to California, because early in the deal, he throwed a pack on his back and traipsed around amongst us, and lived with us, and talked to us, and et with us, and slept with us, and he felt in his heart and knew in his head that us Oakies was a lookin' for ‘A Living WITH Labor.’ That man was John Steinbeck.”

– Woody Guthrie

---

"A GUY WHO'S ALWAYS INTERESTED in the condition of the world, and changing it, either has no problems of his own, or refuses to face them… not wanting to face things of his own nature."

— Henry Miller

---

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

U.S. AND ISRAEL ATTACK IRAN

Trump Calls for Overthrow of Government

Tehran Retaliates, Firing Missiles at Israel and U.S. Bases in Region

OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash

Trump Orders Government to Stop Using Anthropic

Taiwan Arms Sale Approved by Congress Is Delayed as Trump Plans Visit to Beijing

Pentagon Watchdog Stalls Proposal to Review Targeting in Trump's Boat Strikes

Park Service to Revive Statue of Founding Father Who Enslaved Hundreds

Scouts Will Abandon D.E.I. Policies Under Agreement With Pentagon, Hegseth Says

Trump Gives Green Light to Private Oil Sales to Cuba

Radiohead Demands That ICE Remove Its Song From a Social Media Video

Man Convicted of Forging Threats Against Trump Gets 16.5 Years in Prison

This Year, It Will Be the 'Trump Kennedy Center Honors'

---

---

WHY DID GERMANY LOSE THE SECOND WORLD WAR?

Bertrand Russell concludes, fundamentally, that their downfall was driven by a fanatical, irrational, racist, and hateful ideology; in other words, they were Nazis.

Russell explains:

“Fanatics are unwilling to accept scientific discoveries made by their enemies, and therefore soon fall behind those whose outlook is more cosmopolitan. After their victory the Allies were surprised to find how little progress the Germans had made towards their construction of atomic bombs. This was largely because they would not employ physicists who were Jews or Anti-Nazis. Their fanaticism also greatly stimulated the resistance movements in conquered territories. The British entered the second world war as a heavy duty, by no means in the spirit of crusade. The Russians and Americans were goaded into self-defence by unprovoked attacks. Only the Nazis were inspired by fanaticism, and their fanaticism contributed not a little to their downfall. I think there can be no doubt that if their rulers had been more rational, they would have won the war, since they would not have attacked Russia or encouraged the Japanese to attack America.”

---

“THE END OF LIFE is not such a great matter; when the time comes, I will have the courage to give up my life. But what is unbearable is to see life become meaningless, to hear that existence has no purpose. A man cannot live without a purpose.”

— Albert Camus

---

‘LOVE IS NEVER PERFECT.’

— D. H. Lawrence

“Life is never a thing of continuous happiness. There is no paradise.

Fight, and laugh loudly, and feel bitterness, and feel joy — and then fight again, fight, fight.

That is life.

Why do we bind ourselves to heavenly illusions?

We only torment ourselves.”

---

THE BRIDGE

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away;

As, sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide.

And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
That filled my eyes with tears.

How often, O, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!

How often, O, how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O’er the ocean wild and wide!

For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;

The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1893)

---