They Have a System

They have a system, these two men, as they find their way around town to do errands on any given day. One seems to shift forward to blaze the path across the day's obstacles, to find the safe path. The other seems to lean back in counter balance, blind and holding his head high, poised to meet the day, in complete faith that his comrade will not lead him astray.

Construction Progress

Work continues apace on the office construction on the site of Mason Cook's towing and automotive services lot. When the developer started, it was to be a mixed retail frontage, but an engineering firm down the street spotted it, and grabbed up a lease on the whole new and spacious complex. It's good to hear that the firm needs to expand and add staff, and good to see builders employed. Before the recent rains this past week, the roof was already on.

Officer Down

On Saturday, mourners gathered at Willits High School to honor Officer Dave Tiller, who finally succumbed to cancer last Wednesday. Members of law enforcement from all over the area gathered along with local family and friends in the Auditorium, then proceeded to the Community Center for a reception. As with the recent Smith memorial, the Boy Scouts set out American flags to line Main Street and Commercial in Tiller's honor. We are all moved by a community united in grief.

Mariposa Metamorphosis

I wasn't around Willits for the beginnings of Mariposa Market, but I'm told they once were located in the shop spaces behind a wall I posted on this blog last spring. For the past decade, they have done business behind this iconic mural. Now, once again, they have metamorphosed into a new and larger space, right next door to the last one, on the site of the old Skunk Motel. They dedicated themselves to natural and organic foods, health products and clothing way back when only "hippies" were interested in such things. Today, they have more mainstream competition, but seem to be going strong on greater mainstream interest.

Younger Than Springtime, Are You...

One of our local bloggers, Ron Bloomquist of Walking Fort Bragg, is now in Washington state caring for his mother-in-law. With seamless grace, he continues to blog his new surroundings as well as his personal adventures along the path of life. A recent post showed his discovery of the beauty salon his mother-in-law patronizes, with him watching like a kid in a foreign land.

These hair dryers, seen through the glass door at Valerie's, remind me of tagging along as a kid with my mother in the 60s, when carefully placed scalp-fulls of rollers and clips roasted under the tiny jets of air. Then, when unrolled and combed and brushed and fluffed and sprayed, a halo of controlled chaos crowned the well groomed customer. In today's fashions, these machines are mostly used to apply heat to chemical applications of color or "permanent waves". My thanks to Ron for reviving the memories, and my best wishes to him and his entire family.

Cracks and Jack

It's so rare to see custom tile work like this any more, that I grieve to see it drilled into for a pointless railing dividing two shop entrances. The "Colonial" must have been a hotel or apartment building long ago. The crack suggests it could have endured a fairly strong earthquake, and the upper facade, seen in the photo below, shows such evidence as well. When the 1906 quake hit this area, the only fatality happened when a brick hotel collapsed on the proprietor. Residential chimneys fell down all over the area, but the wooden framed houses themselves endured pretty well, being able to flex with the earth. I don't know if the Colonial was around for those events. It seems unlikely with all its brickwork still standing.

Few people realize the epicenter of that shaker was closer to Santa Rosa than San Francisco, and the rupture continued quite strongly up the fault line north. Writer Jack London toured these areas with his wife, Charmian, soon after, and wrote about his observations for Collier's magazine. In her diary (held by the Huntington Library in San Marino), Charmian mentions Jack writing part of "White Fang" while they stayed at a hotel nearer to the railroad depot in Willits.



As Melodee pointed out in the comments, the Colonial name applied to the cinema once operated in part of this building. Thanks Melodee!

Back at the Diner

Great news to report: the Ardella's crew is back in action after their long winter vacation! I couldn't even wait for my food to arrive - I had to take a celebratory picture. It's the beautifully reflective black granite counter top that has me whipping out my camera every time.

Jazz in the Afternoon

A local jazz trio offered cool sounds on an easy afternoon at coffehouse Mendonesia last weekend (the piano is out of frame). We may be small, but we've got it all. Some time, I'll try to capture the open mic poetry readings done here each month.

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.

Latte No Foam

After the photo safari to the valley brought very few photos to bank in my computer the other day, I went for warm refuge in Mendonesia, housed in the former Bank of Willits building. With compassion and efficiency, the kindly crew simultaneously whipped up a latte and a Pine Mountain sandwich for my tired soul.

Blue Sky at Night

Mendocino county is rich with artists, and the Willits area is no exception. We have musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, actors, poets, and artisanal craftworkers of every sort, and often widely known. Blue Sky Gallery provides a retail outlet for a select few of them, with art glass, jewelery, paintings and ceramics regularly on offer. You probably don't remember that I posted their front step many months ago. That koi pond is still one of my favorite art finds.

With daylight in short supply, it turns out some of our shops are easier to photograph at night! Okay, Willits may not be Yellowknife, but still it's dark before I leave work. Today, many of these uptown Main Street businesses organized early shopping hours, because for some mysterious reason, people seem to love to shop for Christmas gifts the day after our Thanksgiving holiday. Personally, I can't imagine getting up in the dark, early hours of the morning to shop, but if you want to dive in starting at 6:00 AM this morning, these merchants will be ready to help you.

Parking Lot Re-Think

The Willits Post Office parking lot is notoriously difficult to navigate, consisting of four spaces facing east, and four facing west. Years ago, somebody decided to build this cinder block wall right up to the point of entrance, not imagining how soon cars need to swing around to miss hitting the vehicles parked behind them. Either all at once, or gradually, vehicles have helped to solve part of the constraint by knocking the corner of the fence down. This barrier now slopes back about three or four feet before resuming its original form. During weekdays at peak hours, you would be amazed at the dynamic maneuvering of cars and pedestrians that goes on here, in a community with a very high demand for post office boxes (thousands), in addition to the special transactions at the front counter. I'm glad I got a bike.

Only a Memory

A run-down Skunk Motel (it was named for the well known excursion train operating here, not the animal) was finally demolished several years ago, and the empty lot served as some overflow parking for the Mariposa Market. Then temporary fences went up and the heavy equipment moved in, pushing, digging, grading. Soon, construction will be complete on a new building for the market.

There are a few other things that have been pictured on Willits Daily Photo that are no longer to be seen in the real world of today:

1. The Lion of Judah shop has been clearing out of its space. I don't know if it's going somewhere else.

2. The abandoned service station office is now not only vacant, but torn down.

3. Three miniature mares were torn apart and killed by two wandering pitbull dogs last week. The paper says a fourth was maimed, but may recover.

4. The Princess Parking Only sign at the Community Center/City Hall has been removed, following a letter of snarky complaint by someone to the local newspaper. The killjoy claimed such nonsense that it must have cost her tax dollars or similar. She made it clear that some issue had not gone well for her at the city offices, so denying the humanity of public employees was her revenge. One less reason to move to Willits after all.

5. Many abandoned railcars (including the manzanita bush) on the unused NCRA railroad sidings have been scrapped and removed. The few that remain are consolidated behind a fence, apparently waiting for transport elsewhere by their owners.

Autumn Patio Lunch

Afternoon temperatures have started to rise into the upper 70s Fahrenheit, and the skies have cleared a bit. Lunch on the patio at the Purple Thistle can include fried wontons filled with roasted garlic and sundried tomato goat cheese, with a raspberry coulee. Oh, how we suffer in Willits!

Locally Based Economics

The shop with two names, Cat's Meow/Trillium, keeps its banner, encouraging locally focused economics, up all year. A large portion of us own one of their "Willits" T-shirts, as displayed in the picture above. Mine's a nice, milk chocolate brown.

Colors have meaning and history all their own in different cultures. For a long time, red was the symbol of communism and labor and extreme leftist politics. But when Reagan became president, it was known that his wife's favorite color was red, and she used it in decorating and clothing. All through the 80s, it was fashionable for men to wear red ties with their business suits. Then the news agencies started using red to designate Republican victories on maps of the states of the US, during political campaigns. And because the US flag colors are red, white, and blue, the states favoring Democrats were colored blue, where not too many decades ago the liberals would have been pejoratively called "reds" or "pinkos" in keeping with the Communist use of the color.

Anyway, the red star on these shirts seems to impart more of an Old West feeling than any sympathy with Old Communism. It's more likely that, when I wear mine, I should have to explain that, 'No, really, I'm a Liberal!' The world keeps spinning.

Hometown Celebration #3: Family Fun

Kids of all ages had lots to do and see, surrounded by friendly faces in a setting that just brings a community together, in appreciation for where and who we are. I don't know if the business people actually make much money with these extra hours, and outdoor set-ups, but the good will is priceless. The last community celebration had the misfortune to be scheduled at the peak of our thickest forest fire smoke. This was much, much better.

Hometown Celebration #2: Lawyer, Miller, Veterinarian?

Across the street from the belly dancers, a band of known characters made music of a different sort in front of Ardella's. One of these days, I'm going to invest in a digital audio recorder to capture such things. There was a nice crowd listening to these folks, and rightly so.



Many thanks to Dido of Edinburgh for naming me Blogging Friend Forever. It is an embarrassment of riches to be noticed by such a fine photographer and witty writer, and she offers another sweet treat in the blogosphere.

Hometown Celebration #1: Dancing in the Street

Belly dancing has gained considerable popularity in our neck of the woods, with lessons and costuming available from several local sources. On Friday afternoon, into evening, the Chamber of Commerce organized the Hometown Harvest Moon Celebration, with local shops on upper Main Street staying open late and offering special discounts, food, and entertainment. Mazahar sponsored this performance of "gypsy-style" belly dancers on the sidewalk in front of the shop. This was a sight to see for the highway 101 traffic rolling past, as well as for little girls who had never seen anything like it.

I first saw belly (or beli) dancing in Bursa, Turkey, in a private home. I was among other teenage girls, and one of the daughters of the household demonstrated the subtle and intricate skill involved in the ancient Turkish-style rendering of the artform. Every part of the body seemed to be able to move independently of the others in specific, difficult rhythms that came together in a mesmerizing presentation. And the girl was just wearing an ordinary outfit of jeans and t-shirt. She managed to teach me to shimmy, but I was younger and skinnier then. I think if I tried to shimmy at this point, I'd hurt myself, and take down a few unsuspecting bystanders as well.