Garberville

I just got back from a visit near home yesterday. I got to hear some old-timers stories, eat some home-made baked goods, and gossip with some ladies.

In reality, Mark and I just got back yesterday from a site visit to Southern Humboldt County so that I could figure out logistics for the Annual Meeting in September. Much progress was made there, but that's not what this is about.

Occasionally, I am lucky enough to get to take a trip up North for work. Last year, I made it up to Crescent City, 7 hours north of SF and almost in Oregon, a few times. I love it up there. The big trees have a lot to do with that. But, also, there's the people. Every time I go up there, I hear stories ala Grandpa from some old-timer local, usually an ex-logger, and am usually mistaken for someone's relative, not a city slicker, but someone who used to teach at the school or someone's friend's niece. Really. This happens every time.

I take it as a compliment.

A little about Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Driving, you don't get to Humboldt County until you're about 4 hours north of San Francisco. You don't reach Del Norte County until at least 6.5 hours north of SF. It's country.

In Humboldt County, the Eureka-Arcata area is the major town, the largest urban area between Portland and San Francisco. It has a small airport and a population of about 60,000. Humboldt State University in Arcata has about 7,500 students. For many years, logging was the major industry. Today, the hospital is the biggest employer. The Garberville-Redway towns have a population of about 2,000. The surrounding hills have thousands more people. The area used to be large ranches, which have been divided up into 30, 40, 80 acre parcels with a family on each. The Garberville area has a rich pioneering history, complete with river rats, ridge runners, moonshine stills, logging, farming, ranching and all of the tensions and trials that go with settling an area. This area has also been a beacon for hippies and people who want to live a more "alternative" life. So the locals are an intriguing mix. Just north of Garberville starts Humboldt Redwoods State Park, the first redwoods park, which contains the stand of redwoods that inspired the founding of Save-the-Redwoods League 90 years ago. Today, the redwoods provide a lot of tourism and service industry jobs. There are several very nice restaurants and lots of places to stay and camp. Humboldt County is also home to Pacific Lumber, Headwaters Forest, and all the lands that are contested in the PL bankruptcy.

In Del Norte County, the major town is Crescent City. The town and surrounding area has a population of about 15,000. The major employer used to be the timber industry and is now the prison. My favorite chicken fried steak in California is in a diner here. There are lots of chain restaurants and a few nice restaurants. The "hippie" population isn't as prevalent here, so it's a bit more country. There are lots of gorgeous redwood parks up here.

I'm from the country, a small town of 35,000 in mid-Missouri. Before we moved to town when I was in grade school, we lived on a farm, complete with chickens, goats, cats, sheep and a sheep dog. My dad helped my Grandpa farm soybeans, corn, and feed for cattle. My days were filled with making mud-pies, playing in the creek, reading books in my treehouse, fishing with Grandpa, baking with Grandma, picking corn and watermelons for the farmer's market, and trying to steal the eggs from the rooster. I was a true tomboy. But we moved to town before I learned to hunt. That always has made me a little sad.

I went to university in a big city. I moved to California and have lived the last eight years in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the nation. I'm still more comfortable barefoot up in a tree than I am at a fancy restaurant with three forks for my dinner or in Santa Cruz eating a tofu scramble. I can eat in a fancy restaurant without embarrassing myself (too much=) and I can do hippie handicrafts with the best of them. I've learned to do these things, but what comes naturally and what I feel most comfortable doing is making a pork chop gravy and listening to Dave's stories about the '64 flood.

So, when I go up North, I'm at ease, because it's country. It's the same folks as my family, making a living off the land. They don't set out to rape the land, they just want to use the resources they have to do as well as they can for their family. It's when big corporations got involved, in both farming and timber, that things got nasty. With this perspective, I can hear their stories and they can tell them to me. And it's like being at the kitchen table with Grandpa.

That's why the visit was like being home.

And the winner is...

I accepted a job with Save the Redwoods League! I'm very excited about this. I start next Wednesday. It will be a unique position with a combination of organization, planning, details, scheduling and diplomacy and facilitation. I will be the Executive Director's Executive Assistant. Here's the job description. My goal will be to help her make the highest use of her time and generally increase the productivity of the organization. The people that I've met are awesome. And the pay is generous.

I have a job!

Wierd.

=)

Dawn Redwood

This is Mark admiring a dawn redwood in the Hoyt Arboretum in Washington Park, Portland. (He came up to see me and Portland for the weekend.) When I first saw them a few weeks ago, I was alarmed. Redwoods are supposed to be green! Are these sick? No. They get to turn colors in the fall with the other trees. It is truely a beautiful sight.

I'm leaving Portland today to head down the coast, which, miraculously, has a forecast of partly sunny for the next few days!

Trees

I love trees. This has been a beautiful trip for trees. I've seen fall colors on them for the first time in five years. Yesterday, though, was a less beautiful day for trees. Driving to Olympia from Portland via Mount St. Helen's, I saw numerous clear cuts and many logging trucks. These things always make me sad. And yesterday I sobbed.


Just as I started up the road to the volcano, my ipod (on album shuffle) choose to play "Who bombed Judi Bari?" It is a cd that tells the story of Earth First organizer Judi Bari through her own speeches and songs. This was a very powerful, inspiring, raging, depressing, moving, draining thing to be listening to as I passed the trucks and cuts. I listened to it twice in a row.




Here's the basic story...

The corporate logging companies of Northern California have an agenda to clear cut as many old growth trees as possible in the summer of 1990 before the vote that fall on an initiative to protect those old growth trees. The goal of the logging companies was to make the vote and initiative pointless by making there be no trees left to protect.

A note about old growth trees. They're over 2000 years old, over 30 feet around, and several hundred feet tall. It takes about a dozen people stretched hand to hand to go around one. They are the most magnificant creatures I have ever seen in some of the most sacred habitat on the planet. When they're cut down, the rainforest turns to desert. The runoff clogs the rivers, kills the fish and creates mudslides that jeopardize the lives and homes of communities at the bottom of the hills.

Many people felt that logging the trees at that pace and that clearcutting as a practice are unacceptable. (Selection logging is good and can even be used to improve the health of the forest.) So, Judi Bari, a mother and long-time rural resident of Norther CA, called for Redwood Summer, a summer of non-violent, direct action to slow down the cutting of the trees. In May 1990, on a tour to promote the actions, she and Darryl (co-leader) were pipe-bombed in their car. After being framed and arrested for being terrorists and transporting the bomb that blew them up, they filed a civil lawsuit against the FBI and police in charge of their investigation. After over a decade in the courts, the jury passed down this verdict:

Jury's message to feds in $4.4 million verdict for Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney

On June 11, a federal jury returned a stunning verdict in favor of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in their landmark civil rights lawsuit against four FBI agents and three Oakland Police officers.

The jury clearly found that six of the seven FBI and OPD defendants framed Judi and Darryl in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer. That was evident in the fact that 80% of the $4.4 million total damage award was for violation of their First Amendment rights to speak out and organize politically in defense of the forests.

For more information about this, please visit www.judibari.org

If you would like a copy of the cd, just let me know. I'd be happy to get one for you. There is so much more to the story and I can't begin to convey how inspiring, dynamic, and vibrant Judi Bari is.