monday january 18, 2021 46 ¢ bolinas hearsay news

What’s Happening?

Antiracist Community MeetingMonday January 18th @ 6pm via Zoom

Please join us for our 3rd Antiracist Commu-nity Meeting. We will check in with our Action groups and Organize for our Day of Action in February https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88151240357?p-wd=VlgzQ2FBSmU1RStSal-BLVmwvRUtKZz09Meeting ID: 881 5124 0357Passcode: 677892

The Drum Major InstinctMonday, January 184pm-6pm on Zoom A reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Õs Sermon. More details inside

Happy Happy Birthday!

January 18thFrams EngelDavid Gleason (remembered)Laura TabernikJerry BurrGeorge GonzalesPatricia Hickey

January 19thKen Botto (remembered)Mary Siedman Susan Sterrett

Bolinas Hearsay NewsBolinas Hearsay NewsMonday January 18, 2021 46 ¢

+tax

Photo by Ilka Hartmann

A young volunteer drops a large clump of heavy Bunker C Oil from a bag into the bed of a truck. Photo Taken on January 21, 1971 on RCA Beach.

50th anniversary of the oil spill!

Bolinas Hearsay News Monday, Jan. 18, 2021

“Peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but…a means by which we arrive at that goal.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Submitted by Magi Barror

What Happened? Plus a Gratitude Spotlight from Jenniepfeiffer 1-18-2021

On this Holiday Monday, (commemorating 50 years since the Bolinas Lagoon oil spill brought town members together to start a process to build an intentional community), we are celebrating the birth-day of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. To honor his work, I would like to report two important equity actions taken by of the Bolinas-Stinson School District at Wednesday’s special strategic planning Board meet-ing. We have established two Board committees, one that will continue the work started, researching connectivity in internet service, to make sure all our families can have adequate equal access to Distance Instruction during this pandemic. The other is an Eq-uity, Diversity, and Inclusivity Committee that will be working to incorporate more input from our Latinx town members and families of color into our school planning, especially around issues of restorative and social justice. In all the years our Bolinas-Stinson School District has been in existence, we have had a monochromatic Board and administration. Hope-fully this will now be a step toward including a more colorful array of faces making up our school gover-nance.

Also on school matters, I would like to shine this week’s GRATITUDE SPOTLIGHT on the mem-bers of the Bolinas-Stinson maintenance and custo-dial staff who have worked diligently and continue to do so to make sure our students return to on-site instruction safely during this COVID 19 pandemic. Thanks to Ben Lowrance, Marty Brendel, Paul Gillis, Taran Lewis, and Gary Ferrari, (Gary is married to our stellar cafeteria manager Suki Ferrari – such a team!), coordinated by our administrator of finance and facilities, Catherine Hawes. So grateful to this group of dedicated individuals.

As we take time to honor the passing of Dr. King, I would like to take a moment to also mention the re-cent death of Dr. Gary Frederickson, a former long time local who helped beautify the smiles of many of our children in his capacity as an orthodontist. He was an active community member with two sons who matriculated through our school. Rest in Peace, Gary -- so very sorry to hear of this passing.

As we celebrate these remembrances, I would like to leave with a quote from the Bolinas Museum’s recent exhibit commemorating the efforts this town made to save the Bolinas Lagoon from oil contam-ination, calling those who worked to build a more intentional community, “activists and community builders who brought pivotal change to the trajec-tory of Bolinas—away from massive development and toward environmental balance, while protecting Bolinas’s small-town lifestyle.” POR jp

The Drum Major Instinct

This special MLK Day event will feature a reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon “The Drum Major Instinct” by actors, activists, and elected officials, followed by community panelist remarks and a guided audience discus-sion. The performance will also feature original and arranged music sung by choir of activists, educators, police officers, and members of the faith community from Ferguson, Missouri and New York City, including two of Michael Brown’s teachers.

Monday, January 18 ~ 4pm-6pm on ZoomTo register, please visit: drummajorinstinct.eventbrite.comFor more information: www.theaterofwar.com

Submitted by Lisa Townsend

Submitted by: Kate Ross

“Beach Days” by Jill Estroff

Now through January 31, 2020

Claudia Chapline Gallery 3445 Shoreline HwyStinson Beach, CA 94970Open most afternoonsCall 415 868-2308

https://www.jillestroff.com/

Submitted by Jill Estroff

Ilka Hartmann stopped by the office today to let us know that Gil Stewart passed away. If you have more information, or anything to share, please email [email protected]

-Alex Bleeker


What Are Ya Eating?

Recipes! Yes! Thanks to Ms. Kriz for suggesting we send in ideas. This one has been a “once a week” for us. Order some of this chili crisp stuff online OR try making it from scratch. What else are you gonna do today? Fran McCoen

Tofu with chili crisp and green beans

3 tablespoons chile-crisp condiment, plus more for serving3 tablespoons soy sauce1 ½ tablespoons Chinese black vinegar (you can use aged balsamic)1 ½ teaspoons sesame oil1 teaspoon honey2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced2 tablespoons chopped scallions2 tablespoons chopped cilantro 1 (14-ounce) package extra-firm tofu, drained and sliced crosswise into 8 (1/2-inch-thick) slabs¾ pound green beans (we parboil them) 1 tablespoon neutral oil, like canola or grapeseedWhite rice, for serving

PREPARATION

1) Heat oven to 450 degrees. In a baking dish or casserole, whisk together the chile crisp, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, honey, garlic, scallions and cilan-tro.2) Add the tofu slices to the dish, and coat them with the sauce, then allow to marinate for as long as it takes to heat the oven and trim the green beans.3) Add the green beans to a large sheet pan, then drizzle the neutral oil on top and toss to coat. Slide the green beans to the sides of the pan, and arrange the slices of tofu in an even layer in the center of the pan. Pour remaining marinade over the tofu, and place in oven.4) Editors: Alex Bleeker & Leanne Kriz + Printers: Annie & Wiley Laufman The Bolinas Hearsay News is produced on the ancestral occupied territories of the Coast Miwok

451 Mesa Road • Bolinas Information & registration: tns.commonweal.org

January 15, 10:00am-11:30am Josie Iselin and Irwin Keller / The Future of Food: Exploring the Politics, Ethics, and Im-pacts of Genetic Engineering (webinar)

January 29, 10:00am-11:30am Mark Hertsgaard and Steve Heilig / Tackling the Climate Emergency at Home and Abroad (webinar)

February 5, 10:00am-11:30am Pat McCabe, Susan Balbas and Ladybird Morgan / Crossing Thresholds: Staying Awake in Changing Times (webinar)

“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are rais-ing questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…”

– Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967. -submitted by Alex Bleeker


Excerpt from Eye Witness Oil Spill Account by Tom D’Onofrio

At 6:30 in the morning of January 19, 1971, Tom D’Onofrio saw the oil covered waves and made urgent calls that brought locals pouring onto the beach to help build a boom to protect Bolinas Lagoon from the oil. Here is part of his account of the response:

There were heroes everywhere. The place was filled with heroics. Men and women and kids—everybody was pitching in. To get these logs tied together with cables, we were pounding in these 20-penny nails, bending them back over a cable like that; I mean, that’s dangerous. At about 9:30 we got the boom in place and we just hit slack tide. By this time, we had gotten a hold of Toby’s—Toby Giacomini—and they sent down load after load of straw. We had two, three thousand bales of hay from town, plus all the stuff that came down from Toby’s. We started passing that out, people handing out—almost a human chain of this hay going out, guys in boats taking it out and dumping it over and when the tide shifted the logs pulled in, in kind of a circular arc inward. You could hear it creaking. The flood came in; it did just what we had hoped it’d do: it pushed the hay up against the logs and it held it there because it was coming in and it collected the oil. The oil gathered on the hay and everybody cheered.

But the problem became, ‘What are you going to do with all this hay that’s contaminated? The moment you grab onto this hay, you’re covered with oil. Everybody stinks

like hell. Just then a chief engineer from Standard Oil arrived with the Sheriff. He said, ‘I fought for your idea because we don’t have a single thing to fight this with. I’m here to tell you I’ve got a mil-lion bucks and we’re going to spend it.’

By suppertime, the Marine Biology Lab is like this corporation disaster head-quarters… Assignments are given and things were organized and all kinds of leadership people rise up and begin to do these things… We ordered—my God, I think we ordered like 15 trac-tor-trailer loads of logs to be brought down from Feather River. Within the next day we had them there. It was like a beachhead in an invasion; it was unbelievable. Everybody in town was down there in both Stinson and Bolinas. People were coming from all over the Bay Area to help.

50th Anniversary of the Oil Spill, 1971

Image from the Berkeley Tribe Vol. II No.27 Issue 79 Jan. 22-29,1971 //Submitted by Ilka Hartmann


Sea birds were washing up on shore, stunned and covered in thick, gooey bunker oil. A center was set up at the marine biology lab where people struggled to rescue the birds. Finding a method to clean off the oil was by trial and error; even the local bird scientists had never dealt with such a disaster. The executive director of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory and his staff put in 24-hour days, working with local people, teenagers from Mill Valley and volunteers from all over who poured into town to help.

It was emergent leadership: every-body turned out to be a leader and nobody objected. It was love that motivated this. In those first four hours before Standard Oil came with their million bucks, it was the love of saving that lagoon that motivated ev-ery single person that was there. You had to be there to experience the way that everybody worked. Every-body gave from their heart because they love this place… ~ Tom D’Onofrio Courtesy of the D’Onofrio Family and Bolinas Museum Text Submitted by Elia Haworth

Photograph by Ilka Hartmann

Angry Oily Fist. While Working to clean the beach, inspired by the raised fists of the Black Power Movement (especially the Black Panthers), The Red Power Movement, the Yellow and Chicano Movements, volunteer Orville Schell sudden-ly stopped and raised his oily fist against the grey sky.

Photo Taken on January 21, 1971 on RCA Beach.


Pulled from the Berkeley Tribe Vol. II No.27 Issue 79 Jan. 22-29,1971 Submitted by Ilka Hartmann. Curated for this publication by Leanne Kriz

Photos by Ilka Hartmann

Photo on left:Tired clean-up volunteers. Young vol-unteers streamed to the beaches of the San Francisco Bay Area after the oil spill to rescue the birds. Most of the birds died. Top right, with hat: Orville Schell.

Photo Taken on January 21, 1971 on RCA Beach.

Photo below: Demonstration against Standard Oil in San Francisco. Orville Schell holding bird killed by the Oil Spill of January 18, 1971. Photo taken in February 1971.

To the left:Article clipping pulled from the Berkeley Tribe Vol. II No.27 Issue 79 Jan. 22-29,1971

Submitted by Ilka Hartmann. Curated for this publication by Leanne Kriz

Bolinas Museum Remembering the Great Oil Spill of 1971, 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago, on January 19, 1971, at 1:45 AM, hu-man error led two massive Standard Oil Company tankers to collide in San Francisco Bay, spilling more than 800,000 gallons of foul-smelling, gooey oil. Tens of thousands of Bay Area citizens turned out to pro-tect nature from the oil. Now, the 50th anniversary of the event reminds us of how easily devastating ac-cidents can occur and also a potent lesson: Despite widely differing politics and lifestyles, the power of individuals united in common cause on behalf of the environment.

Within hours of the tanker collision dense “bunker C” oil rode the outgoing tide through the Golden Gate and spread into one of the world’s richest ma-rine habitats along the local coast. Black oil coated the waves and was pushed to shore by wind and tide. It ravaged marine life, and smothered thousands of sea birds in toxic oil. Later, water testing showed 95% of marine life perished to a depth of ten feet down. Neither the State government or Standard Oil Company had no protocols to handle this kind of disaster. It was Bay Area citizens who immediately responded.

Crowds of volunteers rushed to San Francisco and Marin coastal beaches. Volunteers of all ages and walks of life, “from hippies to hardhats,” and children to elders, worked side-by-side. The disaster and out-pouring of human effort generated headlines around the world. In Bolinas, the struggle to stop the oil was epic. At 6:30 in the morning Bolinas resident Tom D’On-ofrio realized that the incoming tide would flood oil into the wildlife-rich Bolinas Lagoon. A wood sculptor with a forestry background, he envisioned linking logs packed with straw as a boom across the mouth of the lagoon to catch the oil. Tom’s urgent calls brought skilled locals like boat builder John Armstrong, who brought logs, trucks, boats, cable, equipment, and tools. Hundreds of Stinson Beach residents gathered to help from across the channel. Toby’s feed store and local horse owners rushed tons of straw to the beach for boaters to pack along the boom, while others spread straw along the shore to absorb oil. At first county and Standard Oil officials ordered them to stop, but the young peo-ple–honed by 1960s counter-culture activism–and the determined older residents kept working. The officials soon recognized the swift, efficient, cooper-ative response by the locals, and Standard Oil fully backed them with money, and resources.

The struggle went on for days, and nights. Volunteers brought nautical, biologic and construction skills; people like Greg Hewlett, Russ Reviere, and Marion Weber were organizers and Peter Warshall brought his Harvard environmental education. Bolinas bus-tled with activity as hundreds of volunteers came

to town and the community rose to help. Scowley’s restaurant, the market, families, churches and the Bolinas Community Center provided food, blankets and places to sleep, while doctors like Mike Samuels treated injuries and exhaustion.

People struggled to rescue wildlife and clean up the shoreline. It was hard, filthy, and stinking work. Undaunted, they used shovels or their hands to fill burlap bags with heavy oil and mountains of con-taminated straw, while hundreds others used spoons to clean around delicate marine life on rocks and Duxbury Reef. No one knew how to help the oil covered birds, it was heart breaking and few sur-vived. But lessons learned in hastily set up Bay Area rescue centers eventually led to the establishment of expert organizations that now respond to oil disas-ters internationally.

The spill forever changed the trajectory of many lives and communities around the Bay Area and led to a surge of activism. In Bolinas, a group of young counter-culture oil spill “veterans” went on to or-ganize pivotal changes in local politics and environ-mental policies that guide the town to this day. There were contentious controversies of course, but the lively community engagement in Bolinas in the 1970s spawned a cultural blossoming in literature, art, theater, and large scale political and environmental work. The 1971 oil spill experience of people with diverse viewpoints working together to solve a seemingly insurmountable challenge is a significant part of our town’s history and a timely inspiration for us today. ~Elia Haworth

Follow us on bolinasmuseum.org, Instagram and Facebook.

Elia Haworth




A clean-up Volunteer works hard balancing a heavy and bulky bag of Bunker C Oil on top of a truck already fully loaded with other bags. Photo Taken on January 21, 1971 on RCA Beach.ing a heavy and bulky bag of Bunker C Oil on top of a truck already fully loaded with other bags. Photo Taken on January 21, 1971 on RCA Beach.

With all their might, young volunteers push and pull a large piece of the thick Bunker C Oil into the truck. Photo Taken on January 21, 1971 .

Oil dripping from glove of a volunteer trying to clean up RCA Beach during the oil spill. Photo Taken on January 21, 1971 on RCA Beach.

Young Volunteer looking at his oil covered gloves. I thought he was almost crying. Photo Taken on January 21, 1971.



The Bolinas Hearsay News is produced on the ancestral occupied territories of the Coast Miwok Peoples. We recognizes the genocide of Indigenous

Peoples in California and the systemic inequities that persist today because of our past and present state of colonialism. - the editors Editors: Alex Bleeker & Leanne Kriz + Printers: Annie & Wiley Laufman

monday january 18, 2021 46 ¢ bolinas hearsay news

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