Bodega Village Report - June 2011

Sizzling Jazz at the Grange! 

Don’t miss this year’s big dance on the Summer Solstice Saturday, June 18 at the Bodega Bay Grange.  Dance the midnight away sun to the tunes of Sono Trio plus fabulous vocalist, Vernelle Anders.  There will be fun for the whole family at the best price you could possibly find in Sonoma County: $8 for adults and $2 for kids.  Included is a half hour of swing dance lessons at 6:15, a (small and contained) bonfire in the parking lot, and a piñata!  The Sea Squids 4H Club will be serving up delicious pulled-pork or eggplant sandwiches with homemade coleslaw and chips for $5.  Proceeds from the food will support the Sea Squids Club, and door and alcohol sales will benefit the Bodega Bay Elementary School and the Bodega Bay Grange.  Come on out for a hot time in the old town!

The aforementioned Sea Squids 4H Club is really blooming, and is attracting wonderful support from the community.  In the wake of the terrible tsunami, Dr. Mike Osborn, chair of Bodega Bay’s Disaster Emergency Preparedness Committee, spoke to the club about preparing for emergencies. Local benefactor Eric Koenigshofer provided materials for a goat shed, which Steve Killey built for the goat project. Bodega’s goat cheese maven, Patty Karlin has been teaching milk goat caring skills, and Dr. Mike Stafford, local veterinarian, gave a talk on safety and first aid precautions for animal care activities. Mr. John Utabi presented a recipe for cardio-cookies that his mother had invented in a Japanese concentration camp during WW II.  The children too have been making presentations. Joshua and Danielle Collins won honorable mention for their presentation at the State 4H Competition about preparing first aid kits.

For their part, the Sea Squids Club hosted the newly formed Bodega Red Potato Club Potato Sharing Party at the (old) Bodega Fire Hall on May 23. The club has sprouted from the growing effort to find and re-seed the land with the delicious and historic Bodega Red Potato.  In order to ensure that the supply grows, members received handfuls of the small and precious hoard of potatoes in return for a promise to return twice the amount received in the September.  My personal fantasy includes all members participating in a potato float for the Bodega Big Event Parade August 7 (call me if you want to become an honorary member of the club by joining in on the float). Donations are being collected to purchase virus-freed seed that is being developed in Washington State.  A beautiful painting of Bodega Head by Dennis Hunt (the head potato head) will be raffled for the same purpose.  Keep your eyes out for more details.  As reported earlier, the Rancho Bodega Historical Society is also supporting the effort with money to purchase virus-free seed, and by leading the charge to collect oral histories from farmers of Bodega Reds past.  Sadly and unfortunately, Louis Albini, one of the more notable Bodega Red potato farmers of Bodega, was on a list of hoped-for interviews, but passed away without a visit from the video crew. Perhaps his descendents will recount the potato tales before they disappear from memory.

Looping back to the Grange, new neighbor in Serena del Mar and documentary filmmaker, Rich Panter, has offered to air his series of award-winning documentaries.    Rich has traveled far and wide to uncover unique stories of people, places and history. Winners of a score of awards, the films cover:  Soldiers of WWII and Vietnam; the Holocaust; micro-enterprises in Latin American; Siberia; the Cherokee; world religions; slavery on Southern rice plantations; and a new international peace movement based in Hawaii.  The series will debut with a double feature: "Fathers & Sons", (Tokyo Prize winner at the 1988 Japan Film Festival), and "The Tokyo Raiders", the story of the Doolittle Raid in April 1942. The documentaries will be shown once a month (usually, but not always the first Saturday of the month) starting July 2 at 7 pm at the Grange.  Rich will facilitate discussions of the material after each showing. Look for the posters or check the Bodega Bay Grange Website for more details.

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