From the Wine Library

Wine, Tunes, Smoke and Helping the Homeless
Get to Know the Wine Library. Libraries exist to correct ignorance. Not everyone knows about the Sonoma County Wine Library, and we aim to correct that with a party on Friday, August 17, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.. As the library nears its 25th Anniversary, we welcome a new librarian, Jon Haupt, and invite you to meet him and find out what the wine library is all about. We reach out to those who know us well and those who do not yet know the treasures of the Wine Library. We aim to stay relevant in the digital age, and are opening up to new friends, ideas, users and board members to help us fashion an exciting future. Learn about the Wine Library’s resonant history and vibrant prospects and enjoy wine and hors d’oeuvres at this free program. We invite current, past, and future library users alike.
Conscience Music from the Past. Then on Saturday, August 18, as a regular library program, we have William Florian, with music of the 60’s. In the Library Forum Room, starting at 2 p.m., take an upbeat, energetic, musical journey of America’s greatest songs of the 60s, including songs he performed as a lead singer of the famous New Christy Minstrels, music of Woody Guthrie, Peter Paul & Mary, John Denver, and others, and uplifting originals, presented with amusing stories in an intimate show.
Smoke Signals. Do you remember the Post Office fire from two years ago? Several years of heated public debate about moving the Post Office from its treasured North and Center Street location resulted in the citizens getting their way and the US Postal Service reluctantly agreeing to keep the Post Office in that convenient spot.  Then on Saturday afternoon, August 14, 2010, the post office in that hard won location burned in a spectacular fire that drew 22 fire engine companies from all over the North Coast. Berkeley photographer Austin Brewin was here, along with Healdsburg Tribune columnist Ray Holley, and they got some great photos. The Friends of the Healdsburg Library and the Healdsburg Firefighters Association present Smoke Signals, a show featuring these great images in the Library Forum Room. The show kicks off with a reception where you can meet the artists, listen to Ray’s thoughts on the fire’s impact, remember the fire and the old Post Office, honor the firefighters who keep us safe, and enjoy refreshments and hors d’oeuvres starting at 3 p.m. on Sunday, August 19. Then the show lives in the library’s Forum Room from noon to four, Tuesday to Saturday, August 21 to 25, and Tuesday to Friday, August 28 to 31.
Great Meal to help the Homeless. We get a number of people who come to the library who do not have a home. I am proud and happy that the public library exists as a place where people who are down on their luck can hang out, recoup, and maybe learn something. I serve more actively on behalf of the homeless volunteering and working on the board of North County Community Services (NCCS). I let a mother and her three children into the Spare Room, an emergency shelter, Friday night. The Spare Room is a usually hosts more than one person: a family, a couple or a mother or father and children. People needing to stay call a number and an answering service contacts a volunteer, and meets and lets the guest in for that night. As I let the mother and her 3-, 4- and 8-yearold in, I glanced across the fence to Victory Apartments and Victory Studios on East Street. There were children playing, skipping rope and singing skip rope songs. These rent subsidized apartments are run by NCCS and provide transitional housing. We take people from near or actual destitution to being part of the rental housing market. They pay a low price for rent for a limited time. Then they have to move on. Some apartments are designated so that the rent paid is refunded at the end of the stay so they have 1st, last and a deposit on a regular apartment. NCCS has its big fundraiser, Dinner in the Vineyards on Saturday, August 25. This is a great gourmet meal cooked and served in the fabulous private estate at Hoot Owl Creek Vineyards. There’s a great meal, wines auctions and music by Floyd Latimer and the Spare Me the Details Band. Tickets are $40 and can be bought at St. Paul’s 433-2107, 209 Matheson St. Tuesday to Friday 10-4.
Bo Simons is the manager of the Healdsburg Regional Library and the Sonoma County Wine Library. The wine library is a special library within the public library serving the needs of and receiving funding from the area wine industry.
Bo Simons is the Branch Manager of the Healdsburg Regional Library and the librarian in charge of the Sonoma County Wine Library, a business and technical and history library serving both the public and the wine industry.