The fire stories are extraordinary. The courage, determination and compassion shown by the North Bay — and beyond — has been heartwarming.
The stories of bravery are inspiring. Visit our sister paper’s website, cloverdalereveille.com to read an astonishing story about a crew of vineyard and construction workers who fought a fire for two days until Cal Fire had enough personnel to relieve them. Cal Fire itself made an indelible imprint on our hearts, with legions of people, equipment and aircraft come to rescue us. Heroes all.
In downtown Healdsburg, I know now that we were never in danger, although we didn’t know it in the first week. The Tubbs Fire burned so hot it made its own weather and it had a path to get here, following the ridges along Chalk Hill, but the wind shifted and we were spared.
The Pocket Fire up north would have had to burn all the way across the Alexander Valley and jump the river to reach Healdsburg, which sounds implausible until you recall that the Tubbs Fire was so hot, so huge, so fast that it jumped a six-lane freeway.
The smoke that blanketed Healdsburg left an irritation in my lungs. A weekend in Tahoe and a subsequent week of near-normal weather hasn’t chased it out of me and I cough all day.
The fire left a mark on a lot of us. People I know are weepy, or jumpy, or sad — or all three. It will take a while for fresh air to cleanse us.
Meanwhile, I’m worried about the slow-moving disasters as well. I think of them as social disasters, stubborn bookends to our natural disasters.
We applaud fire relief and we keep reaching into our hearts and wallets, but I also wonder: while we celebrate what is happening, are we noticing what isn’t happening?
Nonprofits — and we all know how crucial they are to fill gaps in services — are cancelling, postponing or repurposing their events to help those devastated by fire, and that’s the right thing to do.
Will they regret it this winter, when they run short of operating funds? I hope not.
And what about our slow-moving disasters? A crew of brave firefighters is not on the way to help us solve our homelessness crisis. There’s no helicopter ready to drop addiction retardant on the opioid emergency. FEMA may help rebuild destroyed homes, but it can’t fix our housing affordability crisis, can it?
We steep in the tepid water of getting by while our fellow travelers are drowning in social problems and we must — somehow — rise up and tackle these social disasters as vigorously and bravely as we fought the fires and give succor to the survivors.
Are we up to it?
John Annesley died a week after his 80th birthday. Known for his passionate love of art and artists, John owned an art framing shop, but is better known as a resource for artists. His finely crafted canvases and stretcher bars kept working artists happy and were used to retrofit art by Cezanne, Matisse, Warhol, Diebenkorn, Rembrandt, Picasso, Whistler, Hockney, Rothko, Van Gogh, Gauguin, DeFeo, Dali and numerous other giants of the art world.
In his colorful life, John tended bar, played in a rock band, tamed big cats in a circus and drove a cab. When he retired, he gifted his shop to his employees.
John was fond of saying: “I’m not here to make money; I’m on a mission from God to help artists.”
Among many fire relief events, large and small, the Russian River Rose Company raised $168 at a weekend garden event, matched it themselves and then got Oliver’s Market to match that, totalling $672 for fire relief. Every bit helps.
Do you miss the old Restaurant Charcuterie? Get ready to order your chicken caesar salad again. Pedro and Octavio Diaz took over the little resto on Healdsburg Avenue and — surprisingly, given their track record — couldn’t quite hit on a formula for success, despite good food and service.
So, they turned back the clock and asked Patrick Martin to pitch in. Patrick — the former Restaurant Charcuterie owner — has been a chef for the Ceres Community Project, an extraordinary organization that provides healthy food to the seriously or terminally ill. Now, Patrick is also back at 335 Healdsburg Avenue on weekend nights.
Mike Matson is back too, along with a few other Charcuterie alumni. In addition to new menu items, the eatery has a few cherished classics, like the salad mentioned above, the chocolate pot de creme and the best ribeye anywhere.
Patrick, along with Dick Etter (who owned it before Patrick) and Pedro Diaz, are planning a special ”three generations” dinner. Stop by and ask about it.
Ray Holley is ready for a ribeye, medium rare. He can be reached at [email protected].
