DAN HAMBURG, chairman of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, says he’s suing Mendocino County over the Sheriff’s stated intention to both file misdemeanor charges and disinter the late Mrs. Hamburg who is buried on the Hamburg property southwest of Ukiah. Hamburg said local officials, specifically the Mendocino Department of Health, knew that the family had buried Mrs. Hamburg at home as per her last wishes because, Hamburg said, he’d informed the department that Mrs. Hamburg had indeed been buried at the family’s 46-acre site.
APPARENTLY, though, Mrs. Hamburg had instructed her family to bury her first and sort out whatever legal objections there might be later. The family did as she’d asked and duly filed an application for approval of home burial, anticipating that it would not be approved, could not be approved, because home burials are allowed in California only after a costly and lengthy administrative process.
ACCORDING TO HAMBURG and his Ukiah-based attorney, Barry Vogel, their suit will seek to compel the County of Mendocino to issue a death certificate so Mrs. Hamburg can remain where she is buried, citing Mrs. Hamburg’s own words in her will: “No state interest or public health reason prohibits the burial of my body on my family’s land, which is a 46 acre parcel in a rural and mountainous section of Mendocino County, other than recording a memorandum notice advising future owners that a unique condition exists on my property.”
THIS THING is going grisly, big time. The law’s very clear about home burials. You can’t do it in California unless you pay lots of money and file a lot of paper. I don’t see the Sheriff or the courts making an exception for the Hamburgs. I do see the Sheriff off-loading a back-hoe and…
BUT. BUT IF MENDOCINO COUNTY can break new ground, so to speak, on marijuana, one would think the County might also permit home burials on suitable properties so long as the gravesite is registered with the County. 46 rural acres is certainly plenty of room for human remains, and who among us doubts that there are bodies planted all over the hidden vastness of fair Mendoland? I know of a lady who simply propped her true love against a tree looking out at his favorite vista completely outside any kind of sanctioned process other than ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
OF COURSE the Hamburg burial has already broken down along lib-yobbo lines simply because Hamburg is who he is. If, say, Jared Carter had buried Barbara Bush without a permit on Carter’s ranch south of Ukiah the libs would be demanding immediate excavation.
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IN OTHER HAMBURG NEWS, the supervisor was on the short end of the Supervisor’s 4-1 vote assuring the Pinoleville Pomo Nation that the County of Mendocino will roll with whatever impacts installation of a casino and hotel just off 101 north of Ukiah might have. Hamburg said that the County’s existing casinos are so many that they are already “cannibalizing” each other, hastening to shore up the politically correct end of that statement with the qualifier, “This is no criticism whatsoever of Native Americans … but it’s really a sad commentary that this is what we call economic development in Mendocino County, is more and more and more casinos.”
HAMBURG at least raised the issue lots of us wonder about. Where do all the gamblers come from? Well, from all over. I know people who are regulars at the local casinos, and have been regulars since the day they opened. On my brief excursions to the jolly gambling halls at Hopland and Shodakai, it seemed to me both places were more like immigrant Mexican social clubs, with actual gamblers the minority. Do these places turn a profit? They seem to, and they do employ people, native and palefaced alike. And people seem to enjoy themselves, which is always likely to annoy the gray and the grim.
ANYWAY, MENDOCINO COUNTY is already America’s intoxicant capitol via wine grapes and marijuana farms. Toss in a few County-sanctioned brothels to go with the casinos, and there’d be northbound traffic jams all the way from Monterrey to Leggett.
THE PINOLEVILLE CASINO, if it ever gets built, and that remains a big if, will go up in two phases on 8.8 acres of reservation land at 2150 N. State Street in Ukiah. It would include about 80,000 square feet of gaming space, up to 749 slot machines, 20 table games and, along with restaurants, possibly a four-story, 25-room hotel and event center and a high-rise parking lot.
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Thompson
DEPARTMENT OF UNINTENTIONAL HUMOR (then again, maybe it wasn’t unintentional) in Tiffany Revelle’s lead story in Wednesday’s Ukiah Daily Journal “At issue: Did Mendocino County Public Defender Linda Thompson make a mistake?”
I’D SAY THE ODDS that Thompson made a mistake are about 99-1 she did, but if she did in this one it seems big-time moot anyway. It boils down to the length of a knife blade. Will Timothy Slade Elliott of Hopland, convicted in 2010 of second-degree murder for the 2008 stabbing death of Samuel Billy, 29, also of Hopland, get a new trial?
SHOULD THOMPSON have asked for “a hearing outside the jury’s presence to exclude the 1.65-inch knife a doctor testified could have been used to inflict the fatal, 6-inch stab wound in Billy’s abdomen.” The dispute is about the length of the knife blade; was the one Elliott allegedly used on Billy long enough to penetrate deep enough to kill Billy?
MS. REVELLE’S STORY has it this way: “‘At trial, I was asked for my opinion of fellow pathologist Dr. Terri Haddix’s conclusion that the knife in evidence could not, when fully inserted, inflict a six-inch deep wound,’ according to an April 7, 2012 declaration from Dr. Jason Trent, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Billy. I testified to my belief that her conclusion was incorrect. My opinion was based, as I stated at trial, on the knife blade measuring between three to four inches long. Based on this information, I am not absolutely able to conclude whether this knife could have caused a six-inch deep wound. If I was told at trial that the knife blade was 1.65 inches long, I probably would have testified that this knife could not cause a six-inch deep wound. However, keep in mind that the victim is dressed, is overweight and the blade strikes no object other than soft tissue.”
THAT GRIM EPISODE occurred late at night on the Hopland rez, with the only eyewitness being a 9-year-old boy whose long distance view of the stabbing Thompson was unable to shake. A jury had no difficulty convicting Elliott whatever the length of the blade he used or didn’t use.
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SAVE OUR LITTLE LAKE VALLEY is conducting tours along the Highway 101 bypass around Willits. The tours are from 1 to 4pm, Sundays on June 2, 9, 16 and 30 and will be partly on foot partly by vehicle along stretches of the bypass. Reservations are suggested and the group meets initially at the Little Lake Grange to begin the tours. For reservations call (707) 216-5549 or visit www.savelittlelakevalley.org.
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THE BOONVILLE HOTEL is celebrating its 25th anniversary under the successful management of Johnny Schmitt. The beneficiary of many remodels and cosmetic enhancements under both Schmitt and his predecessors, the stately 19th century institution offers reasonably priced rooms with an absolutely first-class dining room. Frank James, Jesse James’ brother, once stayed at the Boonville Hotel and, late on a foggy night in the middle of a wintry week the old place fairly sings what it has seen over its 150 years, and it’s seen a lot.
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THIS RUMOR is making the rounds on the Mendocino Coast: The Heritage House, recently purchased by a certain Mr. Green out of Florida who flies in and out of Albion in a private jet, is a front man for the Koch Brothers who plan to use the place as a kind of junior varsity Bohemian Grove, the Bohos being too liberal for the Kochs. Could be. The Kochs already own the invaluable Fort Bragg Mill property just up the road.
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ALL THAT GUCK dredged at Noyo Harbor is piled up behind Affinito’s motel just south of the Noyo Bridge. It’s become a kind of open air drug mart for Coast area tweekers, much to the despair of locals who like to enjoy the little beach at the mouth of the river.
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TOM ALLMAN is already running for a third term as Sheriff. Writing on his Facebook page (Yes, the County Sheriff has a facebook page) Sheriff Allman writes: “Hey Hey Hey! Don’t forget to block off Saturday, July 13th, 2013 for a great party in Willits. It is the kick off to my re-election. The band is booked, the food is taken care of, and now we are just waiting for the day to get here! Send me a private post with your address if you have not received an invitation. It will be at the Willits Community Center. Waylon and the Wildcats will be rockin’ the place and we would love to see you there. If you have not had a chance to hear Waylon and The Wildcats, you will not be disappointed. They are great! Tri-tip dinner, a great live band and a bunch of friendly folks will be there. $49.00 per person and a local motel has offered a great rate for out of towners. Hope you can make it! —Tom”
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DEAD MAN WALKING
by Bruce McEwen
(Dominiak, White, Joaquin, Cook)
Four thieves went to prison last week. The first thief, Fernando Joaquin, got two years and eight months; the second thief, Dustin Cook, got four years; the next thief, Alfred Dominiak, got eight years and eight months; and the fourth thief, Robert White, got 98 years. Three of the robberies involved force and violence or the threat of it.
All four robbers blamed drugs or alcohol.
Mr. Joaquin had gotten himself drunk and, in league with his little sister, a juvenile, committed “a theft from a person, assault with a deadly weapon and preventing the report of a crime.”
In other words, “Give me your stuff or I’ll hit you with this baseball bat. If you tell anyone me and Sis will be back.”
Mr. Cook, who looks like a teenager, as does Joaquin who is a teenager, said if he hadn’t been so intoxicated his crime of first-degree robbery resulting in grave injuries to his victim would never have happened. Mr. Dominiak blamed his theft of a crate of industrial-strength shelving from Big Lots on his drug habit. Shelving? Maybe he thought he was jobbing a crate of $100 bills.
And Mr. White, who is visibly deranged, said he would never have attempted to rob two little old ladies at knifepoint if he hadn’t gone off his psych meds.
It never occurs to any of these guys that their problems could all be attributed to larger forces — the absence of jobs, bad wages for the jobs that do exist, and the overall pitiful state of the economy. Of course some people do bad things no matter what the big picture looks like, but a little perspective, a little class-consciousness might at least give a guy a clue as to why he is the way he is.
Young Mr. Joaquin just turned 18. He was raised in a trailer in Covelo with no windows and no heat, which is to say he was not a son of privilege. Factor in the new pathologies at work in impoverished American households and the kid is probably lucky he made it to 18.
But judges, willfully oblivious Obama Democrats who’ve not lived a minute with the wolf at the door, are well paid to pretend that there’s nothing wrong with the system. Their job is to process its victims in and out of jail and to maintain the social order as it is. Now that there are more and more victims, we’ll get more and more judges more and more cops and more and more jails. More justice is not even a possibility in the present context.
Judge Ann Moorman had already sentenced Mr. Joaquin’s sister, but Sis is a juvenile so we can’t get into that. But Joaquin been getting into trouble for a long time, and now that he’s in the adult system, Joaquin has gotten himself into adult trouble.
Joaquin’s juvenile record was not allowed to influence his sentencing as a newly minted adult, even though Deputy DA Matt Hubley tried to count it as a strike prior.
Carly Dolan of the Public Defender’s office launched a penal code barrage of objection. “If I may interrupt, your honor, that count was stricken from the record, when he admitted the 136.2, which would double the term of confinement for the 487(c) to 32 months, or as we say, two years and eight months. So he’s essentially being punished for conduct while he was a child. And because of his young age and small stature, sending him to state prison will result in his being victimized, and he will return to the community a damaged individual. A more stable, less predatory environment like the county jail would be a good alternative in this case.”
DDA Hubley said he didn’t think “there’s any alternative to state prison in this case.”
Judge Moorman, conceding that the state’s prisons are at least as dangerous as Covelo, said, “Juvenile adjudications are not convictions. His sister was the aggressor in the theft case and housing him in the state prison would not only be against the interests of the community, it would also be against Mr. Joaquin’s interests, especially because of his age and size. And as the jails have been designated as prisons under 1175(h) I do see it as an alternative and I’m going to sentence him to local time.”
Which is no picnic, but the Mendocino County Jail, where violence is indeed on the rise is still not San Quentin. (“Realignment” is the state plan underway that sends certain categories of local crooks to county jails rather than the state pens. The state pens are under federal order to reduce their populations, meaning lots of people who’d ordinarily get sent to them will now stay at home.)
As for Dustin Cook, his father was in court for moral support, but just as his son was being sentenced, someone rushed in to tell Dad that his truck was rolling away down the street, and Cook Sr. rushed out to look after his transportation.
His old man didn’t see his son sentenced to the four years for first degree robbery. The judge commented that Cook the Younger’s challenge would be staying sober when he got out. And here it might be noted that Cook might also have trouble staying sober while in prison, because Mr. Arnold Gahm had been sentenced just moments before for being in possession of drugs while in jail. Gahm got two more years inside.
Cook wanted to address the court. The kid said, “This is all my fault, your honor. I take full responsibility. Mr. Esquivel [the co-defendant] had nothing to do with it.”
Deputy DA Scott McMenomey replied, “I didn’t hear a word of remorse for what he did to the victim. This was a senseless 211 [robbery] that didn’t need to happen.” Cook could have got the stuff without hurting his victim.
Judge Moorman said, “Based on the nature of the offense, the violence and gravity of the injuries to the victim, I’m going to impose the aggravated term of four years.”
Mr. Alfred Dominiak, 54, was not violent in his theft, Big Lots got their shelving back in good condition, and as a result, Mr. Dominiak would get his eight years and eight months suspended — if, that is, he could successfully complete the County’s drug court program successfully, that and sin no more.
“I’m happy to go along with the suspension,” Deputy DA McMenomey said, “if he gets into the program. But he needs to remember that he’s on a really short leash.”
Cathy Livingstone of the Public Defender’s office said her client was going to the Lytton Springs rehab program. Lytton Springs is housed in that stately old orphanage you see on the west side of 101 between Cloverdale and Geyserville.
“I’m not ordering the program,” Judge Moorman said. “I’m ordering the drug court. And I’ll repeat what Mr. McMenomey said. You are on a very short leash, Mr. Dominiak, with a very big sentence hanging over your head. The aggravated term for the second degree burglary is appropriate for all of the reasons named in the probation report, the four prison priors and the fact that he has not been able to remain out of prison for five years at a time without violating his parole, and then there is the increasing seriousness of his crimes. So I am going to impose the aggravated term and suspend execution of it. And you are to have no contact with Cody Barnes, Mr. Dominiak.” The judge then addressed the jailers: “He’s to be taken to drug court this afternoon at three.”
Dominiak got off easy considering his history.
Mr. Robert White was sentenced over in Judge John Behnke’s court, across the hall. This guy is nuts, a diminished capacity case who, in a more reputable time (and place), would be packed off to a state hospital.
White’s lawyer, Dan Haehl of the Public Defender’s office, after chatting briefly with his client said, “Mr. White would like to address the court.”
Judge Behnke said, “Go ahead.”
“I’ve been trying to get a different lawyer,” White said. “The only reason I did any of this is because I went off my meds. I wanted a psychological evaluation done, but I couldn’t get it with this lawyer. Everything I wanted never got done.”
Of course it didn’t, Mr. White, but if you’d had competent counsel in a time and a place where there were humane options you wouldn’t be buried alive.
Judge Behnke was not moved by White’s lamentations. His Honor was contemplating the huge sentence the DA was asking for — 98 years to life in prison. The knife enhancements — brandished at both the women White tried to rob and the husband of one woman who followed White across the parking lot of the Pear Tree Shopping Center and called 911 — were going to add about 25 years onto a very long sentence as it was. And then there were the prison priors.
“I think the court could impose and stay some of the prison priors”—
“I don’t think so,” DA David Eyster interjected.
“Not that I would,” Behnke continued. “The crimes merit the imposition of the priors. Or I could run them concurrent”—
“No, judge!” Eyster gasped, scrambling to his feet. “You can’t do that!”
“But I don’t think I would, even though I could,” Behnke resumed, eying Eyster evenly. “We have three separate victims fearing for their lives with the use of the deadly weapon, the knife, and even if he were eligible for probation, I don’t think I would grant it.”
There were seven special allegations, which added up to 23 years. Then the additional counts, each strike offenses, required 25 years each. Total: 98 years.
Behnke said, “I also find that Mr. White is not eligible under 1175(h) for local time and I am remanding him into the custody of the Sheriff for delivery to the state prison.”
Court Clerk Bonnie Miller said, “Is that with or without the possibility of parole?”
“It’s with the possibility of parole,” Behnke said with a sunny smile and without so much as a hint of irony in his voice.
I went out on the sidewalk to watch White being taken away. I’d have thought he was dead if he hadn’t been walking. ¥¥
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FIREWOOD PERMIT SALES RESUME on Jackson Demonstration State Forest
Fort Bragg– California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Mendocino Unit is pleased to announce the resumption of firewood permit sales on Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF). Due to the limited accessibility of timber sale areas containing downed timber, permits will be limited to two cords ($20.00) per household. Firewood areas will be open May 30, through September 30, 2013, until wood supply is gone, or the first significant rain which ever occurs first. Permits and information on how to safely engage in collecting firewood are available at the CAL FIRE Fort Bragg office located at, 802 North Main Street, Fort Bragg, CA (707) 964-5674. Office hours are 8-12 & 1-5 Monday through Friday. Campgrounds are now open and JDSF would like to remind the public that camping fees have been implemented for all JDSF campgrounds. The base fee for camping is $15.00 per night. Multiple uses of JDSF for a wide variety of activities that benefit the public, the economy and natural resources are what our demonstration forests are all about. — Craig Pedersen, CalFire Forester II, Fort Bragg
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THE LEGGETT VALLEY SCHOOL BOOSTER club is once again hosting a food booth at the 2013 Redwood Run on June 7-9. We are the longest running fundraising organization at LVS with over 20 years raising money for the youths that attend Leggett Schools. We are originally were focused on athletics but as the budget situation has been so dire for the past several years we have incorporated the arts and classroom supplies into our list of activities we fund at the site. This year we hosted the *Missoula Children’s Theater*, an in house *Magic Show*, purchased new soccer uniforms for all teams from Leggett, paid sponsorship fees for the *Southern Humboldt Youth Basketball League *and *Little League* for families that could not afford it, and we are giving out our annual scholarship to local graduates. We have also awarded funds to the Cooking class, the Ski/Snowboard club and purchased items requested by teachers to enhance their abilities to teach through audio and visual aids. It is with much pride that we able to dos much for the children of our schools. It is with this in mind that we want to make the profit from this year’s food booth at the Redwood as substantial as we possibly can. Therefore we are asking for pledges towards the items we purchase to use in our booth, we are not asking for the goods themselves, we took the rounded cost of the goods from last year’s run and broke them down so that you, our potential donor can see where the money goes and pledge and amount that is affordable to you, for specified items. We will provide letters of donation receipt for tax purposes for those of you who require it. All pledges regardless of amount are greatly appreciated.
CHRISTOPHER LASCH could have used Mendocino County as a study population for his pivotal “Culture of Narcissism” where narcissists comprise the majority of our population. In another of his books, I forget which, probably “The Revolt of the Elites,” I wrote down the following:
The engineer said that
clay, especially, can make quite a tough base depending on the thickness of it. He
also said that the footings for the Bay Bridge are in what he called
“thick bay mud” and are not anchored on bedrock, but are still stable in
conjunction with the rest of the bridge. The engineer added that in
some ways the “friction” approach to pier support will help the
superstructure be flexible in an earthquake where stiffness is the enemy.
He said construction techniques can also minimize
settlement, especially test drillings and pile driving on the first pier
can help determine how far down the piles have to go, although each pier
might have to be different depending on what’s underneath. However, the
engineer agreed that there might well be uneven settling and other unknown
construction difficulties associated with unstable ground which “can
probably be solved with enough money.” But is there “enough money”? Time
will tell. If the usual overruns occur, other non-construction
parts of the project might have to be sacrificed for cost reasons, and if the
overruns are even bigger, the job could stall out part way through. (—ms)
California’s Gold Rush may have ended well over a century and a half ago, but there are new prospectors in town and these suits aren’t toting tattered tents and rusty old pans. Instead the new Golden State pioneers employ geologists and lease expensive extraction equipment. Yet, in many ways it is still the Wild West out here in the land of sun and sea, and many are hoping to strike it rich.
I LOVED the two phrases: “Nutraloaf is usually bland, perhaps even unpleasant….” The only way you could un-bland and un-unpleasant this uniquely unappetizing glop is to kick it down the road a hundred yards, get your dog to whiz on it, dip it in used motor oil, and leave it out in the sun for a couple of years. Really, the Donner Party would have thrown this stuff back out into the snow. But then at the ball game the other day I watched four women old enough to know better eat those big, dry ball park pretzels dipped in mustard. Given the choice I’d go for Nutraloaf.
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SUPERVISOR HAMBURG has filed a damages claim against the County of Mendocino. The Supervisor and his attorney aren’t talking, and County Counsel Tom Parker will only confirm that the claim has been filed, but won’t reveal its particulars. Since it’s clearly public domain, the public has a right to know what the claim is for. We should know by tomorrow, but preliminarily we think it’s probably to get the County to pay Hamburg’s legal bills. By the time this thing is settled, the supervisor’s lawyer fees could be considerable.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.” This fine documentary film told me more than I needed to know about the personal lives of these two great heroes of global transparency, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, the two men who have brought down governments simply by revealing the crimes of these governments against their own people. And nothing they revealed about the murderous imperialism of our own government and our allies came as any surprise to most of us lib-labs, and most of us loath the subsequent persecution of both men, especially that of Manning who was held for nearly a year incommunicado in a Marine Corps brig and whose trial for treason began this week. He’ll never get out, and might even be executed if the psychos in our government have their way. Assange, the film tells us, has had major fallings out with several of his closest associates, by whom he feels betrayed, but whose betrayals Assange is unable to articulate. Those associates complain that he’s become impossibly secretive, thus negating his entire life’s purpose, which has been No Secrets. For me, the most interesting moments of the film, which seemed to me to dwell a little too much on Manning’s sexual confusion, were the interviews with the two women who have famously accused Assange of sexually violating them. They have been universally reviled as everything from prostitutes to CIA lures, and their lives have been repeatedly threatened. But they aren’t undercover doxies. Or even doxies. They are everyday liberal women who admired Assange and his work and genuinely liked him. But Assange apparently forced one into unprotected sex and with the other he seems to have deliberately torn the prophylactic. The film says he has four children stashed around the world, implying that Assange may have some weird compulsion to reproduce beyond the usual bourgie 2.2 children. Neither woman felt much like pursuing the guy but word got out, the Swedish police demanded statements from them, the media went crazy and, of course, the Building 7 brigades screamed “Frame-up” while the Fox News yobbos had already been demanding straight-up assassination of both Manning and Assange. The lives of the two women were destroyed as the tabloids printed their photos and even their home addresses. The film is by Alex Gibney who made the great “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.” He’s done an honest job in “We Steal Secrets” but, of course, he’s already being reviled from every political direction and the film has only been out for a week. The audience I saw it with last Saturday at the Embarcadero Theater in San Francisco seemed more nonplussed than anything. I’m sure we’d all arrived with preconceived ideas about Manning and Assange, and the venue being Frisco those ideas would be overwhelmingly favorable. Nothing I learned at all diminished my admiration for them as political martyrs, but Assange comes across as pretty creepy.
“Hey, Bruce: Please accept this potent, blooming marijuana plant as a gift from a fan of the old school of combative journalism, but a donor who wishes to remain anonymous. It has the potential to inseminate every outdoor female marijuana plant within the radius of ten miles, at least, depending upon the prevailing winds. I encourage you to grow it in your garden. Properly nourished and cared for, cannabis can become a perennial. In West Virginia there are stands of it that are 14-18 feet high, some stalks being over twenty inches in diameter. If the local dopester/gangsta/hats-on-backwards crowd flatten your tires, or threaten to cut your beloved male marijuana plant down, whining that you are ‘ruining’ their crops by turning their sensemilla (sic) into seed-bushes, you can fight back and inform your readers that you are doing the locals a favor — seeded weed is better for you if you put it in a blender and eat it than if you smoke it! Besides, scads of these 215-ers are — let’s tell it like it is — lazy lotus eaters who should get real jobs. Hemp liberation will not be accomplished until the Eel and the Navarro and the Russian River banks are covered with hemp. GROW IT! Signed Anonymous.”
ANOTHER ARGUMENT for the new Courthouse emphasized by the rubes is handicapped access. “O the poor dears. They have such a terrible time getting up to the courtrooms upstairs.” As if lifting a wheelchair-bound person up to the third floor of the present building is completely beyond all known engineering abilities.
ON MONDAY, JUNE 10, from 7-9pm two of the most articulate opponents of the Willits Bypass will take their roadshow to the Boonville Firehouse in downtown Boonville with a presentation called “In Defense of Little Lake Valley: Stories From The Campaign to Stop The Caltrans Bypass.” Scheduled guests are Amanda “Warbler” Senseman, AVA contributor and Bypass protester/tree sitter Will Parrish, plus a showing of the fine local documentary “How Caltrans Sold the Willits Bypass.” Will Parrish writes, “In Willits, the California Department of Transportation is in the process of paving paradise to put up an unnecessary freeway. It is arguably the most destructive development project to occur in Mendocino County in decades. It would cost more than $300 million and destroy the largest area of wetlands of any Northern California project in the past half-century, while doing remarkably little to alleviate in-town traffic congestion. Learn about the Bypass from people who have been on the frontlines working to stop it, and also learn how you can be involved.” (Sponsored by: Little Lake Valley Defenders.)
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COMING FROM the incoherent country of America where town and country have become inseparable, the towns slurbing every which way, Scotland is a revelation. Town is town, country is country, and town ends and country begins with strict borders between the two. Leaving Edinburgh’s airport and driving to my ancestral beginnings at Selkirk, a beautiful little place on a hillside, we were immediately in sheep country whose pastures were neatly marked off by ancient stone walls. Traffic was light, then non-existent when we turned off to the series of one-lane side roads that led eventually to Hoscote House where 17 of us are staying. The Mendo equivalent would be to drive to the very end of Spy Rock, ford the Eel, then drive up into the hills of Covelo, the difference being that Scotland is a much less menacing place than rural America. We even drove through a streambed at one point, making our slow way through scattering sheep and small herds of long-haired red cattle. But we didn’t get into the deep boons until after Selkirk, population 8,000 and the site of Scotland’s first king, a fine fellow by the name of Wallace who’d managed to unite the country’s medieval warring tribes, descendants of the men who’d shed their kilts, painted their balls blue, and came running out at the Romans with broad axes. The Romans enjoyed a good laugh and then cut the blue balled savages down like so many weeds. Five hundred years after the birth of Christ, and after centuries of fending off raiding parties of various nationalities and fighting constantly among themselves, Wallace got these primitive warrior clans united and re-oriented to fight the English by whom he was eventually captured, taken to London and dragged through the streets. To make sure he was dead the Brits pulled him apart, drawing and quartering as it was called. Many Americans, including me, are descended from these Scots. When the lords grabbed off miles of pasture for themselves early in the 19th century, they rounded us up and packed us off to Appalachia. My grandfather, though, made his way from Selkirk to, of all places, Honolulu, where the world’s most uptight persons, the Scots Presbyterians, were proselytizing the world’s least uptight persons, the Hawaiians. Grandad was there primarily to make money but did both. He didn’t think women should wear make-up, and everyone should spend all day Sunday in church. I met elderly people who remembered him. I remember him for rapping my knuckles with a heavy bread knife when I made an unmannerly reach across the dinner table. Locals these days seem free of the old strictures but they still commemorate ancient battles, and as one said, “These hills are all soaked in blood.” I hiked long and hard to an old Roman mile marker deep in the hills where I tried to imagine their route this far north and on into England. On some initial expeditions they marched on through on elephants accompanied by regiments of African warriors, both the elephants and Africans dumbfounding the Scots. To a Californian, 1850 is ancient history. To these people it’s yesterday. I was assured by a friend that “the scones in Scotland are the real thing, the best you’ll ever have.” Well, they invented the things and one would think. But on Day Three of this adventure the scones I’ve tried are so far inferior to the scones of Boonville I’m tempted to mail some Selkirk scones to my informant to show him how wrong he is. We could learn from these people, though. Selkirk, directly on the Scottish tourist path, maintains a public bathroom complete with an on-site attendant. It’s scrupulously clean and comes with changing rooms for families travelling with infants. The towns I’ve seen are deceptively prosperous-looking but unemployment rates exceed twenty percent and many of the shops appear to be struggling. No street people, crazed or otherwise, and every little town with a stream of any size has a streamside walk, and every little town a museum. It’s in the low 70s here, a veritable heat wave people say. The balmy days inspire some people to strip to their skivvies and sunbathe stretched out beside the road. I walked around a bend in a remote road to encounter a couple waxing their car. It would have been impertinent to ask why drive miles from the nearest town to spiff up the transportation.
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SO THIS IS CIVILIZATION. Spent a day in Edinburgh, concluding that if Americans were still teachable we could learn how to manage cities from the Scots. For example, the center of San Francisco — and let’s call the center of our fairest large town the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market — is a medieval spectacle of drunks, drug addicts, cruising criminals, and the unsequestered insane. At Edinburgh’s civic center a nexus of bus, cab, train, restaurants, and coffee shops in the shadow of the magnificent castle, I counted exactly four bums in as many blocks, three of whom presented neatly printed messages asking for money. With a merry hands-across-the-waters, “Here ya go, pal,” I dropped some coins onto one man’s handkerchief-sized cloth, realizing too late I’d gifted him to the tune of about five bucks because I haven’t mastered the money here. “I’ll be fooked,” the bum exclaimed through a toothless grin. “A fookin’ Yank!” There were no visible lurks of the ubiquitous type menacing the public areas of every city and town of any size in America, and a national health service that treats crazy people rather than freeing them to die on the streets. Of course a national health care system is “socialism,” and we can’t have that, can we?
THIS POEM was engraved on the plinth honoring the Scots who fought in Spain:
On June 7, 2013, at about 6:57pm, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the 700 block of Port Road in Point Arena for a reported domestic related dispute. Deputies also received information that the involved parties were associated with a newer black Ford Mustang. While responding to the location, Deputies observed a vehicle leaving the area that matched the provided description. Deputies initiated an investigative traffic stop on the vehicle and made contact with the two occupants. Both occupants readily admitted to being cohabitating partners and the involved parties of the reported dispute. Deputies observed that the adult male had a visible injury to his arm and observed that the female, Christina Nuchols, 36, of Glenhaven, California, was intoxicated. Deputies were able to determine, by speaking to both parties, that Nuchols scratched the male during the alcohol related argument and caused the observed injuries to the male. Nuchols was subsequently arrested and transported to the Mendocino County Jail where she was booked on the open charge of Domestic Violence Battery and held in lieu of $25,000.00 bail. Nuchols was also booked on two active arrest warrants issued out of Colusa County. Nuchols had a $25,000 bail felony warrant for possession of a controlled substance and a $10,000 bail misdemeanor warrant for being under the influence of a controlled substance.
On June 2, relatives of 46-year-old Yolanda Orozco went to the Burger King in Willits and ordered a few hamburgers.
Selkirk’s warriors had joined an invasion of England under their last king, James, meeting the Brits at Flodden for a thorough defeat. Only one Selkirkian, a man named Fletcher, survived. He staggered back into town with Selkirk’s battle flag, waving it in slow, sad flourishes to silently explain the catastrophe to the townspeople. And then he dropped dead.
It’s a great honor to be selected standard bearer as the population from miles around remembers the Battle of Flodden and recalls the days of the Commons patrols. In 1913, my grandfather was a standard bearer representing the Colonial Society, which is not a collection of nostalgic imperialists, but an association of men and women drawn from the vast Scots diaspora. Us returnees were acknowledged as exiles in a large ceremony featuring some witty speeches — “I won’t say why Mr. Anderson was exiled” — and quite moving songs celebrating the beauty of the town. This year, my nephew, Robert Mailer Anderson, was standard bearer, a tense responsibility that culminates with the complicated flag ritual in which the standard bearers, in multi-step, choreographed moves set to a single trumpet (I think), re-enact that single surviving warrior’s return from the Battle of Flodden more than 400 years ago.
TODD WALTON’S great novel, Inside Moves, has been re-issued by Pharos Editions, “dedicated to bringing to light out-of-print, lost, or rare books of distinction.” Inside Moves is certainly a rare book of distinction, and Pharos didn’t have to beg another writer of distinction, Sherman Alexie, to write the introduction: