America's Last Newspaper

The Anderson Valley, about 100 miles north of San Francisco as the crow flies, is inhabited sparsely with experts on the Anderson Valley, which I am not. It's 50 miles I storm through on my way to Mendocino. The population is divided between old timers and old hippies, who absolutely hate one another, although I can't tell them apart. The valley is known for several things: marijuana (the cash crop), Boonville (the only town, quite small), and Boontling. Sometime back in the late 1800s, I guess, the inhabitants of Boonville grew so isolated and bored that they invented a new language called Boontling. Some of them still use it. I've heard that the reason it was invented was so that when the young rubes of the Anderson Valley made a trip to a genuine town, Ukiah, for example, they could talk in secret about the physical attributes of the young women they spotted. "Wow, look at the lady. She'd look nice guiding my plow." And so on. But soon the Boonville women caught onto the language and tamed it. Now it gets studied by professors from Berkeley.

More important, Boonville is the home of the ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER, "America's Last Newspaper." And so it is. I suppose the NEW YORK TIMES is a0000 rival, but who would read the Times when he or she could read articles that begin:

1. "Stacey Cryer was swearing her psychic flak jacket as the Supervisors met to discuss the use of the county's veterans' facilities on Novembert 6."  (Followed by a thousand honest words on the heated war between the VFW and Veterans For Peace.)

2. "This I really must respond to you about Mr. Alan Crow. Number one, I am surprised you posted his letter. Alan Crow is 44 years old and just recently my neighbor here in isolation in jail. I shut off all communication back here from him . . . . But he stole money from an old man bank robber. You guessed it--the Point Arena bandit near Caspar, Orlando."  (Followed by a thousand words on what a bottom feeder this fellow is, including, "Mr. Crow has hepatitis C and always asks me if you could feel your liver. Ha ha! Seek a doctor, dude. You are yellow--you look contagious from it and it should be against the law for you to kiss and spread your misery.")

3. "Bones Roadhouse in Gualala is . . .  being bled to death by a vindictive character named Eric Price, who won a fluke judgment against them in the arbitrary courtroom  of Sonoma County  judge  Elliot Daum" (followed by a lengthy and vivid denunciation). 

Imagine an eight-page regular size weekly newspaper, small type, filled with nothing but outrageous indignation, childhood memories, and a scattering of political nuttery. Thrilling reading. America's last newspaper.