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Valley People (Nov. 7, 2018)

VETERANS DAY OF REMEMBRANCE. Presented by The American Legion, Kirk Wilder, and Steve Sparks, with help from friends. At The Evergreen Cemetery, Anderson Valley Way, Boonville, California. 10.30am, Sunday, 11th November, 2018. A Two-Minute Silence will be observed at 11am. “The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month.” Valley folks are encouraged to attend this important Service of Remembrance. This is not a political or religious event. It is simply an opportunity for the community of Anderson Valley to show its support and gratitude for both the men and women who gave their lives or were wounded in the service of their country, and also those who have served or continue to serve, so that we may have the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy today… We hope to see you there. Following the Service, there will be a gathering at The Buckhorn and also a complimentary BBQ at the Veterans Hall hosted by the AV Veterans. (Steve Sparks)

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, introducing this season’s basketball coaches at Anderson Valley High School:

  • Junior High: Travis Foote
  • Girls JV: J.R. Collins
  • Girls Varsity: Tony Sanchez
  • Boys JV & Varsity: Brian Jette

OUR HIGH  SCHOOL’S perennially-in-the-playoffs soccer team has again made it into the quarter-finals of the small school championships with a 2-0 win last week over Averroes of Fremont. The Panthers take on Waldorf of San Francisco today (Wednesday afternoon, November 7th) in San Francisco.

HALLOWEEN came and went quietly in the Anderson Valley, with tiny ghosts and goblins descending mostly on Airport Estates where, I’m reliably informed, the typical home spent a hundred bucks on candy. Why Airport Estates? The houses are in close proximity, and the tiny ghosts and goblins can emerge with whole bags of treats in less than an hour.

THE ONLY DISTURBING visual we saw on Halloween — a night of major mischief in times gone by — was the constant one of vehicles speeding through Boonville heedless of the groups of children, most with parents, most accompanying parents at least carrying flashlights, as they moved through town on the mostly dark road sides. However, it is reassuring to see traffic stopping for the flashing red lights of our school buses, although I’m sure our bus drivers can cite any number of instances where drivers hurtled dangerously on past them as they boarded and disembarked children. About the traffic? We speak only from our observation deck in central Boonville.

THE AVA didn't leave Boonville last Wednesday afternoon in a timely manner. In fact, it didn’t leave at all as it unfailingly has for forty years with Jan the Mail Lady. Jan took a rare day off. Her replacement forgot to pick up the paper-paper. Our bags of outbound papers languished overnight on the landing to the rear of the Boonville Post Office. The paper-paper was at least a day late reaching subscribers and stores outside the Anderson Valley, and the goddess only knows when it will reach people outside California. Jan the Mail Lady herself called us with the bad news. She was as contrite as if the error were hers, but Jan the Mail Lady doesn't make errors and, as one of those increasingly rare persons in government at all levels who is genuinely troubled when things go awry, especially things she feels responsible for, Jan the Mail Lady felt obligated to call us to explain what happened. In a time when undeserved superlatives are heaped on everything from sandwiches to exploding automobiles — "the greatest; amazing; unique; awesome" — Jan the Mail Lady has quietly gotten it done from Cloverdale to Point Arena and back six days a week for 40 years, a truly awesome record.

BOONVILLE'S INFRASTRUCTURE, an on-line exchange:

Mr. Wendel of Fort Bragg writes: “To avoid a big surprise when you open your “rate letter” next year, be aware that the lowest monthly fixed charges for (definitely not modern infrastructure) water and sewer service at a single-family residence in Fort Bragg is $77…and that’s only if you do not use any water; it’s just to have the mandatory service available at your home. The variable water and sewer charges are added to that. Are there any preliminary hints about the rate structure in Boonville?

Mark Scaramella replies: Standby fees are common in water system rate structures. As far as hints go, so far all we know is that because Anderson Valley/Boonville is considered economically depressed by census standards, rates cannot exceed 2% of average monthly household income if state grant funds are used to install the systems. That translates to something like $60-$70 per month for water and $60-$70 for sewer. Exactly how that gets worked out — if it’s worked out — remains to be seen.

ANOTHER READER WRITES, citing the article linked below: “Folks in Boonville need to understand that over time their whole aquifer may become polluted, even those outside the project zone: nytimes.com/2018/11/03/us/water-contaminated-rural-america.html

MARCUS CALDWELL, the young Willits man accused of a brutal rape of a Willits woman nearly a year ago, was arrested here in Boonville as he worked on tree trimming job for PG&E near Boont Berry Farm. Caldwell’s dna identified him as the woman’s attacker: www.theava.com/archives/89552#7

INTERESTING REPORT ON KZYX by Alice Woefle on the local demise of small school football. Robert Pinoli, the Athletic Director at Boonville High School, pointed out that a crucial factor in football's disappearance, even 8-man, in the County's outback schools is declining enrollment generally. The neo-popularity of futbol of course coincides with the arrival over the past forty years of Mexican immigrants, and futbol, aka soccer, is the national sport of most countries in the world, including Mexico. In 1971 there was not a single Spanish-speaking student enrolled in the Anderson Valley schools. Today that enrollment is 80% Spanish-speaking.

THERE ARE OTHER OBJECTIONS to football from many parents reacting to studies that reveal at the advanced levels of the game, levels that very few young men achieve, permanent brain damage is an occupational hazard. At the high school level permanent brain damage is much less likely because collisions among high school students aren't nearly so fierce as they are at the college and pro levels of the game. Soccer isn't exactly non-violent; using your head to get a one pound soccer ball down field ten thousand times as a youngster couldn't be all that great for the old noodle.

MS. WOEFLE'S REPORT partly emanated from Potter Valley where Russ Todd informed the reporter that "Soccer is a communist sport." We could have used a follow-up question, Ms. W. Was the guy joking? But given the known levels of scholarship in PV probably not. Looked at one way you could say the Potter Valley Diversion is a communist project devised by Potter Valley's noble sons of the soil like Todd — the Potter Valley Politburo — to guarantee them virtually free water for a at the expense of downstream households — the water proletariat. But futbol less violent than football? Yeah, but there’s plenty of contact in all sports, and didn't a couple of Central American countries go to war over the outcome of a soccer match? And aren't international soccer contests also fraught with mass rioting by nationalist yobbos, Brit fans being so bad they're banned by some countries?

AS SOMEONE ONCE SAID, “Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and soccer is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen."

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