Handicap Parking

With the redevelopment of a central city parking lot, regulations to supply handicap access took effect. It really is the right thing to do, jokes about "political correctness" and "too many rules" aside. Here, two parking spaces are specifically designated for specially equipped vans, with side lifts, for wheelchair using people to have room to get in and out of their vehicles. The curb of the sidewalk slopes down to accommodate them as well. I hope if I'm ever disabled, this kind of infrastructure will be in place, to allow me to interact with my community with a minimum dependence on others, with the self-determination that able-bodied people take for granted. I explain all this because readers from some other countries don't yet build this way.

This is another wall of the building you saw here and here.

Muir Lane

Muir Lane is actually an alley running behind business properties from the Van Hotel on Commercial Street, south to the Henry Baker Muir department store property now occupied by J.D. Redhouse. Reading a biographical sketch of the man from 1914, Muir was a shrewd businessman with his hand in lumbering, milling, retailing, banking, energy development, telecommunications, and land brokering. There's no mention of any relationship to John Muir, the noted conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club.

Fantasy Land

Coincidentally combining elements from the previous two posts, the westernmost end of the J.D. Redhouse building mural casts the Mendocino coast into a planet of fantasy, with a moon in a pink sky as the viewer looks north. The camouflage tarp reveals the contrast between fantasy forest green paint and more realistic hues. I'm not a fan of the color "teal", but I actually like this mural. I suspect the black trailer is there if needed for deliveries of hay bales to area farms.

FantasyMuralCamoTr Jigsaw Puzzle

Feminine Mystique

Remarkably, the artist's signature on this mural indicates it was painted in 1977. The storefront facing the street is now a watch repair shop, so I had always assumed this beauty salon reference was just left up for the sake of the artwork. It wasn't until I walked around this side of Main Street today that I discovered Valerie's on the opposite side of the building, still an active business. I need to get out more.

Beginning Again

I was able to grab a fair number of images from an abandoned auto service center building complex in 2008, and a few weeks ago added the image above to the list. A new owner for the property has apparently been found, so the old buildings have been disappearing a little at a time. This laborer is in a trench up to his knees, but I'm not sure what he is doing. The back wall of the post office is behind him, and the floor of a now vanished retail showroom spreads before him, shortly to be jack-hammered away.

On sunny Tuesday, I found further progress on the site. New concrete has been poured into the same building footprint as the previous structure, and this strange rotating machine was polishing? texturizing? the fairly fresh surface.


It's good to see some investment still going on, even in these hard economic times. But I miss the glass brick entrance of the former building. All the boxwood and datura is gone as well.

Parking Spot

The snow level has lifted to the mountain elevations, but here in the valley it falls as a cold, light, but steady rain. In weather like this, it's not unusual to hear the sirens of emergency response vehicles wailing up Highway 101/Main Street. As dry as our year has been, it seems drivers haven't adjusted their speeds for the slick conditions.

My wish to all holiday travelers is to stay safe, so that time can take care of itself.

Food Bank

I'm thankful I still have enough to be able to give, and to be graced by those who will receive it.

I'm so thankful that my mother is vibrant and thriving in her own home over closer to the ocean, happy to be self-sufficient and able to meet her daily needs among the splendors of nature, near the village of her upbringing. That's where I'll be visiting for the next couple of days, so I'll be out of reach of any computers. I wish health and contentment to all my blog visitors around the world. I'm thankful for you as well.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The "wheelie-bins" used for household solid waste disposal are gray with black hinged lids, and the curbside bins for mixed recycling (yes, we don't separate materials at home) are blue. Garden clippings and leaves go into a muted green bin. But if you want the exciting colors, take your excess cardboard, mixed paper, and glass right over to the solid waste transfer station. Convenient ramps lead right up to the tops of the truck-sized collection containers, neatly labeled for their proper contents.

It's true. Americans have a remarkably different idea of the fit of their clothes than Europeans do. We don't like anything too binding or snug. We like the blood to circulate easily to all the important places, with room to breathe.

Anna's Asian House Restaurant Back Apartment

Among the vibrant features that small towns usually already have in place is the classic arrangement of "living above the store". When residential uses and commercial buildings blend and integrate, people mix easily into the pulse of activity that makes a town feel alive. When that happens orgaincally, that is to say, one building at a time, then the textures of the various generations get woven into a distinctive whole. When you see the upper Main Street commercial district, you see a place where old and new lives, and multiple ways of seeing the world, come together to create a unique street history that can only be where it uniquely is: Willits.

Circulating about town without the armor and anonymity of a car means seeing and connecting with people, not just acting out the pre-scripted advertising idea of ourselves with our "stuff" gathered from distantly programmed shopping experiences. Having said that, the irony is not lost on me that the lane running along the bottom of this picture is for the Bank of Willits drive-through teller.

All Others Will Be Toad

I'm sure this is a common joke sign available in novelty shops in any number of cities around the country. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) But how many of you can say it has been intentionally and officially installed in the parking lot of your county justice center and city hall? I know, some of you locals worry that if I keep blogging these things, everyone will want to move here.

[Edit Aug 7] I just found a similar sign on Cheltenham Daily Photo this week!

Bigfoot

Like hoaxes around the world - bug-eyed aliens in Area 51, crop circles in England, a monster in Loch Ness - Bigfoot was once a something of a folk legend in the redwood forest region. These ideas have been useful for marketing and tourism in their various locales, and some people have sadly taken them all too seriously. Thirty or forty years ago, there was a counterculture/back-to-the-land/new settler/hippie collective/commune over near the coast called "Bigfoot," but with a wink I'm sure. However, you don't hear about this old myth very often any more. Unless you happen to pass closely by the empty market building behind the Hotel Van, you probably wouldn't give him a second thought. The vivid teal green and yellow are actually a reference to the local high school colors.
BigfootMural Jigsaw Puzzle

How Dry I Am

This dry cleaning business closed seven or eight years ago. It never occurred to me that the clothes that didn't get picked up by the customers would just stay locked up. The opposite side of the building looks like this.

Customer Parking Only

My Zen Monday offering, um, delayed until Tuesday. Refrain from the desire to park.

A Scene Seen on the Side

This is the far end of a long charming fence depicting some flowers native to the county, if not Willits specifically. It guides burrito eaters to a garden patio with tables. I'd like to guide visitors here to a spectacular mural on Victoria Daily Photo just seen today. It's almost unbelievable!

And by request of Palm Axis:
SceneSeen Jigsaw Puzzle

Broken and Torn

This seems to have been an office room on the side of a commercial garage. The curtain is a faded print of an old patchwork quilt design.

BrokenAndTorn Jigsaw Puzzle

Neatly Stacked

Someone started cleaning up this derelict industrial lot in the center of town last weekend, and got rid of a bunch of trash and broken supplies, then smoothed over the dirt with a small tractor. I'm not sure if those are boxes or pulled-out drawers next to the shed, but the workmen took care that they don't look so derelict anymore.

Also Born To Be Wild

A pair of house sparrows found some prime nesting real estate - safe from predators, available (or made available by kicking someone else out), and gosh darn pretty. It even comes with a handy landing pad for waiting one's turn.

Book Juggler Back Door

There's something pleasing to me about a healthy-looking wall, unblemished by gang tagging, in good repair, and neatly painted. Willits is not untouched by the plague of vandalism and gang activity. Every time the skate park is hit with graffiti, the city closes it. I just read it's happened twice in the last two weeks. I wonder who pays for the clean-up.

This wall is on Wood Street, near the corner of Main. When I looked at this on my computer, I felt like I had posted it before, then remembered the Windsor Mill post. Some similarities anyway.
BookJugglerBackDoo Jigsaw Puzzle

Frida and Diego

The end of a cinderblock row of apartments bears this tribute to Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, echoing their style anew. An artist friend of Frida and Diego who was his assistant in a San Francisco mural project, Emmylou Packard, lived about forty miles away from here in the coastal village of Mendocino for many years. Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Do Poppies Dream of Blue Skies?

The state flower of California finds a foothold in the crevice between the Willits Rexall Drugstore back wall and the alley pavement.
BackAlleyPoppies Jigsaw Puzzle