THE ANDERSON VALLEY is saddened by the death of June Lemons, matriarch of the well-known Valley family and owners of the Lemons Market complex. A quiet, modest, hard-working person who, with her late husband, Elmer, fled the Dust Bowl of the 1930s for a new life in Mendocino County where they were to prosper, Mrs. Lemons will be missed. Steve Sparks’ interview full interview of Mrs. Lemons can be found on line at: https://www.theava.com/archives/4909
CLEANING UP after the slobs is your basic Sisyphean task, and hurrah for Ms. Lynch who recently posted, “I was at the Philo Greenwood Road Bridge a few days ago and I was so disappointed in the amount of trash thrown around everywhere. I took all I could in the bag I found but was wondering if anybody would like to help set up a clean-up day at the river under and around the bridge. I would love to help!” Check her facebook page under: Stacie Imerone Lynch
ADD THE SLOBS who steal water meant for firefighting for their pot gardens...AVFD Facebook page: “In a rural area like ours, water sources are a rare and critical commodity. After finding the hydrant in front of our Rancho Navarro station empty from possible theft, captain Fal Allen checked the 10,000-gallon tank on Bald Hills which was also empty. Whether theft or leaks, please be vigilant on monitoring your water supply. A full tank is essential to our firefight!! Captain Allen also installed a new metal cover (yellow cap) to help protect against theft. Thanks, Fal!”
AN INFORMAL COUNT conducted from the porch of Boonville’s beloved weekly over a half-hour on a Sunday afternoon, told us that roughly one-in-three passing vehicles on 128 were traveling at unsafe speeds for conditions, those conditions being lots of people on foot through our combined residential and commercial neighborhood. The CHP puts in an occasional appearance but not occasionally frequent enough to slow the speeders. Odd, that back in the early 70’s, and even at earlier intervals, a full-time CHP officer was assigned to the Anderson Valley when traffic was light. Many of us have fond memories of Burl Evans, The Valley’s CHP guy for several years who singlehandedly and impartially tagged speeders, among them locals who somehow felt they were exempt from the traffic laws by royal dispensation — birth in Boonville. And for a too-short while we enjoyed the services of Rick Rajeski before he retired. The volume of traffic through Boonville at all hours is at least double, probably triple what it was in 1970. Maybe our new supervisor, Mr. Williams, will help agitate for a return of a full-time CHP presence.
EXACTLY NEXT DOOR to us the other day, a Kern County emergency services vehicle appeared, its siren briefly flaring to alert us to its presence. A three-year-old boy was "unable to breathe," the worst kind of emergency. These days in our community that hasn't been a community in any recognizable sense for probably thirty years, emergency calls are top secret for reasons having to do with, I guess, "liability" or “privacy” however vague, and however determined by whatever remote actuarial shot callers. So the rumors circulate, the more exciting ones in this case imputing evil to the parents. Used to be all you had to do was ask an ambulance volunteer and you'd know who to direct offers of help to, which member of the real community that existed then could use whatever his or her friends and neighbors might offer in the way of practical assistance. No more. Gone. Gone like the hand-stamped postmark from Boonville, Philo, Navarro, and Yorkville, gone like the justice courts in all the County's small towns, including ours, with their elected non-lawyer judges, gone like the Anderson Valley 4-H Club, the slo-pitch softball league, and men's basketball, the Boonville women's softball team, little league basketball and baseball. Name it, it's gone. It's all affinity groups now. We’re a skein of strangers strung out (literally in some cases) along Highway 128 from Yorkville to Navarro, a shrinking population of old timers, transient wine people, people who talk about the South of France, absentee landlords who have converted family rentals into AirBnB's, shoals of gastro-maniacs looking for the latest in ice cream cones. The three-year-old boy is going to be fine. Kern County got the save.
THE BOONVILLE APPLE PRESS availability from the Apple Pressers: “We are beginning to get calls about using the apple press, which is now being stored in the Foodshed shed in Boonville. The press is not available for use this weekend (just past) due to Airport Day happening on the property where it is stored. We have a group of people who are qualified to oversee the use of the press and have volunteered to make themselves available to help those who have fruit to press this year. Those who have fruit to press can email avfoodshed@gmail.com to find out when someone will be available to meet them at the shed location. Happy Pressing!”
VELMA'S FARM STAND at Filigreen Farm, Organic Biodynamic
1750 Anderson Valley Way, Boonville CA 95415
Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 10am till 4pm
- Maiden's Blush Apples, Red Gravenstein Apples: $3.00 lb
- Blueberries: by the basket $3.80; flat (12 baskets) $40
- Cherry And Early Girl Tomatoes: $3.25 lb
- Heirloom Tomatoes: $3.75 lb
- Kohlrabi: $1.25 each
- Cabbage: $1 lb
- Lemon Cucumbers: $2 lb
- Melons: $1.30 lb
- Watermelons: $1 lb
- Olive Oil
PERIODIC BURSTS of gun fire Saturday in central Boonville, beginning with what sounded like 8 rounds from a .22 handgun at 10:30am and continuing throughout the day. Yep, called it in. The duty officer said Boonville's resident deputy, the sorely taxed Craig Walker, would have a word with the wild ones.
ABOVE BOONVILLE, the daylight sky was enlivened by a number of spiffy small planes visiting Mendocino County's most happening community for an open house celebration at our local airstrip, whose history began with a 50's-era mill owner named Buster Hollifield landing his plane in the hay field on the west side of the high school where, a few years later, appeared the first paved strip and an aeronautics course at Boonville High School begun by then-superintendent, Bob Mathias. That course provided the first step in many successful careers in flight and related fields for a generation of Anderson Valley young people.
SPEAKING of schools, ours begins instruction on Wednesday, August 22nd without a leader in the superintendent’s chair, and right here, and not to doom his consideration for the post, I suggest high school principal, Jim Snyder. He’s smart, personable, has worked as a classroom teacher, knows well the present staff (and its discontents), and his appointment would spare a fresh, unsuspecting out-of-the-area person the Anderson Valley’s infamous meat grinder. It’s a waste of everyone’s time to go for an outsider when the insider if perfectly well qualified.
ROBERT KRAFT, a Boonville Old Timer temporarily exiled to Bandon, Oregon, sends along this photo of the Greyhound, c. 1982, that plied the Frisco-Fort Bragg route for many years in a time it was possible to get efficiently back and forth to the Bay Area by public transport. That convenience ended when the, ah, titans of Non-Profit Mendo started up the Mendocino Transit Authority. A trip by MTA from Boonville to San Francisco today will take you about 15 hours if not a full two days.
EVEN BEFORE young scholars hit the books with the opening of school, Coach John Toohey's Panther football team is working out with a scrimmage with Laytonville, at Laytonville, scheduled for Friday night, 17 Anugust, 6pm. Coach Adrian Maldonado's futball squad, a perennial small school powerhouse, kicks off against Willits, Wednesday the 22nd of August. On the distaff side of the fields and floors of glory we have the girl's volleyball team, coached by Kendra McEwen, traveling to Upper Lake to spike UL in their gym. (That match was Tuesday, the 14th as we went to press.) And the girl's futball team, under the direction of Keevan Labowitz, is at home on Wednesday afternoon, the 29th of August for a contest with Upper Lake.
SUMMER UNDER THE ARBOR: Covelo’s 36th annual Blackberry Festival: Aug. 18-19
The 36th annual Round Valley Blackberry Festival will be held on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 18 and 19, at the festival grounds in downtown Covelo. The festivities will kick off at 10 a.m. Saturday with master of ceremonies Mickey. Come check out their new arbor teeming with arts, crafts, food booths and blackberry delicacies. Mendocino County wines will be available for tasting while listening to live music both days. There will be a climbing wall for children of all ages. Hours are Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free; no pets allowed. Come join the community for a fun square dance on Saturday at 7 p.m., and for the car and motorcycle show on Sunday.
I remember taking the Greyhound from San Rafael to Philo once or twice as a kid in the early 1960s. A long, slow ride.
I made that trip a few times myself. The driver would stop at Art’s Apples and buy apples for everyone on board. This would have been in the 1960s, maybe into the early 1970s. I made the trip from SF to Navarro. I learned the hard way when I told the ticket person I wanted to go to Navarro. To them, Navarro was Novato. You had to say the bus to Fort Bragg. They had heard of that.
Re: Exactly Next Door. Brilliant writing.