Really, I had no idea. We’re all ambitious in my family, but hardly any of my cousins have become as famous as me. Visiting every country in the world. Hosted by presidents, princes, prime ministers. Bigger than Gangnam Style. Bigger than The Beatles! And in just a few months! I must admit, it’s not because […]
The first two seasons of “The Crown,” the Netflix series about Queen Elizabeth of England, were intriguing. A young princess gets accelerated onto the throne years before she expects, while her family struggles to catch up alongside her. Claire Foy playing a plucky young woman rising to an immense occasion. TV worth watching! Then the […]
The conflagration in downtown Boonville last Thursday afternoon drew crowds of neighbors, valley locals, and firefighters. If you were among the first two groups, you might have some questions about what the third group was doing. Here are some of the things you saw. The fire was paged out on the local 911 network at […]
If you’re like most people in the valley, you get to Boonville fairly often. You eat in the cafes, you hit Rossi or the Drive-in, get some groceries at Boont Berry or AV Market. You’ve discovered, happily, that Disco Ranch has nothing to do with disco. Your budget might even include a splurge at the […]
Antoinette and I were about to leave Boonville for Ukiah on Thursday July 5 when our pagers went off. We immediately checked if they signaled an ambulance emergency. They did not, so we didn’t have to run to the truck. Instead we walked down the driveway. The 911 caller had reported “black smoke in the […]
What if the revolution came, and we missed it because we tossed out the announcement? Seems like that’s what happened last month, when PG&E customers in Mendocino County got word that the utility no longer has a monopoly on selling us electricity. Most people I talked to don’t remember getting the letter, didn’t read it, […]
If it’s spring the calendar must be bursting with local events. Every organization with a festival to put on, or funds to raise, or things to exhibit seems to seize on the fine weather and the visitors it brings. Despite the oft-heard lament that all the good weekends are taken, a new event is fitting […]
I became an EMT because of natural disasters I witnessed in the Bay Area. In 1989, I was in an office building near the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake, and saw things happen to furniture, cars, trees, and people that I had never imagined. Driving home on surface streets through the blacked out cities […]
Economists use the phrase “essential utility” to describe something so important to a community that it must be owned or regulated by the community. For Anderson Valley, Brian Blumberg was an essential utility who regulated himself. An expert plumber in a valley short on plumbers, he knew that if he did not respond to a […]
I’m hooked on a new drama, called the CFS. It’s not a crime show, exactly, though there’s potential tragedy enough. It’s more of a reality show about Anderson Valley, starring the Navarro River watershed. Everyone living or working in the valley plays a bit part. Episodes arrive daily, via the internet. One of the most […]