Freeze!

Eureka’s National Weather Service Office reports that the first widespread hard freeze of the season is forecast to affect areas of Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino and Lake Counties early tomorrow morning.

“It’s going to be a very cold start to the work week,” the NWS stated on social media today. “Remember to protect sensitive plants and outdoor plumbing and to provide adequate shelter for pets!”

Coastal areas are also forecast to see widespread frost with patches of subfreezing temperatures.

UPDATE, FROM THE EDITOR: Turns out Barry was trespassing, probably unwittingly. He’s an innocent fellow, and undoubtedly grew up scrambling over stiles in his native shire, where such behavior is tolerated.

Here in America, he may get gored! Here’s an email we got this morning:

The Pioneer Cemetery is surrounded by private land, as is the gate Evans is encouraging people to jump over. Visitors are welcome with permission from November 1 to May 1. There is a phone number they can call to have the gate opened for them. The surrounding area around the cemetery has been always been used for cattle and hay.  When the cows are calving and bulls are on the property, it is unsafe for people to be walking around and the reason the gate is locked … Please notice in the comments there is a photo attached from Laura Cooskie letting visitors know of the correct and respectful process to enter the property. 

Visitors may safely visit the cemetery without permission when the gate is unlocked and it is safe to do so, which is usually after May 1st till Nov 1st.

— Ed.

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Someone asked the Buddhist teacher Kyodo Roshi what happens after we die. “I don’t know,” he said. “I thought you were a Zen Master?” “Yes, but not a dead one.”

“We hope to meet and be with thee forever” is the engraved sentiment of the wife and children of a long-dead settler, according to a headstone in the Petrolia cemetery. Nothing unusual here—it echoes the common belief of Americans at the time, some 150 years ago. In our own day some 60% of us think we’ll be reunited forever with our loved ones after we and they are dead. For many, this is a great consolation: life here on Earth may suck, but be a decent person, play your cards right, and your heavenly reward awaits.

For materialists like myself, there’s the problem of what it is, exactly, that ends up in the great hereafter: a cloned body, fresh, young and cancer-free, while your corpse lies a-moldering in the grave? Or a sort of ghostly being with all the attributes and memories of the original being that’s able to swish around merrily in the Elysian Fields? Can spirits drink spirits? Can they enjoy a bowl of fettuccini Alfredo? Do they poop?

(I’m no theologian—obviously. For answers to these, and many more afterlife conundrums, you’ll have to consult Augustine of Hippo, who figured all this out nearly two thousand years ago: “”The bodies of the saints, then, shall rise again free from blemish and deformity, just as they will be also free from corruption, encumbrance, or handicap.”)

There’s another problem, though, the “forever” bit. Forever’s a long time, as I understand it. (“…gone before, Where we shall meet, To part no more.”) What I’m wondering is, has the pandemic changed anything for heaven-bound believers? In the enforced confines of social distancing, are those of us blessed with mates finding them ever more wonderful and entrancing as days lengthen into months? Or are we perhaps, not to put too fine an edge on it, having second thoughts about spending all of eternity, year-in-year-out, forever, with one particular soulmate? After a few thousand years, might those endearing little idiosyncrasies—forgetting what they were saying in mid-sentence, the way they floss their teeth in front of you, putting the toilet paper on the roller the wrong way—start to irritate?

We can’t, of course, imagine eternity, any more than we can imagine infinity. All we’ve got to go on is the sense of our own brief histories, while we struggle to appreciate what true history actually is. I can sort of get my mind back to the Second World War (having been born in 1942) and I think of my dad who was 10 in August 1914 and who had a vivid memory of seeing, in huge letters outside the local news-agent shop in his Welsh home town, one word: WAR! Beyond that, it’s just a blur of dates and eras. I teach an occasional OLLI class on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the oldest being the pyramids of Giza, of course, nearly five thousand years old. But I can’t feel those five thousand years, any more than I can feel the three-plus million years ago when Lucy lived in present-day Ethiopia. But millions of years are nothing—literally—compared to eternity.

All these thoughts came, unbidden, in the Petrolia cemetery last week. We usually visit it when we’re in the Mattole—it’s a seven-minute walk west of the store, including clambering over a gate. The stones tell stories of the old-timers who found their way there over a century ago, a time when lifespans were measured, not just in years, but down to days: Lille May lived just 15 years 8 months 22 days. (“Weep not Father and Mother for me, For I am waiting in glory for thee.”)

At the entrance to the cemetery there is, incongruously, a US Mail box. No, not for letters mailed to those inside, as I idly wondered. Instead you’ll find, along with the guest book, a fascinating record of everyone buried here—who they were and where they came from. Talk about a time machine to the past!

And if an hour spent wandering and ruminating among those stones and monuments doesn’t inspire you to carpe diem, ready to urgently appreciate whatever time you have left (years, months, days) of your flesh-and-blood existence in this imperfect world, I don’t know what will.

(AUDIO) Sofia Pereira is Holding Up

Subscribe to Humboldt Holding Up on iTunes!

Change is coming to America. Oh, and Arcata too.

Sofia Pereira, councilmember (and mom)

On this week’s episode of Humboldt Holding Up, the Lost Coast Outpost’s Good-Enough Podcast™, we speak to Arcata City Councilmember Sofia Pereira, who took a break from refreshing the Nevada vote count totals to talk with LoCO about a post-Trump Arcata, the potential new crop of councilmembers currently sitting on the cusp of election, how Arcata will deal with COVID-19 moving forward, and the experience of giving birth in the middle of a global pandemic.

Click the audio player above for Pereira’s chat with LoCO’s Andrew Goff and Stephanie McGeary and/or scroll the the list of previous guests below. 

PREVIOUSLY ON HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP:

• HumBrews Music Booker Laurel Weston
• Eureka City Councilmember Kim Bergel
• Film Commission’s Cassandra Hesseltine and Nate Adams
• Marble Maker Topher Reynolds
• Arcata Playhouse Director Jacqueline Dandeneau
• Humboldt Political Junkie Eric Kirk
• Rio Dell Mayor Debra Garnes
• Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell
• Arcata Food Aficionado Jada Calypso Brotman
• Body Piercer Jackie Silva
• Dick Taylor Chocolate’s Adam Dick
• FUHS Teachers Mark Thom and Inma Thompson
• Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery
• Savage Henry Co-Founder Chris Durant
• Eureka Street Art Festival Organizer Jenna Catsos
• SCRAP Humboldt Founder Tibora Bea
• Gym Owner Tyler Parr
• Six Rivers Brewery Co-Owner Meredith Maier
• Multicultural Skincare Therapist Levia Love
• Annie’s Cambodian Server and Social Worker Joshua Coppock
• Eureka City Councilmember Austin Allison
• HSU Professor Deidre Pike 
• Pastor Bethany Cseh
• Singer/Songwriter Chris Parreira
• Eureka City Councilmember Leslie Castellano
• Arcata City Councilmember Paul Pitino

Subscribe to Humboldt Holding Up on iTunes!

PREVIOUSLY:

• ELECTION NIGHT FINAL REPORT: With Tens of Thousands of Votes Likely Left to Count, We Know Some Things — But Not Much

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The Humboldt County Elections office has just released the first in a series of post-election reports as the vote continues to be tallied — find it in PDF form at this link — and with 4,673 more votes tallied, not a lot has changed from the election night final report.

Apart from the Arcata City Council — a complicated nine-way race with three winners — it’s sort of become more clear, with today’s new information, that the race to watch going forward is Estelle Fennell’s bid for another term as Second District representative on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors.

Fennell still leads in this new tally, but with 998 more votes counted her lead over challenger Michelle Bushnell has shrunk incrementally.

In the election night final report, the race looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

Of the 998 new votes counted in the Second District, Bushnell received 520 (52.1 percent). If that pace continues — if the percentage of votes remaining that belong to the Second District is at least the same, and if those votes break for Bushnell at at least the same rate — then Bushnell will overtake Fennell.

That’s a lot of ifs, but these results show that it’s certainly possible. 

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PREVIOUSLY:

• CHP: 64-Year-Old Humboldt Hill Man Fatally Injured in His Bed During Last Night’s Crash; Suspect Attempted to Flee, Charged With DUI
• OBITUARY: Robert J. ‘Bob’ Beland, 1954-2019
• At Emotional Sentencing Hearing, Local Man Who Crashed Into Humboldt Hill Home, Killing Local Business Owner, Officially Receives 11-Year-Sentence

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Press release from College of the Redwoods:

This fall semester, CR carpentry students, along with industry partners, are repairing the home of beloved community member and highly respected locksmith, Bob Beland, who was tragically killed inside his Humboldt Hill house by a drunk driver in 2019. This is the first project of the new CT-15 Carpentry Techniques for Existing Buildings course, taught by instructor Jennifer Taylor.

In June 2019, College of the Redwoods Construction Technology instructor Derek Glavich reached out to the family about fixing the extensive damage to the house after he read about the incident in the local papers.

“It was heartbreaking, unjust, and I saw it as a perfect opportunity for the college to be active in our community,” says Glavich. “President Flamer and Dean Mayer were very supportive, and I was able to get in contact with the family through a student who was a coworker/friend of the son Dylan Beland.”

Glavich also reached out to local vendors about collaborating on the project and received an overwhelming response. Pierson’s, Hensell Materials, Schmidbauer Building Supply, Campton Electric Supply, Wayne Maples Plumbing and Heating, and Air Tight Furnace all agreed to donate materials and/or labor, making it a true community effort.

Glavich says that the positive response was really uplifting. “In these times that can seem so divisive and polarized, it’s great to know that our community will still come together to help each other.”

Dale Maples, of Wayne Maples Plumbing and Heating had no reservations about pitching in. “Bob was simply a kind man,” he says. “And he was a legend at figuring out locks. Our home was built in 1908, and some of the locks are original. It seemed there was never a lock or knob he hadn’t seen before. His kindness and knowledge were a delight.”

The class has completed demolition, and is preparing to add a bathroom and frame the walls. When the construction is nearly complete, students from the CR Electrical Program will come in to finish the wiring.

UPDATE, 11:11 a.m.: From the Sheriff’s Office:

Rachel Nicole Counts has been located safe. After seeing reports of her missing person status, Counts arrived at the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Main Station to contact deputies.

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Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office needs the public’s help to locate missing person Rachel Nicole Counts, 18, of Salem, Missouri. Counts is missing under unknown circumstances.

Counts was reported missing by a roommate on Nov. 5, 2020, at about 8:11 a.m. after she failed to return to her Bridgeville residence from a trip to Arcata on November 3.

While conducting their investigation, deputies received information that a vehicle associated with Counts was located in the Arcata Plaza area, with a male acquaintance of Counts inside. Deputies contacted the male inside of the vehicle on November 5. The male told deputies that Counts reportedly left the vehicle to an unknown location sometime during the night of November 4 or early in the morning on November 5, leaving behind her personal belongings. Deputies collected Counts’ belongings and her vehicle was towed for evidence storage.

Rachel Counts is described as a white female, approximately 5 feet tall and 135 pounds, with hazel eyes and a pink mohawk with shaved sides. She was last seen wearing a black, white and green hooded sweatshirt, black shorts, white crocs, a nose ring and earrings bar.

Counts is reportedly new to the area and may not be familiar with Humboldt County.

Anyone who has seen Rachel Counts recently or has information regarding her possible whereabouts should call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251.

Murder suspect Demetrius Coleman waited until he’d seen and heard all the evidence, the prosecuting attorney told jurors Thursday, and then concocted a story that would fit.

Deputy District Attorney Carolyn Schaffer said Coleman, interviewed three months after he allegedly shot and killed Johnny Mack Renfro, could have told Rio Dell Police Chief Jeffrey Conner that it was another man who was driving Coleman’s car and fired the fatal shot. Instead, Schaffer said, Coleman waited until his trial to claim that a man named Dread was the actual culprit.

“Dread doesn’t exist,” Schaffer said. If he did, “you can bet your boots” that Coleman would have told law enforcement immediately.

Coleman.

Three eyewitnesses who saw Coleman’s green Honda after the shooting gave descriptions of the driver that fit Coleman. During his testimony, he claimed he was hiding behind the driver’s seat when Dread shot Renfro.

Only one witness, Colette “Coco” Niles, said she saw two people in the Honda. But she described the person in the back seat as a petite woman with her hair in a ponytail. Coleman reportedly had his hair in a “man bun” that day, but he is a large male.

Schaffer asked if it was even physically possible for Coleman to hunker down in the space behind the driver’s seat. Video surveillance of the shooting shows the seat “pitched back at a 45-degree angle,” she said. Why, she asked, didn’t the defense find out whether Coleman could have fit in that space, and if so present that evidence to the jury?

She also questioned why the defense hadn’t called Coleman’s girlfriend, Alma Ahumada-Mendoza, to testify. Ahumada-Mendoza was in the car behind the Honda and “could have corroborated everything he said,” Schaffer said.

The prosecution believes Ahumada-Mendoza participated in the shooting, handing Coleman the gun shortly before.

Coleman testified that while at 20/30 Park in Eureka a few hours earlier, he was attacked and robbed by several black men who stole his marijuana and pistol-whipped him, with the gun going off when it struck his head. During that confrontation there was a lot of yelling and screaming.

But according to the Eureka Police Department’s custodian of records, there was no report of any disturbance at the park, which is in a residential neighborhood. Coleman left the park with the gun, which he says the robbers abandoned when they fled.

After Renfro’s killing Coleman was on the run for several months, finally being arrested in North Dakota. In text messages to a friend, Coleman asked for help and money. He also sent the friend a link to a local news article naming him as a person of interest in the homicide.

Schaffer noted that Coleman never texted anything like “They’ve got the wrong guy” or “I’ve been set up.”

Instead, she said, he told the friend that robbers had laid him on the ground, put a gun in his mouth and stole a large quantity of marijuana.

Defense attorney Andrea Sullivan, in her closing argument to the jury, said the police investigation was sloppy and prosecution witnesses were lying.

She targeted Mariah Acosta, the woman who was riding with Ahumada-Mendoza, as a jealous and vindictive person who was out to get Coleman.

“I can’t figure out why she wants to hurt him so bad, but she does,“ Sullivan said.

The defense attorney argued that Acosta lied when she claimed she hadn’t met Coleman until the day of the shooting. Text messages show they had contact days earlier. Furthermore, Sullivan said, Acosta is jealous of Ahumada-Mendoza because Acosta once had a business and sexual relationship with Coleman.

But phone records seem to verify that Acosta didn’t know Coleman, because she texted her daughter asking for the name of “Alma’s man.”

Acosta testified that when she and Ahumada-Mendoza came out of WalMart the day of the shooting, Coleman was indicating that someone had just driven by and told them “Follow me.” Phone records show Renfro was heading south on Highway 101 at that time.

As they drove south toward Rio Dell, Acosta said, Coleman was on the phone with his girlfriend saying “Stay back, you know what to do.”

In reality, Sullivan said, Coleman was saying “I don’t know what to do” because Dread was driving and wouldn’t let him out of the car.

Dread, who witnessed the alleged robbery at the park, took over driving shortly after Coleman left Wal-Mart, Coleman says. Dread announced he was going to drive, saying he knew who the robber was. He reportedly pointed a gun at Coleman and told him to “Shut the fuck up.”

Sullivan told jurors Acosta was obviously an unreliable witness, because she claimed Coleman and Ahumada-Mendoza tried to kidnap her mother on a day when Coleman was in Sacramento. Acosta did not witness the incident but said she believed her mother’s account.

Sullivan provided some examples of what she called poor investigative work. She said law enforcement should have searched the Alton home where Coleman left his car after the shooting. Coleman claims he was cut by flying glass when Dread shot the back window out of his car. If the vacuum cleaner used to clean the car had been examined, Sullivan said, blood may have been found in the broken glass.

Also, DNA samples were taken from the driver’s seat but were never tested because it was assumed Coleman was the driver. Schaffer pointed out, however, that the defense could have had the DNA processed but never did so.

One damning bit of evidence against Coleman was provided by the Alton couple, who testified about something Coleman said when he left his car at their home: “If three people know a secret, it’s best if two of them are dead.”

Sullivan told jurors that after watching Coleman testify and observing his demeanor, they should know he’s not the type to make that kind of threat.

“I think it’s unlikely that he strung that sentence together,” she said, “but that’s up to you to decide.”

As for not calling Ahumada-Mendoza as a defense witness, Sullivan said police had harassed Ahumada-Mendoza during a traffic stop, accusing her of lying and threatening to arrest her and have her children taken away.

“The best place for Ms. Ahumada-Mendoza to be is as far away from this train wreck of a trial as possible,” Sullivan said.

The jury began deliberating Thursday afternoon and was expected to resume this morning.

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Previous coverage at this link.