Part 1

Anderson Valley's Plague

by Russel Norvell

When Anderson Valley's 12- and 13-year-old daughters get sexually violated by some cranked-up, cretinous drug dealer, I don't think today's father gets nearly as outraged as did fathers of 50 years ago. I draw this inference from having seen a riveting Boonville-made 58-minute video, a project inspired in part by the historic "meeting of outrage," two years ago when a big part of the community came together to do something about a problem you can witness daily as you drive through Boonville. It's out there; it's fairly open. Valley shoplifters run a bigger risk of getting busted than dope dealers.

Now, two years later, we have The End of Silence, a realistic group-talk video of students and middle-agers, most of whom live in the Valley. The video was produced by ex-NBC camerawoman Lee Serrie and Heidi Knott (who for eight years headed the Ecomedia International Environmental Film Festival in Germany), plus Valley teacher Mitch Mendosa, whose own interest was sustained by the knowledge of five generations of his family having lived in these parts.

Since this historic meeting the epidemic of methamphetamine use and addiction is still ongoing in Anderson Valley. Since the recent release of the video, however — which has reached virtually every adolescent in the area — things may be changing. Methamphetamine's Russian Roulette no longer seems to be quite so hip to school kids.

In the beginning, meth is fun and you feel like you can do anything. You can stay awake forever. Later, without it, it's like a small dog pulling a large log. It's a drag. In the video The End of Silence, the teenager Chance — always straight himself — says how people "feel like crap when they come down." Chance, whose home has occasionally been the family car, has had his family so infused with drugs, that his lifestyle was a drug culture. But he knew it wasn't "normal." His fear of addiction keeps him drug-free.

This social pestilence is like spreading salt over your garden — bit by bit, day after day, until every bit of green dries up, and then is blown away. In the video, there's a grandmother, Debbie. She talks about Anderson Valley 20 years ago. "This was a community where we all knew each other. We carpooled; we traded transportation. I didn't worry about drug dealers then. Today, there's no way I'd let my grandchildren walk downtown alone. Too many dealers out there. I don't say they prey on little kids. But why wouldn't they; that's their main concern; they want money."

And so has settled a pall over another meth-infested rural paradise, where, Debbie could well join a chorus of a hundred Valleyites reminiscing about "the days folks didn't even lock their doors."

Quite true, and speaking figuratively, Valleyites are still not locking up; that is, they're still not paying attention — even as their daughters — principally daughters — but sons as well, fly into the web of a stimulant, far longer-lasting than the baby boomer's cocaine, and because it is cheaper, it's therefore — as Amber in the video says about meth: "It's everywhere in the Valley."

Before the video, the community attitude could be summed up: "Sure it's here, but we don't talk about it. Don't print my name."

To break down the resistance to making a drug film, Lee Serrie and Heidi Knott ordered a flood of government films on the evils of drug abuse and asked the students to criticize them. The students found them funny as hell; and the hipper of the adults thought they were pretty funny, too. These sanctimonious "dramatizations" were no more effective than were long-ago members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and its Carrie Nation, smashing down those swinging doors of Kansas saloons. Institutional films, such as those the kids watched, target a nation at large; they reach no one in particular. That's when a few people in the Valley decided they could make one of their own... and beginning with the Valley, reach everyone.

There are some 20 participants in The End of Silence, all of whom tell their story as it progresses relentlessly and inevitably through eight self-explanatory stages: What Got Me Going; Friends and So-Called Friends; Changes; DUI; Hitting Bottom; Family — Tough Love; Recovery, and Choices.

In terms of demographics alone the video is a work of collective genius. There are Anglo kids, a Native American, and a Latino whose history of use, for some, goes back to sixth- and seventh-grades. Most participants are recovering; there are two girls and two boys who have been straight forever. The video opens and closes with a hard-hitting rap song, composed by Josh Brokemond and Kevin Tobie, two African-American young men from a local group home. Culturally, this video is very inclusive.

In The End of Silence, there are middle aged "cranksters" (four very articulate men and a heartbreakingly eloquent woman, who as with all others, just went by her first name, JoAnne, and who at one point, doubtlessly speaking of herself, said: "I know I am short, but when I used I was ten feet tall.") There was at least one addict from an upscale home; others had slept with their families in cars. One of the men, who had used other folks' cars to sleep in, said the trick was to split before the owner headed off to work, perhaps thinking in terms of a paraphrase, "Sorry to sleep and run." Rudy, the recovering addict did more than talk. When speaking of meth's resultant bone-loss from this poor-man's cocaine, he illustrated by smiling broadly, then pulled out a partial, exposing a gaping hole where his three front teeth had been.

There's also a justifiable bit of preaching in the video — this time from local doctor, Dr. Gary Fasconi, who told of a 17-year-old boy who had lost his first time out in this game of Russian Roulette. His loss was in the use of half his body. Ten years ago a stroke left his right side paralyzed — so immobilized that tubes are even connected to his penis. This physician's message didn't last long. But it didn't have to. (People with high blood pressure or a family history of heart disease should shun amphetamines. Thus another big disadvantage to street sales: with that twenty-buck score, you don't get your blood pressure checked.)

Both the doctor — as well as several middle-aged recovering addicts — spoke with a matter-of-fact candor that is both sad and uplifting. One of the men openly said that having dope was having friends. His name is Mike and he imitates the slowed-down, affected drawl of a stoned rural hipster. Pointing to the entrance, Mike says: "Let's say Bill comes through the door, before he even sits down, he asks if I have any dope, and if I don't he's out of here — he's gone like roaches under a kitchen light." Roger, another middle-aged recovering addict, had this to say: "Well, the 'Candy Man' is always a popular man, and I guess I was the candy man." (The word "friend" is said throughout the video, expressing a need that is in all of us. When relationships are working, no friends can beat those to be found in one's own family.) Roger now has a good relationship with his son. "Last week," he says, "I pinned my son's wings on. In the old days, I wouldn't have done anything like that." Roger said this last with both self-deprecation and heartfelt pride. This ceremony of pinning the wings on his son will need no camcorder or scrapbook for remembering.

There is no time more crucial than in one's formative years, particularly adolescence. Laura, a recovering addict/alcoholic is now a purposeful, no-nonsense 20-year-old, who today has her sights set on running a business of her own. On the video, Laura's comments are those that she read a year ago before all the middle-schoolers in Anderson Valley.

For Laura, things began to go haywire when she transferred schools in the fifth grade from Comptche to Mendocino. "Everyone thought I had a wonderful future ahead of me, but... I got my first taste of girls competing with each other and how it feels to be rejected from the popular crowd...

The feeling that Laura experienced was the kind that pushes the rejected to that group which sadly wears its rejection like a badge of honor and is overly democratic in its acceptance of new members. Laura naturally gravitated toward "girls from broken homes and druggie parents. Troubled girls who didn't quite fit in. They all used drugs, so I did too... We numbed our pain and problems with substances... The person that I had been — with dreams and goals — was drowned out.

"It wasn't that I didn't know the facts. I knew that marijuana destroys your motivation. I knew that meth is very addictive and destroys your body. But I was more interested in keeping my friends than in taking care of myself.

"Even though my parents had warned me that a number of close relatives were alcoholics and that I might be susceptible to alcoholism, of course I thought it couldn't happen to me. My first clue was when I was 13 and some of my lovely friends broke into our neighbor's trailer and we drank his vodka. I got so drunk that I put my arm through the window and cut my wrist. That could have been the end of me, but I was lucky and stopped the bleeding. I thought I was under control. One of those sad friends continued abusing substances until he put a gun to his head and blew his brains out a couple of years ago.

"I dated druggies and losers, ran away from home because my parents did not approve of my behavior; I lived homeless on the streets of Mendocino."

On the video, Laura's mother, Sara, tells of losing contact with her 15-year-old for days and nights at a time. Laura would be wandering the streets of Mendocino, while her mother Sara was in Anderson Valley. Wistfully, Sara says, "Mendocino friends would contact me from time to time and tell us they'd seen Laura. One time, at night, I drove over to Mendocino; I had heard there was a kids' party off the Headlands. I walked toward the point, screamed her name at the sea. There was no answer. I couldn't find Laura... that's how distraught I was."

Laura picks it up: "I dropped out of school and joined my friends in a pointless circle of either being high or looking for a substance to get high on. I did LSD, mushrooms, pills, animal tranquilizers. Got so drunk that the police were called. Did crank, coke and crack. Sat in the back seat of Deputy Keith's patrol car with the dog barking at me through the bars after my parents asked him to pick me up in order to save me from myself...

"The turning point for me came when I drove drunk and wrecked my new car with my little sister in the car. I thought I was fine to drive, but when the officers tested me, I was extremely drunk. I spent the night in jail on a cold metal bench with a bruised head and pounding headache from having hit the window three times. All I could think of was that I could have killed my little sister because I was a drunk. I realized that because of my substance abusing lifestyle... I had gotten pregnant in shame and ended it in shame.

"I finally admitted that my friends, my lifestyle, and the substances had not brought me pride or happiness. None of these things made me feel beautiful inside and out. They only made me feel... worthless. Hopeless.

"Drinking is so common in our culture, but some of us should never drink."

Now, Laura admits to being an alcoholic/addict. It runs in the family. It didn't bypass her. Why should it?

Continuing, Laura concedes: "I was lucky. I could easily be dead by now... At least one of my old friends is dead; several have been in jail; several are homeless, and all of them have given up on any kind of dreams for the future... Look at the druggies who hang out on the street in Boonville. Do they seem happy?

"I was lucky because of three things. God or the higher power above was watching out for me. My own strength and will helped keep me safe. But most of all, my parents stuck by me through it all. They never lost faith in me... Most of my old friends did not have a caring family to support them, so once they started the drugs and alcohol, they had no one to turn to for help."

In the video, Joe, a Native American, and Luis, a Latino, are both engaging. From each came a wistful, but very profound self-knowledge. The video is particularly poignant when the camera caught Joe puzzling over "What Got Me Going," one of the eight sections of The End of Silence. As a Native American, Joe had at least observed the joys of a tight family life. "For a long time," Joe says, "I lived with my grandma; it was just me and her... I wanted friends... I just got the wrong friends." The opportunity to seal such friendship came at school, when Joe and his friends "would smoke meth and weed during lunch break... At first I thought it helped with school. And then I noticed I was thinking more about my next fix than the books."

For a period Joe also lived with his mom and step-dad. Joe comments: "There was violence. At one house, whenever the windows got broken out, the family would move to another room. All the doors had been broken down." Joe speaks warmly of his step-father; they bonded when Joe "smoked weed with him."

Fortunately, Joe went to rehab. There he saw what all recovering folks discover: he wasn't unique after all. "You think nobody knows what you're going through. There were others there who lived alone with their grandma, too."

On the video, when it came time for Luis, he simply says, "Meth took away my love for sports... hobbies," he says. "Meth became my hobby." As with many of the others, Luis's comments were laced with a sense of inevitability. When the headlight hits the deer's eyes, the deer just has to freeze. "And so," Luis says, "I was absent for 16 days, and they sent me to Rancheria, the continuation school."

In another section of the video, a friend asked Luis — now that he was clean and sober — if he was still invited to turn on at parties. Luis smiled, and leaned his head back. "Yeah man, it happens all the time. I'm asked all the time. Man, if you can't say no, just walk away. Just walk away from that little group."

In Luis's wistful manner, there seemed great, though not bitter, regret. As he looked to the hills beyond, I swear I heard Marlon Brando's words to his brother in On the Waterfront: "I could have been a contender." I think Luis, and all the others down deep in them "have the right stuff." Each of them, in his own way, in her own way, can still be a contender. Cesar Chavez, Lincoln and Mark Twain would have fit right in, in Anderson Valley.

~ end of Part 1 ~

Part 2

Crank, and Anderson Valley

by Russel Norvell

We ended last week's article on the Valley's home-grown methamphetamine video by suggesting that Anderson Valley could very well have been the starting-out place for hundreds of notable Americans, whose greatness could be traced to similarly rural, similarly limited surroundings: Lincoln, for example, and Mark Twain. With all their dreams of social justice and literary greatness, Lincoln and Mark Twain in Anderson Valley, would have fit right in.

These geniuses, with such an unpromising background, were dissatisfied with what they saw — or read — or heard — or felt — or observed. For Mark Twain, it may have been wanting to write the truth about "Life on the Mississippi." For Lincoln it may have started when he was 10 and saw black human beings being sold in New Orleans.

Drug addicts are adventuresome, too. They are dying to go — right now — someplace, anyplace other than where they are — right now. The vehicles (choice of drugs) may differ; destinations may differ. But the main thing is the trip.

You can stay stoned for quite awhile for twenty bucks. And in the beginning, if you're a girl, you don't even need the twenty bucks. At first it's free. Once hooked, it's sex for meth... Good God, what a way for a 13-year-old to be introduced to an essence of her womanhood. That's why, at the beginning of this article, I flashed on how a justifiably outraged father might have reacted a half century ago.

Today, here, and all over, there's such an ambiance of resignation. It's almost as if one were saying, "Well, yes, there's been a lot of flu going around. It's really bad, particularly with the kids." Maybe it's a sign of the times. It's as if you were referring to toxic-laced Louisiana: "Oh, you live in Cancer Alley. It could be worse; you could be dead."

Over lunch in Philo, Laura, of the video, agreed with a hearty laugh that marijuana, for all of its non-lethal benefits, is not necessarily a drug you'd smoke before doing that night's algebra homework.

Just how "benign" then is marijuana? For the first time, at ages 14, 15, 16, young people are seeing how exciting ideas can be, ideas of what makes the world tick and for whom. The mind is impressionable; the ideas are fresh. Between the two, between the ideas and the mind, shouldn't there be between them absolute clarity — with no distortion of any kind? When you go to the store for a sports coat you expect the mirror to give back just what's there, not a funhouse mirror that distorts.

Admittedly, marijuana at times can be a catalyst for insights that may have eluded one otherwise. But after the high's over, where have all those marvelous insights gone? Flying with the butterflies.

As meth addiction continues, the user feels trapped in a spider's web of humanity's most insidious stimulant — dangling from a web endlessly vibrating, twitching in the web, twitching with mindless energy, so consumed with moving, racing, talking, driving, talking, lying, moving, racing, accusing, lying, betraying, stealing, lying... eat? We ate yesterday — so consumed with the next fix, that for some, this twitching morphs into a literal, physical scratching, scratching until there's a real infection — all this scratching, this non-religious self-flagellation, all for a self-imposed itch.

When a throw-away element of society becomes diseased, it's more difficult for the middle-class to act. Moreover, since most of the wholesale dealers are Mexican, it's easier for this cultural indifference to be transformed into intimidation. I know of one outraged resident, a prominent member of the media, whose next-door neighbor is a Mexican wholesaler dealing in pounds. Between the two men there is a seething, unspoken hostility. That's it. Period. Unspoken hostility.

Most of the Valley's growing Mexican population make up the work force of the vintners. Look at our school yearbooks. More and more Hispanic names. Most Mexicans do not readily assimilate; that is, they do not assimilate with the same alacrity that was embraced by other immigrants, particularly the early Italians.

As non-racist as we want to be, we feel the presence of these new immigrants, and know that among these visitors — predominantly hard-working and law-abiding — there is just handful of meth dealers, plus armed pot growers. Some of us do not like these suppressed-racist feelings within us, but we don't really know how to react.

Since most families with parents in their 30s have both mother and father working — which by default often leaves, for parenting, the mindless schlock of television — how in the world is a teenager going to get the kind of necessary parental nurturing, which our millennia-old genes tell us should go on until the son is old enough himself to hunt and gather for his own family. When boys are with their fathers hunting; when girls are with their mothers tanning hides or planting rice; when, between daughter and mother, between father and son, there is back-and-forth talk from sunup to sundown every day, just an average parent will know when something is out of balance with their child. Admittedly, we no longer have the luxury of being as civilized as our ancestors were. That's the reason parents should start demanding that their own institutions start taking up the slack. Let's ask some taking-up-the-slack questions:

Are the schools doing all they can? Should there be an open campus? What would the sheriff's office advise on trying to make Anderson Valley a meth-free zone? Are the churches doing all they can? Would Jesus do more?

We've seen the value of friendship and acceptance, particularly among young people. Under the right leadership, Big Sister and Big Brother programs can be lifesavers. Fort Bragg's Big Brothers and Big Sisters have been a Godsend. Where does Anderson Valley fit in this project? Our self-confident Laura, no longer a teenager, advises parents to see that their kids become involved in after-school activities.

During the Measure H campaign we heard a lot about Heirloom Seeds. Isn't this home-grown video sort of like an Heirloom seed? Presently, producers, Mitch Mendosa, Lee Serrie and Heidi Knott are planting The End of Silence around. Last week, Mitch and Heidi and four youthful video participants were slowly working toward national exposure when they showed The End of Silence at a Dominican College teacher-credentialing class, composed of 20-30 young people who were excited about seeing a "text" coming out of their own neck of the woods.

In recalling their visit, Mitch said, "Obviously, beginning teachers need to know about the drug culture with which their students might become associated, and that they themselves can become involved in solutions to the problem. But beyond the intrinsic value of the film, is its radical message for teachers: If you want to get your kids involved, get them out of the classroom, connecting to their own surroundings. It's called 'Place-based education.' Rather than defining it, let's say your community is faced with a dying river. Kids can investigate, take notes, do research, conduct interviews, write reports, testify at hearings, and yes, do a home-made video."

Look at what students are learning: how to write, how to speak, how to edit, how to do research that's immediately relevant to their own environment, and how to work as a team, which thus far has been the domain of coaches and athletes. And then there's the second-language angle. I think it's really fortunate, by the way, that we were also able to make a Spanish-language version of The End of Silence.

Mitch is also involved in place-based projects with the North Coast Rural Challenge Network, which at first was supported by an Annenberg grant (but now is funded mainly by the Walter S. Johnson Foundation and the Center for Ecoliteracy). This environmental network involves Anderson Valley, Point Arena, Laytonville and Mendocino, comprising a four-district educational cooperative. Each district works on its own projects, sharing its ideas and strengths with the other three.

As for the video, The End of Silence — it's presently working like ripples on a stream. "They've already seen it," Mitch says, "in Point Arena, Mendocino, Laytonville, Willits, Potter Valley, and of course Anderson Valley. Fort Bragg and Ukiah are settling on a date. We sent it to Humboldt State University. The Dean there is using it in their teacher preparatory classes."

Indeed, there has been a county-wide crucible of video work. Native Americans in Point Arena made one called Life on the Rez. Another ongoing Valley project is Voices of the Valley. Contacts are being made in Covelo, where — as with Anderson Valley — the drug of choice is methamphetamine.

In discussing the present video, Mitch says, "Fortunately, our project was loaded with serendipity. How likely is it that a network camerawoman from New York, and a documentary maker out of Germany, are going to wind up in Anderson Valley living next door to each other? And just when we needed them.

"Here's more serendipity," Mitch says. "In the first place, the project itself almost didn't get off the ground. We started with trying to videotape one boy in a classroom at the Rancheria school. Nothing happened; he clammed up. Lots of kids were apprehensive that our project would be amateurish. With more legitimacy, perhaps, others thought they would be stigmatized by their friends, neighbors and the community at large.

"Next we tried with a group of four or five kids. Still nothing. Silence. And then along comes Amber, a spontaneous, outgoing bundle of energy, who said, 'I might have a few things to say about that'."

And she did. It's Amber who leads off the video, by claiming that meth "is all over the place." It's Amber, who when gently prodded by participant Chance, her cousin, about girls and meth, said, "Dealers love girls like me; they give girls drugs for free."

When prodded some more with the usual why, why, why, a slightly exasperated, Amber exclaimed on the video , "Because they're sick; they're sick perverts."

If Amber was the catalyst for the video, JoAnne was its wise den mother. She is the one who appears most clearly to be in a 12-step program. Looking to be in her early 40s, and, as with most, a former poly-drug user, JoAnne speaks most eloquently in the video's segment, called simply DUI. Jo Anne caused a multiple-car crash, in which her husband at the time, was paralyzed. She spoke with deep remorse. As with three other mothers on the video, JoAnne was frustrated she couldn't reach her own child. "When I was in prison in 1980 I didn't get it. Today I deal with a son who doesn't get it for some reason. Like most addicts, he think he's different." How many of us at one time thought that we were immortal?

One of the video's "lessons" that could have been further developed was that of youthful abstinence. For Jordan, it was revulsion at seeing meth's results on his older brother. Frustrated in finding the right words, Jordan most memorably described his brother's behavior simply as "dumb". As we've already heard, Chance abstains largely because of fear — fear of the addiction he says runs in his family. Marci seemed the most adamant in her refusal to use drugs. It's love of her family, a tight Italian family that's lived in the Valley for generations. There was a consensus from both users and non-users that one can get addicted "after only one hit."

Clearly, committed non-users learn from a family's users. These non-users abstain on their own. For others, more alert parenting could have been salutary. Emblematic of mothers' inattention was Anne, mother of Forrest. Anne says she saw stuff "in the garage, on the road. There were test tubes, beakers, tin foil with brown stripes." Her son Forrest was finally kicked out of the house, but has since returned as a non-user. Anne says, "I was disappointed in myself for not recognizing the signs and the symptoms ahead of time, because once I found out that this had been going on for two years I was appalled...

"...I've taught parenting classes; I'm an educated professional; I've lived here in the valley. [This] caused so much guilt in me, it was a very difficult choice to make to use tough love by saying you can't be here anymore — you're not going to school; you're not working; you're staying constantly high and its devastating to our family and you just need to go. And he just walked away and he said, 'Bye Mom'." At that time in his life, Forrest clearly had no adult to confide in.

Recovering addict-alcoholic JoAnne has the last word: "You've got to find somebody you can trust to talk to. Somebody, anybody you can trust. A parent, counselor, another kid and no matter how embarrassed you are. Once you start to hide your feelings, that's when drugs start to play."

For too long Anderson Valley has hidden its own feelings. For those who live in one of the garden spots of the world, there are many who are now speaking out.

Perhaps it is the end of silence.

(For your own copy of The End of Silence send $30 to Heidi Knott; Box 589; Philo, CA 95466.)

Credits for The End of Silence...

Beyond the speakers in the film, we should first credit students in Patty DeFaveri's advanced computer class at Anderson Valley High School. Editors: Dan Sullivan, Mitch Mendosa, Tom Wolsky. Original Music, "Life's a Gamble," by Josh Brokemond, Kevin Tobie. Music Recording: Laughing Coyote Studio — Spencer Brewer, Bobby Cochran. Computer Graphics: Tim Charles, Rene Ochoa, Vanessa Rossi, Jenna Walker. Computer support: Jim Lutticken. Spanish Translation: Esther Soto. Spanish dub voices: Jose Delgado, Jessica Ibarra, Juan Malfavon, Rene Ochoa, Marcos Perez, Veronica Sanchez. Thanks also to Anderson Valley Unified School, District's J.R. Collins, Jim Tomlin, Vicki Czapkay. Student Interns: Josh Brokemond, Tim Charles, Rene Ochoa, Vanessa Rossi, Jenna Walker, Jessica Walker.

From the community: Pat Acord, Wendy Blankenheim, Gwen Brock, Briana Burns, Patty DeFaveri, Margaret Howe, Val Muchowski, Wendy Patterson, Donna Pierson-Pugh, Barbara Scott, Cindy Wilder, The Boonville Hotel; Dr. Ron Jester, Dr. Gary Fasconi, Dr. Mark Luoto, Ukiah Valley Medical Center, Hugo Boeckx (Inmate Services Program), Diane Marshall (Therapeutic Court, Mendocino County), Gary Hudson (Mendocino County Undersheriff), Robert G. McAlister (Chief Probation Officer, Mendocino County), Sarah Livingston (Deputy Probation Officer).

For Financial Support we sincerely thank: Community Prevention in Action (CPIA), a program of the Mendocino County Department of Health, Alcohol and other Drug Programs; Prevention Services through Mendocino County Tobacco Settlement Revenues; Govenor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning (OCJP), Supression of Drug Abuse in Schools; Ukiah Valley Medical Center; Adventist Health; Mendocino County Office of Education (MCOE); Youth Employment Program, Maurice Knott. (—R. Norvell)