Mendocino County Today: Thursday, July 19, 2018

• Triple Digits
• Scott Plea
• Woozy Striping
• Lumberjacks Gone
• Ukiah Shooting
• Little Dog
• Microphor Closure
• Wayward Youth
• Willits 1915
• Birdsell Selected
• Transient Problem
• No Quiz
• Money Radio
• Yesterday's Catch
• Homeless Programs
• Sheriff Costco
• Garden Cat
• Redwood Fair
• Gunny Bunnies
• Capitalism
• Trumpgasms
• Jim Picnic
• Infectious Man
• Backtrack
• Hospitalism
• Measure Nixed
• Mental Defendants
• Williamson Act
• Yorkville Highlands

HOT CONDITIONS continued throughout the interior Wednesday thanks to persistent high pressure aloft. Temperatures throughout interior valleys eclipsed 100 degrees in many areas, and will continue to warm a few more degrees through the late afternoon. Meanwhile at the coast, marine clouds have finally dissipated across most land areas but it remains very near the beach. These clouds will likely move back inland quickly in the late evening Wednesday, and continue to result in overcast skies through at least sometime Thursday morning. More of the same can be expected throughout the area Thursday as well, with similar high inland temperatures and typical cool conditions along the coast. A Heat Advisory remains in effect through the evening tomorrow as a result.

Wednesday weather, inland: Sunny and hot, with highs near 102 or more. West wind around 6 mph. Wed night: Mostly clear, with a low around 61. North wind 5 to 9 mph. Thursday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 100. Light and variable wind becoming west southwest 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon. Thursday night: Mostly clear, with a low around 58. West wind around 6 mph becoming light and variable in the evening. Friday: Mostly sunny, with highs in mid-90s. East wind around 6 mph becoming south in the morning. Friday: Returns to normal low 90s highs for a few days. Slight chance of thunderstorms Friday night.

Coast highs and lows around 20 degrees less.

(National Weather Service)

ALEXANDREA RAVEN SCOTT will be in court today, Thursday, July 19th accepting a 10-year prison sentence for leaving her wee son strapped in a car seat, out in the car, no food or drink in his belly, a hot sun glowering down, and Ms. Scott came out of a Willits party house and found her child dead.

I, personally, do not wish to see this drama – I’m getting too old, but, this is the deal Ms. Scott has pled to, so it should be hugely emotional.

(Bruce McEwen)

MUCH COMMENT ON THE WOOZY STRIPING ON 253....

LUMBERJACKS GONE. We are deeply saddened to inform our fans, alumni, and students that Humboldt State football will play its final season in 2018. We thank past and present student-athletes and the community for their passionate and ongoing support!

WHO DID IT?

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office is seeking the public's assistance on an attempted murder case. On 7/17/2018 around 11:15 PM the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received a report of a shooting in the 3000 Block of Sol Lane, just off of Lake Mendocino Drive, in Ukiah CA. Deputies responded to the area and found an 18 year old adult male who suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The victim was transported to an out of county hospital for treatment. At this time his condition is not known. Deputies were advised there may have been a suspect seen fleeing the area on foot. The suspect(s) identity is/are unknown at this time. The Sheriff's Office is requesting the public's assistance in this case. If anyone has information related to this case, or if anyone saw any suspicious persons or vehicles in the area before or after the incident they are encouraged to call the Sheriff's Communication Center at 707-463-4083 or the Sheriff's Tip Line at 707-234-2100.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “106 in Ukiah, 95 in Boonville today, and still no ac in my igloo! Humane Society please note.”

MICROPHOR TO CLOSE WILLITS PLANT

(From Wabtec, the parent company of Microphor, that they are closing the Willits facility.)

Wabtec today regrettably announced the closure of its Microphor production facility based in Willits, California. The closure affects 18 employees and will be conducted in phases beginning approximately January 1, 2019. All Microphor operations in Willits are expected to be discontinued by the close of the first quarter of 2019.

Production at the Willits plant will be consolidated into another Wabtec facility in Greenville, South Carolina in an effort to better meet common customer demand and achieve manufacturing synergies.

All employees affected by the plant closing and not planning to move with the business will receive severance packages and outplacement assistance to help with their transition into new jobs. Employees will also have the opportunity to apply for jobs at other Wabtec locations.

Wabtec is deeply grateful to the many talented team members at the Microphor facility in Willits who have contributed significantly to our company over the years. Unfortunately, the consolidation of our Willits production activities is necessary in order to serve the best interests of our customers and to remain competitive in a challenging market environment.

(Press Release)

THE GLASS BEACH GANG

Suspects: Marshall Stillday (18 year male old of Hopland), Name Withheld (17 year old male of Hopland), Name Withheld (16 year old male of Hopland)

On July 17, 2018, Officers of the Fort Bragg Police Department were dispatched to the area of Glass Beach Drive for the report of illegal fireworks being set off in the area. While investigating the incident, Officers located three males (one adult, Marshall Stillday, 18, of Hopland, and two juveniles, 17 and 16) and two females (one adult and one juvenile) near a vehicle which was parked at the end of Glass Beach Drive.

During the course of the contact with the juveniles and adults, Officers identified obvious evidence indicating that the three males were active participants in a criminal street gang. While continuing their investigation, Officers located a loaded semi-automatic handgun which had been secreted near the vehicle. After interviewing all of the involved parties and gathering the identified physical evidence, Officers determined that the two male juveniles and the adult male were in possession of the firearm prior to Officers’ arrival.

All three males were arrested for Shoplifting, Possession of Firearm by Gang Member and Providing False Name, and the two females were released at scene. The adult male suspect was transported to the Mendocino County Jail and the two male juveniles were transported to the Mendocino County Juvenile Hall. During the booking process of the juveniles, one of the juveniles was discovered to have purposely provided a false name in order to prevent Officers from discovering that he was on County Juvenile Probation for previous criminal violations related to participating in a criminal street gang.

Questions regarding this press release may be directed to Officer O’Neal at (707) 961-2800 ext. 167 or toneal@fortbragg.com.

WILLITS, 1915

Little Lake Lodging House, circa 1915. Located at 295 S. Main St. (the corner of Valley and Main). Notice the price of the rooms- 25¢, 35¢ & 50¢!

BACK TO THE FUTURE!

Mendocino Coast Healthcare District Board of Directors Select Tom Birdsell to Fill Vacated Position

Fort Bragg, CA - July 18, 2018 - Mendocino Coast District Hospital and the Mendocino Coast Healthcare District Board of Directors are pleased to announce that Tom Birdsell was selected to serve on the Board beginning July 16, 2018, until the election in November of 2018. Birdsell was selected by the Board in a special meeting on July 16, 2018 from a group of eight community members that had applied for the position. Each candidate provided a two minute opening statement, answered five questions from a community moderator, and closed with a two minute summary statement. Each current Board member voted on the slate of candidates, with the top scoring candidate being presented to the Board by a motion and a second, followed by a vote selecting Mr. Birdsell as the interim board member. Mr. Birdsell has served on the Mendocino Coast Healthcare District Board previously from 2007 through 2016, and has been on the Finance and Planning Committees from 2015 until the present. His professional background is in Cost Accounting and IT Project Management, and he has been extensively involved with community organizations in our area for many years. "We are confident in our process for selecting the interim board member and we are pleased to go to work with Tom as a fellow Board member. Thank you to The League of Women Voters for facilitating the meeting and thanks to all the candidates that came to the table with their amazing skills, experience and genuine enthusiasm for the work in front of us. We sincerely hope that all the candidates will remain involved and consider running for one of the four seats available this fall," commented Steve Lund, Chairman of the Board.

Doug Shald
Director PR & Marketing Communications
Mendocino Coast District Hospital
707.961.4961

THE HOMELESS, A READER COMMENTS:

There are significant resources to help homeless in Sonoma County who want to be helped. Most of the working homeless have taken advantage of these resources. Most of those who refuse the resources and remain on the street are transients with substance abuse issues. http://sonomacountyhomeless...

So what we really have is a transient problem. They steal, panhandle, sit around and do drugs, which is confirmed when residents and police enter their camps. They want to continue a nomadic lifestyle…begging and refusing services that would help end their cycle of homelessness: https://ukiahpolice.com/new...

And we have heard the transients out. They don't want to end the cycle of homelessness. They want cities to allow them to camp for free wherever they want, so they can migrate:

“Jones said she wasn’t sure where she and her friends would go. With her dog, Twitch, resting in the shade, she said campers would probably convene a ‘summit’ to decide where to camp next. She spoke at length about illegal camping rules and city and county zoning rules that she said inhibited her free movement. ‘People forget that migration has been part of human nature, something we’ve been doing for years,’ she said.” http://www.pressdemocrat.co...

Even the long term resident homeless have confirmed that the issue is the flood of transients to the area, starting as far back as 2005:

“County officials said many of the homeless are longtime residents of the area. But a new wave of younger, transient homeless youths have come to the area and are more likely to engage in drug use and crime. "They’re not necessarily from the area," said Lisa Kagan, a former beautician who lives in a tent by the river. "They come in and do drugs and rip and steal." https://www.nbcbayarea.com/...

“‘I’m 62, and camping out like that just ain’t doing it for me anymore,’ said Terry Jenkins, who grew up in Santa Rosa and once worked at Hewlett-Packard. What was once a small group of outsiders who looked after each other became 50 or so ‘hardcore street people' whose penchant for accumulation of junk turned Homeless Hill into a ‘sh—hole,’ Jenkins said.”

NO QUIZ THIS WEEK: Keep calm. The General Knowledge and Trivia Quiz takes place at 7pm on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month at Lauren’s Restaurant in Boonville. Thursday, July 19th, does not meet the above criteria so no such event will take place. We shall resume the brain exercises next week on Thursday, July 26th with Assistant Quizmaster Major Mark Scaramella. You know is makes sense. Cheers, Steve Sparks. The Quiz Master

THE TRUE STATE OF PUBLIC RADIO, MENDO

Re: KZYX board meeting at the Anderson Valley High School, 2018-07-16:

You’re right, Bruce, they are frantic for money. At the meeting they said several times in several ways: We need more listeners, to get more paid members, to get more money. “We need to get out of crisis mode!” They talked about running more fundraisers, like the $75/ticket (!) one I read about a few months ago. And they’re trying to get a $1,500 grant just for how wonderful they find themselves to be, and maybe they’ll get that. But just in the eight weeks since their previous pretend meeting, the manager alone sucked out of the station $10,000 in pay for himself. It’s like tryna fill up a bucket that has a big hole in the bottom.

They pay an unnecessary number of people in the office because that’s essentially a condition of being an NPR affiliate and getting the $160,000 a year CPB grant. You have to have a certain number of “full-time paid staff,” even though radio equipment is as reliable as a refrigerator – you don’t have to pay somebody thousands of dollars a year to watch a refrigerator; this is like that – and even though reliable automation seamlessly covers the gaps when slackers slack.

They’re running the NPR shows because that’s also a condition of getting the grant. They’re only paying out a third of the grant for all the syndicated shows, so essentially they’re making programming decisions based solely on getting the money they need to pay themselves.

All the KZYX transmitters and STLs and studios with all the lights and equipment, computers, everything, all on and running at the same time, cost less than a dollar an hour for electricity, whether automation is playing recorded shows from a thousand miles away or a few dozen local people are playing musical chairs before the microphones locally. I repeat: literally less than a dollar an hour is how much it really costs to keep KZYX on the air. And somehow these financial geniuses piss away $600,000 (!) every year on their organization and still don’t grasp the problem. They’re going at it entirely ass-backwards.

Knowing how cheap radio is to do, and to prevent it from all being taken over by the money-eyed hacks who had taken over AM radio long before, a wiser version of the federal government of yore set aside the low end of the FM dial for quirky, educational, experimental radio projects, basically for platforms for shows, for example, like mine. The metastasizing of NPR has been immensely destructive of this principle – I’ll talk about that in detail next meeting, or rather in the amount of detail I can get to in the three minutes they let the public talk before shouting you down. Three minutes! And when you write to the board of so-called Mendocino County Public Broadcasting Corp., they do not even acknowledge receipt, much less respond.

You know, I applied to get Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio on the schedule at KZYX in late Feb./early March of 2012. That’s seventy-seven months ago. At the time I might have done it for free, but as long as the frauds in the office are sucking out of the station for themselves almost $300,000 a year (!), now I’ll expect to be paid by the hour, like all the local airpeople at KZYX should be. It doesn’t have to be much. The manager, Jeffrey Parker, is instead paying tens of thousands of tax-derived dollars to people selling shows from Boston and New York and who knows where else, as well as paying himself $60,000 a year to preside over this farce, and that is an injustice. $60,000 spread among the regular airpeople at KZYX would amount to about $1000 a year each; that’s like $20 a show. It’s not much, but it’s a twenty-dollar bill every show. The bookkeeping is minimal; theater companies do it all the time.

Dump the current and seemingly-forever-so-far stupid management model. Put clever, creative, dedicated people on the air to sincerely do radio as well as they can and according to their own drummers, and enough people will listen, and you will get community involvement, and you will never have to run another of those execrable unlistenable pledge drives ever again, nor will you have to lie day after day on the air that you need MONEY to keep the great shows on the air. The distant shows are more than paid for by the federal grant and, see above, the local airpeople are working for free.

And if the world instead wants Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and that shitty new pale shadow of Prairie Home Companion, and This American Life (did you know that just Ira Glass and the two producers of his one-hour-a-week show get $500,000 a year?), the world can get it all on its phone for free, and stream it throughout its house, and listen in its car, or at the beach. Nobody needs KZYX for that.

Meanwhile, if you have some extra money and you’d like to encourage people doing community radio right, or trying to, look up KNYO-LP Fort Bragg. KNYO’s entire yearly budget is about $12,000 for electricity, water, a dozen remote studios, a big nice storefront performance space/broadcast booth in the walk-in heart of the community it serves, and the manager manages for nothing, because he’s in it for radio. KNYO doesn’t get any federal, state or city money, so it needs that $12,000 from the community. Underwrite a show there to help them make it, and how about also helping KMEC-LP Ukiah. I’m happy to do my show for free for these stations because the people who run them are not venal, corrupt control freaks, nor are they secretive, self-serving schmucks. There, a testimonial.

Marco McClean
memo@mcn.org
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 18, 2018

MARCO ALARCON, Philo, Suspended license.

BRITTON AZBILL JR., Covelo. County parole violation.

SEAN CAHILL, Ukiah. False ID, probation revocation.

JEREMY DENEVI, Fort Bragg. Assault weapon, suspended license, probation revocation.

TOMAS FERNANDEZ-RODRIGUEZ, Boonville. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

ANTHONY HIDALGO, Ukiah. Failure to appear, parole violation.

CHARLES PELAYO, San Pablo/Redwood Valley. Suspended license (for DUI), probation revocation.

JACOB SELLMER, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation.

MARSHAL STILLDAY JR., Hopland. Shoplifting.

TYLER THORNSBERRY, Willits. False ID.

KEITH TINNEY, Covelo. Honey oil extraction, pot possession for sale, ammo possession by prohibited person, felon-addict with firearm.

BRENDAN UNDERWOOD, Ukiah. Concealed dirk/dagger.

LUIS VEGA, Ukiah. Attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury, second degree robbery, armed with firearm in commission of felony, controlled substance while armed with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, drug sales, possession of narcotics for sale, transportation of controlled substance, controlled substance for sale, felon-addict in possession of firearm, convict with loaded firearm, receiving stolen property.

DANIEL YEOMANS, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The people around here aren’t going to solve the homeless problem because then they would be out of a job. If they want to help them then give them your money, let them destroy your home like they do our streets and stop making the working class who are trying to support their own families pay for all these programs that don’t work!

Jenny Winiger-Kimbler, Ukiah

SHERIFF ALLMAN ON COSTCO

Things will change on Thursday, July 19th, for our county when the long awaited opening of Costco happens. I like Costco, and appreciate the good paying jobs that they have given over 100 local residents.

However, the local businesses that support our community are vitally important. The thousands of dollars of donations they give, the real estate that they occupy and the thousands of jobs that our local residents have cannot be forgotten. I will continue to support our local small businesses and hope you will also.

Local food stores, local sporting goods stores, local clothing stores have helped build our county. Let’s not forget our local roots and businesses.

Costco, welcome to Mendocino County. We welcome you and appreciate the trust you have put into our county.

OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY FUN AT THIS YEAR’S REDWOOD EMPIRE FAIR

Dust off those Wranglers and prepare for a weekend of non-stop entertainment, food and fun at the 2018 Redwood Empire Fair.

This year’s theme, “Blue Jeans and Country Dreams” celebrates everything great about community- a thriving youth agricultural program, talented artists, musicians, bakers and gardeners and a place for family and friends to enjoy thrilling rides on the Midway. Delicious fair foods, an exhibit hall filled with all manner of great vendors and services and a classic carnival experience offer fun and memories for young and old.

The Fair runs from August 2^nd to August 5^th, and promises to be a jam-packed weekend filled with food, fun and entertainment.

This will be the second year that the midway is being operated by the California Carnival Company. According to Kevin Tate, who with his wife Jane are the co-officers of the company, the focus of California Carnival Company is their attention to detail.

“Since its inception in 1981, it has been our goal to provide local communities with not just the excitement that naturally comes when the carnival arrives in town, but to provide a total entertainment venue focused on family and community,” says Tate.

The carnival will feature a full complement of rides, rated from “kiddie” to “spectacular,” and the midway will offer a wide range of games of skill.

Start your weekend by honoring community members who are displaying their wares and talents in the Junior Building, the Flower Building and the Home Arts Buildings, where crafters, bakers, collectors, photographers, artists and gardeners show off their best offerings creative efforts while competing for prizes.

The Redwood Empire Fair offers Future Farmers and 4-H members one of the most lucrative animal programs in the State. Bring the kids and take some time to meet young people who come from all over the county and beyond to show and sell their animals and educate the public about local agriculture. Market Sheep, Swine Showing and Market Beef Showmanship and Breeding are scheduled for Thursday. Swine Showmanship, the Goat Primary Exhibit, Pygmy Goat Show and the Large and Small Animal Round Robin Showmanship events take place on Friday. For Auction buyers, the Saturday Livestock Buyer’s Breakfast will take place at 8:00 am. The breakfast is followed by the Junior Livestock Auction at 10:00. On Sunday, the Livestock Awards Ceremony takes place at 10:00.

The Fair is known far and wide for the hair-raising motorsports taking place every night at the Speedway. Starting at 6:30 on Thursday, enjoy motorcycles, side-by-sides and ATV’s. If you’ve never seen Mudd Boggs, be sure to bring the kids for ‘down and dirty” fun on Friday night at 6:30. Saturday’s motosports begin at 6:00, with Truck and Tractor Pulls The motorized events conclude at 6:00 on Sunday evening with the wildly entertaining Boat Races, Junior Mudd Boggs and Jalopies. This is the first year that youth ages 12-17 will be competing in Junior Mudd Bogg championships.

There is nothing like enjoying delicious, decadent fair food under the stars while listening to some of the finest music in the region. The Back Porch Project opens up the weekend entertainment on Thursday evening at 6:00 and 9:00. Enjoy new songs and classic favorites from II Big on Friday night, with two shows at 6:00 and 9:00. Get down with the Funky Dozen on Saturday evening starting at 7:00 pm and 9:00. Sunday’s entertainment brings three amazing Latino groups to the Willow Tree Stage. Enjoy Creativos de Tierra Caliente, Grupo La Elegancia and Banda Pacifica, beginning at 5:00 pm.

There will be plenty of brand-new free activities and entertainment throughout the weekend, with a focus on science, education and history. The Innovation Station brings hand-on exhibits and interactive activities using electricity, lighting and art. The Circus Imagination Tent gives kids an opportunity to become part of the circus, dressing up in costumes and creating an unforgettable, imaginative experience. Another new attraction, the 1880’s Variety Show and Pioneer Experience is a combination of “new and old-fashioned family fun” that offers kids opportunities to go back in time, with music and interactive activities including gardening in the “homestead,” panning for gold and participating in an old-fashioned variety show.

The fair always leaves the best for last. Support local artists on Sunday at 2:00, when the winners of the Ukiah Idol’s Grand Final competition will be announced. “Little and Junior” Idol contestants will compete on Friday at 7:30. This long-standing community tradition, which mirrors the successful television show has created a unique and supportive venue for children, adults, amateur and aspiring professionals, who give their all for prizes and recognition.

Free admission for kids and seniors is available on Thursday until 6:00 pm. The Fair opens at 3:00 on Thursday and Friday and at noon on Saturday and Sunday. Children under 5 are always admitted free. For more information phone (707) 462-3884 or visit the Redwood Empire Fair’s Facebook page or http://www.redwoodempirefair.com/august-fair/.

Photos by Chris Pugh

GUNNY BUNNYS

Editor:

After seeing Sacha Baron Cohen’s skit where several prominent Republicans supported the idea of arming young children, I had a thought. Is it necessary to already be toilet-trained before taking the Gunny Bunny class and receiving a semi-automatic gun? After all, as one of the Republicans, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, said, the Founding Fathers didn’t set an age limit for being a Second Amendment member of a well-regulated militia.

Grant Syphers

Rohnert Park

WHEW!

So it appears America and democracy have miraculously survived the dreaded Trump-Putin summit … or Trump’s meeting with his Russian handler, as the neoliberal ruling classes and their mouthpieces in the corporate media would dearly like us all to believe. NATO has not been summarily dissolved. Poland has not been invaded by Russia. The offices of The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC have not been stormed by squads of jackbooted Trumpian Gestapo. The Destabilization of the Middle East, the Privatization of Virtually Everything, the Conversion of the Planet into One Big Shopping Mall, and other global capitalist projects are all going forward uninterrupted. Apart from Trump making a narcissistic, word-salad-babbling jackass of himself, which he does on a more or less daily basis, nothing particularly apocalyptic happened.

And so, once again, Western liberals, and others obsessed with Donald Trump, having been teased into a painfully tumescent paroxysm of anticipation of some unimaginably horrible event that would finally lead to Trump’s impeachment (or his removal from office by other means) were left standing around with their hysteria in their hands. It has become a sadistic ritual at this point … like a twisted, pseudo-Tantric exercise where the media get liberals all lathered up over whatever fresh horror Trump has just perpetrated (or some non-story story they have invented out of whole cloth), build the tension for several days, until liberals are moaning and begging for impeachment, or a full-blown CIA-sponsored coup, then pull out abruptly and leave the poor bastards writhing in agony until the next time … which is pretty much exactly what just happened.

— CJ Hopkins

PICNIC WITH JIM (But don’t bring up Single-Payer if you want a free t-shirt)

Join me in helping the Mendocino Land Trust continue the great work they've done to build the Pelican Bluffs Preserve and Coastal Trail. We'll work on the trail, discuss state issues, and take in the beautiful scenery. All ages and experience levels are welcome to come.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Saturday, July 28

10 a.m. - 1 p.m., Picnic lunch with Jim to follow

Pelican Bluffs Preserve and Coastal Trail in Point Arena

Meet at the parking lot - 0.5 miles south of Point Arena on Highway 1

Wear work pants and closed-toed shoes and if possible, bring gloves and a water bottle.

Please RSVP if you can make it so we know how many free t-shirts to bring.

For more information call 707-463-5770 or go to my website.

FOOT IN THE MOUTH DISEASE

Editor,

The good news is that the president has an incurable disease: Foot in the Mouth. The bad news is that it has infected millions of supporters, anyone who has got near to him or his ideas. There is, evidently no cure or vaccine. Worse, so many Republicans have been infected that the epidemic is unlikely to abate any time soon. For those who wish to avoid being infected, only ear plugs can lessen the effect. But that does not inoculate them from the consequences. The CDC, Center for Disease Control, is no where to be found on this. The Council on Infectious Diseases is actually promoting the disease as a cure to everything from Nuclear Disaster to random violence on the part of those who are infected. One expert has diagnosed the disease as a pandemic that can infect the entire world if left unchecked. Only a quarantine of those infected may prove effective in limiting the casualties. The report goes on to say that the disease is especially prevalent in The White House, regions of the country subject to Fox New Propaganda, and out of work blue collar coal miners. What makes the disease even harder to control is that those who have been effective are communicable and seem to ignore any precautions to not infect others. The only optimistic prediction on the horizon is that with the cooler temperatures in the fall, especially early November, may dampen down the spread. But that is not to say that the disease will go away. Meanwhile, the president has resisted all measures to stop infecting people.

Stay tuned. And, try not to lose heart. An asteroid might just wipe out 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or a Golf course where the most infectious man in history spends so much time dreaming up more ways to disable so many.

So turns the world…

Frank Graham

Navarro

HOSPITALISM

by Sarah Perry

In the small hours of a spring morning last year I asked for a hot-water bottle to be put on my calf: a ruptured disc was crushing my sciatic nerve, causing leg pain unappeased by opioids and benzodiazepines. I went back to sleep. When I woke up, I felt a damp substance on my leg, and when I wiped it off, I noticed a wet white rag was hanging from my fingertips. I thought little of it: pain was my sole preoccupation at the time, and there wasn’t any. Later that day, awaiting surgery, I was told the hot-water bottle had caused a burn clean through the epidermis, cauterizing the nerves.

The burn became a black disc so tough you could rap it like the cover of a leather-bound book; I fretted about scarring, but what concerned the doctors was the possibility of my acquiring one of the antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that plague hospital wards. Two weeks later – the necrotic flesh had receded to reveal body fat resembling butter softened in the microwave – a GP peeled the dressing off, lifted it to her nose, and recoiled at the unmistakable smell of infection. Swabs were taken, but it was merely the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, its name deriving from the Greek for “grape-cluster berry,” which it resembles. A course of antibiotics, frequent sluicings with saline, and all would be well.

In the days of Lister, Liston and Pasteur, such infections were thought to be an example of what was known as “hospitalism,” for the better prevention of which it was even proposed that all hospitals should be razed by fire and rebuilt every ten years or so. Hospitalism comprised the “big four” of infection: septicemia, erysipelas, pyemia and hospital gangrene. The last was most to be feared: to picture an afflicted limb, think of a gnawed chicken bone spat into a napkin. Surgeons would excise, amputate and re-embowel under anesthesia, only to lose patients to infection in the aftermath.

Efforts to combat and contain hospitalism were as misguided as they were strenuous. All could agree on the urgent necessity of forestalling or treating infection, but not on the cause or the cure. The contagionist faction believed disease was communicated by some invisible agent, a chemical or an “animalcule,” and urged containment through quarantine and trade restrictions. This was all very well: but what of diseases like cholera, which couldn’t be explained by contact transmission?

The anti-contagionists theorized that a pythogenic process caused disease spontaneously to erupt from filth and decay, with pestilence travelling in an infectious miasma that seeped across windowsills. That the most disease-stricken populations lived in the most squalid conditions only bolstered the theory. Andrew Mearns’s survey of urban squalor from 1883, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, describes rooms “black with the accretions of filth which have gathered upon them through long years of neglect. It is exuding through cracks in the boards overhead; it is running down the walls; it is everywhere.” Any air that penetrated these rookeries had first passed over “the putrefying carcasses of dead cats or birds, or viler abominations still.” This was the model of a post hoc fallacy: surely a child breathing in air that had lingered over a rotting animal was inhaling a deadly pestilence?

Even the worst corner of the worst slum couldn’t compete with hospital wards and dissection rooms for filth. Berlioz trained as a doctor and recalled a visit to the “terrible charnel-house” of a Paris dissecting room. “The fragments of limbs, the grinning heads and gaping skulls, the bloody quagmire underfoot and the atrocious smell it gave off”’ made him feel “terrible revulsion.” Sparrows squabbled over morsels of lung; a rat gnawed at a vertebra. Berlioz jumped out of the window and ran home to take sanctuary in music. Surgeons took pride in aprons so dirty they could have stood up on their own; Robert Liston, who pioneered the use of anesthesia, stored his instruments up his sleeve between surgeries to keep them warm. The mortality rate among medical students – who were liable to let the knife slip – was high: the surgeon John Abernethy concluded his lectures with a resigned “God help you all.” When John Phillips Potter nicked his knuckle anatomizing – at the dead man’s request – the circus performer the “Gnome Fly,” he swiftly succumbed to pyemia, a kind of blood poisoning caused by the spread of pus-forming organisms which cause abscesses. The pus drained from his body could be measured by the pint. When Potter died, it was surmised that if he had eaten breakfast before picking up the scalpel, the food would have absorbed any poison attending the corpse, and he would have survived essentially unscathed.

(From a review of: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris. Allen Lane. LRB)

THREE STATE PLAN NIXED

A measure that would divide California into three parts won't appear on the November ballot, the state Supreme Court decided Wednesday, marking the latest defeat for a long-shot push to reimagine the nation's most populous state. The justices ordered the secretary of state not to put the ballot initiative before voters, saying significant questions have been raised about its validity. The court now will consider a challenge from the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group that argued splitting up California would drastically change its government structure beyond what can be accomplished through a simple ballot initiative. "We conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election," the justices wrote in a unanimous ruling. (AP)

J HOLDEN REPORTS:

Jail-based competency training

Results for Mendocino County’s FY17/18 JBCT program for mentally ill misdemeanor defendants: major success. The County expects to add felony defendants this year, tripling the number of mentally ill defendants served and tripling the savings. According to the PBS reporter who contacted me, this will probably get mention in her “Frontline” report on the issue.

—J

Fy17/18 Program Report To Mendocino County Behavioral Health Misdemeanor Jail-Based Competency Restoration Treatment

J. Holden, PhD; JBCT Program Clinician/Consultant

If a felony defendant is found to be incompetent to stand trial (IST) due to a serious mental illness, the legal responsibility for providing competency restoration treatment is assigned to the Department of State Hospitals (DSH). Seriously mentally ill misdemeanor IST defendants are required by law to be provided treatment through the local county Behavioral Health and Recovery Services (BHRS).

Since 2014, Jail-Based Competency Treatment (JBCT) has been offered by Mendocino County BHRS to seriously mentally ill misdemeanor IST defendants by contracting with local service providers. Prior to 2014, misdemeanor ISTs sat in jail languishing while waiting for an opening at a treatment facility, which could take months. Mendocino County’s JBCT program has been innovative and successful, and the “Mendocino Model” is being promoted by the State to other counties, for both felony and misdemeanor ISTs with a serious mental illness.

In Fiscal Year 2017-18, BHRS funded JBCT for 11 seriously mentally ill misdemeanor IST defendants. One IST had a felony charge added and transferred to a SH, while another was found not restorable to competency and was referred for LPS conservatorship. Of the remaining nine ISTs, eight were restored to competency and one refused the service for several months, but has recently begun involuntary psychiatric medication. Out of all the ISTs participating in the JBCT program, 89% were successfully restored to competency. Psychotic disorders, homelessness, substance abuse, and medication noncompliance continue to be the major risk factors associated with incompetency.

The average length of stay between the court’s order for JBCT and certification of competency was 51 days, compared to an average of 240 days (90 days wait and 150 days treatment) for ISTs court-ordered to SH programs. With JBCT, competency was restored in about 1/5 the time versus the SH programs. Due to JBCT, competency is achieved in about 1/2 the time an IST would have waited in jail without services for an opening at a SH program, just to begin treatment. All combined, the Mendocino JBCT program saved nine misdemeanor IST defendants over 1500 days (167 per IST) of locked confinement for competency restoration.

The average cost of restoring an IST to competency via the JBCT route was about $7,250 ($1,380 in treatment costs plus $5,865 in jail housing/medical costs), compared to the SH route costing about $110,350 ($100,000 for 5 months of SH treatment plus $10,350 in jail housing/medical costs). Restoring misdemeanor ISTs in the JBCT has saved Mendocino County an estimated $825,000 ($92,000 per participant), assuming equal BHRS administrative costs for SH and JBCT options.

The Fiscal Year 2017-18 data are summarized as follows:

(Mendocino JBCT, State Hospital)

Average length of stay: 51 days*, 240 days

Average cost: $7,246/IST, $110,350/IST

Rate of JBCT restoration: 89% (8/9)

Total length of stays: Reduced by 1,512 days in FY17/18

County cost of Contracted Providers: $14,750

Estimated FY17/18 savings to County: $825,000.

* Includes 20-day administrative time between commitment order and start of service

NAPA COUNTY HANDLING OF WILLIAMSON ACT agricultural land contracts draws grand jury scrutiny

Napa County’s grand jury says a decades-old program giving property tax breaks to agriculture land owners suffers from a lax of oversight and puts the county in the role of “subsidizing a lifestyle.”

northbaybusinessjournal.com/northbay/napacounty/8524156-181/napa-agriculture-williamson-act-grand-jury

YORKVILLE HIGHLANDS, 1971

by Bruce Anderson

Two nights after we'd established our raucous brood in Mendocino County's serene summer hills, not far from the unsuspecting hamlet of Boonville, we got our first lesson in the psycho-pathology of the pre-pube criminal, the immutable psycho-pathology of the pre-pube criminal.

The delinquents occasionally acted like the children they were, and when they did we were reminded that as demented as their behavior often was, they were still kids, chronologically considered. One of the few wholesome, age-appropriate exertions we could get them to make was night hikes, and even these excursions couldn't be too strenuous; the delinquents wouldn't do long uphills so we had to plan the walks as if their crippling mental wounds were also physical handicaps.

None of them had ever been any place that wasn't paved, let alone out at night for a non-violent walk to explore the non-neon world. So there we were strolling along under the moonlight disturbing whatever nocturnal fauna there was to disturb when a frog suddenly appeared on the path before us. In one instinctual leap, six delinquents jumped out to stomp the amphib flat.

“Why'd you do that?”

The frog killers stared back with “we-did-something-wrong?” looks on their faces.

There's no cure for the frog stomping personality; the head doctors would say it's the inevitable consequence of a traumatic childhood. I'd say frog stompers are born, not made, and here they were.

All day every day, and long into the night every night, we fought to maintain a semblance of order, or “structure,” as the theoreticians of delinquency called it, but in reality, even on our best days, all we accomplished was damage control. Every waking hour was a struggle to keep the little nutballs from harming each other or from destroying our leased premises; there was no time left over to steer them in the direction of functional citizenship, which, we, being products of the great turmoil of the sixties, weren't much committed to ourselves.

The delinquents were quick to exploit the contradictions.

“You tell us not to smoke marijuana and you smoke it.” Etc.

Yes, we were wholly unprepared for our hopeless task. Worse, we lacked practical skills, such as the crucial one of large-group food preparation, certainly a full-time job in our harried circumstances. We could hardly take time away from the exhausting supervision of the delinquents to grab a peaceful bite ourselves, let alone prepare three hearty nutritionals every day. Of course one of our sub-delusions was that if we substituted wholesome foods for the negative food value fuel preferred by the delinquents, they might at least be less energetically delinquent.

Wrong.

Tofu or deep fried tacos, the delinquents remained delinquent.

We called down to the employment office in San Francisco for a full-time cook. We knew we'd be lucky to lure anybody north for a job slot like ours so we euphemized the position as “Live-in organic cook for rural child care center. Free room and board.”

A job counselor said she had just the couple for us with just the right experience. “But,” she added ominously, “Scott and Emily are different.”

“Different,” as applied to the generic American citizen of 1970 was already an infinitely elastic descriptive, having come to include everyone from freeway killers to people who deliberately wore mismatched socks.

But our job offer was far from ideal employment, what with guarding the knife drawer from underage psychos while trying to prepare three healthy meals a day in a primitive country kitchen three hours north of San Francisco.

Desperate, we hired Scott and Emily sight unseen. We were getting two cooks for the salary of one, the job lady assured us, and our eager new employees would arrive the very next day by Greyhound.

They did, too.

The first chef off the bus was a large, shirtless man with a weightlifter's upper torso whose shaved head looked like a topo map, scars forehead to nape. Wherever the guy had been, he'd been there often, and he'd been there head first without protective head gear. And he'd obviously had regular access to a serious weight pile.

Chef Scar Head, his eyes averted, ignored our extended hands and welcoming grins as he dismounted the Greyhound, but he did grunt what could have been interpreted as a greeting.

Behind him appeared a plump woman of about 30. She was togged out in a granny dress and an old-fashioned wagon train bonnet. She greeted us with what sounded like, “bok-bok,” but could have been “awk-awk.” Either way the sound seemed as non-committal as her mate's grunt. Mrs. Scar Head either had a serious speech impediment or she was crazy. Assessing her entire presentation, from her mid-19th century outfit to what we hoped was a speech impediment, we assumed Emily was at least as far off as her man, Scott, the world's strongest cook.

Last to appear was a little girl of about six. The child was togged out in a pink chiffon party dress and wore shiny black pumps on her fat little feet. She looked like she was going to a birthday party, circa 1950. We hadn't expected the child, but she merely punctuated what we already knew was the huge hiring error we'd made with her parents.

The Greyhound spent the night in Fort Bragg before it returned southbound through Boonville the next morning. The odd family would be with us overnight. Looked at objectively, the Scar Heads weren't that much wackier than we were, and besides they'd just arrived. Just because they looked nuts didn't necessarily mean they were nuts. Hell, if you went only by appearances, half the population of the Anderson Valley looked like they'd benefit from face time with a mental health professional.

Scott and Emily's luggage consisted of a bulging backpack lugged by Emily, and a two-foot square metal ammo box toted by Scott that spelled G-U-N. The family traveled light for people who'd taken on a live-in job.

The child's parents, our new cooks, hadn't introduced themselves other than Mom's cryptic “bok-bok,” so we weren't surprised that they never did identify their daughter, who was also non-verbal. When we greeted the child, she replied with a cheery “wook-wook.”

We would call her Little Wook-Wook and her parents The Bok-Boks. But we certainly didn't need three more disturbed persons added to our volatile population of marginally competent adults and junior criminals, but here they were, and a deal was a deal. It might even work out. Maybe they were just shy.

The two-and-a-third chefs climbed into our van for the six-mile trip to the ranch, Scott gripping his ammo box, Emily soundless beside him, the child on her mother's lap, attentive to the country scenery.

Assistant chef Emily responded to our attempts to get some recent work history out of her with affirmative “bok-boks.” We couldn't speak bok-bok but were encouraged that bok-boks seemed affirmative. Chef Scar Head ignored us. He stared straight ahead, his big hands cradling the ammo box. The little girl, spotting some sheep, sang out, “wook-wook.”

When we arrived at Rancho Loco, Emily tossed the family backpack into the indicated cabin and, still without speaking, all three Bok-Boks walked on into the kitchen for an introductory tour of their work site. They always moved single-file, like a family of Dyaks on a jungle path: Scott and his ammo box, then Emily, Little Wook-Wook bringing up the rear. Two of us fell in behind the child, wondering why we were following our employees rather than leading them.

At our appearance in the shed-like mess hall, the delinquents, as usual raucously arrayed around a battered pool table, went silent. Children who have been raised on the violence principle of force or the threat of it know at a glance who's dangerous and who's not. The delinquents knew in their estranged bones that the big scary-looking guy who'd just walked through the door could and would stomp them at little or no provocation. He wasn't just another harmless, neo-hippie doofus like the rest of the so-called adults at this rural juvenile hall; no, the new cook presented a clear and present danger to all living things, as randomly hazardous as any two-legged predator roaming their old neighborhoods in San Francisco and Oakland.

“Settle in, look around, meet the boys,” I grandly invited the cooks without meaning it, hoping that Scar Head's unspoken menace didn't manifest itself in tangible trouble before I could get the Bok-Boks back on the southbound 'hound the next morning.

Ignoring all attempts at communication, Scott and Emily began throwing open the doors of the storage shelves hauling pots, pans, cooking sheets, and number ten cans of government foodstuffs down out of the cabinets. They soon had a pizza assembly line set up with Little Wook-Wook at the finishing end where she was soon diligently sprinkling a concluding garnish of olives on the pre-oven product. The Bok-Boks had produced institutional pizzas before, and we knew that the institution probably had bars on the windows.

There were soon four pizzas in the oven and a dozen more ready to go, way more than even our dedicated junk food eaters would down in a week.

I asked the Bok-Boks to stop making pizzas. Then I asked them to please stop making pizzas.

The Bok-Boks went on making pizzas.

I knew something very weird had kicked off.

A delighted delinquent yelled at me, “Whatcha gonna do now, big boy?”

I knew I couldn't handle Scar Head one-on-one and my colleagues, still high on The Summer of Love, were all committed to non-violent conflict resolution — doubly, triply committed to the path of the Mahatma when they saw Scar Head. I'd thought about trying to get the drop on the big psycho with a two-by-four but worried that (1) the board would bounce off his head and then be used to beat me to death, (2) the mayhem would reinforce “inappropriate behavior” in the delinquents. I was, after all, a role model.

Forty or so pizzas later, our new cooks had started in on what became an even five hundred bulgar and molasses cookies the size and texture of frisbees. (We'd been baffled by bulgar, the wheat-like grain we'd vaguely associated with 19th century Russian novels. We had bags of it but no idea how to make it into anything we could eat.)

On the cooks cooked.

Little Wook-Wook, exhausted by her long bus trip up from the city, then her task as pizza garnisher, then arranger-of-endless-cookies-on-tinfoil, stretched out on the cement floor and went to sleep. With piles of pizzas and cookies surrounding the unconscious child where she lay at her laboring parent's feet, she could have been a living shrine to the junk food gods.

Her parents soon moved on to more complicated dishes in what had become a full-on cook-a-thon that wouldn't end until there was nothing left to render inedible.

The delinquents had been mostly silent for the show, happy at the subversion, but wary because they couldn't quite fit it into their precocious portfolios of aberrant adult behavior. After a couple of hours of serial food prep, and as delighted as they were at our impotence in the face of the crazy cooks, the delinquents wandered off to bed, pleased with the day's events.

When we returned to the cafeteria in the morning, Scott and Emily had the countertops covered with dozens of congealed fried eggs, some forty meat dishes assembled from the mysterious contents of cans labeled “Beef, U.S. Government,” and they'd blended every available vegetable into gallons of home brew V-8. Little Wook-Wook slumbered on where we'd last seen her the night before, the center-piece of the junk food shrine.

Every pot, every dish, every possible container had been deployed in an all-night cook-in. Or cook-off. Or nut-off. Scott and Emily had transformed a month's larder into unappetizing piles of whatever it was now, food maybe. A kid muttered the consensus opinion: “No fuckin' way I'm eatin' this shit.”

Still not a word out of either of them, not even a bok. And here they were, day two, casually posed in a calamity of dirty pots and pans calmly smoking post-culinary cigarettes.

We called the cops.

The delinquents, energized at the mere possibility of violence, and silently jubilant at the chaos of the overnight food frenzy, now eagerly anticipated Scar Head's interface with law enforcement.

In the Anderson Valley of that time, law enforcement consisted of a young resident deputy, George Simon, occupying his first cop post. Inevitably, the deputy was locally known as, “Simple Simon,” although like the rest of us, his gifts seemed securely in the middle of dull-normal range.

Deputy Simon was soon on-scene.

We explained that two city screwballs had cooked up all our food, that we'd fired them because they wouldn't stop cooking and now they wouldn't leave.

“I'll be damned,” Deputy Simon said.

His game face on, the deputy strode authoritatively up to Scott, who still lounged at the sink with a cigarette, he and Emily looking off at a kitchen wall as if it were more interesting than the arrival of law enforcement. The little girl was on her feet, fully awake. She peered out at the deputy from behind her mother's billowing skirt.

“You've got to leave,” the deputy said, without the usual cop preliminaries like, “Hi. How are you today?” And so on through the appraising protocols until the showdown demand for the perp's identification. Given Mr. Scar Head's obvious potential for instant violence, we thought Deputy Simon had been recklessly bold.

“These people want you out,” the deputy said.

“No, we don't,” yelled a delinquent.

Scott, cradling his ammo box, stared silently back at the deputy. Emily, clearly a veteran of rejection, issued a defeated sigh. The child continued to peer out at the deputy from behind the ample pioneer cover of her mother.

The deputy repeated himself.

Scott, Emily and Little Wook-Wook, like three deaf mutes, gazed back at him.

We anticipated the worst.

A three-minute stare down ensued until the cooks, communicating in perfect sync in ways we couldn't see or hear, suddenly strode rapidly past the startled deputy, past us equally startled spectators, and into their nearby cabin, the little girl slamming the door behind her.

“He's probably got a gun in that ammo box,” a delighted delinquent speculated.

“I hope he does,” shouted another.

“I've got a gun, too, don't I?” Deputy Simon said, dramatically unholstering his .357 as he walked to the Wook-Wook's door.

“Come out of there. Now!” the deputy yelled. Silence.

“You,” the deputy ordered me, “get that two-by-four and stand over there. Knock the shit out of that nut if he comes out of there with a gun.”

The delinquents, beside themselves with anticipatory joy, eagerly moved up hill from the cabin for theater-seat viewing of whatever came next.

It seemed to me that the deputy's orders were tactically defective. If Scar Head came charging out of the cabin, gun (or guns) blazing, the deputy and I were arrayed so closely on either side of the door that I would have hit the deputy in the head with my two-by-four while he simultaneously put a big hole in me with his hand cannon.

For the next several minutes there wasn't a sound from inside the cabin. The two-by-four, which I held over my head in “knock the shit out of” mode, grew heavy. The weight of Deputy Simon's .357 caused him to shift it from hand to hand where it was usually pointed straight at one of his feet.

The deputy whispered to me, “I'm tired of this bullshit. You better go in there and have a look around. See if you can talk to them.”

Entering a small, dark room occupied by a deranged weight lifter seemed more in the deputy's job description than mine. Besides, wasn't it wiser just to wait them out, let them make the next move?

As we debated cabin-extraction tactics, the Bok-Boks burst out the door in their habitual single file. Sure enough, the deputy's gun was pointed directly at his foot, and I was so startled I stumbled backwards, my two-by-four uselessly clattering behind me on the cabin porch.

Looking straight ahead, our two-and-a-third food prep specialists set off for the west hills at a fast walk, a very fast walk. Any faster and they'd have been jogging.

We stood speechless at their retreating forms, Little Wook-Wook's pink chiffon party dress vivid against the summer's golden browns.

The delinquents cheered. The Bok-Bok's flight promised to prolong the drama, now approaching its sixteenth hour. Of course the show would have been a lot better if the deputy had cranked off a couple of rounds at the Bok-Boks' departing forms, but they did seem to be leaving and gunfire was not called for.

But what could the cooks be thinking? What was their plan? The road to Boonville or San Francisco was to the east, not west, but Scott, Emily and Little Wook-Wook were headed in the opposite direction from Highway 128, headed into the back country. There wasn't anything or anybody until the blue Pacific, 35 miles away as the crow flew or the psycho walked.

None of us authority figures, and certainly not the deputy, were inclined to hot pursuit. We all watched the odd trio move at Sherpa-like speed up the first steep slope, marveling at the pace and apparent endurance of plump, bonneted, retro-matronly Mrs. Bok-Bok and Little Wook-Wook in her party pumps. The patriarch, we knew, had the double strength of the furiously insane. He could walk to Manchester and back without breaking a sweat because, in his teeming mind, he was the wronged party. He and Mrs. B had been hired to cook, he'd cooked, she'd cooked, and then they'd been fired for cooking. It didn't make sense.

We anticipated the worst. Maybe the guy would wait until we'd made a Safeway re-supply run; then the three of them would come back down out of the hills late at night and cook up all our food again. Or maybe Scott would come back by himself and strangle us all in our sleep, one at a time, and stuff our remains in number ten cans, the ones marked “U.S. Government Beef.”

Had the Bok-Boks done this before? Had Scott and Emily and Little Wook-Wook descended on other outback youth camps, cooked up all the food and then fled into the hills? Maybe the Bok-Boks were some new kind of cult, a secret sect of gastro-vandals! Why not? There were eccentrics of every description moving into the hills of Mendocino County in the early 1970s, many of them seriously whacked. And now there were two more screwballs in the hills — three more — if you didn't feel like cutting their child any slack. And, at that point, I didn't.

The Bok-Boks didn't leave.

They haunted us for the next month. The delinquents left food for them at pre-arranged drops designated by Scott and the lead delinquent, who'd been sneaking off to meet Scott ever since the cooks had taken off into the hills.

For several weeks, always at daybreak, we'd see the fugitives far down Rancheria Creek, the year-round stream that split the sprawling ranch's 320 acres before it met Indian Creek west of Philo to form the Navarro. During these long-distance morning sightings the child was a faint pink blotch against the tree line, mom a larger cloth ball, and dear old dad, shirtless and ominous even at two miles.

We'd shout out long, echoing hallos at our estranged cooks; they'd look up; then, as still as a family of deer, gaze back at us for long seconds before they'd turn from the stream and disappear into the woods, the three of moving single file. We were besieged.

Our fugitive cooks were lingering in the hills to creep us out. Or worse.

Scott's liaison man, the lead delinquent, denied that he was feeding the fugitives, but his smirk gave him away. The cooks could easily spend the whole summer in the hills so long as they were fed regularly, and they would be fed regularly given the help they were getting from our treacherous band of 602's.*

We didn't know if Scott was hanging around to get revenge for his firing or if he and Emily hoped to make one last sneak attack on our kitchen to cook up our replenished supplies, frying up a hundred eggs, baking dozens of clandestine cookies, laughing at us as they rattled our pots and pans.

Then we didn't see them for a week, then two weeks, and we knew they were finally gone.

When Scott, Emily and their little one had first run for the hills, Deputy Simon had suggested to his high command in Ukiah that the Sheriff's Department mount a full-scale manhunt for the three fugitives.

“That's child abuse what they're doing to that little girl,” the indignant deputy argued, “making her sleep out in the hills. And I'm sure whoever that Scott guy is he has a gun in that ammo box and a whole bunch of priors to go with it.”

A manhunt was summarily rejected by the sheriff.

“If we start trying to run down crazy people in the hills of Mendocino County we'll be doing nothing else,” Sheriff Jondahl said. “There's an army of them out there. Besides that, from what you say about them, those people sound like they're deaf and dumb, handicapped people. Leave 'em alone, for crissakes.”

* (602 is cop code for juvenile offender.)