Bird’s Eye View
Greetings one and all. If you are sitting comfortably then I shall begin. As we enter the New Year I believe we should acknowledge a couple of very special folks in the Valley: our most senior of...
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Mendocino County Today: January 2, 2013
THE AVA PRESENTS! THE BEST & THE WORST OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, 2013 ABSENTEE OF THE YEAR: Winter. Where did it go? 2013 was the driest year in Mendocino County ever. MIA OF THE YEAR. Mendocino County...
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Fortunate Son Redux: El Cerrity Boys
“Ala ka-zip, ka-zip, ka-zam Sonofabitch, god-damn Horse’s ass, cow’s titty We’re the boys from El Cerrity! Yeah…weasel shit!” — a party chant adopted by the boys, defining turf and maturity High school...
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Detroit: Part 1
Day 1 — Opryland Detroit. MOTOWN. Before they tear down old Tiger Stadium. Several years ago a friend of mine and his dad returned to the family’s early roots in East Lansing, Michigan. My friend’s...
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Kansas City Lightning
To me the most boring part of any biography is the beginning. You know, all that stuff about the subject’s childhood and schooling and who his parents were and what they were like and even who his...
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Mendocino County Today: January 3, 2014
SO YOU THINK IT’S BEEN DRY & COLD by Ken Montgomery, Anderson Valley Nursery During the past twelve months (calendar year January 1 through December 31, 2013), I’ve recorded 8.5 inches of rainfall...
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Mendocino County Today: January 4, 2013
============================= AT THE BOONVILLE WINTER MARKET in front of the Boonville General Store on Saturday, 11-1, you will find: AV Community Farm – Cabbage, Kohlrabi and Mustard Greens, Root...
View ArticleMendocino County Today: January 5, 2013
SACRAMENTO BEE COLUMNIST Dan Walters wrote Saturday about a phenomenon that we’ve covered at length in the AVA as it applies to the Northcoast: “An insidious political syndrome popped up in California...
View ArticleMendocino County Today: January 6, 2013
IN THE WETTEST of times, Fort Bragg’s ingenious water system is a struggle. We asked 4th District supervisor Dan Gjerde how it was holding up during the drought: “We’re clearly going through another...
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Mendocino County Today: January 7, 2014
SOHUM RESIDENT ACCUSED OF SHOCKING EUREKA MURDER by Daniel Mintz A Southern Humboldt man has been charged in the New Year’s Day murder of the pastor of one of Eureka’s most iconic churches. Police...
View Article‘At No Cost To You’?
Back in the early 1920s my great uncle, Leonard Ward, had the good fortune to meet and wed Mary Hittson. Leonard was a rodeo cowboy. Mary possessed a home movie camera. She filmed all his rides and...
View ArticleValley People
THE NEW YEAR used to be celebrated in Boonville with gunfire and low intensity explosions commencing, it always seemed, at nightfall. No more. We’re a pretty tame bunch anymore. The anarchic sectors of...
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Off The Record
THE US NATIONAL WEATHER Service has posted a photo of an empty Lake Mendocino. A drought of the 1975-76 magnitude is upon us. TUESDAY, the Supervisors, led by Carre Brown and John Pinches, declared a...
View ArticleBird’s Eye View
Greetings one and all. If you are sitting comfortably then I shall begin. As the drought continues, with no real end in sight, one has to start hoping for a bad preacher to turn up. For, if one does,...
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The Boys From El Cerrity (Part II)
Road Trip: The City of Punks During my junior year, one of the boys, Dan Heikka, moved to Stockton in California’s central valley, where he lived with his mom and step-dad. We missed our good friend...
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Sohum Resident Accused Of Shocking Eureka Murder
A Southern Humboldt man has been charged in the New Year’s Day murder of the pastor of one of Eureka’s most iconic churches. Police believe Father Eric Freed, the pastor of St. Bernard’s church in...
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Selecting Naturally: Local Tree Foods
The location of my experiment with tree crops and the forces of nature are right here on a raw, steep 20-acre homestead. The land is on the margin of foothills and valley, the margin of coniferous...
View ArticleCrisis & Opportunity
“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” — John F. Kennedy According to Chinese philologists, President...
View ArticleSo You Think It’s Been Dry & Cold
During the past twelve months (calendar year January 1 through December 31, 2013), I’ve recorded 8.5 inches of rainfall at my nursery in Boonville. The 77-year annual average around here is slightly...
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Establishing Motive
Establishing motive is one of the key obligations in a homicide prosecution. The evidence suggests three culprits: Fury, money, and narcissism. These emerge in the stories Susan told friends, and in...
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