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Within a week I've seen A Walk in the Woods and Meru, two films about outdoor adventuring. A Walk in the Woods made it to Fort Bragg's Coast Cinemas. You are not likely to see Meru anywhere closer than the Summerfield Theater in Santa Rosa, which specializes in showing independent, foreign and documentary movies. Here's the basic difference in the two films: you don't have to possess any mountaineering experience to be thrilled by Meru, a documentary about two attempts to scale the “shark's fin” of the peak known as Meru in northern India.
    You may need to have done some serious backpacking to appreciate A Walk in the Woods. It is based on Bill Bryson's written account of his preparation for and subsequent backpack trip on the Appalachian Trail (AT). Sadly, the film version skips over nearly all of the preparation period, including the hilarious description of his hiking partner Katz's shopping spree the night before leaving for Georgia and the traditional southern starting point of AT through hikers at Springer Mountain.
     The film version also ignores the fact that the day Bryson and an overloaded Katz set out from Springer Mountain was reportedly the coldest day on record for that date and locale. It also omits the hilarity and frustration of Katz tossing crucial items down the mountain to lighten his load on that first day of backpacking. In addition, the movie version of A Walk in the Woods falsifies the major event that more or less bonds Bryson and Katz after several weeks on the trail together. The movie gets them stuck on a mountainous overhang after tripping and/or pulling each other off the trail. The sequence is obviously constructed with computer generated imagery (CGI), flying in the face of many wonderful camera shots of the actual Appalachian Trail.
     Bill Bryson's book, A Walk in the Woods, is a masterpiece of outdoor writing, combining tantalizing information about the realities of the natural world along the AT with the day to day drudgery and exaltation accompanying a long range backpacking trip. All of this with a healthy fortification of Bryson's wry wit and occasional hilarity.
     The movie version is inevitably shallow by comparison. However, there is enough of the comedy and camaraderie left to recommend it to those who enjoyed the book or those who have ever struggled through anything more than a one night backpack foray. And there is Nick Nolte, who comes as close as is possible to embodying the freewheeling, yet lovable sap of a character, Katz, that Bryson created in his book.
     If I had to suggest a prerequisite for Meru, it would be the 2003 documentary Touching the Void, which detailed the disastrous descent of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes by mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. Touching the Void may be the most harrowing hour and forty-five minutes in film history. Even though the audience more or less knows the overall outcome early on, the real life events  and after-the-fact narration should keep just about any viewer on the edge of their seat, or more accurately, curled in a fetal ball with one hand death-gripping the arm of your chair.
     The filmmakers behind Meru may well have studied the editing techniques used in Touching the Void. And then gone beyond. Touching the Void recounts events in the past. In Meru, the audience not only gets some after-the-fact accounts, but we go along on the two attempts to scale Meru. In mountainside long shots and extreme close-up, viewers experience the technical and physical challenge of trying to wall-climb that shark's fin outcropping just below Meru's peak as well as getting to know what it feels like to bivouac at 20,000 feet in a tent hanging from the side of a sheer cliff. No CGI required here.
     I walked away from viewing Meru without any inner need to trek to the Himalayas, just a better sense of what it is like, both psychologically and physically, for those who do feel that need. If you want a friendly bunch of chuckles and a hint of what it is like to backpack serious distance, go see A Walk in the Woods. If you want a fuller, more realistic thrill find Meru in a big screen theater, and don't forget to get your hands on a DVD of Touching the Void. The latter two come as close to the peak as film makers can reasonably aspire.

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The house that I live in is now thirty-five years old. It was constructed largely from the lumber produced out of a single redwood that had toppled to the ground a century before. Though the property is a product of nineteenth century acquisitions by my father's parents, this particular abode stems from my mother's imagination and willpower. For years after it was built my father grumbled about, “Your mother's damn mansion.” After dinner in the "redwood mansion," often as not, he retreated down the hill to the log house my parents, with help from uncles, constructed by hand. When I say by hand, I mean that they cut down trees themselves, hewed the logs, cut the notches for the logs to fit together, and everything else required to build your own two bedroom log house. That home, which included a large living room, kitchen, sun porch, and covered back porch, always sloped ever so slightly toward the southwest. So much for the perfection of do-it-yourself construction.
     The Albion River runs slightly southwest as well. That is, it takes nearly ninety degree turns every mile or so in the lower Albion, eventually arriving at its ocean mouth a tad farther southwest than the route of its main river source in the environs of Comptche.
     That last paragraph presupposes that the Albion River runs, which it does not. For the last three years the Albion has ceased flowing from fresh water to tidewater in mid-summer. Last year this occurred as early as the Fourth of July. Here on the Macdonald Ranch there are multiple locations where you can walk right across the river bottom without muddying your shoes or boots.
     McKay Gulch, which runs north to south through the western portion of the Macdonald Ranch, is dry. The headwaters for that same gulch was the original water source for my Macdonald ancestors in the 19th century. They constructed a wooden flume that ran the better part of a mile to their house just above the river's flood plain.
     A third of a mile to the west, an unnamed gulch stream is bone dry. In my childhood my sisters and I used to carry fresh water for our log house when the underground galvanized water pipes from a spring and tank up the hill (above even this house) froze solid.  This seemed to happen every winter a half century and more ago.  My older sisters would put on thick socks and rubber boots and pretend to skate on the frozen ponds in the bottom lands. In the present day, those two gulches to the west have been dry for months, not just due to the drought, but also because people living on the south side of the Littleriver Airport Road  are using all the water from the underground springs which used to flow into  those gulches.
      Along the same lines of scorched earth, a long time local alerted me to the fact that virtually nothing has been done to repair the track behind Fort Bragg's Company Store, where the Skunk Train derailed months ago while backing up. This past week the same citizen pointed out that an invasive weed is growing in the area adjacent to the damaged line. The local called it "goathead," though the weed goes by passel full of euphemisms: devil's thorn, devil's weed, tackweed, cat's head, puncture vine and many more. Puncture vine might the most descriptive because this weed spreads like a vine, but amongst its green leaflets grows a bubbling head, or nut, that at this time of year bursts into thorns powerful enough to puncture a bicycle tire. Puncture vine, or "goathead," is invasive to North America. It is native to the warmer climates of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. It has been spotted in Southern California for years as well as the Central Valley, but this may be the first sighting in coastal Mendocino County.
     It will be interesting to see what is done about the weed in Fort Bragg. It's located in something of a no man's land between the G-P mill site, the Skunk Train depot and the Company Store. Puncture vine can be eradicated by herbicides such as glyphosate, but it is better yanked up by its roots to prevent further spread.
     

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The Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH) has reached agreement with its employees union. The  union ratified the contract proposal, with approximately 85% of its voting members in favor. The contract thus agreed upon is a one year extension of the existing contract.
     The idea to continue under the old contract for one more year came from the union. The bigger story lies in what the hospital administration had previously offered the employees union. According to a source familiar with the situation, initially MCDH offered a proposed contract that would have “trashed” the health insurance benefits of the employees, greatly increasing what employees would have to pay out of pocket for less coverage in order to maintain any health benefits whatsoever.
     The union flatly refused that offer. Next, MCDH apparently attempted a divide and conquer strategy by offering the hospital's nurses, lab technicians, and X-ray techs a 10% raise. The flip side of that offer: every MCDH employee below the nurse and tech salary level would end up paying for their own insurance.
     As an old teacher used to say, "there you have it," a hospital administration attempting to cut the health benefits of hospital employees, including caregivers. More math: the same hospital board of directors just hired (Spring 2015) a new CEO, Bob Edwards, for $320,000 annually plus a plum benefits package. The previous CEO, who was at times also performing the job of chief financial officer, received approximately $215,000 in annual salary. In addition, the hospital has just hired a new full time chief financial officer (CFO), Wade Sturgeon. What his salary will be is not known at this time.  
     The best guess is that the contract proposals to the employees union came directly from Mr. Edwards, considering that at least one member of MCDH's Board of Directors was not fully aware of the negotiation tactics as of the third week in August. Generally, a board of directors would not take any direct role in negotiations. However, it is the MCDH Board of Directors who are ultimately in charge, so these contract proffers to the employee union cannot be completely shunted aside as the responsibility of someone else.
     At MCDH's August 25th Finance Committee meeting interim CFO Steve Miller detailed July, 2015 figures that showed the hospital with a net revenue loss of $36,872 for the month, a loss that was also $108,000 more than the projected budget. However, Miller spoke in optimistic terms about MCDH's long term potential to avoid a reversion to bankruptcy.
     Speaking of that nasty term, bankruptcy. Everyone present at the August 25th Finance Committee meeting received a handout specifying MCDH's year by year schedule of payments through 2024. All of these numbers are subject to bankruptcy court approval, but here are the total annual payment obligations of MCDH. 2016: $1,370,473;         2017: $1,638,595; 2018: $1,547,177; 2019$1,635,794; 2020: $1,420,742; 2021: $1,118,864; 2022: $1,118,864; 2022: $1,113,921; 2023: $861,216; 2024: $857,654.
     That adds up to $11,564,434. Readers should keep in mind that by law MCDH will be required to have a new hospital building in place by 2030.
     Three members of MCDH's Board of Directors were newly elected last fall. Two of them, Drs. William Rohr and Peter Glusker are on the finance committee. Both seem intent on digging deep into the dollars that make up the MCDH budget as well as finding sensible ways to make prudent decisions on which departments need cuts and which need investment. However, these tough fiscal decisions will have to be made with two holdover board members still in the voting picture.
     The two holdovers are Board Chair Sean Hogan and Tom Birdsell. These two require mention at this point in regard to the Brown Act. The Brown Act (1953) guarantees the public the right to attend civic meetings. Within the Brown Act are rules of law regarding the members of elected bodies such as the Mendocino Coast District Hospital's Board of Directors. One of those Brown Act provisions states: "The attendance of a majority of the members of a legislative body at an open and noticed meeting of a standing committee of that body, provided that the members of the legislative body who are not members of the standing committee attend only as observers." Thus, every member of an elected board, like MCDH's Board of Directors, could attend a committee meeting as long as they don't participate in that committee meeting.
     The MCDH Board of Directors is made up of five members. The MCDH Finance Committee has two members of that Board on it. Dr. Rohr chairs the Finance Committee. At the August 25th Finance Committee, MCDH Board Chair Sean Hogan (a retired attorney) sat in the audience, but he did not remain a silent observer for long. He actively sought the attention of the committee, then proceeeded to give his opinion on agendized matters. If memory serves correct, Tom Birdsell was present at the May Finance Committee and also particpated in discussion with the committee during its meeting.
    The MCDH Board of Directors appears to have grown accustomed to doing things without public scrutiny. The holdover members need to clean up their act in respect to not only dollars, but also common sense.

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There exists a distinct rift within the Board of Directors of Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH). The divide between new physician board members William Rohr and Peter Glusker and holdovers Tom Birdsell and Board Chair Sean Hogan was clearly in evidence at a August 27th meeting.
      The event started fairly magnanimously with unanimous votes to further extend the negotiation period for Dr. Diane Harris through the end of the year (see earlier AVA articles for background on the uproar over Dr. Harris' contract). However, signs of disconnect were apparent from the first minutes when Chair Sean Hogan reported on matters from the closed session that preceded the public board meeting. Hogan stated that the employees union had concluded voting on a contract extension, but that he did not know the results of the vote. Apparently Hogan doesn't stoop to reading the AVA online or he would have known that more than 80% of the union voters approved the contract.
     The crapola hit the fan during “New Business.” The item that sparked the fan was labeled “Determine MCDH negotiator for Dr. Diane Harris' contract.” Board member Tom Birdsell and MCDH's local attorney John Ruprecht made it clear that they did not want to set a precedent by having anyone other than the CEO, Bob Edwards, negotiating contracts. Drs. Rohr and Glusker proved equally insistent in reminding the board and the audience (largely hospital staffers) that it had been Edwards' proposed contract offer to Harris that had stirred up so much consternation that a couple dozen of Harris' patients had shown up at a special board meeting ten days earlier to express their displeasure at the whole contract mess. This particular item was eventually solved when Chair Hogan and Board member Kitty Bruning (who may not have spoken a dozen words in the entire three hour meeting) voted “aye” on a Glusker and Rohr motion to find something approaching middle ground (read as: a state mediator or arbitrator is likely to be the party bringing about the final contract agreement with representatives of Dr. Harris and the hospital, neither of whom will be Dr. Harris' spouse[Fort Bragg City Councilman Doug Hammerstrom] or new MCDH CEO Bob Edwards).
     But we weren't done with the issue of Dr. Harris or the contract proposed to her by CEO Edwards in July. Nor were we done with the displeasure of the old guard (Birdsell, Hogan, and attorney Ruprecht) over the emergency motion made by Glusker, and seconded by Rohr, at the August 17th special MCDH Board meeting to offer Dr. Harris an extension to her current contract for the purpose of negotiating a new one. Chairman Hogan read forthwith from codes and regulations detailing the exact letter of the law regarding regular, special, and emergency board meetings. The upshot of Hogan's recitation proved that he (Hogan) did not believe the action taken in extending Harris had been played according to Hoyle. He didn't ask for a re-deal, but his recitation gave Birdsell and Ruprecht opportunity for self serving I-told-you-so remarks. Dr. Rohr essentially responded with words that said he believed more in protecting the rights of Dr. Harris' patients than any code. Glusker echoed those sentiments and Rohr came within two or three syllables of saying that the detailed code could be shoved where the sun don't shine.
    Game on. Not to mention hypocrisy volleyed into Chair Hogan's court. You see it was this same Sean Hogan, this stickler to the intended detail of state codes who had sat himself down in the audience of MCDH's Finance Committee meeting just a few days earlier. The same Sean Hogan who then proceeded to take an active part in discussion on agenda items of said same Finance Committee, thus violated California's Brown Act (see my previous article on MCDH for more on that Finance Committee meeting of August 25, 2015).
     By the time the August 27th meeting got down to “Old Business” the rift split into a chasm. The item: MCDH Primary Care Physician Boilerplate Contract Discussion. After Dr. Glusker affirmed Dr. Rohr's belief that the so-called “boilerplate” contracts were only to be used as a tool in recruiting beginning physicians and not to be used in negotiating renewal contracts with long established coastal physicians, like Dr. Harris, Tom Birdsell said that he thought Glusker had gone along with the idea of using the “boilerplate” contracts for CEO Edwards to negotiate with Dr. Harris. Dr. Glusker flatly denied any such thing. Furthermore, both Glusker and Rohr adamantly stated that each of them would have refused to sign such a “boilerplate” contract as the one offered by CEO Edwards to Dr. Harris and at least two other North Coast Family Health Center physicians.
     Rohr and Glusker counter punched the meeting to a close with charts and graphics concerning the hospitals financial situation. This proved somewhat anticlimactic after the verbal body blows to the MCDH Board's holdover members. Rohr's financial presentation concluded with something of a refutation of the status quo with his visual statement that the proposed budget's projected $860,000 loss for fiscal year 2016 was “unacceptable.”
     

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So, you are out on the John Muir Trail (JMT) and nature calls. Your first thought: Why doesn't Nature have a 1-800 number. Of course, Mother Nature isn't calling you on the phone. Mother Nature is much too busy to take the time to make a personal phone call. Second, your cell phone is not going to have enough bars to get any kind of service on most of the JMT. Mother Nature is making a figurative, euphemistic call. You need to drop your pack, head into the woods or brush, pray there isn't a timber rattler lurking, and do your business.
     Speaking of business, you've probably never given Seth Wheeler a second thought. Why should you give old Seth any thought whatsoever? Well, it has to do with August 26th. You see our publication date, August 26th, just happens to coincide with National Toilet Paper Day. Yes, just about every freakin' thing you can possibly think of now has a “National Day” of commemoration. If Hallmark puts out a Toilet Paper Day card, you can pretty much pack your belongings for the impending apocalypse.
     Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, patented the first American toilet paper roll in 1871. Seth called it rolled and perforated wrapping paper, in keeping with the modest attitudes of Victorian times.  Because folks were too bashful to ask for the product, let alone purchase it, Wheeler had to reform his company to survive economically. To satisfy the needs of his new company Wheeler filed a re-patent. The drawings accompanying that re-patent filing solve the long debate, whether toilet paper should be hung to roll over or under. Wheeler's drawing for the patent distinctly displays an “over” roll.
     Though Wheeler invented the toilet paper roll, the Scott Paper Company, founded in 1879, perfected the business of selling it. By the 1920s it outsold every other toilet paper vendor worldwide. For the 1% the invention of toilet paper in the United States can be traced to Joseph Gayetty. In 1857 he introduced Gayetty's Medicated Paper, which was sold in boxes filled with flat sheets, watermarked with Mr. Gayetty's name.
     Since I've already mentioned the apocalypse, anyone fifty or older should remember that the U.S. has already experienced the modern apocalypse of a national toilet paper shortage. Perhaps you've forgotten this 1973 example of the power of the media. Amid the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo Johnny Carson, host of the Tonight Show, quipped: “You know what's disappearing from supermarket shelves? Toilet paper. There's an acute shortage of toilet paper throughout the United States.”
     As soon as stores opened the next morning Americans bought up every package in every store in the land. After a few days of t.p. hysteria Carson reassured television viewers that it was only a joke juxtaposed against the oil crisis. Nevertheless, it took more than three weeks before production of new t.p. rolls caught up with a nationwide frenzy of toilet paper buying and hoarding.
      About 1,500 years ago the Chinese came up with the concept of using paper products to clean one's backside. Before that, Romans used sponges and salt water. Streams, lakes, and seas served early man and womankind as nature's bidets while the landlocked got by with clumps of leaves or grass.
     If you want a paper invention to celebrate on August 26th without bringing up outhouse wipes, try the name Ottmar Mergenthaler on for size. One might call Mergenthaler, a German-born American immigrant, the second Gutenberg. In 1884 he patented the linotype machine that stamped and cast metal type, replacing manual typesetting, thus revolutionizing the production of mass circulation newspapers. Then again, you probably have to be fifty or older to appreciate widely circulated newspapers or even the concept of reading print on paper.

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The headline from the August 17th Mendocino Coast District Hospital's special Board of Director's meeting: The MCDH Board voted to grant Dr. Diane Harris a ninety day extension to negotiate a new contract for her continued physician services at North Coast Family Health Center (NCFHC), the hospital affiliated clinic in Fort Bragg.
     The agreement did not come about until enough “failure to communicate” kerfuffles to land Cool Hand Luke a months worth of “night in the box” punishments (To anyone beyond the age of twelve who fails to understand a Cool Hand Luke reference may I suggest an immediate viewing of the 1967 film classic – culturally and educationally it is more important than tomorrow's homework).
      A months worth of kerfuffles is precisely what's been going on at Mendocino Coast Hospital, at least at the administrative level. There are some fine people laboring in the trenches at MCDH, from doctors and nurses on down the pay scale. Unfortunately, for at least a half decade if not longer, the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) at MCDH have not been keeping close tabs on their physicians contracts and the Boards of Directors have not been following through in keeping close tabs on their CEOS. This leads to all sorts of problems, not the least of which are billing oversights and exposure to Stark Law violations (See my June 3rd article for an explanation of Stark Law – Thankfully not all knowledge is gained through the cinema; you don't have to watch the Tony Stark character in Iron Man to grasp the fundamentals of the Stark Law.). MCDH is still in the process of paying off about $200,000 in federal Stark violation penalties, another $200,000 or so having already been paid while MCDH was coming out of bankruptcy.
     Into this climate of uncertain physician contracts marched one Bob Edwards, the newly hired hospital CEO at a salary of $320,000 annually plus benefits. Keep in mind that the city manager for the entire municipality of Fort Bragg, CA makes only slightly more than half of what MCDH is paying Edwards. At some point after he was hired this spring (exactly when is a nebulous truth to get at) Edwards discovered that four of North Coast Family Health Center's long time doctors' contracts were about to run out. On what was obviously very short notice the four physicians were asked to re-up. Dr. Jason Kirkman did so. Apparently, Drs. John Cottle and Jennifer Kreger had reservations about the contracts proffered to them by Edwards. They both asked for two month extensions to their existing contracts to consider the new contract and continue negotiations about said same contract. In a hastily called, special Board of Directors meeting in July, (Dr. Bill Rohr, MCDH Board member, described being told at 1:30 or 2 pm that a meeting was occurring later that afternoon) the MCDH Board of Directors approved the negotiation extensions for Drs. Kreger and Cottle.   Left out in the cold was Dr. Diane Harris, the fourth North Coast Family Health physician with an expiring contract. Harris claimed that Edwards had told her four days before her old contract expired that she needed to 'suck it up' and sign the new contract. A contract a pair of her colleagues had already questioned enough to ask for two months of extended negotiations.
     In a public statement concerning the contract problem, Harris stated, “Two days before the end of the contract with three doctors unwilling to sign the new contract... I requested to see the latest version of the contract and Ilona Horton (NCFHC administrator) refused to give it to me saying that she and Bob Edwards decided to let my contract expire, and that they weren't going to negotiate with me any more. The next day I found out that the MCDH Board met in emergency session and gave the two other doctors who also wouldn't sign the contract a 60 day extension on their contract for further negotiations. I asked the Chair of the Board [Sean Hogan] to schedule a special meeting to extend my contract in the same manner. My request was declined.
     “The administration didn't consider the effects of their actions on my patients, myself and my family, and on the community. Patients have had multiple reactions to the news of disruption of continuity of THEIR care. They like me and are very supportive of me. But they are flummoxed, furious and frustrated, deeply distressed and disoriented. They have said the following: The lack of consideration for the patients is immoral. What is glaringly absent is a focus or concern for the sacrosanct relationship between doctor and patient, and the healing process. I have found Dr. Harris to be knowledgeable, agreeable, and helpful. Clearly she is smart and patient-centric. I have valued my sessions with her and feel she is one of the best doctors in the area. It is incomprehensible that the administration would allow this to happen.”
     At the August 17th special board meeting an assortment of Dr. Harris' patients filled the board room, many rose to praise Dr. Harris's manner and method of medical practice and to express their displeasure at the abrupt nature of her termination as well as dismay about lies told to them concerning Dr. Harris' absence by North Coast Family Health officials. MCDH Board Chair Sean Hogan said there was nothing to be done at this particular meeting because Dr. Harris' matter was not on the agenda.
     Indeed it was not, but newly elected (last fall) Board member, Dr. Peter Glusker spoke up to make an emergency motion that the matter be discussed. After what appeared to be defensive maneuvers by John J. Ruprecht, the MCDH Board's local attorney, Dr. Bill Rohr seconded Glusker's motion. Hogan and fellow Board member Kitty Bruning (along with Glusker and Rohr, newly elected in November, 2014) voted 4-0 to continue discussing the Harris matter (fifth Board member Tom Birdsell was absent).
     Almost as soon as discussion ensued, Dr. Glusker motioned that Dr. Harris be granted a similar extension period to that offered to Drs. Kreger and Cottle. Again Ruprecht proved reticent to move forward with anything so novel. He halted discussion several times under the pretext that he was trying to protect the hospital from potential litigation and further Stark Law violations, but from this vantage point it appeared that Ruprecht was doing all he could to stop Glusker's motion and block the extension of Harris' contract.
     While this was ongoing one couldn't help notice interim Chief Financial Officer Steve Miller leaving the room. Miller, who has been on duty during the period that MCDH extricated itself from bankruptcy, is about to finish his term of office and return to his home in Texas. He didn't need to do anything extraordinary, but he did nonetheless. While out of the board room, Miller called an attorney at Ober Kaler, the national legal firm representing MCDH. When Miller returned to the meeting he reassured the Board that MCDH could extend Dr. Harris' previous contract for as much as six months without any fear of Stark Law violations.
     Miller's quick maneuver not only paved the way for Glusker's motion to go forward, but undermined attorney Ruprecht's repeated delay tactics. One might say it also demonstrated his lack of legal knowledge on the same topic he made a point of bringing up.
     Roll call on Glusker's motion went forward, with an amendment that she be given a ninety day extension dating from August 1st to make up for the time lost in potential negotiations. Glusker and Rohr voted to approve the negotition extension for Dr. Harris. After a moment's hesitation, Kitty Bruning abstained. Board Chair Sean Hogan, a retired attorney, at first abstained also, then changed his mind and announced that he was recusing himself from the vote. The recusal came with little discernible explanation. So, by a 2-0 vote Dr. Harris was granted a contract negotiation extension similar to Drs. Kreger and Cottle.
      A closing note: at the August 17th meeting, new CEO Bob Edwards denied telling Harris to “suck it up” and sign the new contract. Immediately thereafter several members of the public could be heard voicing their disbelief in Edwards' words.  

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The August 10, 2015 Fort Bragg City Council meeting offered plenty within its agenda to pique the interest of the citizenry. Unfortunately less than ten showed up, fewer than a handful stayed for most of the subject matter, including the adoption of a resolution declaring a Stage 1 water emergency for the town. With so little tangible interest paid to the civic matters at hand, it seemed somewhat ironic that Councilman Lindy Peters proposed that city staff provide a report giving direction as to how the council might go about putting the concept of excluding social services from Fort Bragg's central business district on the ballot in California's June, 2016 primary election. A drive to gather enough valid signatures for just such an exclusionary  initiative recently fell one signature short of qualifying for a yea or nay ballot vote.
     There were only two brief public comments concerning this proposed initiative to ban social services from the downtown business district, Rex Gressett in favor and Scott Menzies vehemently opposed. Both left the premises relatively soon thereafter. The audience quickly dwindled to two members of Mayor Turner's family, lifelong Fort Bragg resident Jay McMartin-Rosenquist, and yours truly. While Ms. McMartin-Rosenquist remained silent at the City Council gathering, she did offer her opinion online some time later: "Did you hear Scott's [Menzies] comments re the initiative. He is a new comer. They use to run them all out of town. I was born and raised here and so were many. Support the locals who built this town and enjoyit as yu decided to live here but I am tired of others telling us what to do and how to act. Go home to where you came from and tell your home town folks how to walk , talk and behave. Sorry my rant for the night."
     Just how definitively Ms. McMartin-Rosenquist's words reflect others who are signatories to the potential initiative barring social services from the downtown area of Mendocino County's second largest municipality remains to be seen. On the Facebook page where her remarks appeared the next comment was, "yeah... new guy with personal ties to the old coast project via thai chi classes called all of us bigots...."
     Joe Wagner, who offered the preceding comment had earlier offered his thoughts on why so few locals are attending recent council meetings, "Many people feel really shut down by the city. i talk to many in this group and i keep hearing i'm done with those stupid meetings.... they don't listen to anything the public has to say..."
     Those fixated, yea or nay, on the possibility of privatized mental health services being offered up at the Old Coast Hotel site on the corner of Oak and Franklin Streets are missing out on a story that has slithered through the weeds in Fort Bragg for years now. That story centers around the financial woes of the Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH).
     There was some consternation a month ago about the raise, approved by the city council, given to Fort Bragg's City Manager, Linda Ruffing. Most reliable sources report that said raise was actually below the statewide COLA (cost of living average). While Ruffing's annual pay is in the $150,000 - $180,000 range, the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH), Bob Edwards, is being paid $320,000 yearly, plus benefits.
      MCDH board meetings are primarily attended by hospital staff, with extremely little participation from the general public.  Many readers will need a little backstory: MCDH, though it theoretically came out of bankruptcy earlier this year is still operating, month to month, just above and sometimes below the break even point. Unexpected costs have a way of continually popping up for the administration of this outfit.
     In a similar vein, the deadline for negotiating with the hospital's union employees came and went at the end of June without action from the hospital's board or new CEO Edwards. It took a full month longer for the hospital board and/or CEO to come up with a proposal for the employee's union. As we write and read union members are voting on that proposal by mail-in ballots. Results will be announced on August 20th.
    An item that would have appeared run-of-the-mill ordinary, negotiations for new contracts for four mainstay physicians at North Coast Family Health Center (NCFHC), the hospital affiliated clinic just across the parking lot from MCDH, has turned into a brouhaha.
     The four physicians in question at NCFHC are Jason Kirkman, John Cottle, Jennifer Kreger, and Diane Harris. According to sources fairly close to the situation the four physicians were offered "take it or leave it" contracts that did not include the usually standard malpractice tail coverage. Tail coverage provides insurance for a doctor for several years following their tenure at a medical facility, protection for after the fact lawsuits alleging malpractice. Leaving such a basic clause out of a contract offer could be viewed as a professional slap in the face.
     Apparently, Dr. Kirkman signed the proposed new contract, reportedly with some sort of statement indicating, 'Heck, contracts don't mean all that much around here.' Indeed, the lack of properly signed contracts has cost MCDH muy dinero in billing dollars during the last two administrations.
     Drs. Cottle and Kreger were the subject of an emergency MCDH board of directors meeting on July 30th. The focus of the meeting: a two month extension in the negotiating process between MCDH and Drs. Kreger and Cottle.
     This leads us to the August 11th Fort Bragg City Council meeting. In the agenda section entitled, "Matters From Councilmembers" Councilman Doug Hammerstrom, who is the husband of Dr. Diane Harris, made the following statement: "North Coast Family Health Center [NCFHC] has been putting out a great deal of misinformation. Some of you patients have contacted Diane, worried about her because of the information you were hearing, worried about North Coast Family Health terminating Diane's contract.
      “First, it is not true, as patients have been told, that she has taken a medical leave. She does not have a medical issue. You do not need to worry about her health. Patients have also called because the information they've been told makes no sense and they think there must be some other story, and worried that Diane has some unknown problem. Diane is not having some unspeakable problem.
     “The reason you are being misinformed is a smoke screen by North Coast Family Health Center. They do not want to tell you the truth that two days before the end of her contract term, they [NCFHC] informed her they would no longer negotiate the renewal of her contract. The next day at a [Mendocino Coast District Hospital - MCDH] board meeting two other [NCFHC] doctors had their contract terms extended two months to continue negotiating renewal of their contract terms.
     “Diane asked the [MCDH]board to take the same action on her negotiations, but that request was declined. Diane would not have terminated her relationship with her patients in this sudden way. The suddenness is a result of being involuntarily terminated by North Coast Family Health Center.
     “Diane loves being a doctor. She enjoys her relationship with her patients, some of those relationships are twenty-three years in duration. She feels a responsibility to her patients, and feels at this time that she is letting them down. She is seeking to find another situation in this community where she can continue her relationships with her patients.
     “If you are concerned about her treatment you can write a letter to the [MCDH] board. There is a board meeting on Thursday, August 20th [actually Aug. 27th], at 6 p.m., in the Redwoods Room [of MCDH]. You could attend and speak to the issue at that meeting, perhaps on non-agenda items, perhaps there might be an agenda item that might involve it.
     “On her behalf I wanted to take this opportunity that I have to speak to the community to attempt to get the word out to at least some of her patients who my have heard the same worrying information that has caused people to call her with these worries.”
     This writer called Mendocino Coast District Hospital CEO Bob Edwards on August 11th in an attempt to garner his side of the story. An assistant answered the phone and said she would try to get Edwards to return the call later on the 11th or the morning of August 12th.
     I also called Ilona Horton, the adminstrator for North Coast Family Health. She sounded somewhat startled to hear that I was in the midst of writing a piece about the contract offers to the four NCFHC physicians. She stated that she would have to consult with a public relations person before making any comment.  About a half hour later Horton called back to say that "we" will be sending an email response within a couple of hours. Half of the following day came and went without the promised email. Follow up calls to Ilona Horton's office produced only voicemail. I left a reminder message that no email had been forthcoming, including a slowly spelled out repetition of the email address and my phone number. An hour later I called Bob Edwards' office. The assistant answered again. Her response was that their PR guy, Sid Garza, was supposed to have already sent me said email. Fifteen or twenty minutes later the CEO's assistant called back to say "they" were working on an email response and that I should receive it within a few minutes.
     Is there anything in this list of obfuscations that would make readers believe the powers that be at MCDH and North Coast Family Health over Dr. Harris or her husband's comments at the City Council meeting?
     How was the decision to decline a contract renewal to Dr. Harris made by the hospital? The closest thing to clear evidence lies in the July 16th MCDH Board of Directors agenda and minutes. Under "Action" items:  Mr. Hogan [Board Chairman Sean Hogan] would like to appoint two Board members to review physician contracts with Bob Edwards; they can make a presentation to the Board and suggest the Board either accept or reject the contracts without the Board having to hear all the details of the contracts.  Discussion ensued. Mr. Hogan appointed Dr. Glusker and Tom Birdsell to the Physician Contract Review Ad Hoc Committee.
     This implies Edwards was in charge of making the contract offers to NCFHC physicians Kirkman, Kreger, Cottle, and Harris. How much input Dr. Glusker and Mr. Birdsell had in the makeup of said contract offers remains to be seen. How much needs to be read into the phrase "without the Board having to hear all the details of the contracts" is still open to interpretation.
     Finally, the promised email arrived in my inbox, signed by a Sid Garza-Hillman. Beneath his name are the descriptive terms: Writer. Podcaster. Speaker. Health Coach.
     Here is the email response Mr. Garza-Hillman offered up, with the heading, Mendocino Coast District Hospital  August 12, 2015: ""Regarding the recent physician contract renewal, MCDH believes the most responsible course of action is to present the facts as documented in the Hospital Board meeting minutes in hopes of minimizing misperceptions and false rumors. Four primary care physician contracts were due for renewal by July 31, 2015. A boilerplate agreement was presented to the hospital board on May 28, at which time the Board requested additional information. On June 25, the Board approved the agreement. Following the Board approval, the four physicians acted in the following ways. One physician signed the new agreement on July 31. One physician did not wish to sign the agreement, thus allowing her existing contract to expire on July 31. Two physicians signed extensions to the agreement, wishing to continue their work while receiving more time to review the new agreement. We ask that the public contact the hospital directly with any concerns or questions they may have about the conflicting reports currently surfacing in local media."  
     A glaring miscalculation in chronology exists in this email: The email claims that MCDH's Board of Directors had the finalized physician contract proposal on June 25th, yet this same board made no effort to put together a physicians' contract review team until the July 16th meeting. What kind of board waits until two weeks before contracts are up to start to put together a contract review team?
     The email claims that one physician (Dr. Harris) did not wish to sign the contract agreement. This flies in the face of the public testimony of Dr. Harris' spouse, ten year city councilman Doug Hammerstrom, as well as the words of Dr. Diane Harris herself who has publicly stated that the contract was offered up for her signature without the opportunity to fully read it first. Dr. Harris further stated that when she asked for the same treatment as Drs. Cottle and Kreger, a two month extension in negotitaions, she was flatly denied that opportunity. The MCDH's PR man's email disingenuously omits the short notice, the lack of tail coverage, as well as Dr. Harris' request to be treated in the same manner as her colleagues, Drs. Cottle and Kreger.
     Mr. Garza-Hillman offered the quotation marks in the email on behalf of MCDH. Precisely which individual in a position of authority is being quoted remains distinctly obscure. And this is a huge part of the point regarding MCDH currently. Note the closing line, "We ask that the public contact the hospital directly with any concerns or questions they may have about the conflicting reports currently surfacing in local media."
     Well, this member of the public, who pays taxes that help support MCDH, called and asked for either the CEO of the hospital or the administrator in charge of North Coast Family Health to explain what's going on and their response was to hide behind a PR guy's tardy and feeble response.

                                                                                          Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

The New York census of 1860 described denizens of the city's Fourth Ward thusly: Mary Sullivan, 22. Ms. Sullivan's birthplace: Ireland; the value of her personal real estate equaled nil as did her personal wealth. Her character listed as “doubtful.” Nearly half the residents of the Fourth Ward were labeled “doubtful” characters.
     Thirty years later in 1890, Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives chronicled the deplorable conditions of the Fourth Ward and other “slums.” Riis' targeted readership was the emerging American middle class. He hoped his work would shame them into making improvements in the lives of the poverty stricken. 125 years later Riis would be appalled that the economic split in the United States breaks down more on a 90-10%, if not 99-1%, basis than fifty-fifty.
     As Riis' How the Other Half Lives was being published, a young man who'd served Thomas Edison as a technical illustrator moved to New York City. His name was Richard Outcault. He hailed from Ohio and began his big city career with a job on the staff of Electrical World magazine. He also started strolling through the Fourth Ward on occasion. There, he literally drew inspiration for a lighter view of the impoverished souls of that region. Focusing on children as his main characters, Outcault fashioned illustration's of what he called Hogan's Alley. The first illustrated stories of Hogan's Alley appeared in a magazine called Truth, best remembered for publishing several stories by Stephen Crane.
     Outcault's humorous illustrations drew the attention of Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of one of the most important newspapers of the day, The New York World, where “Hogan's Alley” debuted in the first week of May, 1895. This first modern comic strip proved so popular that William Randolph Hearst offered Outcault a huge pay raise to jump to Hearst's New York Journal American. Pulitzer sued and was awarded copyright to the title, “Hogan's Alley,” but Outcault's newly titled “The Yellow Kid” proved an even bigger success syndicated in Hearst's string of coast-to-coast papers. Pulitzer gave up grudgingly, hiring another artist to continue “Hogan's Alley,” with the Yellow Kid as its main character in his newspapers.
     The circulation wars between Pulitzer and Hearst throughout the 1890s led to what could generously be called sensationalistic journalism, in which both Hearst and Pulitzer's editors often crossed the line of pure fabrication in attempts to gain the attention of potential paying readers and subscribers. The fact that both papers ran competing versions of the Yellow Kid comics led critics to label these sensationalist publications as “Yellow Kid Journalism.” By the time of the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the term had been simplified to “Yellow Journalism” (Hearst, especially, inflamed the public into a pro-war frenzy even before the battleship Maine sunk in Havana's harbor).
     Outcault apparently tired of the Yellow Kid comic by early 1898, but the writer/illustrator had already invented the practice of ballooning characters' thoughts. In 1902 Outcault initiated a new strip, Buster Brown, about a rich boy in an oversized hat, often accompanied by his dog Tige. The Yellow Kid and other Fourth Ward characters occasionally appeared in Buster Brown. This strip created an entirely new avenue of revenue for Outcault when he signed a lucrative deal with the Brown Shoe Company to produce Buster Brown shoes.
     As the twentieth century wended its way through two decades, Outcault became a mentor to young cartoonists trying to make their way in New York. One of those aspiring cartoonists was a Illinois native named Elzie Segar, who often signed his work with the initials E.C. followed by an ink drawing of a cigar. Outcault wangled Segar his first New York newspaper job. While Outcault aimed for social commentary along with humor, Elzie Segar used the hardly-working class as the model for a comic strip yearning for yucks more than class awareness.
     Segar succeeded throughout the early 1920s with a six panel strip called the Thimble Theatre, published in the New York World. Thimble Theatre featured such winning figures as Olive Oyl, Castor Oyl, and Harold Hamgravy. This comic strip hummed along for nearly a decade before Castor Oyl asked a new character, "You there, are you a sailor?" and the popeyed sailor replied, "Ja' think I'm a cowboy."
     Popeye was off and rolling. He soon grew so popular that most readers referred to Thimble Theatre as simply Popeye.
     In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer adapted Thimble Theatre into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoons for release by Paramount Pictures. These movie cartoons, produced until 1957 (and rerun on television long after) are the Popeye that most Baby Boomers know.
     Long before talking pictures E.C. Seger was a student at the Chicago Art Institute, where one of his instructors was Wellington J. Reynolds. Even earlier, in Segar's hometown of Chester, Illinois, a man named William Schuchert managed the local opera house. He was euphemistically called Windy Bill because of his fondness for unfolding tall tales. When he wasn't embellishing the truth Windy Bill dearly loved consuming hamburgers. In 1917 Segar plied his trade at the Chicago Herald-Examiner where a fellow employee ate burgers with Elzie at lunch. The fellow employee: H. Hillard Wimpee.
     Segar died at 43 from leukemia. Popeye lives on. A specific day of the week lives on in melancholy verse:
    Tuesday

J. Wellington Wimpy
was a very, very careful man
except when it came to hamburgers
of which, for which, by which
he was apt to sandwich
two or more in each hand

J. Wellington Wimpy
proved exceedingly prudent with funds
except when it came to a certain burger and buns

J. Wellington Wimpy
once strode svelte and lean
now too much of his favorite food
has done the gentlemen in

J. Wellington Wimpy
his sailor friends implore
all debts and regrets paid gladly
service: Tuesday at four
 

                                                                                             Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

By the time you read this I should be somewhere on the John Muir Trail, most likely in Yosemite National Park. This will all be part of a two week backpacking trip/adventure with my long time outdoor buddy Steven Steelrod. We will have other friends and family members along for parts of the treks, which essentially break down into three separate backpack excursions within a fifteen day permit period. Yes, these days you must acquire a permit through the National Park Service to hike even a relatively small portion of the John Muir Trail. The entire JMT is approximately 225 miles long, from the Mt. Whitney area north to Yosemite Valley. The direction you are hiking is also crucial to receiving a permit. Though south to north was once the traditional hiking direction on the John Muir Trail, the Yosemite area, including Tuolumne Meadows, has become a favorite starting point for the uninitiated. Hence north to south travel along the JMT has gotten so overpopulated that parts of it require human waste disposal bags. At Whitney Portal there is a disposal bin for the so called “wag bags.”
     The popularity of Cheryl Strayed's book Wild and the subsequent Oscar nominated film of the same name, starring Reese Witherspoon, is one factor in a tremendous increase in use of the John Muir Trail over the last five years. Bill Bryson's 1990s A Walk in the Woods, though it was about backpacking the east coast Appalachian Trail and included lengthy passages about mauling death by bears and unsolved murders along the trail, only served to whet the appetite of western hikers for the JMT and the much longer Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). By the way, a film version of Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte in the two major roles, is due out in movie theaters this fall.
     Any extended backpack trip is a matter of logistics, balancing enough food, clothing, and shelter needs against the total weight of your pack. Add in factors like elevation gain and foul weather and you don't have to be hiking off trail, cross country to experience bad days. That's just for a three or four day trek. Make it two weeks (or more) and several other folks involved, then the whole outdoor adventure becomes a matter not to dissimilar to battlefield logistics. You need generals and sergeants and privates who aren't going to desert. In a long backpacking trip logistics can involve mailing yourself “care” packages at crucial pickup points. With a half dozen people involved in our trip, one of the primary concerns is how many vehicles will be driven to the general area and just where to park them. As it turns out our usually uber eco-friendly group will be driving three different air pollution mobiles to the greater Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite region.
     One car will be left within short shuttle riding distance of the Mammoth area (Agnew Meadows) trailhead. Sounds sensible enough, but it means that driver must carry 4-5 other backpackers to Mammoth Lakes after they've dropped off the other two cars inside Yosemite National Park, most likely at Tuolumne Meadows and White Wolf Lodge.  
     Keep in mind that simply entering Yosemite National Park requires at least a $30 one week car pass. Since we are on a two week outing, one of those Yosemite vehicles will be mine, primarily because I already possess a year long National Park access card (cost: $80). Throw in the price of a shuttle ride from Mammoth Lakes to the Agnew Meadows trailhead (cost: $7 per person), not to mention lodging for the night before and such a trip into the wilderness to enjoy the great outdoors of swarming mosquitoes by your favorite lakes and streams is not for the feint of heart, nor for the light of pocketbook.
     Stay tuned for a late August AVA piece to see if we survived the JMT and the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne.
    

                                                                                             Link to Anderson Valley Advertiser:  www.theava.com

  The whaler, Dauphin, cradle-rocked under full sail off the Chilean coast that February morn. Then in the length it takes a breath to spark a babe or silence a codger, the vessel settled. “She's gone grave calm,” Captain Zimri Coffin murmured on the quarterdeck.
     The captain watched his cabin boy heave-to at the starboard rail, stomach unsteady for the lack of sway under his Nantucket feet. The lookout called and Coffin raised his spyglass.
     On the dead still sea, a boat, impossibly small for the open ocean. The craft drifted closer and Coffin spotted a pair of jury-rigged sails, bleached by the tropics, stiff with salt air, ready to crack.
     A whaleboat, it was, Captain Coffin realized: double-ended, two dozen feet long, just like the half dozen stowed aboard the Dauphin for chasing down the spermers and subduing them at the point of harpoon lances.
     The good captain scanned the horizon for a mother ship, but found none. Back to the whaling boat he glanced: no one at the steering oar. “Hard up the helm,” he shouted to the mate at the wheel.
     The Pacific returned to itself, the least passive of waters. Swells swept the Dauphin past the open boat, but they saw it; from Captain Coffin to third mate Murphey, to the sailors and cabin boy, they saw the bony cargo of the crumbling whale boat. Human bones it were, littering the craft floorboard to thwart.
     The ship and boat bobbed nearer until the Dauphin's crew could see that two men lay curled upon the piles of bones, one fore, one aft. Their tatters hung loose in places about their bodies, but some rags tattooed the men firm as burning ink. Sores blotched exposed skin and hollowed it like the temples on their skulls. Patches of black and white and gray festooned their Crusoe beards. Their eyes bulged while their split lips chomped and sucked at the marrow of bones they clutched, wilder than simpering dogs in the summer sun.
     Captain Coffin had heard of men adrift so long their madness turned murderous, but his Quaker roots commanded a boat be lowered. When this was done, the skeletal pair in the whale boat clung to their bony plunder, slapping feebly at the Dauphin crew who tugged them to wobbly feet, then carried them to the Dauphin's boat.
     Shadows of spars and sails cast a ghosty pall on the two rescued men. For, though carried aboard in a weakened state beyond all reason of survival, they were men, not apparitions. And one, when fed in Coffin's cabin, cleared his mind of jibberish enough to say, "I am Captain George Pollard, Jr."
     Captain Coffin knew the name, but not the wasted features. "Of what ship?" he inquired.
     Spindle-shanked, cadaverous, Pollard nevertheless straightened o'er the table. "I am captain of the Essex out of Nantucket. Adrift for three months since being stove by an eighty foot sperm whale a thousand miles west of the Galapagos." Pollard sopped and scraped hardtack through something purported to be gravy, then added, "And that whale was mighty deliberate. Rammed 'er just forward of the forechains. And it come back in full fury and rage for a second blow, plowed clean through our port bow."
     Though it meant a loss of time and money to his shareholders back home, Captain Coffin turned the Dauphin about, setting a heading for Valparaiso. Scarce a fortnight later, off St. Mary's Island, the Dauphin anchored aside a fellow Nantucket whaler, the Hero, skippered by a first mate name of Obed Starbuck. Starbuck was a man with a tale to tell of escaping capture at the hands of Spanish pirates. They'd lost their captain, Starbuck said, but made their getaway with the loss of but one man more.
      "That's a fine report," Captain Coffin said to Starbuck as he sat him down at his table, "but I'd like you to meet the captain of the Essex."
     And so the story passed from ship to ship, around the Horn, 'til it reached Nantucket and back again to the Pacific. Every man asea, especially if he a whaler be, heard the tale for a generation.
     On a Pacific gam a score of years hence, a New Bedford deck hand, Herman Melville, met the son of the Essex's first mate and the legend turned literary, the whale bleached whiter than the bony cargo of Captain Pollard's tiny boat.