Main Street

Parade? Yup.
There will be a parade downtown this year on March 17, but it will be more unofficial than ever. The B&B Lounge, which sponsored an unsanctioned but much-loved St. Patrick’s Day Parade for many years, lost its downtown lease and will not host a parade or a meal this year. Their temporary location is not conducive to it and the B&B folks are taking a year off. The new B&B will be open in a few months, and the staff will gear up for 2015.
Meanwhile, we still need an excuse to get up early and rouse the downtown. John & Zeke’s Bar, in the former B&B space at 420 Healdsburg Avenue, will open at 6 a.m. on March 17, and the Unofficial Parade will begin at 7 a.m. as usual. Costeaux will be open across the street, and coffee shops and bakeries will be open downtown for hungry and thirsty folks, so get your Irish on and be there.
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Matthew Hall and his sweetie live in downtown Healdsburg. As a journalist, he’s a keen observer of his surroundings, and he recently sounded the alarm on a serious issue. Yogurt Time in the Safeway shopping center recently closed. With Snow Bunny and Healdsburg General Store (formerly Powell’s) both for sale, we may be running low on downtown ice cream options. The Downtown Bakery & Creamery still offers handmade ice cream, but if they aren’t open, you’ll have to hike down the Avenue to Rite-Aid for a cone.
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Are you a baseball fan? The Healdsburg Prune Packers are back and look very strong this season. Joey Gomes, the brother of World Series start Jonny Gomes, is the manager this year and he’s signing a lot of regional power players. The team is looking for host families for players, who will arrive in late May and play a season that lasts through July (and hopefully, playoffs in early August).
The players need a room and access to the kitchen, but host families will not be asked to feed them. If you want to host a baseball player, call Gerry North at 707-849-1395 or email him via ge********@co*****.net. Gerry is a volunteer with the team. His son, Elliot, was a Greyhound baseball player and is now a Prune Packer.
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We don’t have enough rain (duh) but what we’re getting has been great. A few weeks ago, it was startling how gray the hills and fields had become. A storm, followed by sun and another storm greened the slopes and brought out the mustard, which seems extra bright and happy this year.
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I’ve been here in Healdsburg and trying to pay attention to what’s going on around me since 1988. Even then – with nary a tasting room downtown – folks were bemoaning the march of vineyard development through the valleys. If there’s a constant here, it’s that we’re suspicious of prosperity, in any form it takes.
The demise of the last prune orchard off Kinley Drive was an excuse for much teeth-gnashing in the late 1990s, but prunes were never destined to have the star power of grapes. After all, if you could get a buzz from a dried plum Healdsburg would still be known as “The Buckle of the Prune Belt.”
Healdsburgers have always realized that we have it pretty good, but want it to be even better. Lately, the call is for greater economic diversity. I support the idea, but I have to point out that we are already doing very well in that area. I doubt that any other city in California broke ground on both a new car dealership and a new butcher shop last year. We still have lumber mills, paint stores, locally owned grocers, commercial truck dealers, guitar builders, and more. Talk about old school.
Ray Holley is convinced that the sky is not falling. He can be reached at ra*******@gm***.com.