BOONVILLE RESIDENT JEFF BURROUGHS died Saturday night after suffering unexpected complications from some medication he was on.
Jeff was an AV High Grad back in the early 80s, a regular contributor to the AVA, an avid fisherman, and a respected chronicler of Boonville and Anderson Valley history including both the Valley’s native Pomo as well as the settlers who followed them. Jeff will also be remember as part of Anderson Valley High School’s best basketball team back in the 80s, made up of Jerry Tolman, Aron Evans, Eric June, Danny Pardini, Olie Erickson, Ronnie Penrose, Steve Fortin, Richie Wellington, Jeff Burroughs, Brian Roberts, G.P. Price, and Zack Anderson — coached by the locally famous Gene Waggoner.
He was 61.
We hope to have a full obituary soon.
RENEE LEE
The Anderson Valley Senior Center is running the bus to transport seniors to the AV Grange Variety Show Friday, March 6th and Saturday, March 7th. Pick up locations will be at AV Senior Center at approximately 5:30 pm and Philo Post Office at approximately 5:45 pm. The bus will make more than one trip if deemed necesaary. There are sign-up sheets at AV Senior Center. Please sign up by Thursday, March 5th. If you can’t physically make it to sign up, call 895-3609 to be put on the list. Seniors who ride the bus will be allowed early entrance. Thank you!
BOONVILLE LOCALS will be pleased to hear that popular former Boonville resident Chris ‘C.J.’ Jones is still doing fine living in Eugene, Oregon having moved up there back in 2004.
BILL KIMBERLIN:
A few years ago I was wandering around a ranch next to my aunt’s old summer resort. There is a great big apple dryer on this neighboring property, as well as several interesting old barns. But the best part that day was discovering a cache of old Model-T era cars and trucks under some trees.
One truck was particularly interesting because, while it had emblems identifying it as a “Reo Speedwagon”, there was a pretty big tree growing through the middle of it, where the truck bed should have been.
To be able to still find this kind of stuff is to be able to still find what I call “Old Boonville”. My uncle Dewitt once told me that as a kid hiking the Valley hills in the 1930’s he came across an abandoned cabin that used old newspapers to insulate its interior walls. Taking a closer look at the papers he found that they were from the Civil War era. There was no telling how long this place had been there. Time frozen, is still an intriguing aspect of living here.
Sometime after discovering the Reo I called the owner of the property for permission to take some photos. When I mentioned the Speedwagon he said that he got it from his neighbor (my uncle Avon) and that, “It had been your grandfather's. He used it to haul bootleg liquor during prohibition. It had some hidden places for the booze.”
Now that was a real surprise. I just happened upon an abandoned old truck that used to belong to my grandfather and he used it during prohibition to haul liquor?
I had heard the family stories for years. I had pestered my Aunt Leonore to tell me them over and over again when I was a kid living at the resort. So now I started to look into them a little more.
The image at the head of this article is of my great grandfather John Mason’s San Francisco Brewery. It is a photo taken from a lithograph that hangs in my uncle DeWitt’s dining room.
Mason’s Brewery was one of the first in San Francisco. It was a Steam Brewery and they also made Irish Whiskey. Masons was founded in 1854. It moved to Sausalito in 1892 as Mason’s Malt Whisky Distilling Co. and by 1925 was producing one sixth of all the alcohol in the country. The site of the old distillery is now called Whiskey Springs and is a condominium development.
John Mason had come to California from Ireland in 1849 but his wife died and he had to go back to get another one. The one he got this time was from New York and her name was Mary Hayes. Her father, Jacob Hayes was the first Chief of Police in New York City. That was in 1803, and he held the position for fifty years.
Stumbling upon what was left of that old truck and finding some ties with my own past illustrates one of the pleasures of Old Boonville for me. But there is more to it than just nostalgia. This small country town allows us to sometimes get a glimpse of simplicity that is harder to discover in the outside world. While chopping wood, working on the well, or occasionally going without electricity may not sound like amenities, they can be when they slow things down just enough so that a metaphorical Old Boonville can come clearly into view.
I read a story recently about a Silicon Valley executive that was so busy that when the lights at his home failed one winter he just didn’t have time to fix them so he went without and used only candles for light. Over time he came to love the soft flickering glow so much that he never did fix the lights, he just kept the candles. At first his girlfriend would come over and complain bitterly about it, but soon, she too lit her own home with candles. They each had accidentally introduced themselves to something they would never have otherwise chosen.
Now I actively look for and try to celebrate Old Boonville when ever I can find it.
ADD LOOK-ALIKES: Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and Judge Eric Labowitz
KATY TAHJA ASKS: Did Country Joe and the Fish perform at the AV Fairgrounds? I’m guessing about 1982?
ACE RESEARCHER DEB SILVA ANSWER’S Katy Tahja’s question about Country Joe’s appearance in Boonville:
Country Joe and the Fish disbanded in the mid 70s but Country Joe himself struck out on his own during the 80s. I found two instances of Country Joe in Mendo County in the mid 80s. He played once in Ukiah and once in Anderson Valley.
STEVE TALBOT:
Country Joe McDonald and his Fish (Barry Melton et al) were Berkeley/Bay Area heroes. I liked a lot of their '60s experimental psychedelic music, sometimes eerie, often funny., But of course it was their song, Fixin' To Die Rag, that became an anthem of the anti-Vietnam war movement…and in subsequent decades a song for the ages for all who oppose unnecessary, immoral, unjust wars. I licensed it for use in my film, The Movement and the "Madman", and was happy to write a check to Country Joe. It's a measure of our terrible moment that his passionate, irreverent, sarcastic, ironically jaunty song remains so relevant.
Country Joe's performance at Woodstock in August 1969 (captured in close-up in the epic documentary) made Country Joe and that song a national hit and a cultural phenomenon. But in the many years since he would go on to have a long solo career -- doing many a benefit for veterans (he himself had served in the Navy). His mom Florence was a beloved councilwoman in Berkeley and the city's auditor. (How many rock stars mom's were lefties and treasurers?)
Country Joe had that Woody Guthrie spirit and a '60s psychedelic rock star's swagger. He may not have achieved the fame or the cultural pop output of the Bay Area's Jefferson Airplane or The Grateful Dead or Janis Joplin, but he was an authentic, irascible, true-to-the-end progressive voice.
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