What happened to Garberville?

As often happens with me, I started to do a post about one thing and got off on a tangent about all of the changes that I've seen. I think that nowadays I would be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Syndrome. To change the subject again, just a little bit, because this post is mostly about changes. We used to spell and pronounce “nowadays” as “nowdays”, just one other bit of change the newcomers brought us.

I started to do a post about education in California, and I got to thinking about all of the people that have given greatly to the local school districts. As my gentle readers already know my 3G Grandfather Benjamin Franklin Branscomb was instrumental in starting the school district in the Laytonville/ Branscomb area. My family has participated in education in some form or another ever since then. My mother was what would be known as a “teachers-aide” back in the fifties at the Laytonville grammar school. When we would have a PTA fair, or a party at the school, she would be there cutting the cake or passing out the ice cream. Most of the children’s mothers could be seen at the school from time to time. Quite often the teacher would call on some of the class mothers to help out at the school. When the state started hiring teacher’s aides it confused me as to why they thought that teacher’s aides would be better than having your own mother in the classroom. As more women were forced to enter the job market to improve their financial standing, their ability to volunteer was diminished, and the schools were forced to hire teacher’s aides.

My family is still involved in Education My cousin Penny(Branscomb)Comer still works in the Laytonville School. I’m going to add a sentence here because the newcomers say that you can’t use one sentence as a paragraph. Shows what they know! The fact that Penny is still in education seems like it ought to be its own paragraph to me.

Last week, the President of the Garberville Rotary Club had his bell stolen by one of the members. It’s a game that we play, the bell always gets taken care of, and it always returns. We have had the bell since 1938. The program that day happened to be given by the Save Our Schools foundation. (S.O.S.) They pointed out the desperate situation our local schools are in. One Rotary member, who will go unnamed, (not me) said that he would donate one hundred dollars to the school if the bell was returned to the president by the end of the day, and encouraged other Rotarians to do the same (and me). Over eighteen-hundred dollars was raised for the school. The money was raised from mostly people of modest means. We no longer have the generous wealthy lumber barons of the past that donated to the schools in a very big way.

Another change in Garberville is that the Rotary club members are not making the kind of easy money that they made it the past. Most of the people that make easy money live in what has become known as “The Counter-Culture”. Some of the counter-culture are very generous people and contribute to the local schools with anonymous donations. They also participate in the efforts of the local service clubs to raise funding for the schools, so they are not to be discounted out of hand. They don’t as a rule belong to the service clubs out of their need to not draw attention to themselves. Most of the big money in Garberville circulates underground now.

The Rotary Club used to be made up out of main street businesses. If you started down the street, every business would have a member in the Rotary Club. It would be rare that there was a business that didn’t have a member in Rotary. Rotary by it’s own definition is a “Club made up of Business and Professional People”. The local club’s membership has been around fifty-two people since 1938, up until around 1998. Membership has been declining, not because it’s not a viable club, but because the town businesses are owned by major corporations. Most of the people that work for these corporations are too overworked to give any time to the club. Some people have tried to maintain membership, but their careers gobble up all of their time and energy, and they end up dropping out. Attendance is a big requirement in Rotary because the club is supposed to represent the community, and if you are not in attendance you become a poor representative.

Some of the older local businesses still believe in community participation. In fact they encourage their employees to participate. I shouldn’t name names, but I will because of their outstanding service to the community. Blue Star Gas has served this community well. Blue Star’s local manager, Dennis O’Sullivan, has been a member of the Southern Humboldt School board, and a member of the Rotary club since shortly after his arrival in Garberville. He was also a Garberville fireman, and served as their fire chief for a few years. He was elected as “Citizen of the year” a few years ago. He was instrumental in saving the town of Redway from a major fire when he was involved in stopping a major leak in the large propane storage tank in Redway. Bill Stewart, One of the owners of Blue Star Gas, is a Rotary club member and true to his philosophy to “give back to the community that you live in” he has served on almost all of the boards of directors of the local districts and non-profits. Some of Blue Stars employees are prominent members of our local fire departments and rescue squads. Will Johnson was the incident commander at one of our major drills at the con-camp recently. Todd Barton has been the truck engineer on more fires than most people have been firefighters.

This great service to our community is all made possible by the farsighted wisdom of local people like Bill Stewart and Blue star Gas. (It's own pargraph)

My own philosophy is to give back to the community that I live in, but I can, in no way, give back to the extent that Blue Star Gas does. I actually allowed any member of my crew to be paid their regular salary while on fire calls. They were always responsible about it, and made a conscientious effort to not exceed the boundaries of their responsibly to my business.

The crew that I had also helped me build the local markets. Up until a few years ago my company built and maintained most all of the refrigeration in the Garberville area. Branscomb Refrigeration installed all of the refrigeration in the Ray’s Sentry in Garberville. They are now owned by a major corporation, they have their own refrigeration people, and I’m now “Ernie who?” at Ray’s. I’m not looking for sympathy, I enjoy not having to be responsible, night and day for their problems. But, because of the downturn in service calls from the local businesses that are being scooped up by big corporations, I’ve gone from four employees down to just myself. I’m still a firefighter, but no one else from my business is. The fire department is also hurting for staffing. (Remember when we used to call it “Manpower”) Most of our firefighters would come from the ranks of the local businesses.

When someone’s house or business was on fire, it was considered to be important enough to close your own business and jump on a fire truck. I remember Ray Hartig, who owned a small grocery store, who had a sign made for his door that said, "Closed, On a fire call”. He would place the sign on the door as he locked it on his way out. That business is now called “Chautauqua”. Great folks by the way, but no firefighters amongst them. As a side note of great importance, Ray was a community minded person that gave back way more than expected, he died at a fire at the Benbow Mill. In respect for this man, the Rotary Club gives a scholarship each year to a worthy student in his name.

So what has happen to this town, that used to be so giving, and many ways still is. Why is it that the fire department can’t get people to join their ranks? Why is it that managers don’t see the Rotary Club as being worth their time? Why is it that we don’t have one single firefighter from the corporate world in Garberville. The corporations themselves do contribute money to our schools, and all of the people that work there are good people, but they are held on a very tight leash.

Well, our schools, service clubs, and fire departments are all in trouble, and education in Southern Humboldt is in the midst of an economic fire storm. I’ve looked for solutions, but I don’t have any suggestions. I sure do long for the day’s that when our neighbors were in trouble it was even important enough to close our businesses long enough to help them, or at least made sure that our employees were available to help.