In some ways, Fort Bragg has seen this before. This scrappy former mill town of 7,000 perched on the edge of a continent, a few miles from the San Andreas fault, has seen its share of shocks — power outages, mill closures, tsunamis, economic apocalypse. But Fort Bragg is now chock full of senior citizens […]
One day in New York City my bike was stolen. I loved that bike. It was stripped-down industrial black with fat tires and no-frills. Nice. But what I really loved, actually more than I loved my girlfriend, certainly more than music or reading or art or basically anything, was riding that baby through New York […]
What does Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area, a mile and a half north of Leggett, have to do with the Covid-19 pandemic? Nothing of a direct nature is the correct answer. However, there is a connection to the devastating pandemic of a century ago. A little history for context. Miles Standish and Henry Hickey, whose names […]
About 40 years ago the Mendocino County Historical Society was producing monographs on several subject areas. In the “Stories of Mendocino County” series #14 was Ray Shultz and is “Valleys of Mendocino County.” He tried to get a personal short story for every valley he listed and while I can’t share those due to space […]
Terence Tyrone “Kayo” Hallinan entered the ring in 1937, the second of five boys born two years apart, as per mother Vivian’s plan, and given nicknames by father Vincent, who would train them to be roughnecks. Before Kayo came Patrick (“Butch”) and after came Michael (“Tuffy “), Matthew (“Dynamite”) and Conn (“Flash” at first, “Ringo” […]
A big rock, located on the far back of my property, has always intrigued me. You need to know where it is and how to get to it. The rock is a round mass of smaller rocks held together by what looks like some kind of mud or gray plaster. The diameter of the big […]
By the time I picked the miners lettuce in the meadow it had already flowered and was tougher than it would have been if I had picked it a week earlier, before the sun and warm weather. No, I’ve not become a gatherer and certainly not a hunter. Except for squirrels and wild turkeys there’s […]
Turning off Highway 101 onto 20 West the day before St. Patrick’s Day brought a foreboding chill, maybe even a shiver. When we left Ukiah the hammer had just come down and public spaces were shutting down. We didn’t know what to expect in Fort Bragg assuming we survived the wet, winding, foggy slog through […]
Being the son of a great man isn’t easy. As a reporter I had seen Terence Hallinan in some very dramatic situations over the years. In an Army courtroom defending 14 Presidio stockade prisoners charged with mutiny. At City Hall in San Francisco, imploring his fellow supervisors to pass a resolution enabling Dennis Peron to […]
Tom Wodetzki of the Albion Bridge Stewards recently gave the Kelley House Museum an interesting document. Its title is “Final Construction Report for the Construction of a Timber, Steel and Concrete Bridge Across the Albion River,” dated August 29, 1944. Believe me, readers, this is mostly dry, statistical reading for 97 pages, ending with five […]
A few weeks ago we ran an item in the aftermath of the mid-December cottage fire behind Lauren’s Restaurant in downtown Boonville about Sarah Ryan’s attempt to get her $2000 rent deposit back from property owner Eddie Carsey. Ms. Ryan had rented the place since 2015, which functioned as both her home and a small […]