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Posts published by “Brad Wiley”

The House of Morgan: Strike?!

Previously, I described how a small sawmill from the Timber Boom Days after World War II operated and my first week on the job at…

Gary Womack: RIP

Gary Womack, 1940-2021, was not of our Valley; he was born and raised in a small town in southern Oregon few of us have ever…

The Floodgate Store

As I rambled along in my previous Floodgate stories articles, little vignettes would illuminate themselves in dusty corners of the cerebral warehouse where the larger…

Sam & Marguerite

It's time to get down to the biography of Sam and Marguerite Avery's life in Anderson Valley, 1946-77. In preparation I went back to my…

Marguerite’s Floodgate Bar Rules of Law

As I've described previously Floodgate Store was a complex retail business operation with long daily hours.  During the day Marguerite Avery was the sole attendant…

The Friday Evening Jamborees

Last week’s Floodgate story mentioned that the gyppo logging company working for Masonite Corporation in the seventies, Shuster Enterprises (!), provided its crews with transportation…

First New Year, Floodgate Bar

New Year's Eve, 1971-2, my consort and my first in Anderson Valley.  We had moved here from San Francisco on April Fools Day, been in…

More Valley Vistas

Down at the Deep End the Valley's vistas become more telescopic as the flatland gives way to rolling hills, tightening ridges framing the more evident…

Peachland

Over the decades it wasn't just helping Sam Prather manage his sheep bands that introduced me to other ridgetops around The Valley. Sometimes it was…

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