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Posts published in May 2015

Resting Places

Anderson Valley has five cemeteries, though only four are in general use. All are old, all are still active, all have rustic character befitting the valley – no manicured lawns here — and all abound with historic family names, many that still had a strong presence in the valley during the years of my youth there in the late 1950s and 1960s. A few of those families remain in the valley today, others have passed on or moved on. Still, the cemeteries are snapshots of the valley, past and present.

Zecke the Bloodsucker

Buzzards swoop on the wind drafts in the draw that extends from below my house to the bottom lands next to the remains of Uncle Charlie’s cabin.  The same wind currents that provide the swirling,…

Hobbs’s Poisons

Apple Blossom School has a nice ring to it, as does the Orchard View School at its side. The nearby Tree House Hollow pre-school, with children as young as two and three years old, continues…

Mendocino Talking: Herb Ruhs

My parents were both active duty World War II. My mom was a Marine when she conceived me. My dad was a Navy Corpsman. When I was little, my really nasty paternal grandmother told me that my mom had me in order to get out of the military. When my parents divorced, I went to live with my mother and her family in Chicago, which didn’t go well. My grandfather, Eddie Carr, had run a speakeasy and was a straight up mobster. I was told that “your grandpa, Eddie, is sleeping at the bottom of the Calumet canal with his friends.” That turned out not to be true… he had escaped to Pennsylvania and had lived and died under an assumed name.

Doorstep Dog Poop and a Hernia the Size of a Volleyball

On September 1st of last year, Ukiah Police Officer Isabel Madrigal was dispatched to the laundromat in the 500 block of North State Street where she'd been summoned by Mr. Vincent Gianvito. Gianvito told the…

Off the Record (May 20, 2015)

THIRD DISTRICT SUPERVISOR TOM WOODHOUSE is the latest in a long line of shallow-thinking Mendo officials to insist on “local control” of whatever pot legalization scheme the state comes up with. In some areas, local…

Valley People (May 20, 2015)

LORETTA HOUCK remains in serious but stable condition at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital after suffering a terrible injury to her head in an accident in Boonville three weeks ago. As of Sunday, the family reports,…

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