[UPDATE] Humboldt Homegrown: A Year in the Life of a Humboldt County Guerrilla Grower

Homegrown: A Year in the Life of a Humboldt County Guerrilla Grower

A book review:

Step back in time to a world warmly reminiscent of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, that well-known hippie comic, to a graphic novel about growing marijuana during a year when pounds brought in $5000 and Operation Greensweep was on a mission to prove that the war on drugs made sense. Last summer, Andrew Santos (not his real name) published Homegrown: A Year in the Life of a Humboldt County Guerrilla Grower about his time growing illegally near Petrolia in order to purchase a piece of land. This year, a copy appeared in my mailbox.

The story, mostly in black and white line drawings, meanders like one of the North Coast’s many creeks from Petrolia back to the author’s childhood pauses to examine the characters he has met and then morphs into field notes on plants and animals only to change into a description of the time when CAMP threatened to disrupt the peace of his property and, finally, drops the reader off with the author and a load of money to pay back the very chill previous landowners of his very own slice of heaven.

Each page is like opening a carefully preserved diary holding crumbling dry marijuana leaves pressed in the late 80’s and early 90’s–a time when a middle man called Ponderosa Pine not only paid top dollar for Humboldt Homegrown but might later send a note wrapped around cash stating, “I was able to get more than I thought for your product. Peace… .”

The author/main character marvels along with the reader, “Never before or since has a pot deal gone like that.”

A partial page from Homegrown: A Year in the Life of a Humboldt County Guerrilla Grower.

The drawings and simple captions bring back life as a guerrilla grower maybe a little romanticized and burnished into a warm glow but, heck, what are memories for but to make one smile.

The only drawback to this lovely meander through the old days of growing is that the book is only sold in a few places–The author sent me a list of where on a piece of yellow notepaper that floated away along with his address. However, Google supplied the information that Northtown Books in Arcata has copies and even sells the book via their online shop.

Not all mothers would enjoy this for Mother’s Day, but this one would.

UPDATE: The author tells us, “It’s also available at the gallery bookshop in Mendocino village, ukiah books in ukiah and the beat museum in north beach San Francisco.  Also online at mollywestranch.com”