JUST OVER FIVE INCHES of rain fell on Yorkville during the month of April, raising their season total (thus far) to 32.72 inches.
Comparing this rain season to last, monthly totals from Yorkville's DWR Station:
2017-18
5.08" April
8.88" March
1.32" February
9.16" January
0.44" December
7.84" November
0.72" October
2016-17
6.16" April
6.60" March
21.64" February
24.92" January
9.92" December
6.76" November
10.36" October
BOONVILLE didn’t make it to 30 inches of rainfall this season, while Navarro, thanks to its redwoods, got about 40.
BILL KIMBERLIN is a Boonville resident and a retired visual effects film editor. He’s also an author, having just published a memoir called, “Inside the Star Wars Empire,” published by Rowman and Littlefield/Lyons Press in which Mr. K recounts his 20 years working for George Lucas at Industrial Light & Magic. It’s an amusing inside look at what it takes to produce those blockbuster Lucas films like Jurassic Park and Star Wars. Kimberlin studied film at San Francisco State University and the American Film Institute. After graduation he worked as a sound tech in post-production for a San Francisco film company, and later as a film editor. He produced his first documentary, Jeffries-Johnson 1910, on Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, with the help of Francis Ford Coppola. (Jeffries was billed as “The Great White Hope.”) Talking about his new book, Kimberlin said, “I’d been taking notes from the day I started working there and later I thought that somebody who actually worked there could write about it. Those movies became more than movies, they were part of the culture.” Kimberlin grew up in Kentfield in Marin County but spent a lot of his childhood in Anderson Valley. Kimberlin’s AV family history includes familiar names like the Prathers and the Falleris. His mother’s sister married Avon Ray whose family owned Ray’s Resort, now known variously as Wellspring or River’s Bend. Avon’s mother was a Prather. Avon’s sister, Pearl, married Frank Falleri who owned the old Philo Market (where Starr Automotive is now) and who also owned the AV Market in Boonville for a time. Kimberlin will appear at Gallery Books in Mendocino on Friday, May 4 from 6:30 to 7:30pm. Q&A will follow.
AV LAND TRUST EVENTS
1) Spring Wildflower Walk at Galbreath Wildlands Preserve, led by Kerry Heise and Linda MacElwee, Sunday, May 6, 2018, 10AM-1PM. Presented by Anderson Valley Land Trust, Navarro River Resource Center and Galbreath Wildlands Preserve. Contact avlt@mcn.org or 707-895-3150 for reservations and more information.
2) A Day in the Oaks at Galbreath Wildlands Preserve. Saturday, May 12, 2018, 9:30AM-3:00PM. Join Kate Marianchild and Linda MacElwee as we explore the ecosystems of the oak woodlands. Presented by Anderson Valley Land Trust, Navarro River Resource Center and Galbreath Wildlands Preserve. There is a $25 fee for this event which includes a picnic lunch. Contact avlt@mcn.org or 707-895-3150 for reservations and more information.
SATURDAY MORNING’S RAIN and cool temps did nothing to dampen the spirits of the thousands of mostly young people who attended the Boonville Beer Festival Saturday afternoon. The beer brigades, some five thousand of them, seemed to suddenly descend, locust like, on the Boonville Fairgrounds where they formed orderly lines for their $50 tasting cups. By Sunday noon they’d de-materialized, and by late Sunday afternoon Boonville was as before. Judging from the scanner traffic, the event was entirely peaceful, and how remarkable an event is a gathering of thousands of young people to drink beer in a confined area with no arrests? Remarkable, for sure.
A READER alerted us Friday to a loaded log truck overturned on 128 near Mile Marker 10, spilling the logs across the highway. Traffic in both directions was stopped until CalTrans could bring in heavy equipment to move the logs. The driver was hauled outtathere to Coast Hospital.
AV FIRE CHIEF Andres Avila clarifies: "A logging truck heading east bound on Hwy 128 tipped over its tractor and loaded trailer while rounding the curve at MM 9.75. Fortunately, the truck did not collide with any oncoming vehicles and managed to avoided a head-on impact with any of the many redwood trees in that area. The driver was transported to Mendocino Coast hospital with minor injuries. The vehicle and load remained, blocking the west bound lane until a heavy tow was able to remove the wreck. AVFD and a Boonville Calfire engine assisted CalTrans cleanup of the fluid spilled on the highway creating a slip hazard. CalTrans was able to use a loader to remove the logs from the highway. The roadway was finally cleared and fire units were released four hours after time of dispatch."
BOONVILLE FARMERS' MARKET — This Saturday morning, 9:30-noon, come shop at the Boonville Farmers' Market in the Boonville Hotel parking lot. There are several vendorsexpected.
BRUCE McEWEN WRITES: “Local author Peg Kingman has finished her third novel, the crown to her Scotch Trilogy. If you haven’t read the first two, visit the library and check ’em like out, dude."
INVASIVE PLANT REMOVAL VOLUNTEER WORK DAY
Volunteers Needed!
Hendy Woods State Park
Sunday May, 6th 10 AM to 12 PM
For Invasive Plant Removal
• Meet at Day Use Picnic Area
• Enjoy FREE Park entrance for the day
• Bring some gardening gloves, hand trowels/loppers & a picnic lunch
• Meet new people & catch up with old friends
• Ages 5 & up
WE ARE URGING a vote for Michelle Hutchins for County Superintendent of Schools if, for no other reason than she isn't her opponent. Mrs. Hutchins would be the first woman to hold the position after 150 years of men, the last 50 years a combined collection of crooked men and men whose own schooling obviously didn't take. Mrs. Hutchins is smart and capable. Yes, she had some personality differences with the key ladies at the Anderson Valley Elementary School, difficulties inevitable when a new administrator steps into a district managed for years on a Do Your Own Thing basis. Given the intensity of her detractors, whose complaints lack, as they say, specificity, the Superintendent has been a very model of grace under pressure, conceding her errors.
A READER asked me, "Why don't you play the Thursday quiz at Lauren's Restaurant anymore?" Because my hearing is so poor it's an ordeal for me and unfair to quiz mates to ask them to repeat the questions all night. I still attend a public meeting now and then just to show the flag, but I can't hear much of anything, not that I'm missing much given the entirely predictable nature of public meetings. But now that the most important meetings are YouTubed I can watch them at an easily audible frost fan decibel level in the comfortable squalor of my office, and even play back the fun parts.
RENOWNED COMPOSER CELEBRATES 90th BIRTHDAY
Long-time Mendocino area resident and noted composer, Jay Sydeman turns 90 on Tuesday May 8th. To mark this once-in-a-lifetime occasion, Sydeman, on piano, with The Forgettables (John Mynatt, saxophone, Maryellen Mynatt, drums, Cynthia Gair, bass) will be jamming jazz standards from the ’30s on up. The free mini-concert at Preston Hall (2:30 P.M.) is Jay’s way of sharing his “excessive longevity” with celebratory fun.
Jay continues to work in his studio cataloging and refining his body of work. Sydeman’s biographer, Jeanne Duncan, is creating an audio book of interviews and recordings reflecting Sydeman’s staggering output of over 1,000 compositions (beginning in 1950) including sonatas, chamber, orchestral, choral and much more. Stay tuned!
(Maria Goodwin)
EARLY MORNING hitchhiker, Boonville, tall bearded young man a paper bag at his feet, Coast-bound traffic ignoring him. Interpreting this visual we see a young man without prospects and probably without hope just released from the County Jail. Probably released a minute after midnight, which was the practice at the Low Gap Hilton back in the day and may still be so the Jail can get reimbursed for a full day’s incarceration. This guy has been up all night, and only just now has made it over the hill to Boonville. He’s headed back to Fort Bragg, I'd guess, which may or may not be his home, and he may not, as is likely, have a real home anywhere.
OLD TIMERS will remember when Arbor Day was celebrated in the schools. Parting the mists of time for a look back, I dimly recall a druidic ceremony in honor of trees, at the end of which we were each handed a tree seedling to take home and plant. Arbor Day came and went last Friday with no mention that I saw.
SHAUNA ESPINOZA and her husband, AV Basketball Coach Luis Espinoza, along with Blair Hardieck have arranged for another popular basketball camp with famed Bay Area coach Laura Azzi, now set for July 16 to July 20. The camp will be open to up to 60 local athletes from third to twelfth grade at the AV High School gym. Details to come as the event approaches. Previous camps conducted by Ms. Azzi have been very well received and definitely contribute to the success of Espinoza’s teams in recent years. More info as the event approaches.
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