Planet California

Aug. 5, 2010

Dear DC,

After I moved to Northern California at the end of the 1970s, one of the first stories I covered was a protest by a man and woman standing outside the Humboldt County Courthouse with signs criticizing the practice of circumcision. He wore a yellow mask, she a red one. They talked to me but refused to reveal their identities. So the newsroom, of course, nicknamed them mustard and ketchup.

In the years since, circumcision came to be debated throughout the country, but at the time I thought I'd discovered why some people call this Planet California.

The debate here now is over a proposition that would legalize marijuana if approved in November. People here already can buy small amounts at dispensaries for medical reasons. They just need a card from a doctor, and getting one is easy.

Complete legalization would open the business to large corporations and might severely disrupt the Humboldt County economy, hugely dependent as it is on the illegal dollars of small growers. But California is broke, largely because of the Great Recession and the legacy of a 30-year-old proposition that capped property taxes, and taxing marijuana could bring the state an estimated $1 billion a year in additional revenue.

In case the proposition passes, and polls are showing a 50-50 split, government and business leaders there already are plotting strategies to position Humboldt County as the Napa Valley of marijuana.

We went to a jazz concert near Trinidad. The pianist was a man who used to practice on an old untuned piano in the corner of the Jambalaya at the end of the '70s. He'd quit his job and decided to devote himself to learning to play jazz, an eye-roller even in Build-A-Life Humboldt County. Now he's playing Coltrane and Monk and hosting a jazz show on the local radio station. Whatever it is you want to do, do it, his playing said.

Julie and Lynn want to take a three-week trip through Europe next summer and wondered if we might house-sit their dog and cat for part of it. Let's see, a picture window view of Trinidad Harbor, dog-walking on the beach, strolling to Katy's for smoked salmon. Both the dog and cat like to climb onto the roof, so we'd need to watch them carefully. The cat has developed a taste for hummingbirds.

I've spent the past few days in Bolinas. Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand have houses here. So does Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. Tourists visit from all over the world to see the town of 2,000 that doesn't want to be seen, that cuts down the city limit sign every time the state puts one up and that controls growth by limiting the number of water meters and auctioning off each one that becomes available for $250,000 or more. Where there is no city council, just a utility board. Where the town newspaper is edited by a different person every week. Where the used bookstore is unmanned. Where the liquid collected in the town's sewage system is sprayed on a meadow. You don't want to be walking through that meadow when the sprinklers turn on.

Before leaving for Bolinas I had lunch at a vegetarian cafe in Ukiah Julie and Lynn recommended. It's in the City of 10,000 Buddhas, a former mental hospital now a Buddhist school and monastery. Male and female monks in sun hats moved briskly about the grounds, all seeming to have a destination.

My destination is home, where I trust every dog and bird is accounted for.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.