WE'VE RECEIVED the sad news that long-time Valley resident and retired teacher, Bonni Davi, has died. A formal obituary will follow.
SERVICES for Ernie Blattner, also a person with strong Valley ties, will be held on Saturday, September 29th, 11am, at the First Baptist Church, Ukiah, Henry and Oak Streets.
WRONG AGAIN, and we regret the error. A reader notes: “Unless she is going by a different name now, a not unheard of situation as your Slaughter story shows, the Senior bus driver is Dolly [Pacella]. I just spoke with her a few weeks ago at a party. When we started fooling around at Hendy Woods back in 2011 she was running the kiosk. One of life's very decent people!"
THE LOG TRUCK DRIVER who died on Highway 128 on the far side of Yorkville has still not been identified. We know he was 55, Hispanic, lived and worked out of Fort Bragg, died on Friday, August 31st about 8:30 in the morning. The poor man was killed as he was working on his trailer when his truck began rolling, and ran over him before plunging off the road.
HIS MANY local friends are happy to see Vince Ballew back at his South Boonville (SoBo) home after a prolonged hospital stay recovering from what we understand was a hit and run Vince suffered as he walked one dark night from the Boonville Brewery to his nearby home.
MUCH to the majority’s approval at Rancho Navarro, a commercial pot grow, complete with eyesore hoop houses, was raided last week with a large haul of devil weed run through the raid team’s chipper and hauled off to the secret compost pile over the hill to the east. A second hoop house spectacular at the Rancho may be next. Both sites are stealing water and both sites are the projects of distant property owners.
THE 91st ANNUAL BOONVILLE FAIR, technically the Mendocino County Fair, has come and gone. The crowds seemed larger than ever in all senses including the diabetic, but also more wholesome in a child-oriented way than the drinkin' and fightin' fairs of the sixties into the early seventies when Slim Pickens, then a rodeo caller, declared Boonville "the roughest rodeo town" he'd ever worked, and he'd worked some rough ones. Boonville has been steadily blanded down since those days and hasn't since required the heavy Fair time police presence of yesteryear. Friday afternoon I spent the most time in the flower hall, as lush this year as I remember seeing it, and all credit goes to Robin Harper, the chief organizer, with big assists from Taunia Green, Terry Ryder, and Tara Lance. A slice of apple pie in memory of Grandma Pie Hulbert, this slice delivered by the gracious Grace Espinoza assisted by an expatriate Gowan who said she left the valley in 1972. A quick spin through the art where I was so arrested by an impious rendering of President Reagan that I offered the artist, Bob Sites, $25 for it. At the deserted arena, Judy Nelson and Stephanie Gold were setting up the beer booth. No Apple Bowl Football this year, and no soccer either, small school football having disappeared, the turf too hazardous for futbol apparently. Sunday's parade began promptly at noon with the appearance of a local fire truck and seemed to end with CalFire's Smokey the Bear. In between, there were bucking low rider cars, a flatbed that recommended that perennial hard sell, "Share, Justice, Peace", and splendid horses, Darth Vader, a bunch of little kids on motorized 4-wheelers, the Anderson Valley Theater, plastic fish on sticks, a raucous float featuring the annual Variety Show players, a golf cart festooned with wind chimes, the District Attorney and Sheriff, (no supervisors), mounted Mexicans diplomatically flying both flags, a Pardini truck honoring the late Willis Tucker, and cryptically decorated golf carts. It was a fun twenty minutes, but I came away wishing there was at least one band, and surely one or another of the larger high schools in the county still has one?
THE SATURDAY AND SUNDAY FAIR drew huge crowds, including a biker gang from Lake County, the first time a biker gang as a unit has attended the Fair so far as anyone can recall, but nothing concerning happened over the three days beyond some testosterone-fueled pushing and shoving at the Saturday night dance, and a drunk who was so drunk even his family asked that he be hauled over the hill to sober up in jail. There were several traffic incidents unrelated to the Fair, an apparent heart attack on the Fairgrounds, and a guy who sustained a “head injury” was patched up by the AV Ambulance crew.
SMALL SCHOOL FOOTBALL has collapsed in Mendocino County. The great rivalries developed over almost a century between small school powerhouses of the past — Boonville vs. Mendocino and Point Arena, Laytonville vs Covelo, everyone vs Potter Valley — have now disappeared into the mists of time. And that's not all that is gone. Seldom mentioned is the unifying effect of small school sports, all sports not just football. Without these competitions it is unlikely that most young people (and their parents) would ever understand what a large and unique county Mendocino County is.
HOW LIKELY is it that a high school student from Gualala attending Point Arena High School would ever visit Covelo and get a good look at the majestic Mayacamas, and perhaps be inspired to learn something of the fascinating history of this place if he or she didn't get there on a team bus?
GETTING back to outback football, and this is a futile proposal I intend to take to the County School Board and our new Superintendent of County Schools, Michelle Hutchins, how about taking the half-dozen kids from each school who still want to play football and make one team out of them to compete in 11-man in the same league with Willits, Cloverdale and Fort Bragg? Each of the six or so at each of the small schools that have shelved football would practice with one simple playbook under the tutelage of a volunteer coach, perhaps practicing as a unit one day a week and playing Friday and Saturday games under one coach selected from the volunteers? Workable? Four running plays, four passing plays, one defense. This way the core of small school students who want to play football could play. Call them the Loggers and fund them via the County Office of Education.
YOU ARE GETTING TO BE AN ANDERSON VALLEY OLD-TIMER IF...
…You remember the Burma Shave signs on Highway 128 just south of Yorkville Ranch.
…You attended the dedication of Hendy Woods State Park, which included a performance by blues singer (and actress) Ethel Waters. (Marshall Newman)
INTERIM BOONVILLE SCHOOL SUPE, Michael Warych, from all accounts, is off to a promising start after last school year’s turbulence. The conscientious Wynne Crissman has resigned from the board, meaning for the time being a seeming 2-2 standoff on the only mildly contentious issue facing the trustees — whether or not to fill a secretarial vacancy in the District Office.
AV FOODSHED sponsors the produce entries on display in the back of the Ag Building at the Mendocino County Fair each year. We donate the money that pays for the ribbons to the winners. When you visit the Fair this weekend, remember to check out those displays to see what food your Mendo County neighbors are growing. Our Foodshed table will once again be behind the Apple Tasting booth at the front of the Ag Building. You can pick up a quarter sheet flyer there with the basics about C’mon Home to Eat in October this year.
THE SUPE'S consent calendar for their September 11 meeting included “Item 4v: Approval of Agreement with Don Folsom for Code Enforcement Field Inspection Services and Formal Code Determinations…" Folsom, who lives in Yorkville is, given the wall of denunciations of him by local contractors, violently unpopular. He's described by one as "an unreasonable prick with a very bad attitude," and by another as "the kind of guy who winds up in a ditch." Whatever the pros and cons of hiring Folsom for another sweetheart year, the public should have had a chance to weigh in on his appointment before the Supervisors rubber-stamped him.
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