BASKETBALL WEEKEND. Games begin Wednesday afternoon in the Boonville gym and run all day until Saturday night’s championship game. The Redwood Classic. Be there!
THE ESSENTIAL LIBBY’S RESTAURANT, Philo, closes after its Saturday night servings, and for many of us it’s like a death in the family. Twenty years? Has it been that long? The Valley won’t be the same without the high Mexican cuisine of Arturo and Libby Favela.
MIKE KOEPF, Elk writer and former commercial fisherman, nicely puts the crab scare in proportion. “Acid crab ban. Or scam. All those young snowflakes who went to collage to become marine biologists were only able to obtain jobs for the state. As employees of the state they must sooner or later display reasons for their existence. Lurking behind the scenes, the ultra enviros are circulating rumors that California crabs are filled with nuclear waste from Fukushima. I did have crab last week and as yet have not died, nor do I glow in the dark. Fishermen are the quintessential target for environmentalists — they have no free attorneys, and make just enough money to feed their families. My father was a crab fisherman, so were my brother and myself. My suspicion is that demoic acid related to red tides have been around forever, and did not bother people at all, unless one digested the guts of a crab. Have you every seen or eaten crab guts? Another sad fact. Most of the members of the Fish and Game Commission are political appointees, as is the head of the Fish and Game Commission. Do you think they have ever included a commercial fisherman? The ultra-environmentalists run the show and they mostly make it up as they go along saving the planet.”
THAT GIANT HAND is reaching down and carrying off the people who made the Anderson Valley the Anderson Valley. Many of us remember when Fred Medinas and John Hulbert, PG&E and Pacific Bell, made house calls. We knew them, they knew us. And they’re gone, as is Emil Rossi, Frank Wyant, Rodger Tolman, and all the other people who made this place this place. Each of our post offices hand-stamped each piece of outgoing mail, and all the people on the receiving end knew they’d gotten something from a specific place, a community of people with a name attached. Then, impersonality set in, along with suburban demands for suburban-quality services. And officiousness. And strangers who believe in officiousness sitting on all our boards. “I’m not at liberty…..” (You surely aren’t.) Our storefront clinic with one doctor and one nurse grew into a hospital. The re-tooled station wagon that served nicely as an ambulance became a modern meat wagon, crews in uniforms talking in code. A fire station appeared with an 80k chief. Grape vines and pot plants and a whole new secret population jammed into shipping containers and pump houses. Palaces in the hills. Palmetto ice cream. Dreams of Healdsburg. Familiar faces? Maybe one in five.
SORRY, BOONVILLE. We didn’t make the cut, but Ukiah did. Among “The best hippie town in the Bay Area and Northern California,” we find the SF Chronicle, which used to do journalism, informing us, “Ukiah is near the start of the ‘Emerald Triangle,’ the three Northern California counties long known as the world’s best marijuana-growing region. Ukiah is the largest city in Mendocino County and is home to a few popular hot springs and the City of 10,000 Buddhas, an international Buddhist community and monastery which is open to visitors and includes a vegetarian cafe. The allure of weed, and the recent successful legalization efforts, have fueled a land rush in most areas of the Emerald Triangle, starting in Ukiah as well as some of the other towns included in this slideshow.” Judge strictly by the “hippie” standard, I’d say Willits takes the winner’s cup. Point Arena is up there, too, but all the hippies I know cleaned up years ago and are now running Mendocino County, which accounts for, well, dysfunction, I believe the word is.
JUST BEFORE the Navarro broke free last week, we’re told that a man was spotted atop the sand bar, furiously shoveling to free the Anderson Valley’s battered river. He was out there with a miner's helmet with headlamp working away in the dark. If a single person managed to shovel out a breech, he'd have to get out of the way pronto from the on-rush of pent-up and potentially lethal water. If not true, I like it anyway, a lone man and his valiant fight to free a river.
ELDERLY WOMAN [body slowing down, mind sharp as a tack] looking for someone to share house in exchange for house cleaning and light gardening. You'll have your own bedroom, share bath, kitchen, livingroom. Ideal for a retired person who loves flowers, puttering in the garden, and the quiet life. Walking distance to the AV Health Center and downtown Boonville. (No smoking or problem drinkers) Wonderful situation for the right person. Call Nancy at 895-3134.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3rd, The Swingin' Boonville Big Band is playing at Lauren's Restaurant, central Boonville. This makes 17 years since the band's first public performance — also at Lauren's. Dinner is served from 5 - 9 pm; the band plays from 9 - 11 pm. Tickets $5, all proceeds benefit the A.V. Adult Education Department. Ticket price negotiable after the first set. Beer\wine bar open late. While it is long drive from the coast to Boonville, the continuing reduction in large venues affects the Big Band more than it affects the common small ensemble. The Hill House is gone. The Caspar Inn is gone. Cotton Auditorium has priced themselves off the market. And so forth. So think about it, Coasties. We're worth carpooling for.
STORY HURST HOLSTEN is the first woman to be inducted into the Idaho State University Hall of Fame for athletics. Ms. Hurst-Holsten is the daughter of Ken and Joanadel Hurst of Greenwood Road. She was undefeated in singles and doubles play in two consecutive years of Big Sky Conference tennis. Dirk Koetter, head coach of the Tampa Bay Bucs, was also inducted in the same ceremonies honoring Story who, incidentally was also undefeated when she played for her dad at Porterfield College in 1998 and ’99.
CALIFORNIA CONSIDERS BAN ON SEX BETWEEN LAWYERS AND CLIENTS — Headline from Monday’s Chronicle. There have been some spectacular cases of attorney-client cross-pollination in Mendocino County, and there would undoubtedly be a lot more of it if the logistics weren’t so complicated.
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