My Mill Valley Manifesto

1877

My Mill Valley Manifesto

Charles Powell was nineteen years old when Custer fell at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. That had been true since it happened – a long, long time ago, in another time, long before I was born.

When as an adult I learned survivors of that historic event were still being interviewed as I issued from my mother’s womb in southern Idaho, time was shockingly compressed into the awakening that Custer’s misfortune was not ancient history, but a very brief lifetime ago – mine!

Charles Powell was my maternal grandfather, a blacksmith whose calloused and kindly hand led me around our small Idaho town on his crony visits until his death the month before I started first grade in 1935.

I was born a Westerner and remain a Westerner, in fact and in spirit. My view of the world is, at least in the beginning was from the American Northwest, between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. I was born in the Pacific Northwest because my ancestors had migrated there and earned their humble living on land which at the time had only recently been taken from the original inhabitants by means and methods I don’t approve of, namely theft and violence, and yet are glorified in the American flag. If it should be necessary to inform oneself of the particulars behind that opinion, one should Google "The Nez Perce War of 1877."

Shortly before Christmas 2011, I received a Christmas card bearing an official greeting from a prominent American university, with whom the last contact had been nearly five years ago when by separate letters the University Librarian and the Special Collections Department acknowledged receiving a book I had written entitled, "California History through My Two Blue Eyes, Blitz Edition." In this case the word "Book" must be understood as a handy instrument to stretch the word "charitable" beyond its normal compass because the book was merely a document of seven pages consisting of the title page, an epigraph from Genesis, four pages of historical photos, and a final remark by the author regarding copyrights. All seven pages were magnificently bound in an El Cheapo plastic see-thru folio from the local drugstore.

Its contents, though, are the grist for My Mill Valley Manifesto. Herewith a recapitulation of the seven pages:

1. Title Page: "California History through (printed in blue) My Two Blue Eyes (followed, printed in black) by Ray Cook – SFSU 1957 Blitz Edition, March 31, 2007"

2. The Epigraph: "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Genesis 1:28, THE HOLY BIBLE – New King James Version


3. Vintage photograph of loggers: four men, enjoying a respite from their work, pose for the photographer; date of photo unknown but obviously before introduction of power tools. Two men recline on their elbows in an enormous notch large enough to accommodate all of them standing erect, which they have just hacked into a tree of gargantuan proportions. Beside them, standing on springboards driven into the tree’s deep protective bark about eight feet above the ground, two more men pose at ease. Wood chips the size of supper plates slope in a neat pile away from the industrious party. The caption reads:
"Pictured above is a typical scene showing the insolence and posturing theatrics of the loggers in Northern California. Here they pose amid the wanton destruction of the once loving giant Redwood trees." And, "Courtesy Humboldt State University Archives"

4. Vintage photograph – more than two dozen men in mounted formation on palomino horses – half of them posing atop that part of a fallen tree visible to the camera, half of them on the ground posing alongside the fallen giant. The caption reads:
"Groups of armed assassins such as these roamed the area of the Northwest. This photo is unidentified as to whether these men are volunteers or U. S. Army men. In either case, they have already murdered the forest. Now they are shown ready to murder the Indians. Matched uniforms, matched horses, and matched arrogance characterized such groups. Similar forces, both volunteer vigilantes and U.S. Army groups, plundered the north coast region from 1858 to the 1960’s" "Courtesy Humboldt State University Archives"

5. Vintage photograph of an Italianate brick church, its steeple clock showing ten minutes
past two, captioned, "THEN – North east corner California and Grant
Streets - 1899. San Francisco’s oldest landmark is the city’s first cathedral, St. Mary’s, which has stood at California and Grant since 1853…"

6. Vintage photograph of a twin-spired synagogue – captioned, "THEN – Sutter Street
looking west from Stockton - 1900. The minareted towers of the Emanuel
Synagogue were a landmark on the San Francisco skyline for 30 years until the
earthquake…"

7. Author’s remarks: "These photos were used in this hastily prepared little document without the knowledge or permission of the copyright owners, but with the devout belief that they would have approved, had there been time to ask. Ray Cook 3/31/07."

-------------------- -- -- <> -- -- --------------------

A week or so after my birth that I fleetingly mentioned in the opening paragraphs above, I was baptized – a Christian – an event that has clung to me all my life like a well sprung bear trap, and caused me no less anguish. A Christian, yes, but not by choice, and when it came time at age twelve to act on my own behalf at Confirmation and confirm the scourge my parents had unintentionally and unwittingly hung on me – I freaked out and never recovered.

I had been baptized a Catholic but unbeknownst to me, my father was a Protestant and always claimed that although he witnessed my baptism it was invalid because he had King’s X (his fingers crossed,) – or something like that, I’m sure. But according to Hoyle’s book of Baptismal Regulations it was legitimate and binding on all of us, and I don’t ever recall my father speaking fondly of Mr. Hoyle.

Somewhere in the opening paragraphs above I mentioned starting first grade in 1935? Yes. At Saint Paul’s Catholic Parochial, where the nuns wore uniforms called habits that were black (not really good syntax – sorry) that were finished or punctuated by a white, fluted and stiffly pressed – I don’t what it is properly called – rather like a lady’s fan, attached at their brow to the black veil covering their head and hair. The children, especially the boys, were fascinated with the doubt whether the nuns actually had hair at all, but I recall clearly as though it were yesterday that whether they were young or not so young, or thin or robust – their every hand seemed to have been hewn from the finest alabaster by Michelangelo himself.

But enough of that. My parochial education ended in May, 1943 during World War II when my family pulled up stakes and moved to California. Having already braved the trauma of joining my father’s Protestant faith and damning myself forever in my mother’s eyes, I left town still believing that the world was cloven down the middle into Catholics and non-Catholics.

I don’t recall the date or the place but I remember waking up one morning still groggy from the discovery that I’m a goy. (Apparently someone else had got hold of the cleaver!)

It must have been about then that I took to drink.

Now, to cut to the chase: I’m watching TV. It’s January 20, 2009. The scene is Washington D.C. Diane Feinstein is introducing the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who then turns to inaugurate President Elect Barak Obama, who places his hand upon a bible held for him by his wife, Michelle. The President Elect places his had upon the Bible, raises his right hand and solemnly swears to defend the Constitution of the United States, "So help me God!" The synapses in the Westerner lobes of my brain throw sparks all over the room.

The Bible upon which Barak Obama swore his inaugural oath to God was reported as having been the personal Bible of Abraham Lincoln. My own family Bible (which, parenthetically, I gave away last year) was not as old as Lincoln’s - but nearly; my great grandmother first inscribed it in 1886, only twenty-two years after Lincoln’s death. Like Lincoln’s, it is handsomely bound in leather and it is safe to assume they are fairly similar in layout and text. The first page inside the cover of my family Bible is an etching of a cherubic baby boy floating among some weeds in a wicker basket like the kind my mother hung up the wash with, and a dark skinned maiden (as a youngster I was in love with her because one of her breasts is hanging out) is standing furtively among the tall weeds eyeing the baby floating in the basket. The title beneath the etching informed me that this was, "Moses Among the Bulrushes." The next page informs EVERYONE in shrieking red ink that this book is the "Word of God." ! ! (The exclamation points are mine, because my father never let me forget it.)

The image of baby Moses in the Bulrushes commenced blinking in my mind like a filigreed casino marquee and I’m wondering, what the hell does Moses have to do with our President’s inauguration? After all, isn’t the Bible more or less a history of tribes of people who wandered around the Middle East thousands of years ago, their adventures, and misadventures? Would it not have been more fitting if Obama had placed his hand upon a dream catcher or perhaps some history concerning Geronimo, or Sitting Bull, or Cochise, or Crazy Horse, or Red Cloud, or Tecumseh, even Buffalo Bill, or SOME icon representing the ground upon which he stood?

Recall please, on page 3 above, the parenthetical mention that last year I had given away my family bible? I gave it to the congregation of a small town Protestant Church in the state of Oregon where before World War One my father’s father was the resident Protestant pastor. His mother, my great grandmother, the one mentioned a few paragraphs above as having inscribed it, died in this small Oregon town in 1916 and is buried there across the road from the Nez Perce Homeland Project, right smack in the middle of the heartland from which the Nez Perce were brutally driven in the Nez Perce war of 1877, an historical event most conscientious readers would by this time already understand. My great grandmother shares the primal dust with the Nez Perce, and sensitive readers should now begin to understand my ill concealed antipathy to the bible having been the vehicle which validates the solemn word of President Barak Obama.

I believe that when Barak Obama placed his hand upon the Bible at his inauguration, he in fact as well as in metaphor not only explained to the world America’s doctrine of Manifest Destiny, he reaffirmed America’s commitment to it.

Ergo, my reaffirmation of "California History through My Two Blue Eyes."

Ray Cook
Mill Valley, California
December 31, 2011

cc of My email to Supervisor Steve Kinsey 11-27-11

Dear Supervisor Kinsey:

Looking back one year at the roster of the Board of Supervisors and with my 81st birthday almost upon me I trust you will understand the urgency I feel to get something off my chest before it is too late.

Yes, the Measure B parcel tax passed by a generous two thirds majority in the November 8 election and I, who opposed the Homestead Measure A parcel tax in 2009 lost this time too, leaving the reasonable appearance that I’m just an old crank who opposes parcel taxes. Which is not true, Sir, just not true, and if you will bear with me for a couple sentences I will tell you why, and how that bears on the Evergreen Avenue project in HomesteadValley.

My professional career - that is, the employment period with the savings plan which provides a modest income in my retirement - lasted thirty one years with the California Department of Transportation, commencing December 1, 1960, when I believed that population growth and economic development were good and should be encouraged, and that freeways were the lubricant to a prosperous and happy future. I was foundering at the time in an interlude of insanity. Thus, when I saw your name conspicuously among our conspicuous leaders who in public “Proudly Support the HighSchool Parcel Tax RENEWAL” my heart was overcome with a deep and troublesome disappointment. I am not against parcel taxes, but the 3% per annum automatic increase boggles my comprehension of reality, which was forged at the last job I had before Caltrans, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

In the light of the consistently dreary economic news I could not in good conscience endorse Measure B and its 3% kicker and still claim sanity formyself. (Recall that Measure A had only a 2% per annum increase!) THAT iswhy we are on opposite sides of the parcel tax issue and I am terribly saddened that we are separated on that account.

But the question here is whether we are equally separated by the issue of Evergreen Avenue, which I believe is being rammed down our throats (or up our…) by the same inexorable grind of the wheels that just gave us MeasureB.

Thanks for listening, and best wishes always,

Ray Cook

Oremus (Let Us Pray)

"From ghoulies and ghosties and
long leggedy beasties;
From things that go bump in the night" -
and From the insatiable lust for more money
that inflames us and leaves us no peace -
Oh Lord deliver us.
Amen

Measure B isn't about money.
Measure B is about MORE money.
3 per cent more will be fine,
every time,
but we gotta have it.

Vote NO on Measure B
(Tough Love)

(more money more money more money more money
more more more money more money more more more...)

FYI

(This is the complete text of an email I sent to Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey yesterday, Friday, May 13, 2011 at 9:22 am, which I couldn't post here then because Blogger was out of commission.)


Dear Supervisor Kinsey:

My first job after graduating from university in 1957 was "Management Trainee" at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco - 400 Sansome Street in those days (at the corner of Sacramento Street) - where daily I had my hands on millions of dollars in cash or securities of one sort or another, and had to account for every dime of it. When some years later the time came to leave for greener pastures, the Fed's gift to me was a deep and abiding sense of Fiscal Responsibility.

Now, in a single anonymous document, (the front page editorial in its Homestead Headlines issue for May 2011, "Measure A Funding Update...,") the Homestead Valley Community Association has soared to unbelievable heights of creative writing and sent my feeble old heart into convulsive spasms of disbelief.

Best regards,

Ray Cook

Gratitude

The May 2011 issue of "Homestead Headlines," the Homestead Valley Community Association's monthly newsletter, arrived in the afternoon mail. If you haven't received your copy yet, get one ASAP.

Best regards,

Ray Cook

MORE Good News !!

Tom Stienstra's column in today's San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, March 27, 2011, Sporting Green, back page) has the Disciples of Progress turning handsprings of joy! Check it out!

Ostentatious Philanthropy vs Wages

THEOREM: "The magnitude of Ostentatious Philanthropy is inversely proportional to the welfare of the working class."

PROOF: Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, March 7, 2011: Long-Run Impact of the Crisis in Europe: Reforms and Austerity Measures. Quote: " However, a long-run solution to Europe's problems requires economic reforms that increase competetiveness and REDUCE LABOR COSTS (emphasis added - ed.) in the peripheral countires. Such reforms could promote convergence of the euro-area economies and enhance the long-run sustainablility of monetary union."

Saint Patrick and the Editor's Sidebar

Tying it All Together - PART 9 - posted March 17, 2011 - Saint Patrick's Day.

In the March 1996 edition of their journal, "Right of Way - for the Right of Way Professional," the International Right of Way Association published an article entitled, "Columbus Meets Saint Patrick, A Vignette of American History," written by one their members, which recounted that member's eviction of an American Indian woman from her ancestral home. The editor chose as a conspicuous sidebar this quotation from the article: "Her ancestors were witness to the transfer of land through discovery, conquest, revolution and war - polite names for theft and violence."

Which brings us full circle, to "Tying it All Together - PART 1, posted January 27, 2011.


Happy Saint Patrick's Day, all,
from shaggy old Ray, and recall
something today
that YOU should have done,
(except nailing him to the wall !)

A Prayer for HVCA

Tying it All Together - PART 8

The torment of a Christ upon the cross
in prayer, "Forgive them, Father,
for they know not what they do,"
was merely as a flea bite
likened, as it were, to us
as We devoutly pray,
"Forgive them, Father, for they know
Exactly what they do."

To be continued

Bridge to the Future

Tying it All Together - PART 7

Though costs of dentistry have risen since I subscribed to my dental insurance plan many years ago, my ability to pay for it has not. Insurance coverage has remained static. I'm caught in a pincers, and it is beginning to hurt.

Today I go to the dentist to begin replacing the bridge (last Post-this Blog.)

The good new is I like my dentist and his entire staff. They make dental visits a pleasure!

Which introduces us to the future.

To be continued.

My Teeth, My Sewer, HVCA, My Pocketbook

Tying it All Together - Part 6

SYNOPSIS: Parts 1 – 5 slogged through some US history commencing in 1846 and established that in the American psyche there exists a tacit pride for any act committed in the name of the flag, leaving off with NASA’s irrepressible and unabashed revelry for their marksmanship in blasting a hole in an innocent bypassing comet that didn’t belong to them because there was neither law nor moral restraint to prevent them. Part 6 – comments on some noteworthy current events. (Reading time: about a minute, probably less.)


PART 6

“Zeit, Wind, Frau und Glueck
Veraendern sich im Augenblick

(“Time, the wind, women and fortune
Can change in an instant.“)

That proverb was etched on an old beer stein I bought in Munich a long time ago when I was in the army over there. I eventually gave my son the beer stein but the etched proverb remained, etched also onto my mind: (“Time, the wind, women and fortune Can change in an instant. “)

And lemme tell you, things just changed for me, BIG TIME! (Because I didn’t die soon enough.)

Under a program sponsored by the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin (SASM) which qualified me for financial assistance because I am well below the median income for Marin County, I had my sewer lateral replaced in January 2011. The old one wore out before I died.

Day before yesterday my dentist told me one of the two molars supporting a bridge which has two artificial teeth in between was about to go south (because I haven’t died yet) and, owing to the location and peculiarities of this case the only option for repair is a complete new bridge. And I believe him. Then he told me the price. I believed that too. And that is something to talk about.

There was a time when I was a good fit in Marin County. While employed by the State of California in a civil service classification of Journeyman (I was never Management material) I bought and paid for the modest house where my wife and I still live and where our son lived while he walked every step – for twelve years – to his schooling in the Mill Valley School District. Now, I couldn’t afford my front door knocker because prices are headed for the moon and because everybody and his brother have their fingers in my pockets. And for years Social Security says nothing has changed. To which I say – Humbug.

Herewith, my reasoning: My present Dental Plan is the same and only one my wife and I have ever had, and I don’t know how long that has been but my records go back to December 1991 when, as a point of reference the charge and the benefit for “Adult Cleaning” was $46.00. In December 2010 the charge for the same service, now called “Adult Prophylaxis” was $113.00, PLUS $48.00 for ”Periodic oral evaluation” (which the dentist used to do as part of his service for no extra charge.) That’s a jump from $46.00 to $161.00 for the same identical procedure, or roughly 350%, an acceleration rate of about 18% a year, inexorably and forever.

If anyone wants to argue about that, be prepared for a cascade of numbers to be thrown at you with all the enthusiasm of NASA in their favorite pastime of blasting comets.

Now – to put the current replacement cost of my dental bridge in perspective: it (the cost quoted to me) is equivalent to four times the cost of the first NEW automobile I ever purchased, in 1960. Four teeth in 2011 are worth the same as four new automobiles in 1960. (Yes, yes, I know all about apples and oranges.)

And dyspepsia, too.

For which I should offer HVCA my most groveling and humble thanks for the object lesson of passing Measure A before the axe fell. They – not I – are insured a rising income – out of my pockets – clean through eternity, no matter what.

To be continued.

NEWS FLASH ! ! - (Good News? - Bad News? - You decide.)

Tying it All Together - Part 5 - "From NASA to Homestead Valley"
(Reading time: couple seconds)

The other day (Valentines Day – February 14, 2011) the San Francisco Chronicle, on page A9, informed us a NASA spacecraft named Stardust was scheduled to, “meet up with its celestial sweetheart – a comet half the size of Manhattan that had an encounter with another spacecraft not long ago.” The article goes on to recall Tempel 1 (the comet referenced in the article) with these words: “In 2005, Tempel 1 received a not-so-loving visit from another NASA probe named Deep Impact, which fired a copper bullet into the comet on the Fourth of July that sparked cosmic fireworks.”

Whoa, Nellie! Hold it right THERE !

The 4th of July 2005, NASA’s reaction (on international television!) upon receiving the news that their long planned and perfectly executed “Deep Impact “ project had just blasted a hole in a by-passing comet – the Tempel 1 – was unrestrained childlike glee! The whole bulging roomful of NASA people were whooping it up like the home team had just scored!

BUT – they were celebrating – their marksmanship! at having blasted a hole in a bypassing comet, which DIDN’T BELONG TO THEM.

Just to see what is inside.

I take exception to NASA’s revolting conduct and to their whole revolting project. By whose authority does NASA presume to destroy stuff that doesn’t belong to them?

Consider this, please: To take something that doesn’t belong to you, simply because you find it appealing, and have your way with it – is the philosophy and the practice of the Thief, the Pickpocket and the Rapist – the same philosophy and practice which put the American Indians (what was left of them) on reservations because someone else coveted their land and the wealth, actual and potential, it contained.

When my thinking apparatus is engaged and directed toward Homestead Valley, scratching my chin and wondering “Hmmm,” naturally follow.

NEWS FLASH ! ! – (Good News? – Bad News? – You decide.)


To be continued.

Tying it All Together - Part 4 - Friends in High Places? Let me tell YOU!

Tying it All Together - Part 4
Friends in High Places? (Let me tell YOU about it!)

SYNOPSIS: Parts 1, 2 & 3 brought us from Mainstream America’s kneejerk intolerance with American Indians all the way to torching the historic old Cloverdale Depot in 1991, a spectacular conflagration that also took with it the plans and toil for a monument in Cloverdale to the local Pomo Indians, which would have been on the site where the Cloverdale “multi-modal transportation center” now stands, having picked up a few officials of the County of Marin and the City of Mill Valley along the way, and connected all of that with the Evergreen Avenue sidewalk affair in Homestead.

This episode, Part 4, is not much more than a loser’s lament, but it hopes to open a few eyes to what goes on while we are playing canasta or out walking the dog or just gazing at the moon.

PART 4

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold…” Robert W. Service

(Parenthetical remarks: A few weeks ago, late in January, 2011, I sent a courtesy email to Supervisor Steve Kinsey which included as attachments three letters I planned to mention on this blog sometime, so he wouldn’t be blindsided by any references to them here:

1- Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey to me, dated February 17, 1997 re: FHWA
2- Thomas Ptak, FHWA to Lynn Woolsey, dated January 27, 1997 (3 weeks earlier.)
3- Me to David H. Densmore, FHWA, dated February 19, 1997 - End of parenthetical remarks.)

However, there is a FOURTH letter worth noting which I did NOT send him and which I will only introduce here by reference, but I sent copies of it to some of my Homestead neighbors just to establish it as a fact that exists. It addresses “this matter,” which is the historic Cloverdale depot that burned, and a lot more.

Expressing it as kindly as possible, it is the explanation by the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento of events subsequent to the fire that destroyed the historic Cloverdale depot. Expressing it from my heart, though, it is FHWA's triumphal fanfare of what happened: such a sublime construction of gobbledygook that it will stand for generations as a high water mark of bureaucratic achievement. The signature is illegible, but the letter writer’s superiors in Washington, D.C. revealed his identity. Poor fellow, he was only a victim of the fray who signed on behalf his superiors, and thus is entitled to his anonymity. His superiors, on the other hand and the politicians, who for their own righteous reasons sanctified “this matter,” are entitled to such judgment as history may accord to them.

Now – Your CLOSE ATTENTION, please.

My Congressional Representative, Lynn Woolsey, (letter number 1, above) opened with these words: “Dear Mr. Cook: I am sorry to tell you that the Federal Highway Administration has advised me that it was unable to take the action you requested. Enclosed please find a copy of the agency’s response.” Several polite personal paragraphs followed, then her signature.

Well, the “agency’s response” (letter number 2, above) was a letter to her (Ms. Woolsey) signed on behalf of FHWA, Washington, D.C., by Thomas J. Ptak, telling her to tell me (figuratively, of course) to take a hike, but (actually, of course) telling her to tell me to go bother the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento, because he (the Division Administrator in Sacramento) had already told me (according to Mr. Ptak) that, “CHANGES IN CIRCUMSTANCES(Caps mine-for emphasis. RC) since approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the bypass made the intended use of the archaeological site no longer applicable.”

Then, I suppose, Mr. Ptak and his buddies had a good laugh (hah hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw) watching me chase my tail, because the Division Administrator in Sacramento had already said all of that – and a lot more – in a letter to me seven months earlier (letter number 4, above.) Which had provoked me to write Ms. Woolsey in the first place! Hah, hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw.

BUT … … … I didn’t go chasing my tail.

I just wrote the Division Administrator in Sacramento, a guy named David H. Densmore, and admitted that he had won the battle for the Pomo Indian Monument in Cloverdale. (What else could I do? HIS Friends in High Places were more numerous and more powerful than MINE, namely, Lynn Woolsey, My Congressional Representative.)

He had beat me, yes, in the contest for the Pomo memorial. (But, “fair and square?”)

You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with the Evergreen Avenue project? Stick around for Part 5: Tying it All Together/Friends in High Places/Evergreen Avenue Project

To be continued.

Tying it All Together - Part 3 Friends in High Places? (TELL me about it!)

Tying it All Together - Part 3
Friends in High Places? (TELL me about it!)

SYNOPSIS: Parts 1 & 2 brought us through Mainstream America’s aversion to American Indians, and linked the Marin County Board of Supervisors to the Pomo Indians in Cloverdale and the memorial to them that was lost when a suspicious fire destroyed the historic Cloverdale depot in 1991.

This episode, Part 3, lays out my belief that the fire was truly arson and that an ominous link exists between the Cloverdale affair and the Evergreen Avenue sidewalk project in Homestead Valley because the Disciples of Progress are in charge, and while not obvious, a real and potentially volatile situation is rushing upon us with momentum and freewheeling energy that has built up over many miles of clear and unobstructed track, with nary a thought of cooperation or negotiation and certainly no inclination to brook any changes now. With the Cloverdale affair as a precedent, a kneejerk reaction will soon be invoked to pull a few strings and zingo – it’s done!

Part 3
Several weeks ago the Mill Valley Patch, an online news medium at “http://millvalley.patch.com,” published a feature entitled, “Where am I?” It was a photo of a bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk near 48 Locust Avenue, (which is behind the Miller Avenue 7-11) which memorializes “Marino,” the Miwok Indian for whom Marin County is named. By their approval of this memorial plaque the Mill Valley City Council is now linked to the Cloverdale affair, at least spiritually, and it would take a pretty feeble imagination to wonder how or why.

Before the fire, in the autumn of 1991, the City of Cloverdale was negotiating with Caltrans to acquire a lot the State owned on Main Street in Cloverdale, between Third Street and Fourth Street, (which the State eventually deeded to the Cloverdale Community Development Agency.) One day my office telephone rang in San Francisco. The caller was an eminent political figure in the City of Cloverdale and wanted to talk about the lot on Main Street. After an interval of official talk about the lot on Main Street, the conversation drifted to the historic Depot, which Caltrans was soon supposed to relocate. Before long this person says, "Cook, if that depot ever catches fire, the fire trucks will never make it on time. I guarantee you that."

They didn’t.

And that is why MY kneejerk reaction is to suspect trouble if anyone should interfere with the published plans for Evergreen Avenue, and my kneejerk fear is that those who will suffer most are the County staff who are caught in the pincers between their consciences and their superiors and politicians who hold a good measure of dominion over their lives. The Disciples of Progress operate like the law of gravity: “without rancor but without pity.” They just get up every day and do their thing: more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more… ad infinitum. I operate on the assumption that most public officials are either themselves Disciples of Progress, or sympathetic to the “more, more, more “ credo of the Disciples of Progress, or fear for the disposition of their souls at Judgment time if they should question the Disciples of Progress.

I am concerned about the few who may have the wisdom and the courage to ask, “Why are we doing this?” and run for the vomitory when they hear the answer.

Friends in high places? TELL me about it.

To be continued.

Tying it all Together - Part 2: The Cloverdale Depot and the Marin County Board of Supervisors

The Cloverdale Depot and the Marin County Board of Supervisors
Tying it all together - Part 2
(click here for part 1) 

More really interesting stuff!

SYNOPSIS: Part 1 introduced this blog’s theme of, “Friends in High Places,” and then, in succession:
1- “Mainstream America;”
2- a snippet of California history;
3- the modern Pomo Indians in Cloverdale, Sonoma county, California, one of whom got evicted for a freeway and was denied relocation assistance for reasons that astonished me.

Part 2, (this episode) covers the consequences of that singularly revolting event and hopes to create at the very least a small measure of shame in the minds of some of our more enlightened public officials. If Providence is on our side, we can then look to the future with a little less pessimism and, who knows, perhaps even a ray of hope?

Reading time, about 4 minutes.
P.S. Everything I say here is documented in the Reference Department of the Sonoma County Library in Santa Rosa.

***

The final scene in Part 1 had been the Cloverdale Rancheria in the weeks preceding the Fourth of July, 1976, our country’s bicentennial. The woman in question was a Pomo Indian – rather short, rather robust, rather dark skinned, rather advanced in years – and utterly forlorn. She knew why I had come. I handed her the “3 Day Notice to Pay or Quit.” She vacated the premises, July 4, 1976, still owing the State a little less than $200 back rent.

Here it is essential to establish the context in which these events unfolded. A new freeway in Cloverdale had been in the hoping and planning stages for a long time before it was finally built, but Caltrans began acquiring the right of way in the 1960’s. In 1990, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) authorized construction this new section of freeway, about four and half miles long. Construction began in 1991 and the freeway opened in1994 with a grand public ceremony celebrating this pageant of progress, “The Cloverdale Bypass.”

Brace yourselves now, for what is to follow.

The historic Cloverdale depot was built in 1872, the year Cloverdale was incorporated. It was a one story, wood frame building, shingle roof, two large rooms, about 2300 square feet. Pure redwood throughout. It was the community's center of commerce for a hundred years, a status proudly recorded in historic old photographs. Cloverdale was a “destination.” But with the march of time things change, and eventually the railroad turned the Cloverdale depot mostly to storage.

In 1976, as a Bicentennial Project, a group of local citizens rose excitedly to the occasion by forming a non-profit corporation under the name, "Cloverdale Depot Association," which entered the venerable structure in the National Register of Historic Places. But it was in the path of the long planned and still unbuilt freeway, and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which had final authority over the Cloverdale Bypass, as a condition of its approval for the project required Caltrans to relocate the old Cloverdale depot to another site (the site where the present Cloverdale depot stands today) and to convey the land to the Depot Association at a nominal cost. The Depot Association and Caltrans shook hands and went to work.

But in some quarters a fear arose that the freeway, which they had been expecting for such a long time might be thrown off schedule by this belated turn of events. The Depot Association in return made public assurances that their project to move the old Depot would not delay the freeway at all, in any way.

The Cloverdale Depot Association’s goal was to move the historic depot away from the freeway and to preserve it for the benefit of Cloverdale’s citizens and for future generations. The Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce, the Cloverdale Historical Society and the Cloverdale Art Commission were to share space in the restored depot.

The Association's architect drew plans of the new site, meetings were held, commitments made. The surviving elders of the Cloverdale Rancheria became an honorary Native American Advisory Panel for a monument on the site to the Pomo Indians, memorializing “Musulacon,” their ancestral chief for whom the 1846 Mexican land grant, “Rincon de Musulacon,”is named, upon which most of the city of Cloverdale stands today. A model of the site was prominently displayed in the office windows of the local newspaper, the Cloverdale Reveille. The Native American Heritage Commission, a State agency in Sacramento, passed a resolution of endorsement and notified the Cloverdale Depot Association, the Cloverdale Historical Society and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors of their action. Rose colored glasses made this an exuberant scene, but myopia obscured the reality. In the dead of night on Saturday, September 21, 1991, the old depot - vacant, humble, awaiting its rebirth – burned to the ground in suspicious circumstances. The Cloverdale Reveille suspected arson.

Readers of this blog are urged to pay particular attention to the next paragraph, because it is critical to understanding what’s going on here.

In 1973, during preliminary field studies for the freeway, a previously unknown archaeological site was found on the land where the Historical Cloverdale depot was to be relocated (where the present Cloverdale depot now stands) and recorded in the State’s inventory of archaeological sites, which was not sufficiently important to be recorded in the NATIONAL Register of archaeological sites. Nevertheless, the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) approved by FHWA unequivocally provided that the portion of the land containing the archaeological site will have only passive uses such as picnic tables and grass lawns for the visitors to the depot. No subsurface activity was permitted, including the laying of utility lines and paving. (Remember the Pomo monument?)

The deed to the property was recorded with seven easements - under the ground, on the ground, above the ground - To Pacific Bell, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Viacom Cablevision, Southern Pacific Transportation Company, City of Cloverdale and the State of California. Not a whisper about an archaeological site. You can check that for yourself at the Recorder’s Office in Santa Rosa.

Re-enter now, The Railroad.

Parallel to the plans for the freeway were plans in the political arena to revitalize railroad service in Northwestern California. The North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) was created by the California Legislature in 1989. The present Cloverdale depot, a “multi-modal” transportation facility, now occupies the site in Cloverdale which had been reserved for the historic depot. And through all its interlocking memberships in public agencies (like SMART, the Sonoma–Marin Rail Transit District, and GGBHTD, the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District) our own Marin County Board of Supervisors is inextricably bound to the Rincon de Musulacon. History is breathing hot on their necks.

To be continued –

Tying it All Together (First in a Series)

SYNOPSIS (in case you’re in a hurry)
I’m old and looking back on a lifetime of events, some of which are worth a few comments in public. More than anything else, this series is about, “Friends in High Places.” No matter where the comments may go, they will always be tied with a long tether to home – as in “Homestead.” This initial episode briefly concerns California history, some of it early background history, some of it fairly recent history, not all of it pleasant, known only to the privileged few who lived it. End of Synopsis. (Reading time for the rest: less than 3 minutes, if you have the time.)
***

***
Rather than, “Celebrate the Fourth of July,” I, “Contemplate the Fourth of July,” because two Fourths of July nearly thirty years apart have worked to change my mind radically about the image of the United States of America as it was taught to me in school. Only one of them, though, the Fourth of July, 1976, will be enough to give you a good case of the hives, so for the time being we will just ignore the other one. Its time will come, in due course.

The Fourth of July 4, 1976, (our nation’s bicentennial holiday, recall?), is the date an old woman packed up and left a dilapidated shanty she had called home, because in the name of the People of the United States of America I had served her a “3 Day Notice to Pay or Quit.” She was in arrears in her rental payments (of $60 per month) and my boss had given me instructions – firm and unequivocal in the quaint vernacular of our profession, to “Kick her out!” He meant it, and I did it.

This was “Mainstream America.” Our business was business, and business is business. Only this time, an unexpected glitch entered the scene, sort of like your computer crashing without warning.

It was not just, “business as usual.” For me, at least. The old woman was an Indian (a “Native American,” in correct-speak) and I lost an impassioned battle on her behalf for money that was duly hers, a relocation payment of several thousand dollars, which was denied her because, in the words of Mainstream America, she was “a goddamn Indian,” and for no other reason. (I beg your pardon. I retract that. It was also because, “It was the white man who came along to develop this country, not the goddamned Indians, and don’t you forget it!” My job was on the line and Mainstream America had me by the you know whats.

But – (breathing deeply, now) – my conscience eventually got the better of me, and thirteen years later, and thanks to Saint Patrick – (more of that later) – she received the several thousand dollars she was entitled to, plus interest, which more than tripled the original sum. If ever you drive up US highway 101 through Sonoma County, your tires will hum happily right over the spot where it all began.

And if you read on a little further you’ll learn how the Marin County Board of Supervisors are tied to the whole shebang, and perhaps you, too, will begin to wonder whether – or perhaps even how – Marin Horizon School managed to creep uninvited into our living room while we were outside watering the garden, then plop itself onto our best sofa, put its feet up on the coffee table and start complaining about the room service.

As unlikely as it may seem, there is no beginning to this tale. Except perhaps the Big Bang. So we must plunge into it somewhere, and I have chosen the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, by which Mexico ceded much of its territory, including California, to the United States after a war. Two years later California was admitted to statehood. Of particular note here is the historic fact that upon achieving statehood in 1850 California became heir to private land grants made by preceding governments, namely by Spain and Mexico.

When I came onto the scene in 1976 with my “3 Day Notice to Pay or Quit” I was dealing with a tenant on a piece of property which when Columbus discovered America was the homeland of the Pomo Indians, a peaceable tribe that occupied an area extending roughly from Santa Rosa in Sonoma County to Ukiah in Mendocino County, and from the Pacific Ocean to Clear Lake. The ancestors of the woman whom I was about to serve with a “3 Day Notice to Pay or Quit” were here, happily conducting their affairs when an interloper from overseas “discovered” them. Knock, knock. “Get the hell out, lady, you’re on State property now, and you ain’t paying the rent fast enough.” I was standing in the middle of an Indian reservation, from which the State of California had acquired a couple acres for a freeway. And freeways, as we all know are fundamental to our commerce. And as we all know from our history books, and as Mainstream America had just reminded me, the goddamn Indians are in the way of it.

Here the plot thickens, as I must now introduce another inescapable historic fact: this particular Indian reservation was in Cloverdale, a small city on US 101 in northern Sonoma County, and it – the Indian reservation (the Cloverdale Rancheria) – and most of the city of Cloverdale are on one of the Mexican land grants that California inherited in 1850, the “Rincon de Musulacon.” A friend who speaks Spanish well enough to know, informed me that ‘Rincon de Musulacon’ translates roughly to “Musulacon’s Corners.” History informs us that Musulacon was an important early nineteenth century Pomo Chief. So here stands Ray Cook at the front door of a descendant of Musulacon, who herself is the sister of the tribe’s current chief, whose house is right next door, and Ray Cook is telling her to get the hell out!

To be continued. (click here for part 2)

MHS: Why or Why Not?

MHS: Why or why not?

Today is one of those days when thoughts of Marin Horizon School bring on
heart palpitations and trembles in my knees. Providence, it seems, is
advising me to move on to something else.

To resume then where I left off last time – with the old Santos place
across the street:

After his brother Tony died, George Santos used to let a few people stay
on the place from time to time under some kind of informal tenancy
agreement – an itinerant artist, a wannabe hippie and the like. One of my
son's high school friends even built himself a small shed and lived in it
for a while with his girl friend.

As demolition was in progress in I snuck over once and rummaged around
when nobody was looking to see if I might come across something worth
saving. But the guys with the bull dozers and dump trucks were models of
efficiency and the only thing I came away with was two quarts of canned
fruit and a couple sheets of binder paper with hand writing signed by
someone with a really queer name. It was some kind of poem or something,
which I managed to write down with my father's old Olympia portable
typewriter when I still had it. The paper was sort of damp and hard to
read and eventually just turned to dust, but I think I got it all, which
for your reading pleasure I transcribe here:

"Beemer, Beeper, Lahtay and Away"

A Tragic Little Tale

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS, gray squirrel
CORVUS BRACHYRHYNCHOS, common crow
CATHARTES AURA, turkey vulture
HUMANESCUS INFERNALIS, unknown automobile operator

Canto Primo

Hark thee, Squirrel, 'tis a dangersome course there thou dost tread. 'T
were far wiser in the bower o'erhead thy commerce to pursue.
But thou art earthward drawn by some rare curiosity
which to thy sad undoing doth portend.

In holy innocence thou knowest not and cannot know
the peril of thy place there on the asphalt way
which Humanescus Infernalis is not wont to share
with thee.

Squirrel, I would advise thee not to linger so
there in thy wonderment or indecision which to do.
Humanescus Infernalis has aught for thee.
Beyond beeper, Beemer, and lahtay, horizons vanish
into bottom lines, and vanish doth thy presence too.
CAUTION Squirrel! Take thee care!

Alas. Too late, didst thou
the coursing Beemer fear.

Some seconds pass
while thou thy folly didst
with harmless twitches, tics
protest.
In vain.

Thou liest there in grotesque grace
now silent
in posture so unnatural for thee,
or me.
Thy whiteside belly heavenward
in ignominious display,

of one more road kill.

Canto Secondo

Comes now the crow,
alone, this one
to attend thee there,
upon His invitation who presides
our mortal coil.

Macabre scene.
In ebon pace and hop the crow
surveys thy lot, 'til lo!
assured by unrequited feints
thy silence is eterne,
a flash of beak of deepest jet
an eye plucks from your face
presented there in helpless death.
And for dessert? The other!

A shadow looms from far above,
much larger than the crow.
Yon from soaring heaven loft
a dirge plumed vulture
drops to earth, in ballerina grace.

The crow resigns in butlered dignity
its carrion advantage to this earnest laborer,
unmanner'd and intent upon
his Providential due.

Talon, beak, unfeathered neck.
A suit for this repast as fine
as Queen's own knives and linen.
Sir Vulture in his way gives thanks,
And tears apart thee, Squirrel.

Hark THEE vulture, danger nears!
An SUV this time.

All courses nearly done, the slate gray bird
on mighty wings takes hasty flight.
An ort in final desperation snatched from
hemotose remains trails Vulture's s w o o p i n g path.

Four feet of squirrel gut, pink and moist in morning sun.

Beemer, beeper, lahtay and a - w - a - a - a - y - y - y !

/signed/ Domarny Arbisi

Gotta go now. Wifey is ringing the dinner bell!

Angst? In HOMESTEAD??

Angst ? In HOMESTEAD ? ?
Yesterday I overcame a natural resistance to avoid something I don't
understand and did the "survey" on the Homestead Valley BEAT homepage,
which I feared would be, as many surveys are, a self serving instrument
for some pre-determined outcome. But it was an adventure that permitted me
self expression and I found myself using words like, "maelstrom" and
"tsunami," and I left the scene satisfied I that I had truly had my say.
I urge you, too, to become a "surveyor." Exit "On the Beam" and go
directly to the "Homestead Valley BEAT." Take the survey. Do it NOW !!
Ray Cook

Homestead Valley Community Association

The Homestead Valley Community Association (HVCA)
Some opinions and, Some facts.

For openers, the HVCA website (www.homesteadvalley.org.) is the place to
go for background: history, commercials for their swimming pool, that
sort of stuff. And while you're there, check out the Marin IJ article on
Maury Maverick from January 2, 2011, if it's still posted. He's lived in
Homestead Valley a LONG time and has a good nose for what's going on.
There are several pictures of him and his guitar, one of them from about
the time I moved here in 1970. If you have a chance, talk to him about
the old-time concerts at Stolte Grove. I still recall the first one my
wife and I attended, which was with an exceptionally handsome old friend
and lifetime Marin County resident, who for quite a few years now is
deceased, rest his beautiful soul, who had to explain that the sweet
pungent smell wafting among the redwoods was neither smoldering sagebrush
nor hippie incense. (Oh?)
As soon as you finish the Maverick article, recall reading here that he
and I have discovered we share a common interest in goats. I, too, had a
pet goat when I was a boy, and as far as I'm concerned, anybody who likes
goats is just fine with me! Although there is an explanation of my
preference for the company of goats to those of our own kind we
occasionally meet on life's lanes and byways – and find exasperating for
one reason or another – it is interminable and better left unsaid.
Now, back to HVCA.
Until the issue of a certain statement made in 1973 by the then President
of HVCA to the assembled Marin County Board of Supervisors regarding the
approaching bond issue for acquisition of open space is publicly settled,
I will continue to regard the HVCA website as a textbook for advanced
students of political science – in its manifold historical sense.
But let's not spoil our fun on that account.
I once went to the HVLT (Homestead Valley Land Trust ) with an urgent
plea to include the old Santos property at 35 Laverne Avenue into the Land
Trust ( which is the land Marin County had bought in Homestead Valley
with the 1973 bond money and set aside as open space, which I voted FOR)
but was rebuffed, and rather rudely as I recall.
But let's not spoil our fun on that account.
At the time, I believed the old Santos property to be the last surviving
"homestead" in Homestead Valley, even if it was up here on the ridge that
separates Homestead Valley from Tamalpais Valley to the south. It was, as
I am, part of the Homestead Valley tax district, and consisted of the old
Santos house where my neighbor and good friend George Santos was born in
1914 and died in 1992, and an old barn adorned with souvenir deer antlers,
and chicken coops and sundry out-buildings spread around among the
scraggly fruit trees over the acre and a half that remained of the Santos
property. I knew George well, and his older brother Tony not as well
because Tony died while our acquaintance was still young. They were old
bachelors who lived and died in the house where they entered this world,
and enjoyed one another's company puttering around the barn their father
had built. They were aging sons of the last of the Portuguese dairymen
that populate Marin County's rich history. The subdivision where my house
sits and where I write these words was once Santos property. All of which
interested HVLT not in the least. The property was sold to private
investors rather than Marin County. Everything was demolished in 1998 and
two expensive new houses were erected on the site. If you're interested,
you can see pictures of the old Santos place in Chuck Oldenburg's history
of Homestead on the HVCA website. George and Tony are buried in Fernwood
Cemetery on Tennessee Valley Road, which soon will become my final
address. On this earth.
In the following paragraphs and subject to the temperament of the digital
and wireless media I will try to conclude this edition of On the Beam with
copies (which have been scanned, cut and copied so many times I'm almost
blind) of the HV Land Trust Agenda for their meeting, November 16, 1993,
and of the letter I presented to them at that meeting urgently
recommending the Santos property be preserved, "in the interest of noble
community values," which failed like the proverbial lead balloon to stir
anyone's interest but my own.
That's it for today. And many thanks for your kind attention,
Ray Cook
$$$$ (Agenda below) $$$$

HOMESTEAD VALLEY LAND TRUST
AGENDA
NOVEMBER 16, 1993
Call to Order.
Introduction of guests.
Approval of the Minutes.
Treasurer's Report.
Letter from Warren Mullen re: 1994 Budget Request.
Ron Crawford - Homestead map.
Santos property - Ray Cook.
Committee Reports
Parks Report - Phil Moyer
Request 'from theater group to use Stolte Grove.
CSA 14 - Eric Stoelting
Open Space - Eric Stoelting
Pixie Trail work - Andy Stoelting.
Deux Chevaux at Madrone Trail.
Bike signs up again.
Tree Safety - Maverick
Publicity - Rob Kilby
Thank you to Volunteer Park clean up crew.
Announcement on board elections.
Old Business
Bond issue - meeting held on Nov. 5 to discuss timing and
terms of bond sale.
Fire Warning System.
Law Suit.
Virginia Spalding Memorial.
New Business
Adjournment.
$$$$$ (My letter, below ) $$$$
115 Homestead Blvd.
Mill Valley, CA 94941
November 10, 1993
Homestead Valley Land Trust
315 Montford Avenue
Mill Valley, CA 94941
Dear Land Trust:
Has the Land Trust given any thought to acquiring the old Santos property
at 35 Laverne, between Laverne and Homestead Blvd.? I believe it is
assessor's parcel number 48-051-08. It contains about an acre and a half,
and is improved with the old house and barn that have survived pretty much
as they always were.
The property was put on the market after George Santos, my neighbor, died
last year. He was born in the house in 1914 and spent his entire life
there as a bachelor, and in the twenty three years I knew him he
maintained a quiet and modest lifestyle, heating the house and cooking
with a stove fueled by wood from "them old ukes" that line the property.
He related many tales and yarns about the old days when his family were
dairypeople on our hill, and how they sustained themselves to a
considerable extent with the-natural bounties around them at the time. He
and his family are at rest now in Daphne Fernwood Cemetary on Tennessee
Valley Road.
Although this parcel is not as well known as Three Groves, it is
none-the-less an historical treasure which the community will be deprived
of when it is subdivided. In the interest of noble community values, is
the preservation of this fragment of our past not to be urgently
recommended?
The property is listed with Coldwell Banker, 331-2700.
Yours very truly,
/s/ Ray Cook

Out of the Closet

Out of the Closet

Changes advance on Homestead. (Sound the Alarm!!)

We begin this edition of Ray on the Beam with deep gratitude to today's
San Francisco Chronicle (Monday, January 03, 2011). Check it out. Front
page, under "Governor's Inauguration. For Brown and California, much has
changed."

Amen. (Great stats.)

I was born in 1930 into a world of abundance. I live in 2011 in a world
that squandered it. Something is wrong with the planetary operating
instructions, if the honchos who call themselves our leaders are reading
them right.

"Long Fingered Economics" and "Disciples of Progress" are terms I invented
to describe to myself an utterly baffling phenomenon around me that I do
not understand but which is the naturalest thing on earth to many of my
fellow s p a c e travelers, namely, "More! More!! MORE!!"

What I'm getting at here is that my view of things is from the inside out
because I am a Provincial (that's what we call Hillbillies in polite
company) and that my wife's view is from the outside in, which is
different, because she's from the Big City, and a European Big City to
boot. This important distinction explains my rather obvious bias about
things that go on around me in HOMESTEAD. I am a Westerner. That part of
the earth I call home lies in North America between the Rocky Mountains
and the Pacific Ocean. Translation: I am a Homestead Valleyer. Anything
outside of that don't count. My wife on the other hand, is not a
Westerner. Where she comes from people regard and have always regarded the
Western Hemisphere as some place to migrate TO. Get the picture? I'm
already here. I have no intention of migrating, EVER! So when things go on
around me that upset the serenity I had expected in my dotage, my
fingernails begin to itch, my skin tingles, my baby blues start whirling
in opposite directions, I break out in rashes, and on and on.

I wince for those who are content in their belief that Ray the Queer Old
Duck would be a lot happier if only he would consult the statistics on
financial growth and the number of minutes per week he waits for
stoplights. And I think of the "public improvement projects" built all
over the West that I was taught to cheer about when I was young - Hoover
Dam. Bonneville Dam. Grand Coulee Dam. Hell's Canyon Dam. Oxbow Dam.
Brownlee Dam. Glen Canyon Dam. But where are all the jackrabbits now? And
in what sad state is the salmon run? Our forests look like mangy dogs,
dam, dam.

Yes, Time Marches On, but lemme try to explain something I sorely miss
about the old days: I miss buying old fashioned milk and cream in any
neighborhood store. For the uninitiated, that's the stuff that comes from
the udders of cows when you pull on their teats. In its natural state the
cream rises to the top, even when pasteurized. The cream on the milk from
our Jersey cow was so thick in the earthen crock where it was stored in
the refrigerator it would support a coin tossed onto it. (And yes, until
1937 we only had an ice box, and yes, I prefer the refrigerator.)

Let me recite to you here the ingredients of a spray can of stuff called
Natural Whipped Cream that I saw in a local store not long ago: "Organic
Cream, organic non fat milk, organic cane sugar, organic vanilla
flavoring, sorbitan monostearate, carrageenan and nitrous oxide as
whipping propellant. CONTAINS MILK. For best results point the tip of the
can straight down. Packed for Natural by Nature, West Grove, PA 19390."
The tag attached to this can of stuff read, "Whole Foods Market - natural
by nature – Natural Whipped Cream $4.49 ea. 7 oz." (I transcribed that
directly from a picture I made of it, August 22, 2009, 8:11 a.m. at Whole
Foods Market on the corner of Miller and Evergreen.)

Pity the children who see that, whose innocent minds are sacrificed on the
altar of Texas profits, right here in Homestead.

Later there will be more about the Homestead Valley Community Association,
their intimate neighbor Marin Horizon School, and then if I have anything
left, the Evergreen Avenue dam dam project.

But first, a quickie ray of hope: Many years ago, about the time Jerry
Brown was thinking of making his first bid for Governor I attended an
evening seminar on population growth in Olney Hall at the College of
Marin. One of the panelists who was an Associate Professor of Biology or
something like that from Stanford had been haranguing us about
overpopulation and somebody from the audience hollered, "Hey, Doc, you got
any kids?" Long pause. A softer and rather disarming change of pace,
"I have four daughters." Hoots and waves of raucous laughter! Then this
guy, about 40 years old with sort of tight blond curls growing sparser
behind a receding hairline, cleared his throat, leaned over close to the
microphone and with an emotion tensed voice said, "I am proud of THEM, but
I am not proud of IT."

More later, but right now I gotta run! (You guess where.)

Ray Cook