Danny Kuny Looks Back

Long-time Valley resident Danny Kuny is leaving the Valley. He wanted to speak his mind one last time before he left.

AVA: So Danny — let’s start with a brief bio, where you were born, and when you first came to Anderson Valley, that kind of stuff…

Kuny: I was born in 1955, at the Redwood Coast Hospital, which is now the Save the Whales Motel. I lived in Comptche until 1967. Then I moved to Boonville when I was in elementary school. Jim Jones was the principal at the elementary school when I moved here. I remember him. Four other kids and I were in the bathroom one day. We were trying to see who could pee the highest on wall. He caught us and took a strap to us and tore each of us a new ass. He beat our ass! Just as he walked out, we let go and pissed up the wall about ten feet. He didn’t need to be mad over that. Oh no. But he gave us a serious ass whupping. He got the best of Danny Kuny that day! Tony Pardini was in my class. Doug Cooley. Ted Wagner. Clay Bates. Old timers will know these names. Gary Waggoner was also in my class. I went all the way through high-school in Anderson Valley, and graduated in 1974.

When I was 11 or 12 I got my first first Lucky Lager beer from Charles Manson. My cousin and I both got beers from him. He lived in Navarro. On Gschwend Road. My cousin’s parents lived up there. We walked by their house, a very big house all the time. And one day he stopped us and asked us if we would like to have a beer? He had all these naked college girls running around there. We were in the 7th grade I think, and we went back several times for more.

Within a couple of weeks my mother found out about it and put a stop to it on the spot. In a heartbeat. She whupped my ass and she whupped my cousin’s ass. It was not long after that that Charles Manson left the area. He got some of the sons of the old-timers around here on LSD, and some of the old-timers went down there and burned his house down. Burned it to the ground.

AVA: The late Bobby Glover told me about that. But I didn’t realize he was talking about Charley Manson.

Kuny: They got word that some of these guys were coming down there and so they loaded up some busses and beat feet. When the old timers got there they burned his house to the ground. It was a big old two-story house a couple of turns up Gschwend Road. Just a little below where Hayes Brennan lives now.

AVA: When did you start coaching?

Kuny: In 1987. Started with JV football. In 1994, I quit the high school and began the Pop Warner program here. It was awesome. Coaching is something you learn from the kids. Most coaches think the kids learn from the coach, but in my case it was the other way around. Every kid is different. Sometimes you have to grab a kid by the shirt and shake them a little bit so they understand. Other kids will need a real gentle approach. You speak soft to them to get things across. I’ve been coaching now for 15 years and every year is new. This is the first year I’ve done high school JVs since I quit coaching in 2000 at the high school varsity level. After that, I started the Pop Warner program again in 2001. Did that for three years. Now I’m back at the high school. There were a lot of politics in 2000/2001 with Jack Graves and the school. I couldn’t work with him. That’s when I restarted the Pop Warner program. Jack had some problems with the school and he later left. He had to go, he was doing some things that were just wrong. I think the school was afraid of him. You don’t put a kid who wasn’t enrolled in this high school and had never practiced — not one day — and take him to a game in Mendocino, give him gear and put him in a JV game when he’s 17 years old and weighs 170 pounds. Jack let him play! That was a couple of years ago. Bruce Anderson knew all about this. There were letters from parents, and so forth. It was swept under the rug because I don’t think the school board wanted to get involved with Jack. They figured it would go away. But what does that show the kids? That you can do anything you want to win a game? This is how you do it? You don’t do that. Zack Brendlen had made practices all summer long. He went to that game and Jack took his helmet and gave it to that big kid. Mike Brendlen took his kid and never let him come back to football.

AVA: Is that one of the reasons you ran for the school board?

Kuny: Yeah. One of the reasons. It gave the Valley and the school a bad name. The football program was a joke all through the league and with leagues above us with Jack Graves running it. Now, with Jason Schrider running the football program I feel it’s going to come back and be a successful program. When I was hired for the JV program this year Jason talked to me about it. He wanted me to do the defense for the JVs and the Varsity. He would do the offense. Jack found out about it and went to [superintendent] JR Collins and said, “If Danny Kuny does anything with my kids, I will pull them out of school.” So they called me in and said I couldn’t have anything to do with the varsity program. That’s why I practiced the JVs at the fairgrounds this year, not at the schoolgrounds. Jack was out of the football program by then, but he still threatened to pull his kids out if I coached the defense.

AVA: Was he talking about going to Windsor?

Kuny: Not this time. He did that before. I went in and talked to JR and told him he couldn’t let Jack dictate what we did at the school. You have to say, This is my school — if you don’t like it, keep your kids home. But it didn’t work out that way. So I didn’t get to work with the varsity program, because Jack Graves would not permit it. I was on the school board at the time. JR also told me I could not be on the sidelines during the varsity games this season because Jack had objected. Jack said if I had anything at all to do with the varsity program he’d pull his kids. He was pissed off at me because I got him off the football program. He has a couple of freshmen on the varsity program now who are 14 years old. Jack made them play varsity football, which is illegal, even though he is their guardian. You cannot play varsity football when you are 14 years old. But there they are. They wanted to play JV for me. But he refused to let them. Evidently the school did not want to say anything to Jack about it. This has been brought up at school board meetings. They simply did not want to get into it. Nancy Mailliard brought it up. But J.R. basically pointed out that Jack did not want me around his kids. J.R. did not want to deal with the problem. He could have said, Well, there will be no varsity football program then. If that’s how you want to do it, keep your kids at home. Of course Jack would not do that. Where is he going to take them? Nowhere. I spoke to Robert Pinoli about it. He was not happy about what the school’s decision was, but what can you do? I was not going to quit. I just took my JV program to the Fair grounds. That started the year of very bad. I did not have a good taste about that. This man gets to say who can coach and who cannot coach. The school needs to deal with Jack, soon. There are some people down at that school who need to grow some balls. They have to step up and say, hey, if you do not like what we are doing, take your kids home. Jack’s kids are great. I love his kids. They make sure no one is around and they come up and give me a hug, “Hey coach! How do we do this, or that? …“ We get along great. Those are good kids. And Coach Schrider has done an awesome job with them and with the varsity program this year. He was under a lot of pressure from Jack. The school is lucky to have Jason coaching. I think he will do a good job. But I think he will also need to keep Jack out of his program. If Jack gets involved with the football program, he will take charge and do what he did with me. He took his kids back to his house and told them that I did not know what I was doing as a football coach. That kind of undermined the entire football program. I was trying to tell them one thing and he was telling them another. So Jason needs to set Jack straight and say, This is my program and I do not need your help here. Stay away from it. I have told Jason that. I saw Jack at Friday night’s game and he had the kids all huddled up so he could talk to them. If I had been Jason Schrider at that time I would have told Jack that he was not a coach — leave the kids alone, that’s my job.

AVA: Is that one of the reasons that you decided to leave the area?

Kuny: No. Not really. I just need a change. I don’t like some of the things that have gone on up at the ranch in Bell Valley. I have become unhappy with some of the things that happened up there and with some of the people working there. One of them is a real chickenshit sort of guy and if I get a chance I will kick his ass. If I ever meet him out on the street somewhere, he will get his ass kicked. It’s that simple. I’ve told him that. I was hired to take care of the roads up there and keep people off the place that should not be there. Basically to be there and take care of things. After six months, they came up and asked me if I would like a job just building fences and so forth and they would pay me to do that. So I agreed, and my job was to rebuild many of the fences and take care of the road network, make sure that the roads stayed open, keep the place cleared and mowed. That was fine. Then they hired a couple of other people out there who kind of took over things. One of them was Nancy Mailliard. She has done a fine job with her work on the ranch. She has made some good changes on the place. But I thought that the way she treated some of the people there was wrong. I thought that the new crew took their authority too far with the ranch. The guy I have a problem with is the guy who is in charge over Nancy. He has worked for Mrs. Anderson’s family in The City for years. He comes up from the city every few days for a few days. And he’s a punk. For example, they would give me a work order, I would get them done, and hand them in, they would sign them, copy them. Then I would start working on the second one, and the guy would say, This is not working out here, you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do. You’re not holding up your end of the job to pay your rent. Which I was, and he knew it. He treats people with no respect at all. He talks bad about Rob Anderson all the time, cuts him down — and he is working for the guy’s wife! One time when I had the ranch’s four-wheeler at the house, he came over and got it. He told me, “Nicola [Mrs. Anderson] wants this left up at the fucking shed where they usually park it. I don’t know what the fuck’s up her ass.” And he works for these people! The guy is an asshole. I will meet him on the street one of these days and I will kick his fucking ass.

AVA: If you move you might not get that chance.

Kuny: I don’t know. I hold grudges. That’s been my problem my entire life. If someone screws with me, I will get back at them. One way or the other. That might not be very pretty, but I will do that. And that has been my problem since I was 19 years old. I do not know how to forget some things. What he did was not right. He lied about me. He was disrespectful. You do not do that to people. I treat people the way I want them to treat me. Respectful. If I do not like you, I just will not talk to you. I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel about that guy. He has told Robert Anderson and his wife that I broke their tractor and that I tore stuff up out there on the ranch. He says that I do not do any work out there. He is a goddamn liar. You just don’t do that. If you have a problem with me you come and talk to me. Come tell me what the problem is. Do not tell everybody else. So we have some things to settle. I don’t think he has the balls to want to settle with me. He doesn’t hang around here much. He is an asshole. Nancy works for him. She has to do what he wants done. Nancy has done a good job up there. She has to treat some of the people with more respect, though. Rafa works up there. Nancy’s son, Chad, works up there. Good kid. But there are some bad feelings.

I have enjoyed being on the school board. It was a challenge. They were not used to someone like me. I was a little different than the rest of them. I spoke my mind. They were not quite used to that. Two or three weeks after I took the oath of office, they had a special meeting about me. That was after I had a few harsh words with J R. over a few things that were done at the school that should have been handled differently. When Mike Hill was killed in San Francisco, you might remember, after he went back down to the city right after he turned 18, somebody painted a big tag on the school wall which said Rest In Peace. They knew who did it. They knew exactly who it was. They wanted to retire Mike Hill’s number. But, I’m sorry, he was a bad kid. You just can’t retire the jersey number for a kid like that. I suggested that they discontinue the athletic program until they find out who did that to the school. JR refused to do anything like that. So we had a few words. And I said a few things to him that he didn’t like. So they had to have a special meeting over me for threatening JR.

AVA: Did you threaten him?

Kuny: Well, kind of. (Laughs.) Yeah, maybe I did in a kind of a way. Yeah, some people might say that. (Laughs.) They called me in and told me they were going to reevaluate JR’s job at a special meeting on a Saturday morning. I got down there and it had nothing to do with J R. It was all about me. So I told them, From now on, if you want to talk to me, or if you want to have a meeting about me, you have to tell me that’s what it is. Do not lie to me. So I got up and left. That’s how my experience on the school board started. That was in the first two weeks. I think that the school board members are doing what they can for the school. Basically, they do a good job. You can not please everybody. There will always be someone who disagrees with what you are doing. It is a hard spot to be in. Things happen at the school that you just can’t always control. And they have to be dealt with. It’s a tough job.

AVA: Did you accomplish the things that you wanted to?

Kuny: Yes. I believe so. I got rid of Jack Graves. He was the one who I wanted to get rid of — or at least out of the football program. Anderson Valley High School is my high-school. I played football here. I coached here before he got here. He made our school look stupid. It was embarrassing to go to a different league and hear them laugh about our program. It wasn’t Anderson Valley’s program, it was Jack Graves’ program. People told me that. He accused the referees of being prejudiced. It got to the point where they could hardly get referees to come here. In fact, the last year he was here, if we had made it into the playoffs, the referees were going to protest by not coming to the playoff game. In fact they stopped showing up here at certain times before that. There were scrimmages that they could not hold because the referees would not show up. The referees use our football scrimmages as a training ground for the new referees. But they refused to show up for ours because of Jack Graves. I also thought that the school should get more information about Jack’s kids before they were allowed into the school. Some of his kids were not good kids. I felt that Jack Graves should share the information about his kids with the school. We did not know if they were sexual predators, or if they had killed someone, whatever. I felt that the school board should have a copy of their files. And the board should have the choice of whether a kid would be allowed into the school. Of course all kids deserve a second chance, but, why put our kids in harm’s way for one bad kid. I thought that the school board should have the right to say whether or not a particular kid should be allowed to come to school here. Kevin Tobie was a bad kid. You know. He was a bad kid. When the Slottes took him from Jack, they did not know that he was a bad kid. Candy Slotte would do anything to help a kid. So this kid slid by them. They thought he was a good kid, but he was not. It’s true that you don’t know that in advance necessarily, but you should get the file in advance. The school should have the authority to look at the file, and the school board should decide if they want the kid in the school. If Jack Graves wants him in his program, but he’s not a good kid, then let Jack home school him at the house. He gets something like $4500 a month for each kid. For that kind of money, he can hire a teacher to hold classes at the house. He does not have to be in a public school. I am upset that I never got that accomplished. I think either JR or somebody else there is not being honest. Any kid who wants to be in the public school who has been in trouble, the school should have the right to know what his background is. I tried to get something like that done, but it did not happen. I still think something like that should happen.

I am 49 years old right now. I’ve been here a long time. The work just isn’t the same. I have cut timber ever since I was 16 years years old. So that’s more than 34 years. A guy cannot make a living in the woods for only five months out of the year. I’m going to Placerville in Calaveras County, about 40 miles east of Sacramento. I have good friends in that area. It’s a beautiful area. Anderson Valley has changed in the last ten years. Big time. It is not the same.

AVA: Tell me about the changes the you’ve seen. You saw the hippies, and, then…?

Kuny: I saw the beatniks, when they were called beatniks. I was going to school in Mendocino in the ‘60s. The beatniks were the big thing from 61 to about 68. Then in the late 60s came the hippies. There were communes all through here. They lived along the Navarro River in big tents. There were several hippie campsites. That was in the early ‘70s. In fact my father and I felled timber down there for Schuster, on Masonite land. There were so many hippies camped along the river in those huts that they made, that they finally had to call the law in to get them to move out of there. I do not know how many huts and tents we felled trees across. It was unbelievable! Those were different people, but those were good times. Then the vineyards came in. and everything changed. That made an enormous difference. How long have you been here?

AVA: Since 1981.

Kuny: You have seen the changes from 1981 until now. I’ve been here since 1967. There are not many old-timers left around here now. You have Bob Daniels. Charlie Hyatt. My father. Bill Charles. There are not many of those guys left. Kenny Hurst is probably one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I call him my big brother. If there were more people like him, this would be a much better place. I still love the place, and I love a lot of the people in it. But it is time for me to make a change. Time for me to get out of the valley. I will miss the valley. I will miss the kids in the valley. These kids are great. A lot of them think that I am a big bad tough guy, and they like me for that. But I am not. They think I am, but I am not.

AVA: If you asked JR…?

Kuny: [Laughs] I am not a tough guy. I am just me. When I was younger, I had a pretty bad reputation. I fought a lot at the Boonville Lodge in those days. Back then, most guys would go to the lodge to look for pussy. Tony Pardini and I just wanted someone to fight with. [Laughs.]

AVA: So that’s where you got that reputation?

Kuny: Yes! [Laughs.] We wanted someone to fight. Then people would hear about the things you had done. And you got kind of a reputation of being a tough guy. But I am not really a tough guy. Maybe in my younger days. When you are young you do a lot of dumb things. And we did a lot of dumb things.

AVA: You don’t have to be a tough guy to do dumb things.

Kuny: One fair weekend, Tony Pardini and I went in to the Fairgrounds, and there were maybe four or five carneys sitting around a table. Something like the movie Billy Jack, if you remember that. They had their black coats on and so forth. Of course, we did not like that. We did not think those guys were that tough — they could not be wearing that kind of thing. So we had a beer, and Tony took a look over at them, and said, “Let’s kick their ass.” I said, “Okay, let’s kick some ass.” I asked Tony, How do you want to get this started? Should I just go over there and challenge them? He said, No, no, you just throw me on top of their table, and then the fight will be on. I said, OK. So we got over near the table, and I threw him, but I missed. Tony slid underneath their table. So Tony got up and dusted himself off and said, OK I’ll be right back. Hold on, I will be right back. He came back to me and said, Throw me harder! (Laughs) So I threw a little harder and he landed right on the table. Well, needless to say, they kicked the living shit out of us. They really kicked our asses. They really beat the hell out of us. But it was fun! That was OK! They were tougher than we thought they were. We had some good times growing up around here.

AVA: What do you think will happen to the logging industry in this area?

Kuny: I don’t think it will go completely downhill. I think they will still log in some areas. But it will never be like it was. Mendocino County has become a real pain in the ass to log in because of the redwoods. Too many people have moved from the city and they want to change things around here to the way they want things to be. They don’t realize that logging has kept this area going for a long time. There’s no question that the way they logged in the 50s and early 60s was wrong. But that’s all changed now. It’s being done right now. There’s bad logging, and there’s good logging. I’ve been doing it now for almost 35 years and I have a lot of respect for my work and I take great pride in my job. By dad is 72 years old — he started logging when he was 14. My uncle, Jerry Philbrick — his uncle owned a mill in Comptche in 1964. All my relations have been in logging jobs. My father’s dad was a logger. My mother’s dad was a logger. It goes back generations. It’s kind of like coaching football. It gets in your blood. And a man cannot get away from it. If you do not get killed, it keeps you healthy. I have had a lot of bumps and bruises — that is part of the job, and you have to understand that when you take the job. There is the chance of getting your ass kicked and a chance of even getting killed. I’ve certainly had my ass kicked a couple of times. I still have all my fingers and toes and my legs, I am still in one piece. They start logging up in Calaveras County in March and they cut until December. They do not have the problems with the protesters because there is no redwood timber up there. There’s a lot of Doug fir and pine up there. And some cedar. They make molding out of pine. Pine is a lot of fun to cut. It is real soft timber.

AVA: You mentioned earlier that you had Indian blood?

Kuny: Yes. My mother was full blood Cherokee. My father’s father was German, and my mother’s father was Irish. So I am a German Irish Indian.

AVA: Is your mother still around?

Kuny: No, she died of cancer in 1991. She lived here in the Valley. She worked at the Clearwater Ranch for years.

AVA: Oh I remember her — a thin woman?

Kuny: Yeah.

AVA: Red hair?

Kuny: Right. She worked at the Drive In for a long time. She was a very good, honest woman. But she was meaner than hell. You did what she told you to do or your ass was in a world of hurt. (Laughs) She had no problem taking a stick to you if you didn’t mind her. Oh yeah. I think it got to the point where she’d wake me up and spank me because she knew I was going to do something she didn’t like. She’d say, Don’t do that. So I’d do it anyway, just to see what would happen. (Laughs) My dad’s still in the Valley. He lives down past the Drive In. He’s not really doing much now. He works a cat for CDF during fires and so forth. He’s 72 now. I’ll be 50 February 16th. I’m going to miss the people I’ve known in the Valley all my life. My classmates. It’s been great as a football coach. I still have kids who I coached years ago come by. I’ll miss them. I’ll miss the kids I’m coaching now. My daughter, my grandkids, my youngest daughter. It’s a tough choice, quitting coaching. I wish the kids well. I hope the kids I coached this year come back and play next year. But sometimes when you’ve been in a place for so long it gets a little stale. You just have to move on and start over. And that’s what I’m going to do. The football season is over. We got our asses kicked in that last game. We got beat all year, in fact. But these kids have been great. They worked hard and never gave up once. Never.

But now it’s time that I have to move on.