Editorial

With a 30-year professional background in the local wine industry, including marketing positions at leading Sonoma-Napa wineries, as well as directing tasting rooms and wine clubs, and organizing special events by the score, I would like to make some observations in the context of the current debate over special events at Sonoma County wineries.

I was glad to see my friend and colleague George Snyder go out in style last week. His memorial in Occidental last Saturday drew a mob of his friends and family who packed St. Philip the Apostle Church as everyone knew they would.

The opposite of planned parenthood is unplanned parenthood. One approach reduces unwanted births, offers education for new parents and promotes family and social order. The other turns the clock back to days of back alley abortions, family frenzy and archaic religious codes.

As one of two new Co-Chairs of the Board of the Healdsburg Animal Shelter, I want to take this opportunity to update the community regarding the new Shelter facility and outline a path forward toward its completion in the short-term. Further, I do so not in an effort to point fingers at any of the parties involved to date, but rather to move as quickly as possible to finish what will be an extraordinary facility. Our very achievable goal is that the new facility will continue to serve the many animals in need that have been so well provided for by the existing Shelter and operate to the highest standard possible utilizing the best practices in modern day animal care.

June DeSilva hasn’t cooked a meal since March. It’s not because she can’t cook, it’s just that her friends won’t let her.

GMO Clarity

Instead of our usual Winter Lite we have been experiencing record cold. A cold snap, they call it. Nothing as punishing as in other parts of the country. A Kansan might poo-poo how we fret over our lemon tree, tucked in like a dowager on a cruise ship. A New Englander might not share my delight in how my neighbor’s frosted roof glimmers in the dawn.

Before my head and my heart could accept that the end of a decade might be a good transition time, my body made a point of telling me that the chapter as Farmers’ Market Manager was coming to an end. In June, my back refused to be comfortable in my ‘69 Ford Market Truck, and I had a big epiphany after Epiphanio Juarez offered to purchase the truck. When I handed him the keys a few weeks later, I realized it was not that difficult to let go. And so began a summer and fall of small letting gos, until finally, after the market on Oct. 12, my back just stopped working. Fortunately, the market was beginning to wind down, and we had two well-trained assistants, Carl Hubbell and Teo Tomerlin, to work at the market. Thank you Greta Mesics, David and Sally Hubbell, Leslie Kelley Byrnes, Steve and Cheryl Caletti, and Zack Schwa for your help. And thank you to Ann Carranza for cheerfully managing the Pumpkin Fest and the Arts and Crafts Fair.

The March 10 commentary piece “The elephant in the room” brought to mind a quote attributed to a U.S. Army officer in Vietnam concerning a military operation there. “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.”