Eye Doctor

This is another residential type building converted to a medical office. I like the symmetry, appropriately enough, for an eye doctor's establishment. I also like the shadows cast by the bare branches of a sycamore, as the winter sun lowers in the west. Elsewhere, ornamental plum and pear trees are just beginning to open their blooms. Soon, it will be spring again.

It's countdown time at Willits Daily Photo. This blog was started last year on March 13th. There's just a few more days to go.

Deco in Blue

Moving away from the Craftsman Challenge set forth by Laurie in South Pasadena, this house is a rarity in Willits. Although it's without much of the embellishment associated with Art Deco, this building includes many of the elements that followed on from the post-Craftsman era. Extremely simple and lean in comparison to the woody struts and and natural materials of Craftsman design, and even further removed from the lacy Victorians, the glass brick flanking the front door was a huge leap in visual ideas. Also note the oval curve of the front step overhang. This is located across the street from the Van Hotel, under several big redwood trees. The booklet that told me about Churchill staying at the Van tells me this was constructed on the site of the old Hiram Willits farmstead in 1936. That must have been a shock. The former Willits house was a two-story Victorian dating back to the pioneer's settlement of 1857. Now, in its turn, this house is historic as well.

Sparkling Craftsman

The City Daily Photo blogger of South Pasadena has, with no small amount arrogance, issued a Craftsman Photo Capture Challenge to her cohorts in the San Gabriel Valley. I sniff in her general direction when I point out that northern California has many lovely enclaves of the hundred year old style, and I'm not too humble to start throwing it down from right here in Willits. This spectacular example seems to have a more modern installation of red brick for the lower front porch, but everything else stands up to period scrutiny, and the overall effect is charming.

American Dream

I took this picture about a month ago, and it wants to be posted, rather than passed by like hundreds of others that don't make it to the light of day. I feel I sometimes neglect the residential face of Willits.

Home ownership has long been held up as the ideal in a stable American-style democracy. Over the last twenty years, the prices put on property grew so disproportionately compared to the only slight growth in ordinary salaries, that only people who already had equity in a house before that period could safely leverage that value to move to something bigger and better. Anyone trying to step into the market stream after that, had to find "no money down" options to finance ridiculously inflated price tags on something even as simple as this little blue cottage. People now lament the "wealth lost" by folks in the first category, but forget the impossible position of folks in the second category, who now face forclosure.

Perhaps as the next ten years unfold, the phrase "affordable housing" won't strike fear in the hearts of "nice" neighborhoods, and housing development models can be imagined and built to include everyone. And now turn to #225 in your hymnal...

Aging Gracefully

This fine old Victorian home sits prominently near City Hall and the old Carnegie building. While the bark of this tree looks similar to redwood trees, the foliage gives it away as a cedar. Someone has beautifully planned the garden for year-round beauty, and it was here that I photographed some spuria irises in June. In this view, you can just make out the green curtain of wisteria on the wrap-around front porch.

Also Fresh and Clean

I spotted this gleaming white house just down a side street from the post office and had to get a picture. Every bit of shrub and grass was pristinely manicured as well. My impulse would be to plant a riotously excessive flower garden against this vast blank canvas. The violet and lavender paint trim is a good start.

Fifi in the Rain

Fifi (le Velocipede) was safely tethered to the front porch while significant rainfall pounded down around her and the redwood trees beyond. Yes, she is festooned with fake flower garlands. Is there something wrong with that?

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.

Blog Action Day 2008 - Poverty: A Trailer Park

When I first read about Blog Action Day over on a blog called Global Themes concerning poverty, I thought it was an interesting idea. But the more I looked around me in Willits, the more I realized that what looks like poverty here is not nearly the grinding hardship found in some nations, with children living in cardboard boxes on trash heaps, plagued with malaria and malnutrition and filthy water. Could I really make a post appropriate to the small scope of Willits Daily Photo that represents poverty in the global sense of the word? Probably not.

We do have persistently homeless people, who are often mentally ill, or drug addicted, or mentally scarred by combat experiences, but I haven't photographed them, nor have I looked for their encampments. Then there are the drifters-by-choice, who may pursue the "freegan" lifestyle, or ramble through this area hoping to find work in the marijuana underground for a season before hitching a ride back home.

But there are other people who rallied their resources enough at some point, and found a travel trailer or camper to live in, and found a place to legally put it, like the folks in this tiny lot. At least it gives them a permanent address for receiving a small social security check, or to write on a job application. There's a permanent building on site that must have the required showers and toilets. The sycamore trees provide blessed shade in the heat of summer, and there's a billiards table on the other side, next to the street, with a compact florescent light bulb dangling overhead. They are situated right across the railroad tracks from the local food distribution charity. Things could be worse, I suppose. But they surely are below the "poverty line", as defined by demographers and eligibility workers here in the US.

[edit] For more information about advocacy for the homeless, particularly veterans, see the comments on this post by admin/Aron.

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Red Vines

It rained! By the time you read this, it may still be raining. Autumn is here at last.

RedVines Jigsaw Puzzle

In Residence Since 1916

I wandered down a street I had not explored since starting Willits Daily Photo, and found an unexpected sight. The strip of white trim-board over the front steps says members of the same family have been in residence there since 1916. Modern American life is usually full of grown children moving away to jobs in other towns, and even other states. Somehow this family has maintained a steady economic foothold for at least one offspring in each generation over the last century. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you may even see somebody on the porch.

Wait a Minute Mr. Postman

I've seen this cat wandering happily through the stands on busy Farmer's Market days, but hadn't realized just how gregarious she was until I watched her follow this mail carrier all the way down this row of houses and around the corner. She obviously knew the daily routine, and sometimes took shortcuts to the next porch in order to intercept him with leg-rubs and tripping opportunities. I was unforgivably unhelpful, and asked, "Is that your cat?" to which the carrier replied, clearly in defeat and without irony, "yes".

Widowmakers

Redwoods make very attractive landscaping trees, and are suited to the dry summer, wet winter cycle of their home territory. As they grow skyward, they put out a lot of branches to collect as much sunlight for energy as they can. As they grow further on up, the abundant branches now lower on the tree can't all catch as much sunlight as before, so some of them wither and die, while others grow stronger and spread out further from the trunk. It's a way for the tree to focus its growth near the top where it brings the most return, and this self-pruning is natural for a healthy tree. However, when a stout wind comes up, or even if a butterfly lands as a final "straw," these dead branches will fall to the ground. When the early loggers worked in these woods, they discovered that cutting activities around the base of the tree would also shake down dead branches that may have hung up on still living branches overhead. In a day without hardhats or other safety procedures, these projectiles earned the name "widowmakers". It's something to know about if you're going to live this close to a redwood.

I have added some pictures of the "widowmaker" that inspired this post on my Overflow blog.

Old Power, New Power

This farmstead has its old windmill still standing on the left, while a solar panel soaks up some rays on the roof near the center. The pasture is alive with buttercups, while Red Hill looms in the raincloud darkness. The iron-rich soil giving the hill its name is just visible in a few places. Even harder to spot is the white "W" near the top of the peak. It lights up at night, reminding us we're in Willits.

Dr. Raymond Babcock House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, this was home to a man whose influence is felt in Willits even today, nearly half a century after his death. He was a "country" doctor only in the sense that he served the needs of a rural area in whatever medical capacity was required - pediatrics, obstetrics, general surgery, oncology, internal medicine, emergency trauma, you name it. But he kept very up-to-date on the latest developments and techniques of his time, and was superb at diagnosis, and, in short, was the driving force behind the creation of the hospital in town. He had served as a medic in World War I, and as a member of the American Legion, helped organize the original annual Frontier Days Rodeo as a community fundraiser. There's a book coming out about him soon; I can barely mention all that could be said. I will add that he "knew" the racehorse Seabiscuit personally, and cared for his jockey Red Pollard after a severe injury.

In more recent years, I recall seeing Dr. Babcock's son-in-law, George Akins, out in this yard. He would trim these hedges while wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, thin dark tie, light wool suit trousers, and a fedora. Another decent and intelligent man, honoring the legacy of his esteemed father-in-law. George died not long after his wife, Jane Babcock Akins, several years ago.

639 in the Rain

Older homes such as this once housed loggers, mill workers, and railroaders. There are still a few of those jobs here now, but not too many. Someone told me theses houses were usually built without foundations because it was thought the town would be temporary. But Willits is still here, and so are most of the houses.