Malcolm Macdonald
  • Home Page
  • Excerpt from Outlaw Ford
  • Wanted Poster-Family History
  • Past Reflection - BLOG
  • The Mann Gulch Fire - 1949

River Views  - - Published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser  August 24, 2016

8/31/2016

0 Comments

 
                                                                                 Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

Three of us, the brother/sister team of Nick and E.B. along with yours truly, started our planned ninety-five mile trek on the John Muir Trail late in July. I can't remember leaving anyone behind on a backpacking trip before, but by the second morning it was pretty clear that the combination of a serious chest cold and nasty looking blisters were going to be too much for Nick to continue for another week and a half with no relief from the trail. He opted to turn around, hike up to near the top of Dusy Basin, camp a night there, then hike over Bishop Pass and down to our original trailhead at South Lake. Fortunately, Nick's car was the one we'd left at South Lake.

Starting late at 10:30 in the morning, E.B.and I switch backed our way down three miles or so to Le Conte Canyon and the John Muir Trail (JMT). From there we faced a four mile slog, ever upward, in the afternoon soon, hoping to get a campsite at Starr's Camp, located atop the steep drop into Le Conte Canyon. Starr's Camp is the next to last place to camp before ascending another four miles or so to
12,000 foot Muir Pass.
Starr's Camp provides for at least five tent sites tucked amid stunted lodgepole pines at a sharp bend in the trail. Northbound it would be easy to walk right by, the tent sites are more or less invisible from the beaten path, though only a couple hundred feet from a relatively shallow stream perfect for soaking your tired feet or dunking your entire body.
Starr's Camp is named for Walter “Pete” Starr, the author of the timeless Starr's Guide to the John Muir Trail, a volume compact enough for any hiker to carry with them. Pete Starr was an accomplished hiker, backpacker, and mountaineer of the 1920s and 1930s as well as a Stanford graduate and attorney in the firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco. Before he was thirty this disarmingly charming young man had spent his spare time successfully summiting at least forty prominent peaks in the Sierra and the French Alps. He disappeared in 1933 while climbing alone in the Minarets, a collection of sawtooth-topped peaks on the east side of the Sierra, not too many air miles from Mammoth Lakes. Missing in the Minarets, by William Alsup, is a compelling account of the search for Pete Starr. That search was defined by the dogged skills of fellow mountaineer Norman Clyde who refused to stop climbing and looking for Pete Starr even after everyone else had.
The equipment that Starr employed in the mountains of the Prohibition/Great Depression era was far different than today. He climbed without pitons or safety ropes. Whether backpacking or mountain climbing Pete Starr wore nothing more elaborate than tennis shoes. Those lightweight shoes didn't seem to hold Starr back. In one four and a half day hiking trip in the Sierra, he traveled more than 140 miles on foot.
While we trudged up from Le Conte Canyon at 8,740 feet toward Starr's Camp at 10,320 feet in elevation we were passed by a jogging summer ranger, asking on the fly if we'd encountered anyone in trouble just below Muir Pass. We answered that we were headed that way ourselves, but hadn't heard anything alarming from southbound hikers we'd met.
Summer rangers are posted in small cabins or tent cabin stations every twenty miles or so along the John Muir Trail (JMT). Usually arriving in June and staying until October (or the first heavy snowfall) they perform many thankless tasks, from picking up garbage to answering pointless questions from hikers who walk into the mountains without a map or a compass (E.B. and I possessed both)
as well as providing lifesaving work for injured or hopelessly lost hikers and climbers.
A strikingly detailed book on the life of a longtime Sierra summer ranger named Randy Morgenson can be found in Eric Blehm's The Last Season. Morgenson, the son of an expert on all things in nature throughout Yosemite Valley, served as both a winter and summer ranger in the Sierra for about thirty years, including Le Conte Canyon along with stations just north and south. Morgenson was among the first to recognize the value of protecting the Sierra meadows from over-camping. Ironically, there are many similarities between Missing in the Minarets and The Last Season. After a lifetime in the Sierra as well as a nearly year long sojourn in the Himalayas, Randy Morgenson, legendary for finding and rescuing others in the High Sierra went missing himself in 1996.
Despite this confluence of doom in the Le Conte Canyon and Starr's Camp
area E.B. and I pressed onward.

0 Comments

River Views  - -  Published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser  August 17, 2016

8/23/2016

0 Comments

 
                                                                                   Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

We're at the Denny's in Bishop by 5:05 a.m. To beat the heat. It has been 106 degrees Fahrenheit or more in Bishop for days. A surprising number of other Denny's patrons have made the same decision.

Nick says they are mostly fishermen. Who knows? Nick's got a summer cold and the evening before he'd skipped the usual handshake greeting for a remote shoulder bump/hug outside the Elms Motel.
Eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a glass of milk to fortify each of us, then we are on our way. We leave E.B.'s Honda in an inconspicuous part of the huge Von's parking lot, where, the previous night, we bought last minute additions of food for our backpacks. My car's already stashed on the outskirts of the Mammoth Mountain Resort, our hoped for exit point after ninety miles and twelve days of backpacking.
Nick's SUV takes us west out of the dawning light of Bishop, twenty-two miles west, and up to our trailhead beside South Lake at an elevation of over 9,000 feet.
The six mile climb from South Lake to Bishop Pass is broken by a stretch of flat hiking past Long Lake, though in our morning ascent the mosquitoes by that lake keep us from any prolonged breaks. The rest of the way is an arduous, switch-backing slog over granite to Bishop Pass (just over 12,000 ft.).
While we're collapsed at the top of the pass, @ the noon hour, two lean women in their early twenties reach the same Bishop Pass summit practically perspiration free and genuinely gleeful about their resupply jaunt from the John Muir Trail (JMT) at Le Conte Canyon (more than three thousand feet below) up and over the pass, down to South Lake, then Bishop, and back again – all in a day and a half. Before we regain the energy to shoulder our backpacks again, they are gone like a light breeze. We learn later that they are not only through hiking the JMT, but also the Pacific Crest Trail in 25-30 mile chunks per day when they are not slowed down by resupply efforts. Such long distance hikers often acquire trail names. The pair are simply known as “The Beast.”
We are not planning to pack all the way down to Le Conte Canyon and the JMT that day, but rather down just far enough through Dusy Basin to overlook the canyon. I set out ahead of Nick and E.B. to capture the best campsite at the lowest reaches of Dusy Basin.
Almost all this downward stroll is wide open to the afternoon sun, though the farther I march clouds tumble in to shade any and all wearying backpackers. When I reach the last possible overhanging spot for camping, in the three o'clock hour, the splatter of rain and the roll of thunder approaching inspire me to new speed records of pole arcing, rain fly tossing, and tightening. I'm inside my “two person” tent with only a modicum of dampness for accompaniment. Full backpack alongside, I tug out my air mattress and sleeping bag while lightening flashes bright and close enough to be seen oh so clearly through the orange REI tent and rain fly.
Between the booms of thunder and lightening the sounds of Nick and E.B. setting up their larger tent trickle through the storm. The typical Sierra rain or hail lasts a few minutes, maybe a half hour or so. This puppy went on for about two and a half hours with just the tiniest of let ups for a minute or so interspersed each hour.
Fortunately, both tents survived with only small amounts of rainwater puddling inside. However, by the following morning it was apparent that Nick had paid more attention to the cold settling into his lungs than he had the silver dollar-sized blisters splotching his feet. One day in and it was time for a decision, continue on or turn back.

0 Comments

River Views  - -  Published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser  August 10, 2016

8/16/2016

0 Comments

 
                                                                                  Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

The Logan Trace is a branch of Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road in central Kentucky. In this context a “trace” is a trail, particularly in a wilderness area. The Logan Trace takes its name from Benjamin Logan, an officer in the Virginia militia during the American Revolution. Later he followed Boone's path to Kentucky where he did battle with the Shawnee native to the region, burning a dozen or more of their settlements.

Near the end of Logan's Trace, down the trail from Boonesborough and below Hazel Patch, rests the early pioneer station of Crab Orchard, Kentucky. Daniel Boone himself references it as early as the autumn of 1777, when he recorded that a band of Indians entered upon an excursion into the district known as the “Crab Orchard.” The first recorded official settlement in Crab Orchard was noted in 1788.
Fish and game were so plentiful in this region that its original inhabitants, known to us today as the Shawnee and the Cherokee, fought almost constantly over boundary rights to the streams and hunting grounds. When the whites, predominantly of Scots and Irish descent, invaded in the late 1700s, the native peoples gave way only grudgingly, so much so that Kentucky become synonymous with the phrase, the dark and bloody ground. The weak of body, mind, and spirit fared poorly in such a place on into the early part of the next century when one Thomas L. Smith was born in 1801 at Crab Orchard. Even as a youth he could be picked out from a crowd with his dark hair and eyes that appeared blacker than black.
Perhaps childhood in Crab Orchard was too rough or that particularly American urge to explore the frontier caught hold in young Tom for he ran away in his teen years, taking on work aboard a flatboat on the Mississippi River. When the vessel reached St. Louis, then the westernmost of Anglo settlements, young Tom Smith hopped ashore. More or less immediately he procured employment with John Jacob Astor's fur trapping enterprise. Readers interested in Astor's attempt to conquer the worldwide trade in furs and set up a permanent American community on the northwest coast of North America in the 1810s should seek out Peter Stark's Astoria.
Young Tom Smith encountered, and was tutored by, legendary frontiersmen like Jim Bridger and Kit Carson. In 1824 Smith joined Alexander Le Grand's (Yes, it translates as Alexander the Great and this frontier trapper, surveyor, explorer is worthy of his own tale.) wagon train of traders heading from St. Louis to the New Mexico territory and Santa Fe. Smith left the train at Taos to set out on a trapping venture in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, traveling as far north as the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers in present day Utah. In 1826 and on into 1827 Tom Smith joined with noted trapper Ewing Young, who had been a part of the very first overland wagon train to traverse the trail from Missouri to Santa Fe, on the initial Anglo expedition into Arizona, wandering as far afield as the point where the Gila River meets the Colorado. At journey's end Tom returned to Missouri, but a year later we find him trapping north of the Platte River in Colorado with about twenty other men.
Often trappers such as these worked in pairs or with a third man, but Smith liked to trap alone. One particular day a Frenchman named St. Vrain followed Smith out to his lines to convince him to work with him and another trapper. While St. Vrain cajoled Smith, a lone Indian rose up nearby with a rifle in hand. The gunshot that ensued shattered bones slightly below Smith's knee. St Vrain carried his wounded companion back to camp. All the while Smith screamed in agony and begged each successive trapper who returned to camp to amputate his leg. St. Vrain temporarily silenced Smith by dosing him with whiskey until he passed out.
When he came to again there were more pleas for amputation assistance, but all the trappers refused. Whether it was the excruciating pain of the wound or a knowledge of the effects of gangrene, Smith ordered a knife be sterilized over a flame and brought to him. There is some debate whether the tool was Smith's own skinning knife or the camp cook's butcher knife; nevertheless, the instrument was delivered. Smith tied a length of buckskin tight immediately below the patella and embarked on slicing through his own flesh. The other trappers gawked for a time then took turns fetching fresh water, rags to mop blood, and more whiskey, for the wound and Smith's mouth. The knife dulled as he sawed at the bone, so his fellow trappers filed teeth into the blade and Smith took up sawing again until he passed out.
Seeing Smith's commitment to the task, trapper Milton Sublette grabbed the knife and finished carving through the bone. Blood gushed from the surgery until another trapper seared it shut with a red hot iron straight out of the camp fire. The men wrapped the stump in Smith's cleanest dirty shirt and covered him with a buffalo robe.
Smith woke the next day, cursing everyone in sight. His fellow travelers were ready to move on to more plentiful grounds, but they lingered an extra day, expecting Smith to die any minute. For whatever reason, he didn't die, so a makeshift stretcher was built to be pulled along behind a horse.
The men traveled more or less westward, pursuing better trapping grounds, with Smith in tow. At some point Smith became aware of two smaller bones protruding through his skin. He commandeered Sublette to jerk the bones out, apparently without complaint.
The trappers finally found some sympathetic Utes, who allowed Smith to recuperate with them through the coming winter. A section of a sapling was brought to Smith. This he used to whittle a wooden stump. By spring the Indians were calling him “Wa Ke To Go.” In English, from this time on he was called Peg Leg Smith.
No shirker to adventure Peg Leg was back on the trail in a year, trapping with several others along the Santa Clara and Virgin Rivers in Utah and Nevada. About half way through the season Smith and one of his companions set out to deliver the group's furs westward, across the Mojave Desert, over Cajon Pass, all the way to Los Angeles.
Peg Leg more or less settled in Los Angeles; less is probably closer to the truth because at this juncture his life slips deeper into legend. Despite his one stumpy leg Smith joined with “Old Bill” Williams and Jim Beckwourth (a mixed race man, born as a slave in Virginia, originally with the surname Beckwith) in one of the largest horse trading operations the old southwest has known. In actuality most, if not all, of their horses were stolen from northern Mexico before being sold anywhere from the Arkansas River to California.
Eventually hints from law enforcement ended this endeavor and in the late 1840s Peg Leg started prospecting around Borrego Springs in southeastern California. Now we plunge headlong into legend. Peg Leg was reportedly wandering nearly blind through a three day sandstorm in the Borrego Badlands when he picked up a handful of pebbles at the top of a butte. At first he passed them off as copper only to have others identify the rocks as gold nuggets. Possibly due to the sandstorm conditions or Peg Leg's propensity for drink in those days, he never was able to relocate the precise spot where he found the nuggets.
Peg Leg spent his last years in San Francisco. He could oft be found along Montgomery Street telling tales in return for shots of whiskey. For a full bottle one could get vivid recollections as to the whereabouts of his gold find. But no one yet has ever found it.
So if you are looking for adventure this summer or fall, you can travel down to the Borrego Badlands. There are many disparate claims about the particular sight of Peg Leg's lost gold strike. Pick one and follow your adventurous spirit to wealth and fame. If you should fall and break a leg badly in that wilderness, make sure you've brought along a large, jagged edge knife and your own disinfectant.

0 Comments

River Views  - -  Published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser  August 3, 2016

8/12/2016

0 Comments

 
                                                                                  Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

Another Sniece Day

Ed Sniece walks the river road like his daddy and grandfather before. Some days he strides along, taking much of the waterway for granted, lost in thought or trailing the distant calls of a pileated woodpecker pair.
After the first rains of autumn he often lingers, searching for a spawning bed or where the stream laps under and around a hollow stump that stretches its gnarled trunk from the riverbank. Salmon and trout have thought themselves hidden there, for generations.
But the steelhead don't run like they did before, when Ed, as a lad, watched schools so thick they shoved each other onto gravel bars. Ed and his siblings would pick up the stranded fish, pick them up and toss them ahead to deeper waters. Of course, they had their long-handled spears back then, too, for lantern light salmon hunts in tidewater.
This particular damp, fall day, Ed ducks beneath a tangle of willow to lean against an alder where a logjam covers the river; twenty-five feet across and twice as long. Drift piles his dad had called them. And they were double-edged swords: a quick way to scramble over the river to the other side when the water was high; a quick way to drown when someone slipped between the shifting logs.
Before his daddy's time, when grandfather cruised the woods and the great-uncles chopped the big trees down, the river was dammed, not far east of Ed's place. After the Second War the lumber company blew out the dam, cattails reigning there now.
In those halcyon days of logging restrained only by the terrain, Ed knew that drift piles were a rarity. Young men, less skilled than choppers and millwrights, were employed to keep the occasional drift of
cull logs and large branches broken apart, so hundreds of freshly sawn logs could ride the force of a freshet downstream to the boom and the mill itself.
For a half hour Ed stands his ground in the shadows, letting the willow thicket scratch his neck. Once he could smell the salmon coming; now, just the rushing water lifting the faintest hint of mud from his nostrils. He waits, to spot a fish, a single one. Though his vision isn't hawk-eyed as it once was, nary a steelhead passes.
Time slides on while the mind is apt to idle or slink back. Ed's great-uncle, Fin, had started out breaking drifts apart when he was scarce twelve or thirteen. Corkscrew boots and a long, steel-hooked pole proved the tools of the trade. His grownup sister, Lil, warned, “You don't know how to swim.”
“Don't intend to need the skill, sister,” said Fin, a boy then, sprouting near six feet, prone to pie, but stuck between string and bean. He'd never fill out.
“Fin they call me, not Irish,” he informed strangers who jumped to conclusion, “Finley for full; Highland Scots by heritage.”
Ed always chuckles at the mix in his ancestry. The Snieces were Normans in origin, blown across the English Channel by the fair winds of William the Conqueror.
“Sniece,” Ed is fond of saying. “Rhymes with a piece of pie. Any way you slice it, still Sniece.”
Out in midstream, something silver and pink flashes by in a blur. “One,” he counts aloud then flips open his pocket watch. “One in forty-two minutes.”
The watch has passed down from Finley. If there'd been more ancestral hands on it, Ed wasn't aware, but like all his kinsmen he'd wound tight the memory of his great-uncle's fate.
For weeks, or was it months, Fin had hopscotched from shore to jam, prodding logs free from underwater rocks and snags, sinkers neither man nor boy could spy in the murky depths. Then a November day, not long after Halloween, and a week or more of rain swelled the river; they let the dam open and a thousand logs rushed westward with the tide. Redwood four, five, six feet wide and two or three times as long ran a watery stampede.
Young Finley stood on the bank just the other side of Slaughterhouse Gulch, parrying the first logs that stuck in the riverbank. Whether it was he or the pole that slipped no one knows, but off the slippery shore he went, left hip scraping peeled sap. Under like a cork with too much weight. Didn't let go his pole they say.
Fin couldn't swim, but he darn well had learned how to hold his breath. The current swept him under, but he swung that pole against the logs above like a man trying to beat the rapids. And in a minute, maybe two, he propelled himself out front of those logs, rose like a denim-backed fish and gulped a lifetime's fill of fresh air.
Tidewater shoved him down once more. He spun himself toward an open light, remembering his sister's words, “Even a non-swimmer can dog paddle under water.”
He lost the pole in the last flail and sprawl, but he made the south shore with a lunge and crawl.


Ed's aging hands flip the watch open again. An hour gone and just the one glimpse of a fish bound upstream. He smiles at the punch line of Great-uncle Fin's tale. How he'd have gotten out from under those logs sooner if he hadn't had to swim through thousands of steelhead headed the other way.
A Great Blue Heron alights on the opposite bank. Ed backs slow and easy through the willows, whispering, “River's all yours.”
Ed Sniece walks the river road like his daddy and grandfather did. Some days he stops at a particular spot. Other times he trudges homeward flooded by thoughts of those who trod before, until he glances over at a swamp of cattails. Then he shakes his head and mutters, “I've gone too far.”

0 Comments

River Views  - -  Published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser  July 27, 2016

8/12/2016

0 Comments

 
                                                                                   Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

By the time readers peruse this issue of the AVA, yours truly should be embarked on a seventy-five mile section of the John Muir Trail (JMT). Getting to a JMT trailhead is easy if you're starting at Yosemite Valley. Of course you should never begin your JMT journey there.
Why? Here's why. You do nothing but trudge up, up, up with a full pack on your back for the first eight miles out of Yosemite Valley. We're talking four thousand feet in elevation gain, another thousand or more before you reach real respite at Sunrise Camp. Do not do this. Hike this section from Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley.
For some reason the north to south route, beginning at Yosemite Valley, has become the popular direction of backpackers in the 21st Century. Even the finest modern guide book to the JMT (by Elizabeth Wenk) describes the trail in north to south terms. That's fine for the rest of the journey, but I'm speaking to you out of experience, complete this section from Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley then take the shuttle bus back to Tuolumne Meadows and walk the rest of your trek north to south if you like.
If you are savvy enough to start at Tuolumne Meadows you'll encounter one moderate uphill section to the Cathedral Lakes area then more or less flat hiking to Sunrise Camp. Beyond Sunrise there's a brief climb then downhill to Yosemite Valley.
Been there, done that. This year our band of intrepid backpackers will be employing the section hiking method for the JMT. Unless you are in Yosemite or at Whitney Portal, getting to your chunk of the JMT is a production in and of itself. Our group is traversing about seventy-five miles of the John Muir Trail, from Le Conte Canyon in the Kings Canyon Wilderness northward to Red's Meadow, just outside the town of Mammoth Lakes. In the summer season backpackers have to take a shuttle bus (cost was $7 a year ago) from Red's Meadow on the JMT to the huge parking lot at Mammoth Mountain Resort).
To get to Le Conte Canyon we will drive about twenty-two miles southwest from our last motel respite in the town of Bishop to the trailhead at South Lake. From there it is about a six mile hike to Bishop Pass (elevation: just under 12,000 feet). The first rest break may come beneath Chocolate Peak. After a few days and nights on the trail, cravings for things like chocolate sundaes often occupy a backpacker's mind more than the finest Sierra scenery.
By the way there's approximately a two thousand foot elevation gain in that first six miles from South Lake to Bishop Pass, compared to the four thousand if one ascends out of Yosemite Valley. Beyond Bishop Pass lies a view of Dusy Basin and the descending contours leading down into the Kings River Canyon.
Late starting hikers who've dawdled while gawking at the Inconsolable Range to the east may want to camp in the Dusy Basin area. Early risers will likely push on a full twelve miles during their first day to the campsites near the Le Conte Canyon ranger station, where the Bishop Pass Trail finally gets you to an intersection with the John Muir Trail.
From this point it's only three or four more days of backpacking to the Muir Trail Ranch and a chance for re-supplying. This is performed by mailing yourself a bucket (not a box) of supplies. Interested backpackers should see the Elizabeth Wenk book on the JMT for specific information about resupply post offices like the Muir Trail Ranch and VermilionValley Resort, alongside Lake Thomas Edison, a few days hike to the north.
Arriving at the Muir Trail Ranch area as quickly as possible is a goal for most hikers, whether traveling north or south. The reason: Blayney Meadow Hot Springs. The springs, just hot enough for humans to luxuriate in them, are about a mile above the meadow itself. The unfortunate if in getting there is that the springs are on the other side of the south fork of the San Joaquin River from the John Muir Trail. If the river is too high or swift... well, we shall see in the very last days of July.

0 Comments

River Views  - -  Published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser  July 20, 2016

8/12/2016

0 Comments

 
                                                                                   Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

The Mendocino Coast District Hospital's Board of Director's hosted a public forum about the Obstetrics (OB) Department Tuesday evening, July 12th, at Fort Bragg's Cotton Auditorium. A crowd of a hundred or so coastal residents and hospital staffers first listened to and watched a PowerPoint presentation by hospital CEO Bob Edwards. The high or low light of this was Edwards' claim that the OB department is projected to lose over $9000,000 in the coming fiscal year. Edwards also sighted the high cost of registry nurses as a part of the price of doing business in the OB Dept., though he at no time repeated the simple declarative statement he made at a committee meeting this spring when the CEO said he was in favor of closing OB.
Several of the public speakers commented that they felt Edwards seemed to present figures and information that leaned heavily on the side of OB closure. More or less ninety percent of the members of the public who spoke in the following two hours strongly favored keeping the OB Department at Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH) open. Many spoke passionately about their own birthing experiences. Several cited the hour and a half drive to Ukiah Valley Medical Center (UVMC) as an unacceptable alternative.
Dr. Brent Wright, the only local practicing OB physician, spoke early on, remarking that MCDH is not a business, but a health care district. He and others have acknowledged that annual births at MCDH have dwindled down to somewhere around a hundred for this past fiscal year, but he further stated that it is difficult to place a value on even one life. More than one mother talked about how either she or her baby wouldn't have survived if they had to make the trip to Ukiah for a premature or otherwise troubled birth.
Edwards cited both a parcel tax measure and/or switching MCDH to a “Hospital Fee” structure as possible methods that could raise millions more annually. It is important to note here, that as of this date the only parcel tax concept presented by Edwards has been a straight tax per parcel. That method ignores the geographic and financial realities of a hospital district that encompasses tens of thousands of acres of timberland. Under the method in which each parcel is taxed an equal amount, a simple town lot in Fort Bragg would pay the same amount as corporate timber companies which own many parcels that are hundreds of acres in size. Not to mention that a 1950s style house in Fort Bragg would be taxed the same amount as a home/mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean. If MCDH's Board adopts a straight up “all parcels are the same” mentality, they will be heading directly into the 1% vs. the 99% maw that doesn't fly on the Mendocino Coast.
Then there is the MCDH Board itself. Past Chair Sean Hogan noted the upcoming November election when three Board of Directors seats will be picked at the ballot box. Retired orthopedic surgeon Kate Rohr resigned in late June; Hogan is not seeking another term; only current Board chair Tom Birdsell is seeking re-election. That means that by 2017 there will be at least two new Board members.
The current board is hardly in accord. Board member Dr. Peter Glusker read a prepared statement that expressed some of the reasons why Dr. Rohr resigned. Quoting from Glusker's statement: “Dr. Rohr’s frustration at being prevented from analyzing the hospital’s finances and producing real change for the hospital was a major factor in her resignation. She has publicly stated, 'I cannot accept fiduciary responsibility for an organization in which I do not receive or trust the basic financial information'.”
Glusker's prepared statement began by citing a study by the Nicholas Petris Center on Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare at U.C. Berkeley on the issue of OB closures in California hospitals. Again quoting Glusker's prepared statement, “They looked at 389 hospitals over an eight year period and compared those which closed OB departments to those which added new services. Closing OB departments resulted in deterioration in financial position related to a loss of patient relationship to the hospital and other factors. Hospitals did better financially when they added new services, instead of discontinuing them, particularly OB.
Therefore the assumption of administration that closing OB will help finances is not supported by available data. Contrariwise, adding a new service, for example palliative care which, we could do very well here, and which could utilize both swing beds and home health would be likely to improve the financial status.”
As Glusker read, it was at this approximate point that Chairman Birdsell attempted to gavel Glusker silent, apparently due to a three minute time limit or his distaste for criticism of MCDH's administration (meaning CEO Edwards and Chief Financial Officer Wade Sturgeon). The crowd wouldn't have it. Several voices demanded Glusker be allowed to finish.
He did so by relaying Dr. Rohr's response to the aforementioned study. “The absolute MOST significant finding of the study is that closing OB did NOT improve financial performance. In fact it statistically shows that closing OB had a disproportionately NEGATIVE effect on finances. That is, overall hospital business at those hospitals decreased more than could be accounted for by the loss of OB business itself. This is not a surprise to someone from the business world. If a business has a service that is part of the basic definition of its core mission, closing that service cannot possibly improve its finances. In this case labor and delivery is about as basic a core service of what it means to be a hospital. It is well known that if a core service cannot be made profitable the correct task is to streamline and make it as efficient as possible. This is the basic concept of the so called ‘loss leader’.”
Dr. Glusker then wrapped up with this, “My own attempts to obtain the financial details underlying the administration’s OB budget listing a one million dollar deficit were thwarted and resulted in more barriers being put in my way. I managed to get OB departmental statements for January and May, 2016. These reveal very disturbing inconsistencies, raising serious questions about the accuracy of the data. I suggest that this requires an independent analysis of the accounting for OB for the last year to determine accurate information, and then to plan HOW to manage OB.
“A recent study by Lorch et al, examining what happens to babies when regional OB units close, found an approximate 40% increase in infant mortality in the first three years. After that services were effectively redistributed to OB units geographically close enough to provide care. Our location does not allow OB services close enough to provide care for the kinds of problems that lead to infant mortality.
If OB were to be closed here, besides further losing the community’s trust in the hospital, we also put patients at significantly greater risk with ER doctors trying to deal with failed home births, malpositioned or crowning babies, placenta previa or a need for an emergency C-section. These problems pose critical medical risks for mother and baby, leading to infant mortality or potentially lifelong neurologic disabilities. The distance to the nearest obstetrician and hospital does not allow transfers in most of these situations. The medico-legal risks for the hospital are also increased. ER care for OB is not good quality care. When Sean Hogan was president of the board his emphasis was on quality of care. Finally, the administration needs to cooperate with the board and not try to direct the board as they are with attempts to close OB, and the Board needs to focus on planning and strategy.”
Clearly there has been an ever widening rift between the two doctors on the MCDH Board (now one) and the CEO and CFO. The questions over the OB Dept. are perhaps the tip of the iceberg at an institution with more than $16,000,000 in capital expenses still outstanding in the near future as well as the legal requirement to construct a more or less entirely new facility in thirteen and a half years at who knows what cost. Those folks who turned out, those who watched on Mendocino TV, and more, are going to need to stay involved and informed.

0 Comments

    Archives

    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    September 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012
    September 2012
    May 2012

    Categories

    All
    11 O'Clock Court
    1872 Lone Pine Earthquake
    1945
    1947 Postage Stamp
    4-H
    4-H Club
    85 Richest People In The World
    Aaron Bassler
    AB 1233
    ABA
    Abalone Poachers
    A Band Called Death
    Abijah Gibson
    ACA
    Adam Coutts
    Affordable Care Act
    Affordable Health Care Act
    Affordable Housing
    Affordable Housing For Volunteer Firefighters
    After Visiting Friends
    Agnew Meadows
    Airbnb
    Al Barnes
    Albert Hofmann
    Albion
    Albion Ernest Anderson
    Albion Littleriver Fire Protection District
    Albion/Littleriver Volunteer Fire Department
    Albion Lumber Company
    Albion Mill
    Albion River
    Alek Hidell
    Alexander Macpherson
    Alexander Selkirk
    Alinsky's Hog Truck
    Ambrose Bierce
    American Basketball Association
    Ammo
    And Mendocino Redwood Co.
    Andy Griffith
    Anna Bixby
    Anna Pierce Hobbs
    Anna Shaw
    Annie And Henry Derosier
    Anthem Blue Cross
    Anthony Johnson
    Apple Annual
    Arch Anderson
    Ashland
    Assata Shakur
    Astoria
    Astor Place Riot
    Atomic Bomb
    A.T. Rogers
    Auggie Heeser
    Augie Heeser
    August 9
    August Heeser
    Augustus Frederick Mahlmann
    Avansino-Mortenson
    A Very Long Walk
    A Walk In The Woods
    B-24
    Babe Herman
    Backpack/Camping Checklist
    Backpacking
    Bagley-Keene Act
    Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act
    Barbara A. Babcock
    Barney Fife
    Barry's Boys
    Baseball Hall Of Fame
    Battered Bastards Of Baseball
    Berlin Olympics
    Bernie Norvell
    Bette Davis
    Bidder 70
    Big Bear Grizzly
    Bill Bryson
    Bill Heil
    Billy Beane
    Billy Ray Doak Jr.
    Bing Russell
    Bird Killers
    Bishop Pass
    Blue Shield Of California
    Bob Bushansky
    Bob Edwards
    Bobo Newsom
    Bob Woodward
    Bockscar
    Boonville
    Borrego Badlands
    Boxing Day
    Branch Rickey
    Brian Boyd
    Bridge Of Spies
    Bridge On The River Kwai
    Brooklyn Robins
    Brown Act
    Buffalo Soldiers
    Buldam
    Burning Man
    Buzzards
    Calfire
    California Assembly Bill 1233
    California Department Of Fish And Game
    California Forensic Medical Group
    California Forestry Rules
    California Gold
    California Health Facilities Final Authority
    California State Parks
    Captain George Pollard
    Captain William Richardson
    Captain Zimri Coffin
    Carine Family
    Carlos Marcello
    Catch-22
    Cattle Drive
    CDBG
    Cedric Collett
    Celiac Disease
    CFMG
    Charles Mallory Hatfield
    Charles Wilkes
    Charlotte Woodward Pierce
    Charlton Heston
    Cheryl Strayed
    CHFFA
    Chinese-Americans
    Chokecherry
    Chris Rowney
    Christian Socialism
    Christy Mathewson
    Chuck Lebak
    Cincinnati Red Stockings
    Clair Tapaan Lodge
    Clara Foltz
    Coalition For Gang Awareness And Prevention
    Coast Copwatch
    Coast Rangers
    Coates-Frost Feud
    Colby Meadow
    Cold Springs Campground
    Colonoscopy
    Community Development Block Grant
    Comptche Volunteer Fire Department
    Connections
    Conor McPherson
    C.O. Packard
    Covered California
    Crab Orchard
    Craig Guydan
    Crazy Heart
    Crime And Punishment In The Garden
    Cuffey's Cove
    Curtis Bruchler
    Cypress Bales
    Daisy Davis Pit Bull Rescue
    Daisy McCallum
    Danforth Comins
    Dan Hamburg
    Daniel Boone
    Dauphin
    Dave Turner
    Dave Zirin
    David Ferrie
    David Gurney
    David Kyle Miller
    Days Of The Dons
    Dazzy Vance
    Deadman's Gulch
    Declaration Of Independence
    Declaration Of Sentiments
    Deep Throat
    Dennis Boardman
    Deputy Sheriff Jonathan Martin
    Derek Hoyle
    Desolation Wilderness
    Devil In The White City
    Devil's Weed
    Dick Higham
    Dina Ortiz
    Dissenters
    District Attorney David Eyster
    Docker Hill
    Doc Wheeler
    Dog Shooting
    Domingo Ghirardelli
    Donahue Pass
    Donald Powers
    Donner Party
    Doug Hammerstrom
    Dr. Ace Barash
    Dr. Diane Harris
    Dr. E. W. King
    Dr. Jason Kirkman
    Dr. Jennifer Kreger
    Dr. John Cottle
    Dr. Kevin Miller
    Dr. Lucas Campos
    Dr. Marvin Trotter
    Dr. Of Dental Surgery
    Drought
    Drought/drug
    Dr. Peter Glusker
    Dr. Preston
    Dr. Thomas Goodsir
    Dr. Wheeler
    Dr. William Rohr
    Dual Diagnosis
    Duckpond Gulch
    Dusy Basin
    Eagles
    East Mendocino Murder
    Ed Pulaski
    Ed Sniece
    Edward Albee
    Edward Douglas Fawcett
    Edwin Forrest
    El Camino Real
    Elers Koch
    Elijah Frost
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton
    Elizabeth Coutts
    Elmer Collett
    Elmer Fudd
    Elzie Segar
    Emily Dickinson
    Emma Mathison
    Empty Mansions
    Endangered Species Act
    Enoch Ward
    Enola Gay
    Eraldine Ferraro
    Eric Blehm
    Eric Labowitz
    Essex
    Euell Gibbons
    Eugene O'Neill
    Evolution Basin
    Evolution Valley
    Ewing Young
    Fabian Lizarraga
    Farm Bureau
    Farmer's Line Telephone
    Fat Man And Little Boy
    FBPD Chief Mayberry Falsely Accuses Officer
    Field And Stream
    Field Of Dreams
    Fire Lookouts
    Fire Prevention Fee
    First Slaveholder
    Flight
    Foresters
    Forrest Macdonald
    Fort Bragg City Council
    Fort Bragg Planning Commission
    Fort Bragg Police Chief Scott Mayberry
    Fort Bragg Police Coverup
    Fort Bragg Police Department
    Fort Bragg Public Works Director Tom Varga
    Fort Wayne Kekiongas
    Francis Bellamy
    Frank Bean
    Frank McGowan
    Frank Mortier
    Frederick Douglass
    Frost-Coates Feud
    Game Warden
    G. Canning Smith
    General Edwin Walker
    General Sherman Tree
    George Anderson
    George Bailey
    George Carlin
    George Durkee
    George Wright
    Georgia-Pacific Mill Site
    Georg Wilhelm Steller
    Giardia
    Gifford Pinchot
    Gilded Age
    Ginseng
    GLO
    Gluten Intolerant
    Glyphosate
    Goathead
    Goldilocks
    Graben
    Grand Canyon Of The Tuolumne
    Great Comptche Fire
    Great Uncle John
    Gregorian Calendar
    Greg Woods
    Guineafowl
    Gunfight
    Gun Nuts
    Guns
    Gus Mendosa
    Habitat Conservation Plan
    Hack And Squirt
    Hackney Brothers
    Hale Tharp
    Half Dome
    Hamburg Calls Whistleblower
    Hamlin Valley
    Hare Creek Shopping Center
    Harry Kellar
    Harry Wright
    Hartford Dark Blues
    Harvey Mortier
    Hawthorn
    Health Insurance
    Heidi Kraut
    Helen Lake
    Henry Hickey
    Herman Fayal
    Herman Melville
    Herrmann The Great
    High Sierra Trail
    Hilbers
    Hogan's Alley
    Home Depot
    Homeless And Their Dogs
    Horace Wells
    Hornet Spit
    Hospitality Center Of Fort Bragg
    Hospitality House
    Huell Howser
    Hunkidori
    Hunter Pence
    Ice Cream Addicts
    Ignacio Martinez
    IGT
    Ilona Horton
    Imazapyr
    Inc.
    Intergovernmental Transfer
    In The Heart Of The Sea
    Inyo
    Ivers Whitney Adams
    Jackie Robinson
    Jack Sweeley
    Jacob Riis
    James B. Donovan
    James Beall Morrison
    James Lick
    Jardine
    Jeff Foxworthy
    Jeremiah Reynolds
    Jfk Assassination
    J.F. Wheeler
    Jim Bassler
    Jim Beckwourth
    Jim Britt
    Jim Ford
    Jim Mastin
    Jim McConnell
    JMT
    Joan Crawford
    Jodi Arias
    Joe DiMaggio
    Joel And Ethan Coen
    Joe Simpson
    John Andersen
    John Brisker
    John Cleves Symmes
    John Coffee Hays
    John Dolbeer
    John Fisher
    John F. Wheeler
    John Macdonald
    John Marshall
    John McCowen
    John Mcgraw
    John Muir
    John Muir Trail
    John Patrick Hunter
    John Reily
    John Robertson
    John Ross Ii
    John Ruprecht
    John Wesley Powell
    John Wheeler
    Jon Woessner
    Joseph Gayetty
    Josh Donaldson
    Josiah Whitney
    Jr.
    J. Ross Browne
    Juan Marichal
    Judge Clayton Brennan
    Judge Hugh Preston
    Judge Leonard LaCasse
    Judy Popowski
    June Lake
    Jury Nullification
    Just When I Thought I Was Out
    J. Wellington Wimpy
    Karen And John Brittingham
    Kate Rohr
    Kaye Handley
    Keene Summit
    Keene Summit School
    Kelley House
    Ken Burns
    Kevin Davenport
    Kitty Bruning
    Koyagi Island
    Kurt Russell
    KZYX
    Land Grant
    Laura Hillenbrand
    Laura Neef
    Laura Nelson Heeser
    Laura's Law
    Laurence Olivier
    League Of Women Voters
    Le Conte Canyon
    Lee Harvey Oswald
    Lee Vining
    Leonard Ward
    Leo Tolstoy
    Les Ford
    Lilburn Gibson
    Lillian Robertson
    Lincoln Highway
    Linda Perkins
    Linda Ruffing
    Lindy Peters
    Littleriver Airport Timber Harvest Plan
    LLoyd Bookman
    Logan Trace
    Lolo National Forest
    Long Day's Journey Into Night
    Lon Simmons
    Lori Fiorentino
    Lorne Macdonald
    Lorrie Kitchen
    Lost Coast
    Lost Coast Trail
    Louisianapacific Corporationd0716b4f27
    Louis Zamperini
    Lt. Dayton Murray
    Lucretia Mott
    Lynelle Johnson
    Macbeth
    Macdonald Ranch
    Madame Rentz's Female Minstrel Troupe
    Madeleine Melo
    Major Chuck Sweeney
    Mammoth Lakes
    Manuel Mcheltorena
    Marble Mountains
    Marbury V. Madison
    Margaret Fay
    Margaret Fay Macdonald
    Margaret Macdonald
    Marie Jones
    Marijuana
    Mark Iacuaniello
    Mark Kalina
    Mark Montgomery
    Mark Puthuff
    Mark Sparso
    Mart Frost
    Masonite Corporation
    Masonite Road
    Matheson & Co.
    Mathison Peak
    Matt Cain
    Max Fleischer
    Mayor Dave Turner
    McCallum House
    McClure Meadow
    McCutcheon V. FEC
    MCDH Board Chair Sean Hogan
    MCDH CEO Bob Edwards
    MCHC
    McKay School
    Measure U
    Meg Courtney
    Mendocino
    Mendocino Coast District Hospital
    Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center
    Mendocino Coast Liberalism Run Amok
    Mendocino Community Network
    Mendocino County
    Mendocino County Association Of Fire Districts
    Mendocino County Da David Eyster
    Mendocino County Democratic Central Committee
    Mendocino County Fair And Apple Show
    Mendocino County Grand Jury
    Mendocino County Health And Human Services Agency
    Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman
    Mendocino Indian Reservation
    Mendocino Redwood Coa705bb066f
    Mendocino Redwood Company
    Mendocino Spartan 4-H Club
    Mendocino State Hospital
    Mendocino Theater Company
    Mendocino To Kansas Drug Ring
    Mendocino TV
    Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department
    Mental Health Services Act
    Meru
    Mexican Land Grants
    Michael B. Leavitt
    Michael Corleone
    Michael Maclean
    Midway
    Mike Cimolino
    Mike Geniella
    Mike Jani
    Mike Lee
    Mike Williamson
    Miles Standish
    Milk Poisoning
    Milton Sublette
    Mineral King
    Missing In The Minarets
    Mission Dolores
    Moby-Dick
    Moneyball
    Moonlight Graham
    Mousetrap
    Mr. And Mrs. Sippi
    MRC's Eighty Year Permits
    Mt. Darwin
    Mt. Huxley
    Much Ado About Nothing
    Muir Pass
    Muir Trail Ranch
    Mule Bridge Trailhead
    Murlie
    Nagasaki
    Nami
    Nancy Swithenbank
    Naoko Takahashi
    Nathaniel Philbrick
    National Alliance On Mental Illness (NAMI)
    National Association
    National Association Of Professional Base Ball Players
    National Historic Preservation Act
    National Marine Fisheries Service
    National Park Service
    National Pastime
    National Toilet Paper Day
    Nebraska
    Nebraska Cattle Drive
    Ned Buntline
    Nevada County
    Nevada Falls
    Nick Nolte
    Nick Sands
    No Knees Kelley
    Norman Clyde
    Norm Williamson
    North Coast Family Health Center
    North Fork Salmon River
    North Valley Behavioral Health
    Oakland A's
    Oatmeal Song
    Obamacare
    Obed Starbuck
    Observatory Hill
    Office Of Statewide Health Planning And Development
    Officer Craig Guydan
    Ogden Nash
    Ohlone
    O.K. Corral
    Old Bill Williams
    Old Coast Hotel
    Old Jack
    Old Yeller
    Olive Oyl
    Omaha Stockyard
    OMG
    Operation Berezino
    Opioids
    Optina Pustyn
    Oregon
    Oregon Shakespeare Festival
    Orion
    Orlando Cepeda
    Orlando The Bull
    Ortner Management Group
    OSHPD
    Ottmar Mergenthaler
    Outdoor Store
    Outlaw Ford
    Out There In The Woods
    Overcrowded Prisons
    Owen Chase
    OxyContin
    Pacific Crest Trail
    Pacific Gas & Electric
    Pacific-slope Flycatchers
    Passenger Pigeon
    Pastor Rick Warren
    Patty Jauregui-Darland
    PCT
    Peg Leg Smith
    Percocet
    Percodan
    Percy Fawcett
    Peter Fleming
    Peter Grubb Hut
    Peter Mancus
    Pete Rose
    PG&E
    Pharmaceuticals
    Philip Roth
    Phil Ward
    Pine Grove Brewery
    Pioneer House
    Pitchess Motion
    Poker
    Pomo
    Pomo Food
    Pomo Indians
    Popeye
    Portland Mavericks
    POW
    POW Camps
    Presbyterian Lumberjack Blues
    Public Defender
    Quiz
    Rainmaker
    Ralph Byrnes
    Ralph Coleman
    Randy Morgenson
    Rbst Hormone
    Redding Air Show
    Redwood Quality Management Company
    Reese Witherspoon
    Rex Gressett
    Richard Henry Dana Jr.
    Richard Macpherson
    Richard Outcault
    Rob Bishop
    Robert Affinito
    Roberta Mayberry
    Robert Duncan
    Robinson Crusoe
    Rodeo Cowboy Hall Of Fame
    Rodriguez
    Ronald Britt
    Ron Howard
    Rudolph Abel
    Russ Hodges
    Russian Gulch State Park
    Russian Gulch Waterfall
    SABR
    Sage Statham
    Sally Dutcher
    Samantha Zutler
    Sam Brannan
    Sam Hill
    San Jose Mercury News
    San Quentin Alumni
    San Quentin Gallows
    Sansome Forest Products L.P
    Santa Rosa Junior College Hiking Club
    Sarah Knox-Goodrich
    Sara Josepha Hale
    Sausalito
    Savage Sam
    Savings Bank Of Mendocino County
    Scone Of Scotland
    Scott Deitz
    Scottish Play
    Scott Mayberry
    Scott Menzies
    Scott Peterson
    Scrotie
    Sean Hogan
    Searching For Sugar Man
    Seidlitz Powder
    Seneca Falls
    Sen. William Clark
    Sequoia National Park
    Seth Wheeler
    Shameless
    Shays' Rebellion
    Shenanigans
    Sheriff Byrnes
    Shining City
    Shooting Horse
    Sierra Club
    Silas Coombs
    Silver City
    Simon Yates
    Slaughterhouse Gulch
    Society For Baseball Rresearch
    Soda Spring Gulch
    Sonya Nesch
    Southern Pacific Rr
    Spartan $-H Club
    Springer Mountain
    SRA
    Stacey Cryer
    Staret
    Stark Law
    Starr's Camp
    Starr's Guide To The John Muir Trail
    State Hospital At Talmage
    State Of California V. Karen And John Brittingham
    State Ownership Of Public Lands
    State Responsibility Area
    Steller's Jay
    Stephen Richardson
    Stephen Willis
    Steve Antler
    Steve Kobert
    Steve Lund
    Steven Spielberg
    Steven Steelrod
    Stone Of Destiny
    Stuart Tregoning
    Summers Lane Reservoir
    Sunny Slope
    Susie Ward Carter
    Tanforan Race Track
    Tanya Smart
    Teddy Roosevelt
    Ted Williams
    Ten Mile Court
    Ten Mile Haul Road
    Ten Mile River
    Teresa Rodriguez
    Terry Vaughn
    Texas School Book Depository Building
    Thad Van Bueren
    Tharp's Log
    The Andy Griffith Show
    The Big Burn
    The Civil War
    The Fisher Family
    The Gap
    The Graduate
    The Great American Novel
    The Last Resort
    The Last Season
    The Lost City Of Z
    The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
    The New Yorker
    The Old Man And The Sea
    The Ox-Bow Incident
    The Pickle Story
    Theresa Johnson
    The Sunshine Makers
    The Yellow Kid
    They Pull Me Back In.
    Thg
    Thimbleberries
    Thimble Theatre
    Thomas Crapo
    Thomas Henley
    Thomas McCracken
    Thomas Nickerson
    Thom Hartmann
    Ticked-off
    Timber Cruiser
    Timber Fallers
    Timber Harvest
    Timber Rattler
    Tim Dechristopher
    Tim Lincecum
    Timothy Egan
    Tim Scully
    Tim Stoen
    Tom Bell
    Tom Birdsell
    Tom Lehew
    Tom Pinizotto
    Tom Pinizzotto
    Tom Schultz
    Touching The Void
    Trade Secrets
    Transitional Housing
    Trinity Alps
    Troy King
    Tuolumne Meadows
    Turkey Shoot
    Two Years Before The Mast
    Ukiah High Class Of 1972
    Ukiah High School
    Ukiah Press
    Unbroken
    Uncle Charlie
    Uncle John's Jug
    U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service
    Utah
    VAAM
    Vanda Pharmaceuticals
    Velma Ball
    Vernal Falls
    Vespa Amino Acid Mixture
    Vicodin
    Victoria Brandon
    Vitus Bering
    Wade Sturgeon
    Wake Island
    Walker Tilley
    Walter "Pete" Starr
    Wanda Lake
    Warren Spahn
    Washington Irving
    Waterloo Teeth
    Waugh Lake
    Wayne Allen
    Wee Willie Keeler
    Western Fence Lizards
    Whalers
    Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
    White Snakeroot
    Whitney Portal
    Whoa Nellie Deli
    Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf
    Wild
    Wildfire
    Wild Justice
    William Addis
    William Charles Macready
    William Heeser
    William Kelley
    William Kelly
    William Randolph Hearst
    William Shakespeare
    William Thomas Green Morton
    Willie Fisher
    Willie Mays
    Will Lee
    Will Robertson
    WIPFLI
    Woman Lawyer: The Trials Of Clara Foltz
    Worcester V. Georgia
    World War Ii
    Writers Of The Mendocino Coast
    Yellow Journalism
    Yolla Bolly Wilderness
    Yosemite
    Yosemite Valley
    You Are There
    Yuki
    Zapruder Film
    Zecke

    RSS Feed