Guest Column: Notable Neighbors
Early days of Reggae on the River [Image provided by Paul Modic]
Wow, when I see all the love and admiration from everyone for Richard Gienger (still alive by the way) in response to my story about his 80th birthday, I wonder if he realized he’d be creating all these personal connections over fifty years by getting out of the woods and making an interesting life as an environmental activist? (All these people I’ve never heard of know him and care about him, I’m touched and a little envious.)
Whale Gulch has produced a few other illustrious people, notably Ray Raphael who recently came out with his autobiography, to go along with the twenty other books he’s written, and it makes me wonder who else reached beyond the Gulch and made a wider impact? We had our local community leaders, the movers and shakers like Nancy, Keith, Bruce, Sandy, Frank and others. (Rondal Snodgrass started Sanctuary Forest and personally saved a lot of old growth trees and Sheldon Wolin was a famous political theoretician when he made a home in the Gulch in the early seventies.)
Charley Wilson worked his way through a few iterations of AEE (Alternative Energy Engineering), then branched out and started a successful solar cable manufacturing business which now supports five families in Ferndale. (He and his business partner turned down a big offer to sell PVCable because the prospective new owners would have probably moved it out of town.) Doug Green was known for his work with the Mateel Community Center (MCC) for years as well as MC at “Reggae on the River,” and my sister Jessie leads weekly musical protests every Friday from noon to one in downtown Garberville.
Around Southern Humboldt, Bob McKee was “the godfather” of the back-to-the-land movement around here, selling educated hippies and everyone else who showed up cheap land from the sixties on. David Katz had a tremendous impact in the community selling solar panels in the eighties and during those weed boom years was the biggest supplier of panels nationwide. (He recently started and is running another alternative energy business in Arcata.)
Patti Rose worked for years bringing to life the senior housing complex in Garberville, Patti Rae has been working on making homeless housing available next to the cemetery and Kym Kemp created her popular news site “Red Headed Black Belt.”
ED Denson was a notable activist for all lefty causes, became a lawyer at sixty and represented local DUI clients, growers and others. (He also successfully sued the county for an illegal weed tax.)
Steve Dazey had a huge impact selling fertilizer for a few decades (as well as windows, stoves and generators), made bank and then created the Community Park with Bob McKee, the jewel of our area. (The park has been criticized by some for being technically a private organization with an unelected board though that was probably one of the best decisions Dazey made, appointing the original board with longtime community advocates, having seen how chaotic public boards have been around here.)
Carol Bruno was an annual force of nature running the MCC and then “Reggae on the River” until the “Reggae Wars” of 2007. (The conflict between her company “People Productions” and the MCC created a widespread division in the community and her career ended in rancor.)
Al Ceralo and Paul Bassis were notable voices in the community with their weekly KMUD talk show “Thank Jah It’s Friday” as well as prominently acting and directing in theatre productions with “The Pure Schmint Players.” (The “Reggae Wars” destroyed their close friendship.)
The Alderpoint artist Frank Cieciorka was known nationally for his rebellious fist drawings and got a New York Times obituary along with Sheldon Wolin. (Have any other locals had that distinction, or might in the future?)
Simon Frech, longtime volunteer, employee and permanent technical fixture at KMUD also deserves recognition, along with Christina Huff, Doug Fir, Rick Klein, Paul Encimer, Robie Tenorio, the midwife Lorraine Carolan and other notable community members who I’m probably leaving out. (Feel free to mention more.)
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Love seeing all those old names, so much of the southern Humboldt community was built by those people. I would add Jan Iris, Maggie Carrie and Peter Rice for creating an alternative school that is still thriving! Thanks for the memories ✌🏽
The painter Peter Holbrook, Joanie Rose- creator and director of Recycled Youth and longtime local performer, Ray Oakes-the face of SoHum, Carl Hanson- super-volunteer in local theater including Recycled Youth and Random People productions, Kim Sallaway, illustrious photographer and documenter of all scenes SoHum, from Reggae to bridge construction…
(Photo:Needle Rock tree by Kim)
I was just lucky!
Last winter I ran into Jared in the park, we walked together for a while, and I found out he went to Harvard and was Valedictorian at his high school in Marin. He was wondering why we don’t name streets after illustrious people in our community? It got me to thinking, that there might be only one unnamed spot in Garberville, the alley running by the old Redwood Record building. A local resident thinks we should name it after a woman, Christina Huff is his choice and I think why not the Jared Rossman Alley?
Who is more illustrious than Jared?
I lived around Petrolia my first five years in Humboldt. Without having two nickels to rub together, my habit back then was to gift a day of labor to my friends for their birthdays. That led me to spending the day at Freeman House’s place. Rondal Snodgrass showed up for lunch and explained his plan to buy and save all the remaining old growth in the headwaters of the Mattole. I distinctly remember thinking, “Pretty spunky guy.” Then he went and did it.
Thank you for the recognition.
Many invest their lives, quietly working, without public light.
Your community created a legend, known far and wide, that made Humboldt a dream place up north when I was still in the city.
I am grateful to live here, now, though I missed out on those early days of inception.
Thank you, seniors, for your vision and life long vocation.
I was lucky enough to meet and get to know Jim Deerhawk back in the day! Like all of these fine people he also offered his visions to the “budding community”! Hence MATEEL
Paul~How do you consider the Community Park as “the jewel of our area”? You don’t consider Redwoods Groves and Avenue of the Giants a “jewel”? The Community Park is a private pay-to-play park, not owned or operated by the community. You need to stop gaslighting and whitewashing the history behind the Park…
Local Treasure
This is the ballad of the Community Park
the gem of the area which glows in the dark
I can’t say enough about this beautiful place
sweating up this mountain or walking apace
Once was a cattle ranch and then got divided
young growers moved in and were very delighted
Steve Dazey and Bob McKee came up with the plan
they created a river park and then the fun began
Of course to the complainers it’s never enough
for the cantankerous ones life can be rough
Everyone’s welcome to come recreate
so many healthy opportunities await
Frisbee golf, ride horses, walk, run, and bike
fly your drone or kite or play whatever you like
Do a stoked sesh on the new skateboard ramp
or head over to the stage and practice your rant
Everyone’s friendly out on the trails
as masks disappear, smiles prevail
And so once again we say thanks Bob and Steve
you had a vision in which we all can believe
Well Paul, I’m sure Steve and Bob’s family are thanking you for your misinformed story telling. It’s up there with Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
The facts are, Steve and Bob didn’t just have a plan, it was a scheme, to see if they could both get a big piece of the Tooby Flat (Bob 80 acres & Steve 70 acres), the very best parts, without paying a dime, all paid by donations from the community and approved by Steve’s hand picked board. And that was just the beginning.
There’s always two or more sides to every story and this story has several dozen. Bottom line, the Park was a land grab, by a select group of people in Southern Humboldt, people who not only took possession of prime property, but also made interest from private loans, all with a lien against the Park, with compounded interest for years. And who were these people; Bob McKee (Buck Mountain Ranch), Tim Metz, Gil Gregory and Mark Drake.
So your story is just that, a story, not based in fact, just kind words to make everything seem like everything was on the up and up…
108 Smiles
Which came first? Feeling good causing your smile or smiling making you feel good?
Sometimes when walking in the park I’ll feel so good to be out there with the cows and birds on foggy spring mornings that I’ll break out in a smile, which I did six times a few days ago. The next day I didn’t smile at all and the day after that smiled twenty times on my hour-long walk. (Last night, dancing stoned in the living room, I wondered if my excessive record-keeping about daily life could be counterproductive and scribbled a note to ask my doctor if I might need some help.)
These smiles migrate from mouth to eyes and across my face, arms spreading wide with loud and heavy breathing and sighing, then walking on contentedly with a momentarily clear mind into which no thoughts can enter. (I’m probably feeling this good because of recently sleeping straight through twenty-five out of thirty days in April and possibly have finally figured out insomnia after three and a half years of working on it.)
The next day I started adding more sound and movement to my smiles, swaying halfway around to each side, taking in the views of meadows and trees with airplane arms, and ending with some air drumming and a minor hippie howl. By the time I hit seventy smiles I’d added a full twirl before the concluding howl but stopped the air drumming when my arms got tired. (Around number eighty I was tired of smiling and changed it up with a one-time growling frown.)
I noticed on my marathon smiling binge that the longer the interval between smiles the fresher the next one felt, especially after I took the sheath of lyrics out of my back pocket and sang one of the rock classics I’d printed off the internet.
When I hit ninety I was sweaty and tired and cruised to a final total of 108 in the hour-long excursion. (The beautiful Southern Humboldt Community Park, our area’s sparkling gem, was dreamed up and created twenty-five years ago by the visionaries Steve Dazey and Bob McKee.)
I was so beat when arriving home that I didn’t do the daily after-walk Spring weed-whacking and had lost two pounds. Concerned about developing deeper smile lines after that notable trek I looked in the mirror, the test smile seemed authentic and I felt like the “practicing” had been productive.
Wow, 108 smiles, maybe I am still a hippie.
Paul, for someone who claims to be a historian of Southern Humboldt, in this case, you are trying to re-write history for Dazey & McKee, with your alternative facts about their Park. I am just responding to your ludicrous claim and setting the historic record straight. But this is what happens when people like Dazey & McKee do everything in secrecy, say one thing in public and something different in practice and on the ground. It makes me question what else you are talking about.
You call Dazey & McKee “visionaries”, but in this case they were just small town conman…
What? You fucked up self-righteous hillbillies don’t pat yourselves on the back enough already on KMUD? Fuck off!