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 –
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
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)
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)
Saturday, January 15, 2011
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!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
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
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
Thursday, January 6, 2011
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
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
Monday, January 3, 2011
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
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