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Greenwood/Elk columns September 5 ~ October 31, 1991 September 5th First off. News from around the world. I heard on the radio the other day that it was not a 'coup detat' that happened in Russia. It was, instead, 'a two day coup'! I just received this late breaking news from Zimbabwe, Africa. Our very own Greenwood/Elk Baseball Commissioner, "Baby Doc Edison" was attacked by a mother hippo. I am assured that he is okay and it was only his quick reflexes, which Bill had developed over the years by shopping in the Fort Bragg Safeway, that saved him. "Baby Doc" should be back in place, behind his bar, at the Great Day in Elk, September 14th to receive condolences. Closer to home and with Great Day in Elk in mind, I received this note: The Dastardly Demise of Dear ol' Dinny Doyle The Greenwood Civic Club is pleased to commemorate the 1991 "Great Day in Elk" with its first entry in the Great Day Parade in several years. This year's float depicts a well known episode taken directly from the pages of Greenwood/Elk history; the story of the unfortunate and untimely death of dear Dinny Doyle as he partook of the pleasures offered by the 'girls' of the 'Twilight House' sometime around the turn of the century. The scene was described in the Mendocino Historical Review in 1974 as follows: "North of the school house where the four bungalow type houses stand was, until 1914, a brush covered field with a house and barn at the north end. The house was known as the 'Twilight', and an early day story is told. The Twilight housed the 'girls' and on one particular evening, after an apparently noisy and boisterous drinking party, there was gun play and a man named Dinny Doyle was killed. As told by and old timer, someone ran across the field for Michael Donohue, and someone ran for the priest. The concluding story is that the next day 'the priest led the procession, the companions carried the body, and the girls, in their ruffled dresses, followed up the road and out on the peninsula of land where the burial took place'. Until that property was sold and developed in 1935, the place was known to Cuffey's Cove and Greenwood Residents as Dinny Doyle's Point." Well. It should be an interesting float the Civic Club is putting together. A bit of additional information. The man who bought Dinny Doyle's Point, in 1935 was Paul Tomanoczy. he paid $250.00 dollars for the four acres. He built a cabin and planted a bunch of trees, some of which still stand. Paul married Winona and the named their land, Saint Anthony's Point. Both Paul and Winona have passed on. The current out of town owners had Saint Anthony's Point on the market a few years ago for one million two hundred thousand! At this time, the Point is no longer on the market and I am privileged to live on the former Dinny Doyle Point as caretaker. Beach Fee Protest. Russian Gulch. September 7 at noon. There are a lot of things that have divided folks here on the coast. Environment, Logging, Development, the War, and so on, but the idea of charging folks to enjoy the beach seems to have pulled us all back together. Enough is enough. I mentioned the new tow truck at the Elk Garage last week. Since then, I noticed that Bob Matson has a sticker on the door of the truck that says 'Since 1924'. I asked him why, when the sign on the front of the Elk Garage says 'Since 1901'. He told me that 1924 was when the American Automobile Association was started. The Elk Garage is the longest running family owned 'AAA' in the state of California, right here in Elk. Who da thunk it! Don't forget. Great Day in Elk. September 14th. The weather is starting to improve, so, summer must be almost over. Great Day is Elk always arrives on the nicest weekend of the year. Well, almost. September 12th There is something I been meaning to mention for several weeks now. Up at my friend Lolli's cabin, on the Comptche/Ukiah road, there is a place out in the redwoods where there is a gap, a sort of open space that has redwood trees on one side and, about twenty feet away, a cluster of manzanita trees. One foggy morning I was walking past this spot and because of the foggy dew I noticed a spider web. It was dew drop spotted, like a jeweled necklace, and it was located in the middle of the opening. I mean the center of the web was about six feet off the ground and centered between the redwoods and the manzanitas! How can this be? Did the spider come walking along the ground, look up at this huge open space and say to himself/herself, "Wow, what a great location. I'm going to build my web up there. Let's see. I will have to string a line between the redwoods and those manzanitas, then a couple of vertical support lines to the ground and then start connecting everything together and put the web in the center". How can a spider's brain, which must be smaller than a speck of pepper conceptualize a situation like this and then proceed to do it? How does it get the first line of silk stretched across from these trees to those trees, twenty feet away? I noticed the prevailing wind was against the project, yet, sure enough, high over my head, there is the silk cable that supports the web, and, to top it off, there is the web, located precisely in the center of the clearing. This is the largest spider web I have ever seen. Some friends of mine told me about a web they saw in the Philippines that spanned the whole end of a Quonset hut, one time. Something called a Banana spider. It was huge, but in this case, I never saw the spider. I have no idea how big it was but that web lasted several months. Well, so what. Well, the thing is, this sort of stuff is going on around us all the time and we hardly ever have the time to notice. We are busy with our jobs and individual lives, full of rush-rusha. Meanwhile, out in the woods, a spider is walking along, looks up and decides, "Hey, this looks like a good spot". Amazing. Last Saturday I saw my first Christmas commercial on T.V., the seventh of September. Can you believe it? This must be a new record. Closer to home and more in touch with reality is Great Day in Elk. This weekend, Saturday 14. The parade starts at noon. The Seventeenth Annual Great Day in Elk. Come early and stay late. See you there. The Beach Fees Protest is moving right along. Around two hundred folks turned out last weekend at Russian Gulch State Park to march down to the beach and hold a rally. The sun came out during the two hour event and the fog rolled in after it was over. Over one thousand envelopes of sand have been collected to send to Governor Wilson. They will be delivered Friday the 13th. I hope he gets the message. There is a wonderful art show at the Mendocino Showcase Gallery in Mendocino. James Maxwell's "Shrines to my P's and Q's". Check it out when you have at least a half hour to spare because, it is not just the visual art it is also the words. Max has written about each piece, explaining his thought process and why you see what you see. These paintings are of arrangements he put together on his kitchen window sill during the 'war in the gulf'. Max is one of the few folks I know that was able to take that time of frustration and put it into words and art; to do something with it rather than just feel depressed. The show is a wonderful peek back into that strange time and a way to acknowledge it. I was greatly moved by Max's honesty and simplicity. September 19th Have you ever been awakened, in the middle of the night by a pain in your stomach? We all have, I'm sure, now and then during our lives. As kids it seemed to happen quite often. But I'm not a kid anymore and I haven't experienced something like this in years. Now I'm fifty and it is a whole different experience because, It isn't just the pain in my stomach that is making me sick, it's the realization that... I can't afford this! You see, I have the kind of mind that snaps awake in the middle of the night, when something like this happens, and jumps to conclusions. Oh god.. stomach cancer! What else could such a burning sensation be, high up like that and making me break out in a sweat? I curl up into the fetal position and try to force it down, try to get my mind off it. Maybe it will go away. I should have stopped smoking years ago. Why didn't I continue jogging? Why did I ever leave that good paying job, down in L.A., the one with all the medical insurance? Now, I have no option but to lay here and die. Yes die. Ambulances are hundreds of dollars. Emergency rooms are thousands. Hospitals are out of the question. Lolli is away in Sacramento. I don't want to bother any of my friends in town. There is nothing left to do but lay here and die, except, suddenly I realize I am getting sicker. I better get out of bed and get outside fast. I stagger for the door, stumble over the sleeping dog, and just barely make it to the edge of the deck before it all comes up, and comes up and comes up. Wow. I haven't been that sick in years. I go back inside, wash off my face and drink some water. Breathing hard I lay back down and try to sleep. Twice more I have to run outside. I realize it is only food poisoning. It is only something I ate. I have another glass of water and feel a lot better. I finally lay back down. I close my eyes. Ah, life on the coast. So far. So good. The Seventeenth Annual Great Day in Elk was a grand time. We had a good turnout even though the fog never quite went away. About two in the afternoon I could see a white disk overhead in the gray stuff, but that was as close to sunshine as we got. Baby Doc's bar did the best ever. The cake auction went very well. The various items on the lunch and dinner menu sold out. The greased pole finally gave up its last bill after a afternoon of continuous attempts. The U.C. Davis Maverick Marching Band put on a great show, not only during the parade, but at various times during the afternoon and evening festivities. That band can sure brighten a gray day. The dance was well attended. Another Great Day in the bag. The sun came out the following morning to shine on the remains. It was a gruesome sight but soon enough folks started drifting in to launch a major clean up. By noon, you couldn't even tell that anything had happened at the Community Center. What a great bunch of folks. It's why I live here. September 26th Gone. October 3rd. Gone October 10th. Gone. October 17 Hi kids, I'm back. The last time I saw fog was when I zipped past the three mile marker on Highway 20, three weeks ago. It wasn't until yesterday that my tan started to fade as I again slipped past that three mile marker and eased back down onto our cool, fog shrouded coastal shelf. What a change form Eastern California, Nevada and Southern Utah. Yep. I've been in the land of red rocks, hot springs and sun. Just me and the dog. Poking around in the slick rock canyons of Edward Abbey land. Very amazing country. I must admit I left in a funk that was more than fog induced. It had something more to do with my turning fifty, this year. That, and attended my father during in his final days and being around mom and her Parkinsons. I left feeling it was now or never. Life was slipping by and I wanted to travel one more time before I too slipped into the abyss of illness and death. Well of course, hog wash. But sometimes I get stuck in my feelings. I think too much. It took a week of gazing at timeless scenery, of sitting beside small campfires under the glare of an immense moon, larger sky and total silence, and finally, the chance meeting of an energetic eighty year old man who had just returned from a six mile hike through a steep canyon, to knock some sense into my thick head. I finally became a kid again. Free to wake up when I woke up, to ponder my map with a cup of coffee and decide what I wanted to explore today. Would it be that hot spring I heard about or would I rather visit an abandoned mining camp. How about a red rock canyon or maybe just stay put for the day and watch the eagles soar. Twelve hours later, after a thoroughly interesting day, I would watch the sky turn dark and the last of my fire collapse into coals. Muley Point and Moab, Valley of the Gods and Goblin Valley. Mexican Hat and Horseshoe Canyon. Timeless places for one who thought he was out of time. Obviously, erosion is taking place, in the canyons and in me. Things do change but why rush the process? Why not enjoy. And enjoy I did. Now I'm back. The fog seems to be losing the battle. It's solid grip on our coastal shelf for the past three or four months is starting to slip, revealing gorgeous autumn days and spectacular sunsets. The only other obvious change I notice around town is the new foundation and framing of Isabel and Kendrick's garden shop. In the next day or two the one ton welded cupola will be hoisted on top of the building. Steve Hale, the contractor told me that Woodie's Weld-al put it together and it is and amazing structure to see. I hear that Roff Barnett's plan for new housing in Elk has passed the Supervisors and only has a couple of more hurdles to go. That will bring more change to town, welcomed by some and deplored by others. There will be a Halloween dance at the Community Center November 1st. More info on that later. What else? Well, just that it is good to be back. I appreciate my friends and this little town even more. October 24th It is October 20th. It is hot. HOT! Right here on our coastal shelf. Brutally hot, at least for here. Where O where is that sweet, soft, cool fog? Did I say that? Just kidding. But hey, this is a bit extreme don't you think? And dry? How dry is it? Well, it is so dry that Greenwood creek is not running, seven miles up the creek. It just consists of a series of pools. Any water draining down is under the gravel and out of sight. The coastal shelf, up around Cuffey's Cove is so dry and beat down that you can see the old railroad bed and former building sites. Usually that is hidden under the grass. Interesting weather. I feel like we are holding our breath, waiting for the flip of the coin to see whether this winter will be cold and dry or wet and cool. We are in the hands of mother nature no matter how we vote. I went to the KZYX birthday party, number two. I got there as Kate Dougherty and Rod Cameron were winding up a Wild Sage Poetry Hour and Eduardo Smissen and Johnny Bazzano settled in to get the party really rolling with Radio-Radio. You may have heard me in the background. I'm the one who popped the champagne cork, on the air and right on cue, I might add. All in all, too much fun, as we survivors know. Last Friday was Vince Carleton's slide show at the Mendocino Art Center. Vince just got back from Jordan where he was teaching rug weaving and yarn dying. The last half of his slide show consisted of photos of an area he visited that was carved into the walls of a canyon, back in the year 400 B.C., or so.! Fantastic buildings that looked like Washington D.C. monuments. All carved out of solid rock. Maybe we can get Vince to reshow his slides here in Greenwood/Elk for those who missed them the first time around. Speaking of heroic structures, Kendrick has really done it this time. The central structural member is now in place atop the "Garden Shop". It is a six sided steel frame work, cupola, that will 'tie' the roof timbers together. The structure alone weighs one ton! I put Garden Shop in quotes because I now hear that it will not be a garden shop but rather a home decor shop. Sort of a "Home Decor R Us"! I wonder if they will have anything that goes nicely in a 1959 Airstream. There is some hammering going on behind the Hospital House, here in town. I haven't peeked over the fence to see what they are up to, yet. And, a few doors south, a back hoe sits ominously in the front yard of the Mole Ranch. I wonder what that means. Bad news most likely, considering all the time Joel spent smoothing out his rocks and watering what turned out to be his current crop of weeds. Charlie Acker can bee seen zipping around in his electric van. After reworking the "electrics", installing a new controller and "dipping" the charger, he has it whipped into a docile, dependable vehicle. Steve Acker is doing the electrics for Dave McChutchon's, soon to be, electric powered Triumph sports car. The gas engine is out of it and for sale. The electric motor is bolted to the transmission and Steve is finishing up the eight battery boxes; four in front, four in the trunk. Next comes the controller unit and related wiring. Dave and I have talked about paint. I am trying to think of something, electrifying! Sue Matson developed a calcium deposit in her shoulder socket and will have to take a break from the grill at the Roadhouse. Wayne Walker and a , new to us, female cook will take up the slack. I heard the new cook's name but all I remember is that she use to have a job calling spotted owls. Well, what else? I figure if I offend enough people, maybe they will take up a collection and pay me to stay out of town. just send a monthly check to Bluff, Utah or something. Oh yes, the Harvest Ball, which in these days and times you can't call a "harvest" ball, but rather, a Halloween party, is still on track. There is a last minute scramble, searching for a bar tender, but, other than that, everything seems to be coming together nicely. This event happens, November 1. Just checked my outdoor thermometer. Sunday, October 20. 1:30 PM. 82 degrees, just one hundred feet from the ocean. Amazing! October 31st First off, a note: Elk Volunteer Fire Department and Ambulance is sponsoring a C.P.R. class especially designed for babysitters, teachers, parents, big brothers or sisters, or anyone who might be taking care of infants or children. Learn rescue breathing, heart compressions to support circulation, and anti-choking techniques. Be able to save a young life instead of standing there helplessly. Information at 877-3475 or come Friday, November 15th at 7:PM, Elk Community Center. A reminder: This Thursday night, at Courtney's, about four miles North of Greenwood/Elk, on the west side of Highway One is a Halloween Party. BYOB. Music by Pura Vida. Costumes make it more fun. I'm not sure about the time...say between eight and nine. Then, Friday night at the Community Center, the Rock-O-Matics make the music for Elk's All Spooks Night and Harvest Ball. Six dollars at the door. Full bar. Proceeds from the kitchen go to the up coming Children's Christmas program. Costumes will be judged and awarded prizes. For some reason, we here in Greenwood/Elk can't seem to get the Mendocino Beacon on Thursday, when it comes out elsewhere. We use to and, after I grumped about it last spring, we did again but not, it's back to Friday delivery. Someday, when I have nothing better to do, I think I will go to the loading dock and track the delivery of Greenwood/Elks papers. I think they go to Rhonert Park first. It was strange to listen to the rain pound on my roof as I re-read my column from the week before. There I was, yakking about the heat and now, after the rain we have clear skies, wind from the north and energetic seas. Finally, after four months, we have weather. Here in town we received around two inches of rain. Up the hill, around five inches. Not a bad start. The lagoon, down on Greenwood Creek, broke out to sea. My dog is a lot happier to have the pollen washed out of the air. Doug Blaine told me that was the cause of so much skin irritation amongst our animal friends. Various folks were stopping by the Elk Garage to have their mud tires mounted and buying caulk for those rediscovered leaks. Also a big scramble for firewood is taking place as our endless summer ends. The Elk Ambulance was called out, last Thursday afternoon, manned by Bob Matson and Charlie Acker. An accident at the Greenwood Pier. Seems Andrew Waterhouse was cutting up firewood with a skill saw and zipped across the top of his leg! A quick trip to Fort Bragg Hospital for fifty stitches and a day later I see Andrew getting around on crutches. he is doing fine. The scary thing is, it didn't bleed, confirming my suspicions that he really is an alien. Volkswagens. What is this thing I have about Volkswagens, busses in particular? My first bus, a 1967 model was how I arrived in Elk. A kayak on top, you've heard that story. It became a chain saw storage shed for a friend of mine when it became too rusted out and I bought a 1968 VW camper. I fixed that '68 up, paint and all, and visited the back roads of Baja with it, but Lolli didn't like the front bench seat. She wished it had split seats so she could lay down during our long trips. Well, a friend of ours just so happened to have a '71 camper (split seats) so I reluctantly sold my '68 to Eduardo Smissen and started over again, installing a new engine, tranny and finally paint. That one became ROADCOW. But wait, it doesn't end yet. There was an abandoned '69, given to me as a parts vehicle. I have it stashed at a friends house. Then some folks from Kentucky were passing through Greenwood/Elk in the '71 and the gas line broke and it caught fire. They gave it up, I ended up with it, repaired it, and it is currently being used as an office by a writer friend of mine. Wait. One more. This guy I know flipped his bus, almost in front of my house. He assessed the damage, decided he had enough, asked if I was interested. Who? Me? |