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Valley People (November 6, 2019)

DONALD HARRIS, 58, of Philo, died Sunday morning, October 20, 2019, while surfing  off Point Arena cove. Harris grew up surfing Huntington Beach, in Orange County. After moving to Sausalito “to chase my heartthrob,” his wife, Bonnie, he became a regular in the lineup at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, one of the most challenging waves on the West Coast. “He was really well respected,” said his friend and fellow surfer, Jack Beresford, of San Diego. “Not only for his surfing ability, but for his generosity and willingness to give back.” After moving to Philo, just north of Boonville, Harris had spent the last seven years as the technology manager for the Anderson Valley Unified school district. His daughter, Lana, is a freshman at Anderson Valley High School. AV Superintendent Michael Warych said that “unquestionably the greater loss is that he was a wonderfully good guy who was loved and respected not just in the school district, but throughout the Anderson Valley area.”

NOVEMBER AT THE YORKVILLE MARKET Friday, November 15th will be our next Fiesta Night. We will be serving delicious homemade Posole, with all the fixings. There is a possibility of live music to spice up the evening as well. Mark your calendar for our Christmas Party on December 20th - This is a fun evening of carols, crafts and delicious food. Thank you all for your support, looking forward to seeing you all soon. For more details on these events please contact the Market at (707) 894-9456

BURGLARY AT LEMONS. On Wednesday, October 9, 2019 at about 1:00 AM, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was notified a burglary had just been discovered at Lemons Philo Market in Philo.  A review of surveillance footage revealed a juvenile male from Yorkville had caused damage to the front door and entered the business at about 12:40 AM  to steal liquor and cigarettes. by October 13th the thief had been arrested and transported to Juvenile Hall, Ukiah.

ANDERSON VALLEY TEE-BALL. Introduction to the game of baseball for both parent and child. Players will learn the basic skills like throwing, catching, hitting and running. Where appropriate, older kids will focus on skill-building and developing fundamental knowledge of the game including team play. (This is a parent volunteer led program. Parent or guardian participation required.) SEASON: Oct 9 - Dec 18. Wednesdays, 4-5pm, AVHS Softball Field. Ages: 3 to 6 years.

NOTED a wonderful new euphemism on Facebook. A local woman said she was posting for a friend who needed to "re-home” her dog. The re-home plea wasn't helped by the photo of the beast to be re-homed, a Pit-looking animal the size of a pony whose food bill, assuming he didn't eat the kids first, would be enormous.

AMONG the many illustrious sons of the Anderson Valley, count Claude Brinegar, who served as Nixon’s Transportation Secretary until Nixon resigned. President Ford asked Brinegar to stay on but he refused. He was the only Democrat in Nixon’s cabinet. The Secretary's roots went deep in the Anderson Valley through generations of Junes and Rawleses. 

“DEAR MR. ANDERSON,” writes Dave McCain,  “It is a raw act of faith that I will live to renew again.” And it’s a raw act of faith I’ll be around long enough to renew you again.

FAIR FANS: Don't forget to put the Annual Dinner and Meeting for the AV Apple Show and Fair Association, Monday, November 11, 2019 at the fairgrounds dining room at 6:00 on your calendar! The AV Senior Center is providing a ham dinner this year and dessert is a potluck. The meeting starts at 7:00 and there will be two directors elected this year. There will be information on how the fair fared this year, so we are hoping you can make it! In order to vote, you need to have signed the "fair book" in the fair office prior to the meeting. (Donna Pierson-Pugh, for The Fair Boosters)

SORRY to see Jeff Blankfort retire from his KZYX show called “Takes on the World.” It was the only take on the world offered by the station I always learned something from him, and probably the only program anywhere that consistently stood up for the Palestinians against the apartheid, crypto-fascist state of Israel.

THE FUNDRAISING for a new fire engine on Signal Ridge outside of Philo has been a smashing success. As of the weekend, over $8,000 had come in from the gofundme page (“new fire truck anderson valley volunteer FD”) and more than $24k was raised from the big fundraiser/BBQ on Outage Day (Saturday, October 26). The success of the campaign can be attributed to co-organizers Anne Fashauer and Olie Smith, and maybe a bit to the general heightened awareness of fire dangers these days. AV Fire Chief Andres Avila will leverage these funds with a combination of fire department reserves, strike team revenues, and donations from the local volunteer firefighters association to cover the approximately $90k for Signal Ridge. Then he’ll rejuggle his local assets to make good use of the older engine that the new one will replace.

ROBERT 'BOB' VAUGHAN has lived in the Anderson Valley for many years where he's worn many hats, from restaurant cook to KZYX music programmer. Bob has colon cancer, and he is being evicted from his long-time Philo home. Mary Aigner adds, “ Bob recently had abdominal surgery and is now undergoing chemo. As we all know, Bob has always gone above and beyond to help others and good causes in our community - showing up early, staying late and doing the things no one else wanted to tackle. So now Bob needs our help to pay his medical and living expenses until he can get back on his feet. To further complicate matters, he needs to find a place to live by December, so some of the funds will go to helping with moving costs & rent once he finds a place to move to. Please give what you can and share this with others who know & love Bob & want to help. https://www.gofundme.com/f/bob-vaughan-medical-expenses

WE'RE IMMENSELY GRATEFUL to the Anderson Valley Fire Station and personnel who graciously made room for us during the power outage to rejoin cyber-communications long enough to post a few items of, hopefully, general interest. Chief Avila and Assistant Chief Angela Dewitt, apart from keeping an eye open for local emergencies, also found time to answer emergency related questions.

AV GIRLS VICTORIOUS! Anderson Valley Varsity girls volleyball (#11 seed) traveled to Eureka to take on perennial private school powerhouse St Bernards who was selected as the #6 seed in the first round of NCS Division 6 playoffs. The Lady Panthers were unable to practice due to the PSPS and came into this game after a full week off. Obviously nervous in the first match, they found themselves down 9-2 but these girls are scrappy and came back to tie the game at 10 and never looked back, winning the first set 25-19. The second set showed the lack of practice and they lost their rhythm and never had control, losing 25-13. The third set made all five AV fans in the stands nervous as the battle continued. Winning that one 27-25 they clearly we’re going down without a fight. The fourth set didn’t go AV’s way and both teams were starting to show signs of fatigue but if there’s anything these girls are good at, it’s letting the other team make the mistakes. They lost the fourth set 25-12. The last set was for all the marbles. It wasn’t a battle of who was more talented, but a game of who could stick to the fundamentals and make less mistakes. AV found themselves up 5-2 but let the Crusaders get back into it and game was tied at 13, and the Crusaders had the serve. Final score, 15-13. Next up! Calistoga (#3 seed) Monday November 4th in Calistoga. This team only brought 7 players, two of whom came from the JV squad. There aren’t any seniors on this team. AV has so much to be proud of in these girls. GO PANTHERS!

IT IS NOW volleyball postseason, and Anderson Valley won their first game in the North Coast Section Division championship. AV narrowly beat St. Bernard Academy in Eureka on Halloween night. Both teams fought hard, but AV won the fifth match, sealing the win! This is quite the accomplishment considering we only had seven players available, two of whom were bumped up from junior varsity and they hadn’t practiced in a week due to the power outage. Coach Kendra McEwan led the scrappy team of juniors Kaitlin Espinoza, Erika Valencia, and Valeria Matvieieva; sophomore Brianna Ferreyra; and freshmen Dulce Sanchez, Anika Ellis, and Willow Douglass-Thomas to victory in an exciting game. AV won the first match 25-20, lost the second match 15-25, won the third match 27-25, lost the fourth match 12-25, and won the fifth and final match 15-13. Our girls will move on, traveling to Calistoga on Monday. I’ll keep you posted.  (AV Athletic Director Arthur Folz)

THE AV ELDERHOME Annual Benefit Dinner at the Boonville Hotel is Sunday, November 10, 2019 from 3-7pm. $150 per person. Reservations required: aveh@pacific.net. Or 895-7730 or 510-388-9103. Chef Perry Hoffman plans a gourmet menu with oysters, surprises, persimmon salad, duck confit with polenta and apple gallete with cider whipped cream for dessert. The new Elderhome cottage can be viewed before the event from 2-3pm.

A YOUNG COAST PARENT told me told me the other day that he and his wife are absolutely delighted with the Mendocino schools but worry that kids as young as fifth graders are known to smoke the bazooka, and the incidence and prevalence of marijuana use among Mendo youngsters grows right on through junior high and high school. Over the long years here in Boonville, I can rattle off the sad fates of kids I knew who got into dope at an early age, a few of them succumbing to institutional-quality schizophrenia in their early twenties and basically vegetabalized the rest of their lives. 

ANDERSON VALLEY FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA REPORTS: Anderson Valley sent out Captain Ben Glaus, Lieutenant Moy Perez, and firefighter Josh Mathias on board wildland engine 7471 but they were not assigned to the Kincade Fire. We were initially called out around 2 am on Thursday morning for interagency assignment but were cancelled because Mendocino County was going to consolidate Mendocino County engines with some Humboldt resources to create a task force. We were asked later in the morning around 9:30 am to recommit to the assignment as a formal strike team with other Mendocino units but were assigned to CalFire station coverage in Mendocino County. With the high risk forecast on the immediate horizon I anticipate that the engine will be out until mid-next week — unless another large incident occurs. PS. Yes, it looks like Boonville is possibly going to get shut down on this go round. This time our generator at the Boonville Station will be fully operational! (It was) 

DRIVING SOUTH the other afternoon in heavy traffic around Santa Rosa, a young woman slightly ahead of me, suddenly swerved partially into my lane before righting herself. I hit my brakes in time to avoid a head-on presumably caused by her phone or some other hand-held gizmo. She pulled adjacent to me to mouth "Sorry." Or a curse, but being a positive dude I assumed she realized how close she'd come to making the news blips about drive-time delays. Distractions everywhere, but this old boy has always taken seriously the sage advice, "Drive like everyone else on the road is trying to kill you." They are. Which a frightening percentage do via inattentiveness, drunkenness, druggedness, simple lack of basic eye-hand coordination, and absence of motor skills, and general decrepitude. Driving 128, which bisects the Anderson Valley "community," i.e., twenty miles of eccentrics arrayed between Yorkville and Navarro, and as anybody who drives it can and will, recite the numbers of times he and she have seen absolutely suicidal vehicular behavior. I've been passed on blind curves, driven behind drunks who swerved all over the road all the way to Cloverdale, seen vehicles shoot off the roadbed and into a tree or over the side into a creek — the works.

TUESDAY November 18th 7 pm. The Greenwood Community Center in Elk. Presentation of the award-winning movie called The Monsanto Papers based on the book White-Wash by Cary Gillam. (2018 Winner of the European Press Prize for Investigative Journalism). After the movie, Charles Acker, General Manager of the Elk and Irish beach Water Districts, will provide an update and lead a discussion regarding issues with Glyphosate in our communities. All are welcome. For more information please contact Kira Brennan at 877-3479. Or kibrenn@yahoo.com. 

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