Ojai Quarterly - Fall 2024

FAMILY HOME

Located on one of Ojai’s most desirable streets, Foothill Road, and sitting perfectly on over half an acre, this wonderful family home is just waiting for you. This home features a spacious open floor plan with vaulted ceilings, Travertine stone floors throughout and light-filled rooms. There are two large living areas, both with their own fireplace, so you can enjoy the warmth of a cozy fire. Top-of-the-line appliances in the large kitchen which looks out to the beautiful pool and backyard. The dining room opens to a large deck with lovely mountain views, a great place for entertaining. There are 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms with plenty of room for family and guests. The outdoor space is charming with meandering pebble pathways, lush landscape and mature trees. You will love splashing in the pool on warm summer days or soaking in the hot tub under the star-studded night’s sky. Includes an over-sized 3-ccar garage with plenty of parking. Private and gated. Don’t miss this one!

EAST END MASTERPIECE

Welcome to this nearly 35-acre income producing ranch located in the prestigious East End of Ojai. Truly iconic ranch nestled between McNell Creek and the Topa Topa Mountains offering you a perfect “Pink Moment” nearly every evening. This 1920’s farmhouse has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, remodeled kitchen and bathrooms, and a massive original rock fireplace. The light-filled rooms with large windows showcase the panoramic mountain views. There is a separate office/ art stdio and a separate two bedroom, one bathroom guest house. Plenty of room to park all your farm equipment in the oversized three-car garage. This ranch produces Ojai Pixies, avocados, Cara Cara navel oranges, and a variety of other fruit trees. With a high-producing well along with Casitas ag water meter and solar ...living off the grid never looked so good. Rare opportunity to be part of the Williamson Act for tax savings benefits.

Enjoy this bohemian artistic gem on one of Ojai’s most renowned streets, Signal Street. This two-bedroom, onebathroom, currently used as a guesthouse, is part of a twoacre inspiring view property. In close proximity to the best hiking and mountain biking trails in Ojai Valley yet close to downtown, you’ll fall in love with the romantic, unmatched setting. Enjoy nature at its best!

It’s more than a house, it’s the start of your next adventure ~ $819K

East End ~ $3.089M

Ojai’s

In Escrow

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OJAI QUARTERLY

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SIGNAL TO SOUND

A Listening Tour of the Ojai Music Scene

Story by Brendan Willing James

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THE GABLES AT 70

Active Retirement, AARP

Pioneered in Ojai

Story By Bret Bradigan

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Editor’s Note

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Contributors

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Ojai Podcasts & 2 Degrees

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Arts Section

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Artists & Galleries

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Food & Drink Section

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Yesterday & Today Section

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Healers of Ojai

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Calendar of Events

Life Through George S.

Stuart’s Miniatures

Story By Bret Bradigan

FEATURES & departments

When you add native plants to your garden, you join the movement to build habitat connectivity and increase climate resilience in the Ojai Valley.

OJAI QUARTERLY

Living the Ojai Life

Editor & Publisher

Bret Bradigan

Director of Publications

Bret Bradigan

Creative Director

Uta Ritke

Intern

Kate Fernandez

Ojai Hub Administrator

Julia S. Weissman

Contributing Editors

Mark Lewis

Jerry Camarillo Dunn Jr.

Jesse Phelps

Columnists

Chuck Graham

Ilona Saari

Kit Stolz

Sami Zahringer

Circulation

John Nelson

editor@ojaiquarterly.com

The contents of the Ojai Quarterly may not be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

To subscribe to the OQ, visit ojaiquarterly.com or write to 1129 Maricopa Highway, B186 Ojai, CA 93023. Subscriptions are $24.95 per year.

You can also e-mail us at editor@ojaiquarterly.com.

Please recycle this magazine when you are finished.

Nestled in the enchanting Arbolada of Ojai, this mid-century classic home, built in 1957 by a visionary bachelor architect, exudes creativity and artistic charm. The main house, spanning just over 1,800 square feet, features three spacious bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a bright art studio. Natural light floods the interior through floor-to-ceiling glass windows, creating a serene and inviting atmosphere. Situated on a little over an acre in one of Ojai’s most sought-after locations, the property boasts an array of fruit trees, a sparkling pool for warm summer days, and a beautifully renovated guest house. Updated in 2017, the guest house offers approximately 800 square feet of modern comfort, including two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a separate entrance, and a convenient laundry room/office. This property is a true oasis, offering a perfect blend of mid-century charm and contemporary amenities in a magical, tree-lined setting.

a n y m o r e . B u t n o w w e d i s c o v e r e d t h e m a g i c a l t o w n o f O j a i

a n d t h o u g h t t h a t t h i s w o u l d b e t h e p e r f e c t p l a c e f o r T h e

I v y t o r e - o p e n . O u r w i d e r a n g e o f i t e m s i n c l u d e s a n t i q u e s ,

n e e s t a t e j e w e l r y, s t e r l i n g s i l v e r, E u r o p e a n p o r c e l a i n s a n d

p o t t e r y, l i n e n s , a n d e x c e p t i o n a l a n t i q u e f u r n i t u r e f r o m

a r o u n d t h e w o r l d . A s a l w a y s a t T h e I v y, t a b l e t o p

a c c e s s o r i e s a b o u n d i n n e d i s h w a r e , c r y s t a l , a n d s i l v e r t o

n i s h o ff y o u r t a b l e i n s t y l e . C o m e s e e o u r n e w l y

e x p a n d e d s h o w r o o m f e a t u r i n g e x c l u s i v e , v e r y m o d e r n ,

a n d u n u s u a l f u r n i t u r e , a r t , r u g s , a n d a c c e s s o r i e s I f y o u

n e e d t o n d t h e e l u s i v e " p e r f e c t " g i f t , T h e I v y i n O j a i i s t h e

o n e - s t o p - s h o p f o r a l l y o u r n e e d s

C o m e j o i n u s , a f t e r a l l : ' E v e r y o n e s h o p s a t T h e I v y.'

NEWLY LISTED

TICO

OFFERED AT $3,950,000 COMING SOON!

Sitting On Top of the World!! With majestic views in every direction, your friends will never want to leave this magnificent saddle ridge where the only interruptions to peace & harmony are the soaring birds against a colorful sky. The 2 + 2 home with clean lines of mid-century architecture reflect the vision of notable architect Darwin McCredie to highlight the natural beauty of the private 2.9 acre setting & its vistas! Dine al fresco on the terrace, chat fireside in the outdoor living room, count laps in the infinity-edge pool, or just sit quietly enjoying the breeze. The joys of this rarified property are endless!

NEWLY LISTED 1641 GARST LN OFFERED AT $3,250,000

History unfolds as you enter the double mahogany doors to this refurbished vintage cabin; known in the early 40’s as the Topa Topa Hunting Lodge. Modern amenities & white oak floors complement the old-world details that include hand-hewn beams, natural stone fireplace & custom lead windows. Two other charming & fully appointed cabins in the same split log style will delight your guests, as will the oak-studded grounds with firepit, tranquil natural pool, spa and a 20 X 40 garage with attached workshop and state-of-the-art soundproof isolation recording booth. Exceptional location on private East End lane on .83 acres. Come experience the magic!!

MARKERS, NOT MILESTONES

“Great art must contain two things. It must be surprising and it must be inevitable.” — Anonymous

What truly makes a community? It’s more than just geography or the quirky characters who give the town its charm — though we do have an enviable share. A thriving community is built on shared stories, a collective sense of history, and the occasional heated debate about where to get the best breakfast burrito and sourdough. This couldn’t be more relevant than it is to us at Ojai Quarterly. We’ve been gathering up these stories and local pro tips for 15 years now.

This issue of Ojai Quarterly is another reflection of the rich tapestry that makes our town so special. We’re thrilled to present Mark Lewis’ magisterial account of the 100-year anniversaries of several of our westside institutions, including the venerable Ojai Valley Inn, the storied halls of Villanova Preparatory Academy, the contemplative serenity of the Krotona Center, and the down-to-earth roots of the Meiners Oaks community. These institutions have borne witness to our town’s evolution, each contributing to the mosaic that is Ojai today.

Their centennials aren’t just milestones — they’re markers of our resilience, adaptation and stubborn tenacity. We live in this astonishingly beautiful community because people in our past willed it into being. We at the OQ take great pride in telling their stories.

Speaking of tenacity, there are few things more determined than white pelicans on their migration. These majestic birds, making their pit stops at Lake Casitas, remind us that Ojai is part of a much larger natural cycle. Their presence brings an almost mythical quality to our surroundings. It’s as if the universe nudges us each year, reminding us that while we’re busy debating zoning and homeless encampments, nature’s rhythms continue.

In this issue, we also celebrate George S. Stuart’s historical miniatures — these one-quarter scale windows into the grand narratives of history. Stuart’s work isn’t just about the past; it’s about how the past informs our present, and how the smallest of details can carry the weight of centuries.

Now, let’s talk about the 70th anniversary of The Gables of Ojai, a place that might seem like any another prestigious assistedliving facility until you realize it’s the birthplace of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). The seed for what would become one of the most influential organizations for seniors in the country sprouted from our humble ground. It’s a reminder that even in a small town, big ideas can flourish.

Not that we need a reason to celebrate our great good fortune in Ojai, but this fall is festival season; Ojai Studio Artists (Oct. 1214), Ojai Day (Oct. 19), Ojai Storytellers Festival (Oct. 24-27) and the Ojai Film Festival (Oct. 31- Nov. 4), not to mention the Ojai Music Festival’s fun Holiday Home Look-In (Nov. 16-17). You’ll see ample reminders throughout.

The quote leading off this column might well apply to Sami Zahringer’s column — the freshness of her absurdity, finding humor in the painful truths about the stress of mothering, marks her as a true artist. And as the political season heats up, so does Brunswick Stew in Ilona Saari’s timely reminiscence about culinary traditions.

In our grander moments, we like to think that Ojai Quarterly isn’t just a magazine; it’s a living document of who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re headed. In these pages, we capture the essence of our town — its history, its nature, its quirks and its future. We tell the stories that might otherwise go untold.

So as you make your way through this issue, take a moment to appreciate the legacy we’re all a part of. Whether it’s the centennial celebrations, the fleeting visits of white pelicans, or the enduring influence of a historical miniature, remember that these stories are our collective heartbeat. And as long as we keep telling them, Ojai will continue to thrive.

100 YEARS OF OJAI MOMENTS

As we celebrate a century of Ojai Valley stories, our 220-acre haven invites you to share the evolution of a local icon — from a coveted hideaway for Hollywood luminaries to modern host of quintessential escape. Savor creative cuisine, indulge in a Forbes Five-Star spa oasis, and find sanctuary in private villas and guestrooms. Escape in a moment of pure mountain majesty 100 years in the making.

OQ | C ONTRIBUTORS

JERRY DUNN

worked with the National Geographic Society for 35 years and has won three Lowell Thomas Awards, the “Oscars” of the field, from the Society of American Travel Writers.

ROBIN GERBER

is the author of four books and a playwright. Check her out at RobinGerber. com

BRENDAN WILLING JAMES

is an aspiring playwright and would-be top chef, but sticks mostly to singing, writing and taking photographs.

MARK LEWIS

is a writer and editor based in Ojai. He can be contacted at mark lewis1898@gmail.com.

ILONA SAARI

is a writer who’s worked in TV/film, rock’n’roll and political press, and as an op-ed columnist, mystery novelist and consultant for HGTV. She blogs for food: mydinnerswithrichard. blogspot.com.

KIT STOLZ

is an award-winning journalist who has written for newspapers, magazines, literary journals, and online sites. He lives in Upper Ojai and blogs at achangeinthewind.com

CHUCK GRAHAM’S

work has appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Canoe & Kayak, Trail Runner, Men’s Journal, The Surfer’s Journal and Backpacker.

UTA CULEMANNRITKE

is an independent artist, designer and curator. She is a member of Ojai Studio Artists and runs utaculemann.design.

SAMI ZAHRINGER

is an Ojai writer and award-winning breeder of domestic American long-haired children. She has more forcedmeat recipes than you.

ARTS & OJAI: Ojai’s stunning vistas and serene environment attracts many artists seeking inspiration, beginning in the very early 1900s with the California Plein Air movement. This trend gained significant momentum in the 1940s with the arrival of Beatrice Wood, a prominent ceramic artist known for her role in the avant-garde art scene. Wood’s presence solidified Ojai’s reputation as an artistic haven.

IN BRIEF: OJAI TALK OF THE TOWN PODCASTS

WRITING ABOUT THE MURDERER NEXT DOOR

Ivor Davis joins the podcast to talk about his seventh book, “The Devil in My Friend,” about his neighbor and fellow soccer coach, Fred Roehler, a Navy diver and engineer, who survived a boating accident in which his wife and stepson drowned. He was charged with the murder, and Davis, and his late wife Sally, followed the gripping trial through all its twists and turns. Davis also shared anecdotes about his encounters with The Beatles and Charlie Manson. (Ep. 193)

OQ | ojai podcast

EX-NY SECRETARY OF STATE ON ART & POLITICS

Sandy Treadwell served 10 years as Secretary of State for New York, serving under his friend George Pataki, the threeterm governor of New York. Treadwell talked about the changes to the Republican party in the age of Trump, as well as his pivot in later life to becoming an accomplished pen-andink artist and member of the Ojai Studio Artists.

He also discusses his career in journalism at Sports Illustrated covering college football, and how he rose to prominence in New York politics. (Ep. 194)

AN AUTHOR’S LIFE INAND BY - DESIGN

Louise Sandhaus, was the winner of the American Institute of Graphic Design’s medal in 2022 for her lifetime achievements, including her book, “Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California Graphic Design 1936-1986.” She also organized the People’s Graphic Design Archive, rescuing notable works in this everyday artistry for posterity. She also shared her admiration for architectural critic Reyner Banham, whose love of Los Angeles inspired many designers. (Ep. 196)

NIGEL CHISHOLM ON MISSIONS TO UKRAINE’S FRONT LINES

Nigel Chisholm saw a CNN report early in the Russian invasion of Ukraine that inspired him to leave the comforts of Ojai and put his own life on the line.

He signed up with the nonprofit group Bulldozer, returning the bodies of dead soldiers to their families.

ONE: Ojai’s Anne Friend Thacher was a rising senior at Mills College in the Bay Area in 1963, studying chemistry. She spent the summer working in a medical laboratory at UC Berkeley. One of her colleagues was a bright young biomedical student named Shyamala Gopalan from Chennai, India. “She was told by her higher-ups that her saris were not a good idea to wear in the lab,” Thacher said about a perceived fire hazard. “She did not take well to being told what to do.”

Gopalan also shocked her colleagues when she

He’s made four trips so far, with more planned. He talked about the stoic, cautiously optimistic nature of Ukrainians, and the need for continued support from the U.S. and European allies.

Chisholm also talked about his

father’s and uncles’ bravery during World War II, his life in Ojai as well as his new project, the band Damaged Goods.

He’s produced a documentary about the trips, available on Youtube. Search “Nigel Bulldozer Mission.” (Ep. 193)

TWO DEGREES BETWEEN

2 of OJAI SEPARATION

casually announced that she had gotten married at City Hall during her lunch break.

TWO: The man she married, Donald Harris, was a Jamaican graduate student in economics at UC Berkeley. They went on to have two children, Kamala, born in 1964, and Maya, born in 1967. Her daughter Kamala became the 49th U.S. Vice President and the Democratic Party’s candidate for the 2024 presidential race, when incumbent Joe Biden announced he was stepping down.

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Photo by

Andraz Lazic

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Swimming Through, Samantha Sanders, 2022

Lily of the Valley, Giovanni Rustanto, 2020

Malina, Grace Strelich, 2019

’s a few days after the solstice, and the humidity is back. The air conditioner is cranked and my window is wide open. I know I’m wasting energy but I’m sort of a middle bear and all about balance.

Small Isles’ “Sure, I’m Happy” flows gently from my speakers — a lovely composition that endows the oak branches wiggling just outside with a hint of animism. I recently met up with the track’s composer, Jim Fairchild, over at Rory’s Other Place for a flawless cortado and a frisbee-sized lemon poppy cookie.

STORY BY BRENDAN WILLING JAMES

There’s a very particular joy about shooting the breeze at a new public patio in town, and I’m grateful we have it, especially after the loss of Beacon. It was one of those foreboding “shyeeet here comes the valley furnace” kind of days, and I was curious about the origin of Jim’s ambient tilt after his extensive work with Grandaddy and Modest Mouse. The project was born — at least in part — as a wordless yang to the din-ish yin of an exceedingly opinionated world.

As Jim puts it — “I wanted to make something implicit, rather than explicit. We all have enough people telling us what they think.”

But there’s more: In those molten, formative years of a songwriter’s outsized rock-star dreams, there often simmers, alongside, a neighboring ambition to create film soundtracks. Jim’s ongoing scoring work for Ojai filmmakers Rebecca and Josh Tickell surely provides a satisfying tick of the box on that childhood checklist. Things change, paths emerge. Teens turn to 20s, to families, to 40s, and along with time comes opportunity for revelation: at any given moment, you can scrub through the movie of life already lived, and hear its score: all of the music you created along the way, so far.

Ambient music is a powerful language all its own. It often communicates the immensity of emotion where words cannot, and can provide a calming mental sanctuary for both composer and listener. In that sense, it’s easy to see why, in a hype-weary world, a growing number of artists are dipping toes, limbs and entire selves into atmospheric pads, patterns and pulses.

Some, like ambient explorer Orpheo McCord, are creating physical experiences to accompany their sounds. An original member of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, he recently co-founded the Venice, California-based arts and research lab Chromasonic.

The team creates immersive environments in which light and sound come together through “Chromasonic Refrequencing” — a sensory technology that allows participants to hear light and see sound. By expanding your senses, Chromasonic Immersion enhances your sense of presence, awareness and connection in mind and body. You can count me in for the synaesthetic era. McCord’s most recent solo releases “Space Bloom” and “Revelations” further showcase his entrancing rhythmic sensibilities first shared with 2018’s “Recovery Inhale,” a most alluring, wordless expression of the human experience.

On the north side of town at the Echo Magic cottage, Amarillo-born avant-garde guitarist and performance artist Hayden Pedigo is finishing a piece for his newest instrumental guitar album.

I step in as a furious hammer-on riff pours out of a vintage silverface amp in the kitchen. Following the instrument cable snaking into the main room, I find Pedigo, who greets me with a friendly hello and a politician-worthy outstretched hand, evidently perfected some years back by a surprising (and surprisingly effective) Amarillo City Council campaign. He promptly returns to practicing what he calls “the Zeppelin part” on a classic burgundy Gibson SG, and when I hear the playback a few

CHROMASONIC DESCRIPTION

minutes later, his reference makes a bit more sense. What sounds to me like theme music to Tolkien’s lost journals is expansive and gorgeous, precisely performed, and expertly recorded by producer Scott Hirsch.

Over on the outskirts of the Arbolada, songwriter/producer Rich Jacques takes me on a guided tour of his newest album in progress, “Imaginary Lines,” and we talk afterwards of the looming perils and perks of modern music promotion.

The music, born of various internal perspective shifts from two years of international travel, is a mellow ride layered with organic hooks, understated percussion, and thoughtful wordplay. Will pair nicely with falling leaves and evening drives.

The late sunsets and warm nights signal what I already hear as I meander about town — outdoor music season is in full bloom.

On any given evening along the “farm circuit” — Farmer & the

Cook, Euterpe Farm, Rio Gozo Farm — you might hear one of the many talents of Ojai’s own. Beau Red and the Tailor Maide pickin’ and hollerin’. Natalie Gelman’s soaring voice and intricate storytelling.

TD Lind and The Aviators stomping out intricate, orchestral rhythm and blues. The Chillz floating through the air with their easeful family style grooves and jams. When autumn approaches, you might even catch a Morning Ramble, when the Echo Magic crew gets together over coffee to sing and celebrate the under-appreciated FM radio songbook of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Summer concerts under open sky are a certain kind of special.

As a proper centerpiece, and situated as such right in the middle of Ojai’s ever-quaint downtown, the Libbey Bowl holds a bountiful court. In addition to the real deals — Maxi Priest, Don McLean, Bruce Hornsby, Thievery Corporation, Los Lonely Boys, Chris Isaak and local legend Dave Mason, you can pull up a chair for the usual parade of tribute acts. This season you can see “Tom Petty,” “The Doors,” “The Eagles,” “Fleetwood Mac,” “Led Zeppelin,” “The Grateful Dead,” “Pink Floyd,”“Queen,” and “Genesis.” With Asheville-based experimental folk singer Angel Olsen coming on September 11th, the Bowl even gets a rare dose of millennial talent.

For nearly the whole of the aughts, I fronted a local rock-n-roll band that we called Shades of Day. Together, we built a recording studio and a spirited fanbase here in Ojai and Ventura. We parked the Gustafson family RV (somewhat endearingly dubbed ‘The FunBus’) in front of the Deer Lodge nearly every weekend

cumbia — the sexiest tower of speakers in town.

And though we are still on the edge of our seats waiting to experience the re-imagined Ojai Playhouse, the methodical new owner has hinted at hosting select live performances in addition to films in the extraordinarily renovated space.

This is fun. Though I didn’t grow up here, I’ve certainly grown here. Ojai provides many treasures that I hold dear — home, mystery, love, challenge — and to still be in the midst of the ever-evolving artistic ecosystem here is a reward all its own. I’m endlessly curious to what I’ll witness next.

in 2006, until a dance-floor brawl that winter forced an extended, and ultimately final break. We often rattled the sketchy wine racks at Movino (now Sam’s Place) in the Arcade. Our local circuit was rounded out by The Hub, The Hut, The Jester (now Rory’s Place), and even the Fourth of July Parade one year (dressed as ice cream men, towed by an ice cream truck called the Zippy Dippy, playing Van Halen’s “Ice Cream Man”). Some things change, and others … well, not so much.

In addition to treasured locals like Ella Hue, Radio Skies, and New Pleasures, the Deer Lodge now regularly hosts shows via imperious West-Coast promoter (((folkYEAH!))) and the Tierra Sol Institute.

Recent tour stops by Bill Callahan, Cass McCombs, Cate Le Bon, Alabaster DePlume and Soul Asylum have crammed the woody little room to capacity, an exciting and sometimes literally breathtaking atmosphere for the relative few who scored tickets.

The Ojai Valley Woman’s Club has hosted recent shows from Big Thief guitarist Buck Meek, Damien Jurado, Vetiver, Juana Molina and even thespian/punker Juliette Lewis and The Licks. Just through downtown to the east is Ojai Underground, an 80-seat, multimedia-capable theater that hosts filmmakers and troubadours alike most Thursdays through Saturdays. A proper intimate spot to catch the sublime, towering harmonies of The Brothers Koren, or even a rare storytelling appearance by yours truly.

On the corner of Bryant Street and East Ojai Avene sits Light and Space — a recovering gas station that now hosts yoga, dance, and — when Earthtones’ Serge Bandura spins ambient, house, and

Got a big show coming up? A record in progress? A film you’re scoring? I’d love to hear and see and chat about what you’re up to.

Ella Hue

Correspondence: brendan@echo-magic.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brendan Willing James is, on any given day, a: songwriter, composer, photographer, substack writer, one part of indie record label and music production team Echo Magic, and (every day) loving partner to EarthTonics Skincare founder Daron Hope.

OJAI ART CENTER’S 85th Anniversary

November 9th

Join us in honoring the Ojai Art Center’s remarkable 85-year journey of nurturing creativity and enriching our community. As we mark this milestone with a grand gala on November 9th, we celebrate not just the past, but the vibrant future of our local arts scene. The Ojai Art Center has been a beacon of artistic expression, from theater and visual arts to literary pursuits, fostering a dynamic cultural hub in our beautiful town.

We’ve raised more than $100,000 raised through our capital campaign. Thanks to your support, we have painted the outside of the building, installed air conditioners in the green room and Raymund Room, and purchased $23,000 of new theater lights!

But there’s more to be done! We invite you to be part of this transformative journey — come to our gala, experience our events, and consider contributing to our mission. Together, we can ensure the Art Center continues to inspire and unite our community for years to come. Call 805-646-0117 for tickets and for details about the Gala!

Special 85th Anniversary Membership includes:

OAC 85th Commemorative T-Shirt

Free Gala admittance for 2

Monthly newsletter

Discounted tickets for theatre productions

Facility rental discounts

Early notification of special events

Voting rights

Tax deduction benefits

All For Only $85!

STORY BY BRET BRADIGAN

George S. Stuart has overcome dyslexia, depression and a life-threatening fever to carve out his own niche as an artist, historian & storyteller. With an exhibit on the Napoleonic era at the Ventura County Museum, he joined the Ojai Podcast to talk about this, and much more.

QUEEN VICTORIA

Ojai “Talk of the Town” podcast episode with George S. Stuart provides valuable insights into his life and work. In the podcast, Stuart shares personal anecdotes, thoughts on his creative process and reflections on the impact of his miniatures.

Born 95 years ago in Pasadena, the son of an aeronautical engineer and a writer mother, George S. Stuart’s early life was marked by a yet-to-be-identified challenge: “Dyslexia. We’d never heard of it, we didn’t know what it was. Teachers told my parents, ‘We’re sorry, you have a charming son. He has good manners, but you’re going to have to live with it,’” he said. “My parents were desperately desirous that I become a person of stature and accomplishments.”

So they went to work. “I was surrounded by tutors … who one by one gave up,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything with math, I failed chemistry flat … and so it was an awful handicap.”

Stuart’s journey from a dyslexic child to a renowned artist was not a straight path. There were glimmers

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

GEORGE STUART MUSING

along the way, though. He traveled in Europe as a young boy and began to develop his lifelong fascination with history and architecture, even constructing a scale model of the Palace of Versailles. Another glimmer came with the gift of at age seven of a marionette, through which he became intrigued by re-creating the human form. “It was the most exciting thing I ever saw,” he said. None of these early fascinations pointed to a meaningful career, however, especially for someone who struggled scholastically.

After toughing it out at Georgetown and the American University, where Stuart’s dyslexia made it nearly impossible for him to keep up the course work, he came across an influential figure: professor and author Carroll Quigley. “It was an absolute turning point in my understanding of why history is important to me, and should be important to others. But I flunked out,” he said.

“I needed a job and I wasn’t prepared for anything I knew of. But I looked in the Post in the want ads and Smithsonian Institution was hiring artists. I thought maybe I am an artist of some sort,” he said. He had started working on early iterations of his historical models. “I knew the figures were going to be terribly important, I didn’t know it’d be the center of my creative life in the future,” he said. In the early 1950s, he was the third artist hired for the museum’s new exhibit artists program. Stuart was put to work creating models to show the scale of inventions that received patents. His boss, Benjamin Lawless, was “just a few years older than me. A good artist, a charming man. We got along famously, laughing about how to motorize the dinosaurs.”

After a few years, Stuart was given a choice — be fired on the spot, or take a job in the Institution’s remote post in Pierre, South Dakota. En route, he got ill. Very ill.

He suspected that it was a bad case of strep throat. Somehow, with no memory of the journey, he ended up back in California.

That was when and where he began focusing on the historical figures, using an exacting process with carefully chosen materials such as Icelandic sheep hair, scaled-down chain mail, special embroideries and accessories to accurately represent actual fashions and weapons of the period. He starts with a jointed wire skeleton like the marionette from his youth, then facial features are meticulously crafted with specially designed instruments, starting with a clay base built up with paper maché, styrofoam, wool felt and blown glass eyes. He developed his own plastique to make the skin as lifelike as possible, through years of experimentation.

“The worst material I used to begin with was called ‘plastic wood’ — like an resin with sawdust,” Stuart said. “It would stick to your fingers when you’re trying to model. Another challenge was that it very flammable, which I discovered trying to dry them in a hurry in my oven … I transferred to a substance called Marble X, a hobby craft material. It was excellent for my modeling and it dried beautifully.” When the company went out of business, they gave Stuart a 25-pound bag of it. He eventually found an even better material called Paper Clay, from a man he met at a convention who was building Japanese art figures.

Despite the similarities, Stuart said, “I’m a modeler, not a sculptor. And there’s a lot of people modeling, making figures with ar-

George Stuart’s Historical Figures® exhibition, “Napoleon: Revolution, Romance, and Rivalries.” It will be on display through September 15th at the Museum of Ventura County, giving viewers a one-fourth-scale version of the rise and fall and rise again of this enormously consequential man and other characters of this pivotal period in history.

ticulation and other variations. And some of them are absolutely brilliant. So I’m not unique in that respect. What made mine a little different was I stuck with a specific scale … quarter-life size. But my role is about historical figures.”

Private collectors also found their way to Stuart. “I started doing a few and it blossomed into a nice income,” he said.

As Stuart’s figures became sought after, he put together a show of French historical figures at the Stanford Art Museum in 1957 that was well received. It gave him an idea when he returned to Santa Barbara, where lived many retired Hollywood notables “and it was a very rich mix of theatrical experiences.” So he conceived of a traveling show with his figures, telling himself “You’ve been through three universities, you must know something about history, and you’ve been on the stage since age 15 … why don’t you go on as a public speaker?”

With his figures in tow, Stuart became a captivating speaker, delivering talks that brought history to life. His ability to weave narratives around each miniature, offering insights into the personalities and eras they represented, made him a sought-after speaker. Audiences were enthralled by the immersive experience Stuart provided, feeling as though they were transported back in time through his miniature masterpieces. He was hired by the same speaker’s bureau, Samuel Horton Brown Agency, that represented Margaret Mead. “I was nobody. They gave me an audition. They said, ‘Alright, you’re one of our artists.’”

hour and 45 minutes. One of the earlier ones was about French history, from figures from Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” to Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration. He had to come up with new material for every season, “adding a few figures here and there, making it into a new program,” he said.

Among those programs are the American Revolutionary and Civil wars, from Samuel Adams to Abraham Lincoln, Bourbon Dynasty from Henry IV to Charles X, Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union. His most popular performance may be “Really Awful People,” spotlighting his figures on Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler and Nero. “It starts with a massacre and ends with a slaughter,” he once remarked. The programs kept him busy as he combined his skills as a theater actor and amateur historian.

“My agent called me up for a meeting, saying, ‘We don’t talk about religion or politics or sex in speakers’ presentations. I thought ‘Oh my god, that’s all I talked about!’” He said, “That’s what makes it interesting, because I make it into an interesting drama.

“I’m not an educator, I’m an entertainer, and I’ve never had any other illusions.” He follows a tradition set by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Will Rogers and contemporaries with Garrison Keillor and Lily Tomlin, though he is careful about comparisons.

One significant chapter in Stuart’s life unfolded in 1959 when he made Ojai his home. In this idyllic setting, he found the perfect backdrop for his Gallery of Historical Figures, nestled in the East End. Stuart’s collection became a living testament to his passion, a place where visitors could step into history and witness

FROM LEFT, CLEOPATRA, MARIE DE MEDICI, FREDERICK THE GREAT

the past unfold before their eyes. He has exhibited his figures — more than 400 in all — in the Smithsonian and the Bill Clinton Presidential Library among many other museums and galleries around the country. In 1979, the Museum of Ventura County built a special gallery to house 200 figures.

As Stuart reached the remarkable age of 95, he looked back on a life well-lived, shaped by a passion that transcended challenges and setbacks. His miniatures, each a labor of love, became not only artifacts but portals to different times. Stuart’s ability to turn his fascination with history into a successful career serves as an inspiration to aspiring artists and history enthusiasts alike.

His concern for the future is that history in America is not being taught with the rich context and understanding it deserves. “It’s a sad thing to see, young people now consider the Vietnam War ancient history. I’m not despairing … we’ve been blessed with everything imaginable. It’s how we’ve used it or abused it. We have the opportunity to do so much, but unfortunately sometimes we put our feet wrong,” he said. “In other cases, we do a good job.”

George S. Stuart was interviewed for the Ojai podcast “Talk of the Town,” in episode 171, available wherever you get your podcasts.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, AGE 23

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Bart’s Books is the world’s largest outdoor bookstore, a cute-looking corner store that sells 10,000 books a month, a can’t-miss attraction for thousands of curious tourists annually, and a beloved Ojai institution, with a cozy courtyard that seems almost ideal for author events and readings.

But it wasn’t until the arrival — and eventual promotion — of Emma Bailey, who began selling books at Bart’s nine years ago as a teenager, that the legendary bookstore started to host authors for conversations with Ojai on a frequent basis.

STORY BY KIT STOLZ

“We had events occasionally, maybe once a year, but there was no one who really had the capacity, or the interest, to do something regular and consistent in the way of events,” Bailey said, perhaps a bit too modestly, in an interview.

She didn’t mention that Bart’s two-year expansion into live events was more or less her idea.

“Emma asked me if there was more she could do at the bookstore,” said Matt Henriksen, the well-known and much-admired manager of Bart’s. “I’ve hosted occasional events, but I already have too much to do here, and Emma is socially adept, so hosting these sort of events suits her better than me.”

For her part, Bailey expresses nothing but admiration for Henriksen as a boss and mentor.

“Matt is an amazing bookseller, and he’s a great boss,” Bailey said. “The reason the events program is like this is because he’s given me complete freedom over it. He said, ‘Run with it. Do whatever you want.’He didn’t really give me a vision of what he wanted it to be. And being a product of this town, I’ve been able to do all sorts of fun things, such as gathering different peoples and organizations into new kinds of events.”

As one example, Bailey mentioned that she enjoys writings about food and drink. In July she put together an event with a

OQ | OFF THE SHELF

writer who specializes in spirits, Lesley Jacobs Solmonson, and a local distiller, Brad Miller of Ventura Spirits.

“I love food writing,” Bailey said. “Food is a big part of our sensorial life. I found a series of food writing books out of England that I liked, and I emailed the publisher, and asked if they had

any authors in our region. And they mentioned Lesley Solmonson.”

Solmonson wrote for the University of Chicago Press a wide-ranging book about gin, called “Gin: A Global History.”

She readily agreed to a conversation with Miller of Wilder Spirts, in part about the story of their local gin, and then after they went with the crowd over to Sam’s Place, in the Arcade near the fountain, for Solmonson-designed cocktails.

“That event launched a partnership between us at Bart’s and Sam’s Place,” Bailey said. “People who come to my event can get a little wooden nickel that says Bart’s Books, and then they can go over and have a drink and continue the conversation in the courtyard at Sam’s Place.”

Since launching the book events series in June of 2022, Bart’s has hosted well over 30 authors for live events, and has an active calendar for the next few months, available at Bart’s Books Courtyard Events online. Author conversations and events have been scheduled as often as every two weeks during the busy summer months. Bailey especially likes to put an author with broad experience and insight on an environmental issue in conversation with a known local authority, to bring their mutual expertise and experience to bear on a part of Ojai’s future.

Bailey also has an on-going relationship with several publishers, including Patagonia Books in Ventura and Heyday Books in Berkeley. She speaks enthusiastically of partnering on events with publishers and authors, for conversations of greater depth and scope.

“I think growth for us will involve more partnerships,” she said. “I really enjoy being in conversation with authors, but sometimes an author or a publisher will want to bring in an expert. We work with Patagonia Books, and last year we had an amazing conversation with their author Steve Hawley, and his book ‘Cracked,’ on dam removal. I pulled in Tom Maloney from the Ojai Valley

EMMA BAILEY

PHOTO BY LIZ FISH

Land Conservancy, to update the community on the Matilija Dam and its removal. We have a really outdated dam here, and it’s a very dynamic process. We put the author in conversation with Tom Maloney, and we had a real, live in-person civic conversation for an engaged audience.”

Bailey, a teacher’s daughter, said as a young person she spent many summers reading on the beach as her father and grandfather surfed.

“Honestly, a big part of my story is being drug to the beach most days a week in the summer, while my teacher father wasn’t working, and me with a bag of books over my shoulder, reading pages and pages at the beach, all summer long. I think in California, we read on the beach, and we read outdoors.”

Bailey thinks that California publishers and readers participate in “a Western sensibility” that even in literature plays by different rules than it does back East. She mentioned Heyday Books, an independent Berkeley publisher known for publishing elegant volumes steeped in the wild beauty of California. It keeps in print rare writings from revered writers such as Mark Twain and John Steinbeck in the past, and Gary Snyder and artist Tom Killion in the present, but the press also brings out volumes from new voices, such as the encyclopedic artist/naturalist Obi Kaufman, the science writer Rosanna Xia, and the irreverent nature writer Charles Hood, all of whom who have appeared at Bart’s recently.

Since she launched the book events series in June of 2022, Bailey has brought in an eclectic array of authors to speak on topics

of all varieties (although mostly in non-fiction). Recent events included a night for independent comic artists that drew visitors from all around Ventura County, an evening devoted to surfing and Surf magazine, and an evening with an influential movie producer on making movies, to an evening with an author who wrote a book about the philosopher-monk Thomas Merton. The diversity reflects Bailey’s self-education in books, allowing her to reach far beyond Ojai to find new voices and new subjects.

In recent years Bailey said she has been attending California’s independent booksellers association annual convention, Caliba, to meet publishers and authors and learn the trade.

“Then last year they announced a scholarship,” Bailey said. “I didn’t really know what I was applying for but I applied and answered a few questions and they awarded me the scholarship. It sent me to the national booksellers convention, the American Booksellers Association, the largest book event in the country. I went to that in February.”

At the national convention in Cincinnati, Emma met many authors, but one who stood out to her — and one she ultimately invited to speak at Bart’s — was a Nigerian-American named Zito Madu, a young man who went from playing professional soccer to freelance writing, at first about sports — mostly soccer and the NBA, for publications such as GQ — to now an almost kaleidoscopic mosaic of topics for a variety of publications.

In recent essays Madu has written about hummingbirds, the importance of being careful in relationships — even in crushes destined to come to nothing — the pleasures of Bach, and (most recently) the horror of seeing Palestinian children playing

LESLEY SOLMONSON AND WILDER GIN REPRESENTATIVES AT HER BART’S BOOK SIGNING.

OQ | OFF THE SHELF

football — “the beautiful game” — being hit by Israeli bombs. Madu has a remarkable ability to write from inside an experience, exploring even tiny moments with a vivid awareness. In a recent essay in Plough, called “Hummingbirds are Wondrous,” Madu recounts a low point in his life during the pandemic when seemingly out of nowhere a brilliant green hummingbird came to visit him in the mornings at his place in Los Angeles.

“Often, when we encounter a presence in the world, it goes from a singular physical reality to a memory, and then eventually a meaning. An idea,” Madu wrote. “When I was with the green hummingbird, it became the company I didn’t know I needed. We spent our mornings together, and after it went its way, I read and wrote.”

“I started to give my hummingbird its own names and meanings. The Jade Bird. The Bird of Lost Love. The Bird of Rebirth. A Friend,” he added. “The Sun-Bringer. The Life-Giver. The Bird of Mornings. The One Who Cures Loneliness. A tiny presence that changed the nature of the days for me back then. A sight to behold to remember the wonder of nature and the world, in the middle of a catastrophe.”

Bailey met many writers at the booksellers convention, but Madu stood out to her, for his originality, the depth of his read-

ing, and the freshness of his prose.

“Zito is a writer who has a real perspective,” Bailey said. “He’s so widely read, he’s so intelligent, he’s so well-spoken, and yes, original — in “The Minotaur at Calle Laza” he has written a book that no one else could have written.”

The Minotaur at Calle Lanza depicts Madu’s time in Venice, Italy, early in the pandemic, when he had a grant to work on a book for a few months, and found himself in a city of labyrinths, emptied of tourists. Madu walks the echoing streets, feeling both fortunate to be in this fabled city at such a unique moment, and yet all but abandoned by fate, forced to struggle to find within himself the worthy book he wants to write about a city memorialized by many great writers, including William Shakespeare, Thomas Mann, Daphne Du Maurier and Joseph Brodsky.

As Madu recounted to a gathering at Bart’s in June, he heard from a friend early in his stay in Venice that the best way to experience the labyrinthian city is to get lost in it. So Madu finds himself walking, often lost, and similarly thinking back to times when he felt lost in his life. Exploring that lostness became a theme in the book, in both physical and psychic reality.

“I wanted it to feel like you were walking with me in Venice,” Madu said. “I didn’t want it to be a book that gives you an intellectual idea of the place, like an explainer of Venice and why it’s special. I don’t want it to be writing that tells you that ‘I am very smart, and I know about this place, and let me help you understand.’”

In his work as in his life, Madu likes to wander.

“I think that wandering comes as a consequence of my curiosity in so many things,” he said. “I try to leave myself open to any kind of wonder that exists, and at the same time, I have a strong sense of taste and morality and a personal political project, and all of these things tend to intersect in many ways which then leads to me trying to showcase those touching points in an essay or a book. Sometimes in movie scripts. Writing is a perfect way to explore and also a perfect space to learn more and grow intellectually.”

In conversation about the twists and turns of his life, Madu re-

peatedly returns to the idea of freedom as a kind of gift, often an unexpected one. He said that just as getting lost turned out to be a portal of sorts into his discovery of a Venice unseen by tourists, so too did his near total failure in high school in Detroit turn out to be an opening for him, an opening he could not have imagined as a conventional “good student,” as were his four siblings. (It was expected in his family: both parents were teachers.)

Giving up an opportunity to be a professional soccer player, while in Europe, playing a game he reveres and has played all his life, a choice he did not expect nor plan for, also gave him an unexpected new start.

“There’s a sense of freedom that comes with being a failure because then you get to reimagine your life on your own terms,” he said.

In recent years, Madu has healed a relationship with his father that was badly broken during his teen years, published his first book, and now plans — between freelance assignments — to write a book about “chasing the dream” — playing sports professionally. He expects to draw on his years of experience playing soccer, and the tedium and heartbreak that comes inevitably with a life of athletic competition.

But in the next breath he admits that he constantly rewrites what he’s written, to the point where his editors despair, and also that his curiosity draws him daily towards topics he would never have expected: the joy of experiencing Bach in Carnegie Hall, for example, or why laundromats meant so much to him as a child new to America. How taking French lessons on Zoom during the worst days of the pandemic — and the virtual friendship he made with an older French woman — helped keep him sane.

Bailey understands this restlessness, this need to explore the world of books and writing.

“The more bookstores you go into, the more you realize how many different ways there are to be curious,” Bailey said, quoting Paul Yamazaki, of City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.

“Once people don’t think that you’re going to be worthwhile, then they just leave you alone. So I think when I quit, it was like — all right, no one expects me to be a soccer player anymore. No one expects me to be the greatest intellectual of our time. And I was like, well, who do I want to be and what do I want to structure my life around? I think it’s like the Gatsby thing. You can make yourself who you want to be.”

Bailey takes pride in helping visitors to Bart’s find the book they may not realize they’re looking for. She puts out a Substack newsletter called 10,000 Books, and she looks forward to continuing to bring writers of all varieties and descriptions to Bart’s, from new voices such as Zito Madu’s, to established best-selling authors, such as Jacqueline Winspear. Winspear who will appear at Bart’s later this year or next spring to talk about “The Comfort of Ghosts,” the last of her much-loved international bestselling Maisie Dobbs series of post-World War I detective novels.

BART’S COURTYARD

EMMA BAILEY WITH ZITO MADU

Perhaps it was potter and “the Mama of Dada” Beatrice Wood’s influence, going back nearly 90 years. Maybe it even goes back further, to the Chumash people’s ingenious and astounding artistry with basketry. It’s clear that Ojai has long been a haven for artists. The natural beauty

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OQ | ARTists & GALLERIES

framed so well by the long arc and lush light of an east-west valley lends itself to artistic pursuits, as does the leisurely pace of life, the sturdy social fabric of a vibrant community and the abundant affection and respect for artists and their acts of creation. Come check it out for yourselves.

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CHEF RANDY | LIFE OF SPICE

Navy bean soup (redux)

The navy bean got its current popular name because it was a staple food of the United States Navy in the early 20th century. They are mild, pea-sized beans that are creamy white in color. Like other common beans, navy beans are one of 13,000 species of the family of legumes, or plants that produce edible pods. Combined with whole grains such as rice, navy beans provide virtually fat-free high-quality protein. This recipe is a revision to my original slow-cooker version. It is a little heartier and has different herbs than the orginal. Hope you enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:

1 package Field Roast Italian sausage

16 ounces dry navy beans (rinsed)

1 medium onion (diced)

3 stalks celery (diced)

1 tablespoon fresh dill (chopped)

4 tablespoon fresh parsley (chopped)

4 cloves garlic (minced)

1 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil (chopped)

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

2 quarts vegetable broth

1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon (no chicken base)

DIRECTIONS:

Randy Graham is a writer, author, and private chef. He enjoys cooking for friends and family using ingredients from backyard vegetable and herb gardens. His food is often called “vegetarian comfort food.” He and his wife, Robin, live in Ojai, California, with their dog, Willow. Robin and Willow are not vegetarians.

Plug in your slow cooker and set the heat to high.

Use two of the four sausages in the Field Roast package. Cut the sausages into 1/4 inch slices and fry the slices until browned on both sides. Place the sausages and all other ingredients in slow cooker. Cook for five hours. Prior to serving, adjust for salt adding more if necessary.

The Tastes & Aromas of Autumn

STORY BY ILONA SAARI

it, Nat (as in King Cole in the old Johnny Mercer classic)...

Those falling red-and-gold leaves, along with crisp cool air, bright blue skies, college football games, a flask of whiskey, and a crewneck sweater tied around my shoulders bring back many a college memory. I love fall.

Still do, even though I now live in the Ojai Valley, where there’s little fall nip in the air or a need for sweaters over my shoulders, crewnecks or otherwise. But the heat does recede, some leaves do change color, and we have Boccali’s Pumpkin Patch for the kids who trick-or-treat with glee.

BRUNSWICK STEW

OQ | FOOD & DRINK

Fall is the prelude to the winter holiday season, ending with the celebration of Thanksgiving where many families and friends across the country share a traditional festive meal of turkey, stuffing, string bean casserole and all sorts of pies. At least in Norman Rockwell illustrations.

These autumn days also bring the political election season featuring stump electioneering, endless TV commercials, telephone calls to “donate to whomever” and a zillion texts and emails to do the same. $1, $2, $10 or $100 — whatever you can afford … reams of literature and flyers left in your mail box … televised and non-televised political rallies, town halls, campaign meetings, primaries and caucuses. And folks hosting dinner parties for various candidates or causes.

In 1988, Richard, my writer-director-producer (in Hollywood, everyone’s a hyphenate) and great cook husband (and the reason I branched out as a writer and started writing about food, but I’m digressing), and I belonged to a gourmet group in Los Angeles. It was a presidential election year and in October when it was our turn to host the group’s monthly dinner, we decided on an election “theme.” As the host couple, we provided the entrée and drinks.

With family roots in the south, Richard decided our entrée would be Brunswick Stew, a southern tradition where politicians would use a pot of stew, traditionally made with squirrel or rabbit (“Hi, I’m Larry, this is my brother Darryl and my other brother Darryl,” with rifle and a string of dead squirrels in hand, come to mind for you Newhart fans — RIP) and local veggies like lima beans, corn and okra to lure folks to campaign rallies and the polls on election day. “Cast your ballot, stop by for stew.”

Why Brunswick Stew?

I hadn’t a clue.

As a “Yankee,” I’d never heard of Brunswick Stew.

Lamb stew, beef stew, even fish stew, yes — but Brunswick Stew, nope. But I soon learned the answer — it was very cheap for working folk to make and could feed a crowd. Add a jug or two of moonshine, and folks flocked to the rallies and polls. We, of course, did not have moonshine, but bourbon gave us all a healthy shine.

Stew Backstory: Brunswick Stew also caused a war between the states. Not North against the South, but Virginia against Georgia, both fighting over who first invented this hearty concoction. It was called “The Great Brunswick Stew War” and it’s been waging for more than 100 years.

Brunswick, Georgia claims to be the birthplace of the very first Brunswick Stew. But, but, but Brunswick County, Virginia fiercely makes the same claim. If you do a little research, Brunswick, Georgia made its first stew in 1898, and Brunswick County’s stew was created in 1828, 70 years earlier.

As legend has it, Dr. Creed Haskins, a member of the Virginia state legislature, wanted a special dish for a political rally. Jimmy Matthews, an African-American hunting camp cook (and most likely a slave), concocted a huge pot of stew made with squirrel and provided the recipe for the rally. The stew, named after the county, went on to become one of the most beloved dishes at all

of Virginia’s political events.

The recipe for the stew, which then became a Southern favorite, varies from state to state, family to family. Many Virginia recipes now lean more toward chicken or rabbit as their meat ingredient, whereas Georgia’s recipes are more the beef and pork variety. I love humorist Roy Blount Jr.’s reported explanation of this beloved dish:

“Brunswick Stew is what happens when small mammals carrying ears of corn fall into barbecue pits.”

From a zillion recipes for this election season stew, here are links to two — a classic Virginia Brunswick Stew recipe and an old-fashioned Georgia Brunswick Stew recipe:

www.food52.com/recipes/38861-classic-virginia-brunswick-stew

www.thehappierhomemaker.com/georgia-brunswick-stew

If you’re reading this column before November 5, please remember to VOTE — then on November 6, stew on the results.

by

NOV. 16 & 17, 2024 10am-4pm

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Fairway Rambler - Four-Bedroom, 2.5-Bathroom, Sprawling 1970s RanchStyle Home on Large Lot in East End with Vaulted Ceilings, Two Fireplaces, Large Windows, Breakfast Bar, Large Closets, Sunroom, Two-Car Garage, Gated RV Parking, Swimming Pool & Hot Tub

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Rose Valley Land - Create an off-grid, country retreat on 40 acres with mountain views, trails, and a natural spring in Rose Valley in the Los Padres National Forest $1,200,000

Upper Ojai Land - Build your dream home on 1.25 acres in Upper Ojai with 20-25gpm well, water meter, Edison drop, and beautiful mountain views minutes from downtown Ojai. $697,500

Rancho Royale – Historic, 21-acre, remodeled and updated equestrian estate with four-bedroom main house plus eight rentals, 18-stall barn, 16-stall barn, 5 additional barns, 20 covered corrals, four arenas, two round pens, hay and equipment barns, three RV hookups, Preifert panel walker, entertainment barn, archery range, mountain views, and so much more RanchoRoyaleOjai.com

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Golden Oaks Glen - 3 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms, Spacious Primary Suite with 2 Vanities, Media Room, Two Fireplaces, Walk-In Pantry, Two Laundry Rooms, Over-Sized 2-Car Garage, Swimming Pool & Spa, Patio Fireplace, Built-in Grill with Bar, Family Orchard, RV Hookup & Much More $3,995,000

This downtown triplex with two units completed in 2024 offers a rare opportunity for an investment property, sharing the property with family or friends, or living in one unit and renting the others for rental income.

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OJAI, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER

20—21, 2024

A FUNDRAISER FOR THE OJAI VALLEY LAND CONSERVANCY

Lights, camera, conservation! This year, OVLC is celebrating its 10th anniversary of Mountainfilm on Tour. Join us on Saturday, September 21 at Ojai Valley School’s Lower Campus Sports Field for another fantastic year of films and fun! Experience the beauty of nature, the thrill of adrenaline-pumping adventures, and the power of environmental storytelling as we showcase a carefully curated selection of films from the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride.

TICKETS

Scan the QR code or visit ovlc.org to learn more and purchase tickets »

VIRTUAL AUCTION - RAFFLE - LIVE MUSIC - FOOD TRUCKS

All proceeds help protect & restore the natural landscapes of the Ojai Valley forever.

86

Ojai’s West Side Story

100 Years Ago, Ojai Planners Said “Go West!” By Mark

Lewis

98 France, But closer

Taking in the Sights, Sounds & Tastes of Old Quebec By Jerry

Dunn

The Gables at 70

Pioneering Facility in Small Town Gives Birth to Big Ideas

By Bret Bradigan

108 white Swan Event

Big Birds Make Annual Stop at Lake Casitas By Chuck Graham

The Prayers of the Mad Housewife By Sami Zahringer

BOUTIQUE ORGANIC CITRUS RANCH

On 40 prime East End acres, this unique citrus ranch has fabulous Topa Topa views, four legal houses, a 2800 sqft barn, and 36 acres of organic orchard. One of the best wells in Ojai provides reliable income from 6000 Valencia trees, 2000 Pixie trees and 200 pecan trees. The remodeled 3500sqft, 3bd/2.5ba main house, built in 1917, has beautiful views from nearly every window. The 3 auxiliary houses provide great rental income. Includes a top-of-the line submersible pump, extensive water infrastructure, 2 Casitas water meters, 40kw of solar panels, 4 commercial wind machines, a John Deere tractor and a Gator.

3359ReevesRoadOjai.com

STORY BY BRET BRADIGAN

From its role as the birthplace of the AARP to its continuing legacy of compassionate care, Gables celebrates seven decades as a cornerstone of community and a beacon of innovation in elder care.

he Gables has much to celebrate this fall as it marks its 70th anniversary with a party on September 28. As one of the first innovative residential-care facilities in the country, it also gave rise to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the world’s largest nonprofit membership organization.

When Gables of Ojai (then Grey Gables) opened its doors in September 1954 as a retirement home for teachers, the average Social Security check was just over $40 a month, with no cost-of-living adjustments. Its founder, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, envisioned it as a model for dynamic, gracious living in retirement. She said, “We of Grey Gables are certain that this project can be a pilot one, the

GREY GABLES VAN

first perhaps of many to prove to the world that retirement can prove to be a dynamic adventure in gracious living.”

That ambitious goal was merely one among many, as Gables also became the founding headquarters in 1958 of the AARP, now with 38 million members. More than half of Americans over the age of 50 are members. From its inception at a dinner with six people at the Ojai Valley Inn, until the headquarters moved from Ojai to Long Beach in 1962, the AARP went from zero to 400,000 members. It was founded as a way to provide health insurance for retired teachers, then for all seniors, before becoming a powerful advocacy group.

Throughout these monumental achievements, Gables has never lost focus on the local mission, to provide a welcoming home and community for seniors.

Matteo DiGrigoli, executive director of Gables of Ojai, said, “We’ve got a lot to celebrate. We have absolutely brilliant people that work with us. Satellite engineers, master gardeners, admirals, amazing people. And the stories they have is incredible.”

The celebration will be filled with nostalgia and historical significance. From Dr. Andrus’s visionary beginnings, Gables has evolved from a pioneering retirement home into a vibrant community reshaping the aging experience in America.

ENTRANCE VIEW OF THE GABLES IN OJAI

David Brown, founder and CEO of Somera Capital, acquired Gables from AARP in 1999, marking 25 years of ownership. Brown stumbled upon Gables through a local banker. Discovering it was still owned by AARP, he said, “When we expressed interest in acquiring the property, they were unaware they even owned it.”

Realizing the facility was distant from their core mission, AARP decided to sell it due to liability and state licensing issues.

It took a lot of work to get the Gables back to Dr. Andrus’ original vision. “We did a lot of repairs,” Brown said. “Most of it was underground, in the drainage systems and supply systems. We really went after it, to bring it back to a state of operational health and over the years, it’s been a magical experience for us, to be able to, as Matteo put it, help so many seniors over the years and including my former grandmother-in-law.”

Brown took on the Gables project because of his love for Ojai. “I’m mostly in the hospitality business,” he said. “This was a local opportunity and this is my only local property aside from my home.”

Gables of Ojai is operated by Parsons Group, a family-owned company managing healthcare facilities across several states. Brown said that Parsons and Somera Capital are “joint-venture partners.”

GABLES LIFE FROM THE EARLY YEARS

DiGrigoli joined Gables in March 2022, just as it was emerging from the pandemic.

Growing up in Moorpark, DiGrigoli started as a driver at The Lexington, another assisted living facility. “I ended up loving the field, building relationships with residents and hearing their stories,” he said. His career progressed from dining room coordinator to executive director, a role he embraced after encouragement from his previous executive director.

“My executive director at the last place, said, ‘You know what? You would probably make a good administrator.’ I was a little closed off and introverted, so I attribute this field to making me the person that I am now, which I’m forever grateful for.”

When the Gables was founded in 1954, the emphasis for retired people wasn’t so much independent living of seniors in their homes as it is today, so the emphasis has shifted to deeper levels of care. But the original premise remains of active, intellectually engaged residents living in a situation as close to their homes as their needs allow.

DiGrigoli said there’s three phases for residents; independent living of retired persons, assisted living, and memory care. He and his team evaluate new residents for the best fit.

He and his team assess new residents to find their best fit. “We’ve evolved to provide a continuum of care,” he explained.

“We work with residents and families ... to create a specialized plan that helps the resident maximize their live while living at the Gables.”

Brown said, “In fact, the office building that was the NRTA (National Retired Teachers Association) and ultimately the AARP is now called The Garden. That’s where we have the memory care.”

Brown said that this big anniversary also feels like a celebration because of what the Gables went through during pandemic, when the heart-rending scenes of family visiting each other through glass and communicating through gestures. It was particularly hard on the staff, Brown said. “It was the testing that was required to allow caregivers to come in and that’s just not an option at our facility. We have to have these caregivers,” he said. This precarious situation with entries and visitors restricted continued for months, well into 2021, then they came back with a fury during the Delta variant later in 2021. “It was a frightening, very difficult period.”

“I remember when the vaccines first came out, and we all met with the county and Community Memorial Hospital. At the outset it was somewhat chaotic on how they were going to deliver and distribute the vaccine but the administrator of the hospital here in Ojai, (Haady Lashkari, Ojai podcast ep. 130), he was magnificent. I reached out to him and he stepped up.” In fact, he brought the vaccines to the facility. “And that’s what really helped us,” Brown said. “It was a tremendous, tremendous success.”

The grounds of Gables of Ojai are a place of pride for staff, residents and even passersby. The rose gardens are locally renowned, and Brown said that Dr. Andrus encouraged the early residents to plant trees from their former homes “from Chicagoland, and back in the Midwest, from all over to plant trees and it’s become a botanic garden. An arborist used to walk his dogs through the grounds and decided to tag all the trees, did a study and created a catalog of all the unique trees in this area. It’s stunning.”

GABLES, ARTIST RENDERING

The Gables’ 70-year journey is a testament to the changing perceptions of aging in America. Dr. Andrus’ original vision was grounded in the belief that aging should not mean a decline but rather a transition to a different phase of life, rich with possibilities.

The Gables has embodied this philosophy by offering a range of activities and programs that encourage engagement, learning, and social interaction. From art classes and fitness programs to intergenerational activities, Gables of Ojai has consistently provided opportunities for its residents to thrive.

The Gables’ 70-year journey underscores the changing perceptions of aging in America. Dr. Andrus’s vision of aging as a phase rich with opportunities continues to thrive at The Gables, which offers a variety of activities to foster engagement and learning. “It’s a treasure,” said Brown, “something I feel deeply blessed to be part of.”

GABLES - FOUNDING MANIFESTO.

NOTE: SOME PHOTOS AND INFORMATION ARE SOURCED FROM CRAIG WALKER’S BOOK “ETHEL PERCY ANDRUS: ONE WOMAN WHO CHANGED AMERICA”

Williamson VanKeulen Real Estate Family

FIND YOUR PIECE OF PARADISE

We’re an award-winning family of real estate agents who build lasting relationships by not only helping our clients find their dream home, but also providing them with valuable insights, resources, and services that enable them to seamlessly integrate into the Ojai community. As a mother/daughter business, our clients benefit from our combined experience in real estate, hospitality and interior design, as well as the convenience of having a team of knowledgeable agents at their service throughout the process.

Williamson & Cassandra VanKeulen

STORY BY MARK LEWIS

IDE

EDWARD & FLORENCE LIBBEY

OJAI THIS YEAR

celebrates its sesquicentennial, 150 years having passed since the town was founded in 1874. But 2024 also marks the centennial of a less storied year which deserves to be better remembered. The events of that year comprised Ojai’s great westward lurch of 1924, when a tiny community huddled in the middle of the valley floor suddenly tripled in size.

When Ojai formally incorporated as a city in 1921, it comprised less than two square miles and fewer than 750 residents. It amounted to little more than today’s downtown district plus a few streets north and south of the main drag.

To the northwest, a line of rich men’s winter residences stretched northward along Foothill Road toward the opulent Foothills Hotel. In the foothills further to the northwest lay the hot springs resorts, Wheeler’s most prominent among them. Directly west of the town, beyond the city limits, were apricot orchards, walnut groves, the occasional farmhouse, and the late John Meiners’ enormous hog farm, now operated by his heirs. Beyond that farm lay the Ventura River, and beyond the river lay a mountainous backcountry wilderness, stretching all the way to Santa Barbara and the sea.

But by 1924, newly paved roads were extending in every direction: zig-zagging up Dennison Grade and all the way south to Santa Paula; and pushing northwest to Wheeler’s Hot Springs. The most significant new artery was the Grade Road, approved in 1917, which made its way from Ventura to Ojai via the Ventura River Valley. Before that, people coming here from Ventura traveled along what is now Creek Road, which funneled them into the heart of downtown Ojai. The Grade Road theoretically had opened up the West Side to development. But as 1924 began, things were only just beginning to change.

Our narrative blends the origin stories of the Arbolada, the Ojai Valley Inn, the Ojai Valley School, Villanova Prep, the Kroto-

EDWARD DRUMMOND LIBBEY

must have smiled on the morning of Feb. 8, 1924, when he spied the prominent ad placed in the local newspaper by his friends at the Ojai State Bank. “The City of Ojai Could Be Twice Its Present Size,” read the headline, over ad copy that urged people to buy lots in Ojai and build houses on them.

As it happened, Libbey had some lots for sale. His dream was to turn Ojai into a major winter resort for rich Easterners like himself, creating a colony big enough and grand enough to rival those in Montecito and Pasadena. To this end, he was offering empty lots in a leafy district west of town, which he had developed into a lovely, planned neighborhood of winding streets and picturesque vistas. He called it the Arbolada. If filled up with new houses, it would indeed double the town’s footprint.

Alas, sales had been very disappointing at Libbey’s downtown

na Institute of Theosophy, Rancho Matilija, the entire town of Meiners Oaks — and, oh yes, the Ku Klux Klan.

land office across Ojai Avenue from the El Roblar Hotel. Since 1921 he had spent lavishly to advertise the new development. He had also brought in the noted Santa Barbara architect George Washington Smith to design three impressive spec houses in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, to match the Spanish-style village Libbey had created in downtown Ojai.

“And we’ll build just as many more as they will buy,” Libbey’s real estate advisor assured the Santa Barbara Morning Press.

Three years later, those three original Smith houses remained the

only ones in the neighborhood. But Libbey was not giving up. In 1924, he planned to relaunch his development with another massive ad campaign. To further boost its appeal, he had given a nearby tract of land to the Ojai Valley School, a private boarding school inspired by progressive educational principles that appealed to many wealthy parents. The school had opened in 1923 using mostly borrowed buildings, but it now was in the process of erecting its own campus on the land Libbey had donated on El Paseo Road.

Furthermore, Libbey was about to unveil his piéce de résistance. On Feb. 15, the brand-new Ojai Valley Country Club opened its doors for the first time and invited local duffers to its try out its splendid new golf course, designed by the famous course architect George C. Thomas Jr. (Only the front nine holes were open that day; the back nine was still under construction.) Newspapers from L.A. to Santa Barbara acclaimed the 200-acre club as a masterpiece, both for its course and for its beautiful clubhouse, designed by the soon-to-be-famous architect Wallace Neff in (of course) the Spanish Colonial Revival style. Libbey hosted a swanky dinner there on Feb. 22, amid universal agreement that he was about to make Ojai as famous for golf as it already was for tennis.

ARBOLADA SPEC HOUSE BY GEORGE WASHINGTON SMITH

“Here is a magnificent course laid out in picturesque rolling hills far from the center of civilization,” gushed the Los Angeles Examiner. “Here is an artistic clubhouse overlooking the entire valley. … Most important of all here is a club without the faintest touch or flavor of promotion or commercialization.”

In point of fact, Libbey very much intended to use the new club to promote his neighborhood development project. He had asked both Neff and G.W. Smith to draw up plans for a new resort hotel that Libbey planned to erect near the new Country Club, the better to lure more Eastern industrialists to Ojai and sell them plots in the Arbolada.

A possible site for this hotel was already in the hands of Libbey’s allies John J. Burke and Boyd Gabbert, Ojai real estate men who along with a third investor had purchased the 131-acre Hobson Ranch, immediately to the west of the new golf course. But Libbey’s projected hotel would never rise on that site, for a different buyer soon emerged: The Roman Catholic Church.

THE MOST REVEREND

John J. Cantwell, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles and San Diego, was a man with a problem. The great Southern California population boom of the 1920s was in full swing, and the entire Midwest, it seemed, was packing its bags and moving west. Among these sunshine-seeking migrants were tens of thousands of Catholics. Cantwell needed many more priests, nuns, churches and parochial schools to serve them all.

“We keep growing here by leaps and bounds,” he wrote to the Augustinian Order in Pennsylvania, proprietors of Villanova College. “There is a need in every diocese, room for a zealous, devoted religious community.”

Cantwell’s diocese included Ventura County, where an Oxnard businessman named Joseph D. McGrath was the bishop’s main fundraiser. The diocese already had a boarding school for girls in Los Angeles, but McGrath and the bishop agreed that they needed one for boys as well. McGrath knew the perfect place for it: the Ojai Valley, already home to “the famous Thacher School for Boys,” as Cantwell described it to the Augustinians. One visit to Ojai was all it took to persuade the bishop that McGrath was right.

“This valley, to my mind, is admirably suited for a Catholic preparatory school and college,” Cantwell told the Augustinians.

“We need in this diocese very badly a boarding school for boys of

well-to-do parents.”

Cantwell shrewdly guessed that the Augustinians would seize an opportunity to plant their flag in California and thus pull even with the Jesuits, who already had established Santa Clara College in the Bay Area. Cantwell pitched the Ojai Valley as the site of a vast Augustinian complex, comprising not only a prep school but a Villanova College of the west. But where to build it?

As it happens, John J. Burke was a Catholic, and very willing to forego his profit in selling the Hobson Ranch to the diocese. He also led the fundraising drive among the Ventura County faithful to underwrite the project. Burke’s friend Libbey, a non-Catholic, was expected to kick in $10,000 for the project, but he never did.

Nevertheless, Burke raised the money, with county Catholic luminaries Adolfo Camarillo, John Lagomarsino of the Bank of Italy (soon to change its name to the Bank of America), and Margaret Clark Hunt, expert equestrian of the Thacher School, among the contributors.

Meanwhile the Augustinian Order sent Father John Howard west to take over as parish priest of Ojai’s St. Thomas Aquinas Church, and also as headmaster of the future boarding school. Initially it was dubbed the Augustinian Academy, but eventually they settled a different name: The Villanova Preparatory School for Boys.

BISHOP JOHN JOSEPH CANTWELL

On Dec. 21, 1923, Bishop Cantwell, McGrath, Lagomarsino and others met with Burke and Father Howard at the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Hall (now the Ojai Valley Museum’s rotating gallery) to seal the deal. After inspecting the Hobson Ranch site, they adjourned to the El Roblar Hotel, just down the street, where Burke hosted them for dinner. Then they crossed t’s and dotted i’s for another two months until the deed finally was signed on Feb. 20, five days after Libbey’s Ojai Valley Country Club first opened its doors.

Father Howard hired the noted L.A. architect Albert C. Martin to design an expansive campus featuring a high school on one side and a college on the other. Martin was a versatile architect who had designed the neoclassical Ventura County Courthouse (now Ventura City Hall) and who later would contribute to the design of L.A.’s iconic Art Deco city hall. But in Ojai he subordinated himself to the Spanish style established by Libbey’s original architects, Richard Requa and Frank Mead.

So, with the Hobson Ranch already claimed by the Catholics for their new school, where might Libbey situate his future resort hotel? How about the Kerfoot place, just west of the Hobson property? Sorry, already taken.

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI

was so upset that he had to unburden himself in a long letter addressed to his “beloved mother,” Annie Besant, the president of the Theosophical Society. Krishnamurti, whom Besant was promoting as the organization’s future “World Teacher,” had been living in Ojai’s East End on and off or two years, and he had come to cherish the isolated Ojai Valley as a peaceful refuge from the pressures that came with being the Theosophists’ anointed messiah. Now, in mid-January 1924, he had just learned that the head of the Krotona Institute of Theosophy, A.P. Warrington, was planning to uproot that organization from Hollywood and move it to Ojai.

Two days earlier, Warrington had presented Krishnamurti with fait accompli.

“He told me that he had sold [Krotona’s Hollywood property] and that he had a ninety days option on a piece of property here in Ojai,” Krishnamurti wrote to Besant, who resided at the society’s international headquarters in India.

Warrington’s chosen site was the Kerfoot property in the valley’s

West Side, about five miles from Krishnamurti’s home on McAndrew Road.

“I feel strongly that if he comes at all to Ojai it would be infinitely better if he came to our end of the valley,” Krishnamurti told Besant. He felt that the East End was “more magnetized” that the West End. His preference, however, was that Warrington not come at all.

But Warrington was a man facing enormous problems, and moving to Ojai offered him a way out.

Until relatively recently he had headed the Theosophical Society’s American Section, for which he had built a splendid headquarters complex in Hollywood’s Beachwood Canyon. That complex, which he had dubbed Krotona, also housed the society’s Esoteric School, a related but separate organization that trained Theosophical evangelists to spread the word about the coming golden age. Political infighting among various Theosophist factions had led to Warrington’s ouster as American Section president in 1920. The new president had moved the American Section headquarters from Hollywood to Chicago.

But Warrington still headed the Esoteric School and he still controlled Krotona, which had gained enormously in real-estate value since he had acquired the land in 1912. With Besant’s somewhat reluctant approval, and over Krishnamurti’s vehement objections, Warrington sold the Hollywood property at a huge profit, bought the Kerfoot property at a much lower price point, and hired the architect Robert Stacy-Judd to design Krotona’s new complex in Ojai.

(Stacy-Judd was known as a pioneer of the exotic-looking Mayan Revival style, which seemed perfect for the Esoteric School. But this was Ojai, so the architect conformed to Libbey’s preferred Spanish Colonial Revival style.) Warrington announced the move to Ojai in a Theosophical Society magazine in April 1924.

“The new site consists of a ridge rising out of the floor of the valley to a height that commands the entire valley and is indeed a place of peace and loveliness,” he wrote.

And so the not-yet-built Villanova Preparatory School for Boys acquired as a neighbor to its west the not-yet-built Krotona Institute of Theosophy. And Ojai’s “Westward Ho!” movement had not yet run its course. Beyond Krotona lay the 1,200-acre Meiners Ranch, where John Meiners’ heirs had noticed that the drift of development was heading their way. They stopped butchering

hogs, conveyed their grandfather’s property to a new legal entity called the Ojai Land and Development Co., and made plans to subdivide it.

Still further west, across the river, Santa Barbara developer John D. Burnham had recently acquired a large acreage in the northern Santa Ana Valley. He rechristened it Rancho Matilija and started lobbying the county to build a paved road in that direction. (That road is still there, and you know it well: Burnham Road.)

Not all the news was encouraging that spring. In those days, Ojai Day was held in April rather than October, and in 1924 the festivities were mostly washed out by a heavy rain. What events could be salvaged were moved inside the Isis movie theater (now the Ojai Playhouse). It had been a very dry winter, so the late-season rain was welcome, but people regretted the loss of Ojai’s homegrown holiday.

Later that same month, the famed Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament was cancelled due to a statewide outbreak of hoof-andmouth disease among cattle, which led to quarantine restrictions that made travel difficult. For the first time since its founding in 1896, the prestigious annual tournament was not held.

Nevertheless, people remained excited about Ojai’s sudden westward expansion.

“Great possibilities are apparent,” The Ojai newspaper commented on April 4, after reporting the news about Krotona. The Theosophists’ move to the Ojai Valley “signifies the bringing of more families to our midst, and the adding of a greater charm to our valley by artistic development.”

But not everyone in the valley was thrilled about the coming of Krotona — or of Villanova. Both these sites would be outposts

of religious organizations that emphasized exotic rituals conducted by leaders dressed in elaborately fancy costumes. This sort of thing struck many Protestant Americans as weird and scary. Scarier still, both Catholics and Theosophists answered to non-American masters in far-off lands. Many non-Catholics and non-Theosophists in Ojai were relieved to find, in that spring of 1924, that there was a native-born organization that also emphasized exotic religious rituals featuring people in fancy costumes, but which answered only to homegrown American leaders. It was called the Ku Klux Klan.

“IN THE CLEAR

moonlight evening at the foot of the hills back of Ojai, on the Ayers ranch, knights of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan gathered for an open meeting and the initiation of 56 new members,” the Oxnard Press-Courier reported on Nov. 29, 1923. “The meeting was conducted in the light of a huge fiery cross some 30 feet in height, with a cross arm of about 12 feet.”

A hooded man identified as “the Exalted Cyclops” presided. The cross was erected somewhere near the present Ayers Street, northeast of downtown, and was visible from miles away.

“Hundreds of automobiles containing Klansmen and curious spectators encircled the ceremonial grounds,” the newspaper reported. “People from Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Barbara and other towns were present to witness the ceremonies.”

The original Klan, founded by ex-Confederates in the aftermath of the Civil War, used terror to enforce white supremacy in the South, and faded away after Reconstruction ended. The second Klan was founded in Georgia in 1915, inspired by D.W. Griffith’s massively popular film “The Birth of a Nation,” which por-

LEFT TO RIGHT: JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI (PHOTO BY WITZEL), A.P. WARRINGTON, ANNIE BESANT

trayed the original Klansmen as heroes. (The movie was partly filmed in the Ojai Valley.)

This new Klan burst out of the South in the early 1920s to become popular and powerful across much the country. Like the first Klan, the second Klan was a white supremacist organization, and a Christian Nationalist one too. But, outside of the South, the second Klan did not devote itself primarily to lynching Black people. It focused more on demonizing immigrants — especially Catholic and Jewish immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.

These neo-Klansmen associated Catholics with corrupt big-city political machine such as New York’s Tammany Hall, and with bootlegging big-city mobsters like Chicago’s Al Capone. Many Klansmen were churchgoing Protestants who strongly supported Prohibition, and were shocked that the new law was being openly flouted.

In Ojai, local Klansmen included many prominent members of the village’s business elite. They had happily worked with Catholics like John J. Burke and county supervisor Tom Clark to build up the town, but now they were supporting the Klan-backed Good Government League, which was running Ojai’s R.J. Dennison against Clark in the August election. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Tom Clark’s brother, Ventura County Sheriff Bob Clark, staged a well-publicized raid on an illegal still operating in the Ojai area, to demonstrate that the Clarks were no friends of bootleggers.)

Given the tenor of the times, it’s easy to see how Bishop Cantwell’s project – building a major Catholic boarding school and college in Ojai — might have ruffled feathers in the town’s more Klan-friendly precincts. Worse yet, perhaps, was A.P. Warrington’s project to create a secretive temple devoted to the “esoteric” wisdom of the mysterious East, in a bid to boost the messiah prospects of the dark-skinned gentleman from India who had taken up residence in the East End.

Most local newspapers tended to ignore or downplay the Klan. As Krotona neared completion that August, the Ventura Weekly Post welcomed the Theosophists’ project as the latest evidence of Ojai’s impressive growth spurt.

“Ojai is seeing more development the past few months than any other section of the county,” the Post reported.

“Krotona Hills, to the left of the motorist as he goes into Ojai, is one of the latest and most interesting developments. The construction work is nearly done, and it is expected that the personal property of the corporation will be moved up from Hollywood early in November and that all the houses will be occupied within a few weeks.”

The Ventura Morning Free Press struck a similar note:

“That the Ojai Valley is enjoying quite an industrial boom is evidenced from the large number of skilled mechanics and other labor that are employed in this section at this time, there being upwards of 175 men on six of the larger building and improvement projects, to say nothing of several smaller jobs now underway.

“There are some 60 mechanics and laborers working on the St. Augustine Academy building. Building Contractor Sam Hudiburg has over 30 on the Ojai Valley School dormitory building and the [Frank] Frost residence; there are 45 men working on the extensive Meiner ranch improvement; 20 men are employed on the oil well rig on the Matilija rancho, and some 15 on the golf course of the Ojai Valley Country Club.”

KLAN INITIATION, SANTA PAULA, 1924

FROST HALL, OJAI VALLEY SCHOOL

Hudiburg was prospering so mightily from Ojai’s boom that he recently had bough t himself a brand new Hupmobile touring car. Yet Hudiburg too had joined the Klan. Just how many Ojai people had signed up for the Invisible Empire became obvious on Election Day, when Clark barely survived the Klan’s effort to unseat him.

“Tom Clark, veteran of the Ojai district, who has been on the Board of Supervisors for 20 years, had the race of his life this time, but in the parlance of the racetrack, he nosed out a victory,” the Simi Valley Star reported. “There was a heavy vote cast in the district, Clark receiving 426 and Dennison 414. Dennison had the endorsement of the so-called Good Government League.”

The Good Government ticket “had its inception in Santa Paula and was sponsored by the Klan,” the Weekly Post reported. “The ticket received much stronger support in Santa Paula than in any part of the county, with Ojai coming second.”

What explains the Klan’s relative popularity in Ojai in 1924? It likely arose from the misguided fear that a small, mostly white, majority Protestant community was about to be swamped by a massive influx of beer-swilling Catholics and idol-worshipping Theosophists. Nevertheless, there were no lynchings here, and no angry mobs interfering with the construction crews at Krotona or Villanova. And, although the Klansmen didn’t know it, the KKK already had reached its apogee as a factor in national politics. Earlier in 1924, Congress had passed a law greatly restricting immigration, which basically gave the Klan what it most wanted. By the end of the ‘20s it was a spent force outside of the South.

(Hat tip to Ojai historian Craig Walker for generously sharing his “KKK in Ojai” research with the OQ.)

By mid-fall, the great Ojai building boom of 1924 was winding down. The Ojai Valley School had begun its second school year with its new dormitory completed and chock full of boarding

students. (Scandalously, this building designed by Wallace Neff on land donated by Edward Libbey did not follow the prescribed Spanish Colonial Revival style.) Krotona had completed its move from Hollywood. The Ojai Valley Country Club had become a regular stop on the Southern California golf circuit. And in October, the Villanova Preparatory School for Boys welcomed its first 15 students to their dormitory in not-quite-finished Cantwell Hall.

The boys entered the building to find that painters were still applying the final coat to the walls, and that their dorm beds had not yet been delivered. Father Paquette, the Latin and mathematics instructor, was listening to the World Series on his homemade radio, so the boys gathered around him to enjoy one of the most dramatic seventh games in Series history. Pitcher Walter Johnson, “The Big Train,” entered the game in relief for the Washington Nationals in the 9th and held the mighty New York Giants scoreless into extra innings, until the Nationals finally scored the winning run in the bottom of the 12th.

The drama continued late that night when the truck with the furniture kits finally arrived. The sleepy boys assembled their beds and turned in. Classes began three days later, on October 12.

The following month, the Ojai Ranch and Development Co. threw a big barbecue and dance in Meiners Oaks to lure prospective lot-buyers. According the “The Ojai Valley: An Illustrated History” by Patricia L. Fry, people came from all over the county and as far away as Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

“To encourage their guests to really get out and look the place over,” Fry wrote, “promoters buried tin cans containing $5 to $20 in gold.”

The Meiners Oaks developers took a different approach than Libbey did with his Arbolada. They marketed small lots at affordable prices to middle-class buyers who were encouraged to build vacation cabins amid the oak trees. But many early buyers

KROTONA LIBRARY

CANTWELL HALL, VILLANOVA

were Theosophists who wanted to live near Krotona and Krishnamurti, so they instead built houses to live in full time.

“Ojai Valley is rapidly coming to the front and if development continues in that section Ojai will soon be one of the leading communities of the county,” the Oxnard Press-Courier reported on Nov. 29. “Activity is seen [in Meiners Oaks] every Sunday when large crowds visit the tract.”

Elsewhere in the valley, the Press-Courier noted, “there was a great celebration last Sunday” when Bishop Cantwell came up from L.A. to formally dedicate the new Villanova Prep campus. Of further note: “A.P. Warrington, president of Krotona, is expected in Ojai within the next month to take over actual management of the settlement which contains an administration building and several cottages.”

The story also mentioned that Libbey was negotiating with an unnamed party to build that big new hotel as part of the Arbolada relaunch.

“Now comes the report from Ojai that E.D. Libbey’s lands on the [west] side of town will be subdivided into acre tracts and placed on the market at fancy prices,” the newspaper continued. “It is expected that as this scheme gets under way many new homes will be built in Ojai.”

The scheme in fact was already well underway. Libbey had kicked things off earlier in the fall by arranging for a lavish spread in a national magazine.

“An artistic section of 20 pages, liberally illustrated, describing the beauties of Arbolada, in the Ojai valley, is a feature of the September issue of Country Life,” the Santa Barbara Morning News reported. “The section, which sets forth ‘the tale of a town reborn,’ and extends an invitation to ‘share in a discovery,’ was written … at the instance of Edward Drummond Libbey, the patron of Arbolada. The point stressed in the story is that though Arbolada is not ‘philanthropy,’ it also is not intended for a mere ‘profit-making enterprise.’ In fact, according to the writer, ‘profit is not a primary consideration.’”

HE GOT THAT RIGHT,

and not just because Libbey never made a dime off the Arbolada. Libbey was not motivated by greed; he was already fabulously rich, and he had spent a great deal of his own money to transform downtown Ojai into a charming Spanish-style village, in the spirit of the “City Beautiful” movement. Nevetheless his plans didn’t pan out in the Arbolada, which remained mostly

undeveloped for decades. The last lot was not sold until 1958, and when you drive through the place today, you will see modest ranch-style houses as well as imposing Spanish-style mansions. Libbey would have ground his teeth at the sight, but he never got the chance to see it. He died at 71 in November 1925, when the Arbolada was still almost entirely empty.

Libbey never built that big hotel either. The Ojai Valley Country Club remained primarily a golf course through the 1920s; went out of business during the Depression; reopened in the late ‘30s with a small hotel attached to Libbey’s original clubhouse; and finally was taken over by the Army as a training camp during World War II. Only in 1947 did it finally begin to fulfill Libbey’s hopes for it, when it reopened as the Ojai Valley Inn.

Libbey’s dreams were not the only ones to be deferred as the 1924 boom ground to a halt. Bishop Cantwell’s hoped-for Catholic university never rose on the Villanova campus, although the prep school, now co-ed, continues to thrive there. (As does the nearby Ojai Valley School on the land Libbey gave it.)

John D. Burnham sold Rancho Matilija in 1927 when it was still just a ranch; not until the 1980s did the current gated community began to take form.

Krotona remains in place atop its hill as a Theosophical Society outpost, and other projects with theosophical roots still dot the local landscape. But A.P. Warrington’s and Annie Besant’s fondest hopes for Krotona and for Ojai more generally were dashed in 1929 when Krishnamurti split with Theosophy to become a freelance philosopher.

Meiners Oaks, like the Arbolada, took longer than expected to fill up. But it turned out that selling lots at affordable prices was a better strategy than Libbey’s, and by the early 1950s Meiners Oaks had a larger population than Ojai proper. That is no longer the case today, but Meiners Oaks did inspire the development of the Ventura River Valley, with Oak View and Mira Monte

joining the string of unincorporated, working-class communities that sprang up in the ‘20s to provide homes for Ventura Oil Field workers and their families. These communities today comprise Ojai’s populous (and no longer especially affordable) West Side.

As for the Ku Klux Klan, its Ojai contingent seems to have retired their hoods by the end of 1924, and that’s probably not a coincidence. Ojai’s great westward boom of ’24 apparently had stirred up fears that the community would soon be transformed beyond recognition by migrants of a different sort than those who

had founded it exactly 50 years earlier. The end of the boom saved Ojai from the fate of many small Southern California towns during the ‘20s, when mass migration turned Los Angeles into a metropolis that gobbled up the smaller towns in its orbit.

As the story of 1924 reminds us, migrant influxes wax and then wane, and building booms erupt and then fade. Ojai has managed to make it to its sesquicentennial year without being ruined by the great many changes that have taken place here since 1874. Here’s hoping that 150 years from now, this special community will still endure, in a form that we would recognize and cherish.

COLLAGE BY UTA RITKE

kim @ designstudioevolve.com www.designstudioevolve.com

STORY BY JERRY CAMARILLO DUNN, JR

I’ve been in eastern Canada, where people speak French (and I don’t). Join me, s’il vous plait, on a petit tour du Vieux-Québec, or Old Québec.

(Thank you, Google Translate.)

This historic neighborhood in Québec City is almost ridiculously romantic, and looks more French than France.

That castle-looking building on high is the world-famous Chateau Frontenac hotel. It was built during the 19th-century Romantic movement inspired by the Renaissance and Middle Ages. Architect Bruce Price’s design was both elegant and refined. (Not incidentally, he was the father of American etiquette maven Emily Post.)

Commercially, the grand hotel was intended to attract railroad passengers for luxury stopovers.

Today the Chateau Frontenac is said to be the most photographed hotel in the world. My wife, Merry, and I dutifully did our part.

Before arriving, I had run a background check on Québec. Although the name sounds quintessentially French, it actually derives from a Native word, kebec, that means “narrowing of the river.” (French Canadians are much nicer than Parisians when you make a hash of their≠language, but here’s a useful tip: The first syllable of Québec is pronounced like “kay” in “Okay.”)

Québec began more than 400 years ago with a settlement founded by Samuel de Champlain. Amazingly, this French navigator, cartographer, soldier and diplomat made something like 29 Atlantic crossings — in the early 1600s! The local Algonquin people

allowed him to build a small fort and trading post, and this tiny enterprise was the seed of New France.

Today the site of Champlain’s settlement is home to the houses and shops of Place Royale. The area is known as the Lower Town, because, well, it’s down below the Upper Town. On the spot where the city began stands Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, the oldest stone church in North America, dating to 1688. Just as Paris lies along the Seine, Old Québec lies on the St. Lawrence River. This historic waterway — sparkling in summer, choked with ice in winter — was a navigation route for early explorers

NOTRE DAME CHURCH SQUARE

such as Jacques Cartier in 1535. As of course we all remember from sixth-grade geography (?).

French charm surrounded us, especially in the Quartier Petit-Champlain, the heart of the Lower Town.

But not everything in Old Québec is Old World. On a leafy street we came across a piece of contemporary public art.

It appeared that the Canadian satellite Alouette had crash-landed on a parked sedan. A placard stated that this replica by artist Brandon Vickerd is “a metaphor for the unfulfilled promise of scientific advancement once heralded by modernism” and that the satellite “evokes a modern-day Icarus whose blind faith in technology led to his swift demise, sending him falling back to earth.”

Right.

Or maybe it’s just a really funny idea.

THAT PIECE PROMPTED US TO SEEK OUT

more Canadian creativity. At Québec’s Museum of Fine Arts, we discovered Jean Paul Lemieux’s masterful minimalist painting, The Express Train (1968).

Throughout the museum we observed that snow and ice are common themes in this northern land. One example: the Inuit art collection. Our favorite sculpture was a polar bear standing on its own reflection in the ice.

In the end, we came to see Old Québec itself as a work of art, particularly in the misty rain. And at night, the town lights itself up creatively.

FRENCH CHARM IN PETIT-CHAMPLAIN

THE EXPRESS TRAIN (JEAN PAUL LEMIEUX)

DECLARED A WORLD HERITAGE SITE BY UNESCO,

Old Québec is the only walled city north of Mexico. Nearly three miles of stone ramparts surround the historic core, separating it from larger, newer Québec City. The walls are pierced by strategically located gates.

During the 18th century, the English and French battled for this corner of the New World. Although the Brits won the territory in 1759, the French carried the day in important ways — language, culture and cuisine. Had it turned out differently, today Québec restaurants would be serving mushy peas and kippers. Instead, Old Québec is a top destination for fabulous food, both traditional French Canadian and contemporary, with more than 100 restaurants. When we dined out, our language skills served us well:

Waiter: “Madame has just ordered a braised shoe.”

Our first goal was to try a Québecois specialty called poutine, made with French fries, cheese curds, and hot gravy. A local resident, raising her eyebrows, had warned us:

“Poutine is like something you eat when you’re drunk at three in the morning!”

But we discovered that Old Québec serves variations that are less artery clogging. At an innovative fast-food spot called Le Chic Shack, we tried Poutine Forestiere, made with roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, wild mushroom ragout, aged cheddar, shallots, cheese curds and fresh herbs. It was a knockout for about $10 American. I also ordered a salted maple-caramel milkshake.

OLD QUEBEC RAIN

THE TOWN AS ART BY NIGHT

Then, like some Jekyll and Hyde character, I transformed into one of those pitiable creatures who take pictures of their food.

Another popular regional dish, pouding chomeur or “poor man’s pudding” (literally, “unemployed pudding”), isn’t actually pudding. It’s white cake baked with layered cream and brown sugar sauce, thereby including all the major food groups.

Omnivores visiting Old Québec can try exotic meats from local livestock farmers, including boar, caribou, and even emu. Being vegetarian-pescatarian types, we were glad to discover Québec’s wild salmon and regional vegetables, creatively presented at fine restaurants such as Legende and Chez Muffy.

At contemporary Chez Boulay we split two entrees: Atlantic cod poached in vermouth, and pearl barley croquette with herbs. Both were accompanied by green vegetables with sweet gale (a fragrant bog shrub), pea purée and sauce vierge (olive oil, lemon juice, chopped tomato and basil). We shamelessly mopped up the sauce with pieces of French bread. “Your plate,” Merry observed at the end, “looks like it had no food on it, ever.”

Dessert was a profiterole ball with caramel, spice ice cream, and maple. “I just want one bite,” Merry said before I ordered. “Let me write that down,” I replied, “and have you sign it.”

ONLY EIGHT MILES OUTSIDE TOWN

awaited a natural wonderland – Parc de la ChuteMontmorency, a waterfall that’s higher than Niagara by more than 100 feet. We walked above the thundering cataract on a suspension bridge. At the bottom, locals had created fleeting graffiti using the logs that spill over the falls. And in winter, experienced ice climbers find the cascade transformed into a cliffside of frozen white.

In fact, wintertime is a huge deal in Old Québec. The Hotel

made entirely of ice and snow, is the only one of its kind

de Glace,

POUTINE, LE CHIC SHACK

POUDING CHOMEUR

MONTMORENCY FALLS

LOG GRAFFITI AT THE FALLS

THE FALLS IN WINTER

in North America. Visitors can sip a cocktail in a bar at minus 5°C, sleep in a room made entirely of ice, and tie the knot in a frost-covered chapel. There’s even an ice crystal chandelier.

Near the Chateau Frontenac, winter visitors to Old Québec can

hurtle down a toboggan slide that’s 800 feet long and 200 feet high, thereby turning the deep-freeze weather into fun.

Resolved: Merry and I will return to Old Québec in winter, perhaps to skate amid the twinkling magic of the old town.

SNOWY FUN ON A TOBOGGAN SLIDE

ICE HOTEL WINTER MAGIC IN OLD QUEBEC

COMPASS POINTS

TO DO:

➞ VISITOR INFORMATION: www.quebecregion.com/en

➞ MUSEE NATIONAL DES BEAUX-ARTS DU QUÉBEC, (Fine Arts Museum): 179 Grande Allée Ouest, 418 - 643 - 2150, www.mnbaq.org

Historical, contemporary, Inuit and decorative art.

STAY:

FAIRMONT LE CHATEAU FRONTENAC: www.fairmont.com

➞ Phone: 418 - 692 - 3861

➞ Reservations: 866 - 540 - 4460

➞ www.fairmont.com/frontenac-quebec

➞ 1 Rue des Carrières

In Upper Town; 611 rooms and suites; spa, indoor pool, casual and gourmet dining.

To illustrate the hotel’s scale, it has 7.5 miles of corridors and nearly 2,000 windows. (A plus: All room windows open for fresh air.) The hotel hosted crucial World War II strategy meetings between Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and the Canadian prime minister, and its guests have ranged from Queen Elizabeth to Paul McCartney.

In 1952 the Chateau Frontenac appeared as a looming noir presence in Alfred Hitchcock’s highly miss-able movie I Confess, starring Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter. In one scene, the two stars meet on a dock below the hotel.

STAY:

AUBERGE SAINT-ANTOINE:

➞ www.saintantoine.com

➞ Phone: 418 - 692 - 2211

➞ 8 Rue Saint Antoine

Artistic boutique hotel in the Lower Town; 95 individually designed rooms and suites, some with river views. Spa, yoga studio, Chez Muffy restaurant, displays of archaeological artifacts.

EAT:

CHEZ MUFFY:

➞ www.saint-antoine.com/chez-muffy

➞ Phone: 418 - 692 - 1022

Farm-to-fork restaurant where classical French meets Canadian cuisine in dishes such as grilled guinea fowl breast with asparagus, wild garlic, morels stuffed with lobster, olives, and sherry. Occupies an 1822 maritime warehouse.

LEGENDE: 255:

➞ www.restaurantlegende.com

➞ Phone: 418 - 614 - 2555

LE CHIC SHACK:

➞ lechicshack.ca

➞ Phone: 418 - 692 -1485

CHEZ BOULAY:

➞ www.chezboulay.com

➞ Phone: 418 - 380 - -8166

PAILLARD:

➞ www.paillard.ca

➞ Phone: 418 - 692 - 1221

OQ | ANIMAL NEIGHBORS

TURTLE CONSERVANCY turtleconservancy.org info@turtleconservancy.org.

LOCKWOOD ANIMAL RESCUE CENTER info@lockwoodarc.org phone: 661-220-5505

OJAI RAPTOR CENTER

HUMANE SOCIETY OF VENTURA COUNTY animals@hsvc.org phone: 805-646-6505 or 805-656-5031 ojairaptorcenter@gmail.com phone: 805-649-6884

The Turtle Conservancy, located in Ojai’s East End, is dedicated to protecting threatened turtles and tortoises and their habitats worldwide, and to countering the illegal trade in such animals, which is decimating their numbers. Working with partner organizations, they’ve purchased land and established preserves for endangered turtles in Africa, Asia and Mexico. They’ve established a captive breeding center with the ultimate goal of re-wilding species to their native habitats when it is safe to do so. The Turtle Conservancy depends on donations to fund its programs, and welcomes volunteers to help out with numerous projects at our Ojai facility.

CLOSED SINCE

PANDEMIC: The Lockwood Animal Rescue Center (LARC), founded by Dr. Lorin Lindner and Matt Simmons, offered a therapeutic work environment for returning combat veterans and a “forever home” to wolves, wolfdogs, coyotes, horses, parrots and other animals. Located on a 20-acre facility, they offered both the veterans and animals an opportunity to heal and thrive in a back-to-nature setting. “Though not open to the public, we cater to veterans suffering from trauma, and are welcome to participate in our work therapy program. We offer an immersion program for veterans to stay and participate, and to learn basic skills for caring for animals and self healing,” Dr. Lindner said.

ORC was founded and is directed by Kimberly Stroud, who started her training at the Raptor Rehabilitation and Release Program in 1992. In 2000 she went on to found Ojai Raptor Center. First and foremost, Ojai Raptor Center is a fully functional and permitted wildlife rehabilitation center, specializing in birds of prey. Every year they take in 500 to 1,000 sick, injured or orphaned birds (including many non-raptor birds, and a small percentage of mammals) with the hopes of rehabilitating them and releasing them back to the wild. Our four-acre campus is comprised of a medical room and hospital, as well as outdoor flights, aviaries and mews. The center also features the largest flight in California.

Nestled in the rolling hills of the Ojai Valley lies a 4.4-acre hidden haven for wayward animals.

Founded in 1932, the Humane Society of Ventura County has been serving not just the animals of the Ojai Valley, but all of the animals in Ventura County. Traditionally, an animal shelter is thought of as solely a place for animals to seek refuge until a permanent home can be found. While here at the Humane Society of Ventura County they provide this safe refuge, they also strive to remedy the greater problem of animal overpopulation, abuse and neglect.

Coyote Creek Overflow along Highway 150 was brimming during the height of winter 2022/23, and it still is today. Back-to-back wet winters have replenished creeks, rivers and

lakes in central and southern California. Coyote Creek and its southerly flow is one of several significant tributaries that feed Lake Casitas in Ojai. In February of 2023, while driving out to the Carrizo Plain National Monument

AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS, DRAKE ESTERO, POINT REYES

STORY AND PHOTOS BY CHUCK GRAHAM

from Carpinteria, where I live on the coast, the route from Highways 150 to the 33, and eventually the 166, has always been one of my favorite drives. The winding roads through Ojai, the Los Padres National Forest, and finally to the Cuyama Badlands are always diversely scenic.

While cruising along the lake, I always keep an eye out for wildlife. So, when I drove past the Coyote Creek Overflow, my periphery caught a flash of white on the glassy waters. It was worth stopping for at the next pullout. I ran back with my camera and discovered several American white pelicans strategically foraging in the serene overflow.

They appeared as if they had a well-designed plan. I was mesmerized by the synchronized herding attempted by the largest pelican in North America. In a tight half circle, they swarmed across the lake working side by side. They were foraging for fish and working as one.

AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN

AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS FORAGING AT LAKE CASITAS

LAKE CASITAS

SNOWBIRDS

After breeding, nesting, and rearing their young in places as far away as the southern regions of Canada, and pockets of the Lower 48 states such as Montana, Minnesota and Idaho, they migrate further south for the winter.

Many American white pelicans spend winter along the California Coast, but they steer clear of the Pacific Ocean.

They don’t dive in the ocean while soaring above like their small-

HARBOR SEALS, AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS

AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS, GUADALUPE DUNES

er cousin, the seafaring California brown pelican. Instead, they winter in the state’s many freshwater lakes, and in tranquil bays, flatwater rivers and teeming estuaries, resting on the surface of the water while plunging their long yellow beaks into the water to secure a meal.

They are able to stay very buoyant because they are specially equipped with subcutaneous air sacs in their chests that help maintain that buoyancy while swimming.

Besides Lake Casitas, over the years I’ve seen and photographed

them while kayaking the mouth of the Russian River, Elkhorn Slough in Monterey, Morro Bay, the Santa Clara River Mouth in Ventura, and out in the Colorado Desert at the Salton Sea in Southeastern California. The manmade Salton Sea is the Golden State’s largest lake. It attracts approximately 80 percent of the entire population of American white pelicans.

Large, chunky birds, American white pelicans possess up to a nine-foot-wide wingspan and are a beautiful species to marvel at. Their creamy white feathers and yellowish orange beaks stand out among the array of biomes they frequent for all seasons.

AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS, GUALALA RIVER, NORTH COAST

AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS, DRAKES ESTERO POINT REYS

DESERT STOPOVER

As weird and quirky as the Salton Sea is, the manmade lake in the southeast corner of California is one of the most important stopovers in the U.S. for migrating birds traveling on the Pacific Flyway.

Over 400 species of birds have been recorded in and around a body of water that is 25 percent saltier than the Pacific Ocean.

I’ve kayaked the 110 miles of brine coastline on five occasions. It’s starkly beautiful, barren, but the Salton Sea is shrinking. There is no natural ebb and flow. Water has evaporated there for decades and has reached an environmental tipping point. Still, the birds love it, especially American white pelicans. They arrive in winter by the hundreds, and despite the silence of the desert, there’s no mistaking when American white pelicans are on the water, splashing and bathing in water as thick as syrup.

The pelicans themselves are a unique contrast against the muted Chocolate Mountains to the east, and the daunting Santa Rosa Mountains to the west. By March, they are on the move again, flying northward returning to their breeding and nesting rookeries.

COOPERATIVE HERDING

The same foraging behavior I witnessed at the bottom of Coyote Creek, I also watched 70 miles west in the spring of 2021.

While strolling across the footbridge of Oso Flaco Lake in San Luis Obispo County, I saw five American white pelicans come together to work as one, foraging for fish in the tranquil waters of the freshwater lake.

Oso Flaco is Spanish for “Skinny Bear.” The pearly white pelicans swam across the shimmering lake in a tight, yet elegant unit. It almost looked balletic in fashion. Either side by side or

SALTON SEA, SUNSET

OSO FLACO LAKE, SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY

GUADALUPE NIPOMO SAND DUNES, NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

OSO FLACO LAKE, SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY

in a line or a floating semicircle, they glided across the water herding baitfish. When they came across a concentrated school of fish, they simultaneously plunged their long beaks into the water to feed.

After scouring the lake north of the footbridge, the band of five American white pelicans came across prey a bit larger than tiny baitfish. As the squadron of pelicans skimmed along and plunged their beaks into the water, one of the birds in the middle of the group rose out of the blue water with one fish only, but it was easily large enough to fill the entire pouch of an American White Pelican.

Not sure what type of fish it was, but it was golden and speckled in color.

The American white pelican acted as if it had just won the lottery, and a couple of the other pelicans immediately wanted its catch.

So much for working together on the lake.

Two of the fringe pelicans attacked their own kind attempting to wrestle the fish away with their scissor-like bills. American white pelicans are known for swiping food from other birds such as cormorants and herons.

At one point, one of the pelicans jumped on the back of the pelican in possession of the prize, pushing and holding it underwater while thrashing in a fury of white feathers. However, while maintaining possession of the fish, that pelican turned the tables on its attackers and again rose above the water, beak agape and revealing the fish resting in its pouch like a big hammock.

As it kept the thieves at bay, the pelican possessing the fish reared its head back, pointed its beak skyward, and swallowed the fish whole in one mighty gulp.

The only thing the other pelicans could do was watch. It took several moments for the pelican to choke down its catch.

Perhaps it was fatigued after fending off the other birds. Once it finished swallowing that fish, the satiated pelican returned to the four other American white pelicans. They banded together once again as if nothing had happened and continued rounding up fish on those cobalt blue waters.

One of North America’s largest birds is also one of the most gregarious. So, keep an eye out for them in the fall, winter, and spring on your favorite waterway that is not the ocean.

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JACALYN BOOTH

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DR. NANCY DOREO

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OQ | HEALING ARTS

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Cert. Hypnotherapist

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LAURIE EDGCOMB

Lic. Acupuncturist since 1986, voted best in Ojai! Natural medicine including Microcurrent, nutritional and herbal consultation, Facial Rejuvenation. LaurieEdgcomb.com 805-798-4148

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DR. AMY SCHLEGEL

L.Ac, DAOM offers options of Traditional Chinese Healing modalities such as massage, acupuncture, and Chi Nei Tsang energy work tailored to what works best with your body during each season. Specialties in Women’s Health and Neuromuscular Medicine. AmyAcupuncture.com (415) 690-3934

JULIE TUMAMAITSTENSLIE

Chumash Elder Consultant • Storyteller • Spiritual Advisor • Workshops Weddings & Ceremonies JTumamait@hotmail.com 805-701-6152

ADA and Medicare Card Holders and Seniors 65 and up are half price. Seniors 75 and over, Children under 45” tall and all Students are FREE. (Proper identification required for adults to receive discounts.)

The Ojai Trolley Service

The Ojai Trolley Service, established in 1989, is owned and operated by the City of Ojai. The Trolley provides daily fixed-route transportation to approximately 9,000 riders per month throughout Ojai, Meiners Oaks, and Mira Monte. The Trolley is a wellknown feature in the Ojai Valley, and in addition to the daily fixed-route services, participates in many local community events, fund-raising activities, community service, and educational functions.

Check out the smartphone app GoVCBus for stop-time arrival predictions.

1 SHELF ROAD 3.5mi

EASY | Elev. Gain: 200 ft | Overlooks downton Ojai.

2

RIVER PRESERVE 0-7mi

VARIES | Elev. Gain: ≤ 520 ft Wills-Rice Loop is the longest trail.

5

HORN CANYON 5.5mi

STRENUOUS | Elev. Gain: 1600 ft | Goes to the Pines.

8

ROSE VALLEY 1mi

EASY | Elev. Gain: 100 ft Rose Valley Falls.

3

PRATT TRAIL 8.8mi

STRENUOUS | Elev. Gain: 3300 ft | Goes to Nordhoff Peak.

6

COZY DELL 2.2mi

MODERATE | Elev. Gain: 740 ft | Cozy Dell Creek & Ridge.

9

SISAR CANYON 22mi

STRENUOUS | Elev. Gain: 4800 ft |Topa Topa Bluffs.

4

GRIDLEY TRAIL 6-12mi

MODERATE | 3 mi to Gridley Springs (Elev. Gain: 1200 ft) 6 mi to Nordhoff Peak.

7

MATILIJA CANYON 12mi

MODERATE | Elev. Gain: 1200ft | North Fork.

10

SULPHUR MTN. 22mi

MODERATE | Elev. Gain: 2300 ft | Sulphur Mountain Road.

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OJAI STUDIO ARTISTS TOUR | OCTOBER 12-14 | OjaiStudioArtists.org

SEPTEMBER 21

Mountain Film on Tour

Date: Saturday

Times: Gates open at 5 p.m.

Films start at 7: 15 p.m.

Location: Ojai Valley School’s Lower Campus sports field, 723 El Paseo Road

Contact: Adam@OVLC.org

The 10th annual Mountain Film brings together the best outdoor films to benefit the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy. Advance tickets are $35, $25 for OVLC members.

OCTOBER 12-14

Ojai Studio Artists Tour

Dates: Saturday to Monday Times: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Locations: More than 60 artist studios in the Ojai Valley. The event is headquartered at the Ojai Valley Museum, 130 West Ojai Avenue

Contact: OjaiStudioArtists.org

888-645-5006

Kickoff event Friday, Oct. 11 at the museum from 5 to 7 p.m.

OCTOBER 19

Ojai Day

Date: Saturday

Time: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Location: Libbey Park

Contact: OjaiDay.com

805-646-5581

OQ | EVENTS CALENDAR

sept - oct - nov

annual events

OJAI DAY | OCTOBER 19 | OjaiDay.com

The community comes together to celebrate each other. Activities include bounce houses, face painting, cultural activities, animal education, live music, car and trailer shows, food trucks and more.

OCTOBER 24-27

Ojai Storytellers Festival

Dates: Thursday to Sunday Times: Multiple Events Locations: Ojai Art Center & Libbey Bowl

Contact: OjaiStoryFest.org

This decades-old Ojai tradition begins with a Meet the Tellers reception Thursday, 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the Ojai Art Center.

THROUGH OCTOBER 31

SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS

Boccali’s Hayrides Times: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Location: Boccali’s Pizza & Pasta

3277 East Ojai Avenue

Contact: 805-646-6616

Boccalis.com

School and other groups by appointment.

THROUGH OCTOBER 31

Boccali’s Pumpkin Patch

Times: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Location: Boccali’s Pizza & Pasta

3277 East Ojai Avenue

Contact: 805-646-6616

PUMPKIN PATCH | THROUGH OCT. 31 | Boccalis.com

Boccalis.com. Seven days a week. An Ojai tradition since 1976.

OCTOBER 31 TO NOVEMBER 4

Ojai Film Festival’s 25th Anniversary Dates: Wednesday to Sunday Times: Varied

Locations: Varied

Contact: Info@OjaiFilmFestival.com

805-640-1947

Since 2000, the Ojai Film Festival has celebrated cinema with dozens of screenings and special events. Where indie filmmakers feel seen.

NOVEMBER 11-12

Holiday Home Tour & Marketplace

Dates: Saturday & Sunday Times: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Locations: Varied

Contact: Info@OjaiFestival.org 805-640-2094

The Ojai Music Festival has hosted tours of Ojai’s most distinctive, and distinguished, homes for 26 years.

— RECURRING EVENTS — THURSDAYS

Ojai: Talk of the Town Podcast

New episodes come out Thursday evenings through TheOjaiVortex.com newsletter. Sign up at OjaiHub.com for a free newsletter of Ojai events, news, arts, entertainment, history and culture. And podcasts.

BY SAMI ZAHRINGER

Commandments Pertaining to The Outing We Are About To Take to The Grocery Store, God Help Us.

A Housewife’s

Log

HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER, BUT ESPECIALLY THY

MOTHER WHO LOVES

YOU MORE THAN LIFE AND STATISTICALLY IS PROBABLY

Scream ye not for Lucky Charms for they are nought in my sight and are filled with satanic agents of preservation so devilish bad they are banned in the EU, Canada, Japan, and even unto all the BRIC countries. Scream ye not also for Pop Tarts for ye are absolutely not getting them and don’t even try me.

DOING THE BULK OF YOUR REARING AND CERTAINLY IS VERY TIRED.

Of the grapes of the vine in the fruit and veg. department steal ye not, for that is a heinous crime and thou will surely be judged and found wanting and sent away from this place to a dark, spidery place of gruel and hard floors and you are not yet potty trained so even a bucket would be a problem. Heinous means terrible by the way so thou canst stop sniggering, George.

Also, lick not the grapes and put them back, Charlotte, for that is just ick. In fact, just ignore the grapes entirely for verily did

I read with horror that seven children a year in California choke on them, if not halved (the grapes not the children), and I did read so upon the Internet from a reputable source with citations and everything, and I was sore afflicted with dreadful night imaginings of purple babies. Also, lick not the floor, Charlotte. Just, please.

While we are on the subject of the floor, fling thyself not onto it and jerk like some sort of victim of strychnine, nor wail thee unto the heavens for I shall heed thee not and that is one sure-fire way not to get Pop Tarts. No, thy sister’s hand did not brush yours, Louis, and neither is she gross. She is entitled to her half of the trolley and breathes she not the air on your side.

PUNCH HER AGAIN NOT, OR I SWEAR… !

While Mommy is talking to the deli man and thou are temporarily not in her sight, thou shalt not take off all the clothes in which mommy carefully clad you according to thine exacting instructions about how they must all be green. Thou shalt also not

try to clad your little sister in them. See how distressed she has become. Hear how she screams so. Observe all the judgy looks thy mother is getting from the other shoppers. Look ye well how ye have driven Mommy to the wine aisle.

In the wine aisle do not yell to all assembled that Mommy is getting her happy juice. Seriously. This might well drive m] Mummy to the gin aisle. Thou dost not want that.

Thieveth thou not a checkout-stand Twix and conceal it not up thine sweater for thy mother’s eyes are smart and quick and she wants not to have to speak to store security again. She wants that not very badly.

COMMANDMENTS FOR WHEN WE GET HOME AND I AM UNPACKING THE GROCERIES

Bother ye not the dog. The defeat and betrayal in his eyes as ye ride on his back for the 12th time this morning is heartbreaking. Paint ye not on the walls with the cat’s tail and mustard, nor cut her whiskers off with yonder safety scissors. She is too old and tired and so suddenly am I.

COMMANDMENTS PERTAINING TO INGESTING THINGS.

digest not any soil, nor yet pennies, nor Barbie shoes, nor laundry detergent, nor hair, nor valuable antique first editions.

Of the beasts of the field and the creatures of the sea you may eat but only if they are nitrate-free. Eat not ever of the octopus after that documentary which made Mummy cry. Of the cereals of the earth you may partake freely as long as they are whole-grain and stool-bulking, for a constipated child is sad and cranky. Remember last week? And eat thy crusts for they are sure to make thine hair curly. Of fruits and vegetables, haveth at it, but smoosh not bananas in thine hair. Nor smoosh the apple sauce, nor the kiwi fruit, nor the potato. Just generally smoosh ye not. Also fling ye not thine oatmeal for it sticks like yon leading superglue brand to the walls and there’s a bit I can’t get off the portrait of Granny without gouging a hole in her forehead. We are now just pretending she had a wart there. RIP Granny.

Of the beverages of the fridge you may have the orange one, the white one, but on no account the purple one. And woe unto thee o my children, if any of ye taketh the purple one into the sitting room. Dost thou know how much it costeth to get grape juice out

OQ | NOCTURNAL SUBMISSIONS

of a sheepskin rug? Dost thou? Canst thou remember why the rabbit is pink now unto all eternity? Nay, I thoughteth not. Ask ye not for Sloppy Joes for the millionth time because Mommy is too British for that and the best she can muster is a Disheveled James.

Pop not thy peas into thy milk and then pour the milk onto thine own head for this is an abomination to me. Defyeth me not on this a 14th time. Thou might not like defied me.

Mommy knoweth that the handmade quinoa ’n’ lentil burger she spent an hour making looks like a tenderized brake disc but do not scream about how it pleaseth ye not or that it smelleth like butts, nor make a face like a doomed goat and beg me to get it out of thine sight lest thou puke. Roll ye not thine eyes back into thine head for thou know how that freaks mommy out. Though won’t thou just try a tiny forkful if I fly it into your mouth like an F-15 fighter jet? OK. Right. I should have taken thou at thine word about the puke.

teth to remove the fork? Oh dear God, the blood…

And after the time of eating, and the ambulance, and the ER and the Child Protective Services interview, when, finally we are back at home and I get to go to the bathroom but speedeth back to the sitting room almost immediately because it got all too quiet; and when my haggard visage pales and I sayest to thou “O child, what is this thou has done?”, point then NOT at your sister and say she did it because thou art the one with feathers and glue all over thou and thou art the one holding the scissors amid the wreckage of the suede ottoman which was once so lovely to look and sit upon and which was actually a wedding present from thine aunt who works in Manhattan and hath excellent taste.

The number of the peas eaten will be a minimum of five or of dessert shall there not be any. None. A black echoing void shall there be where dessert was. The number of the peas shall be five at least and five shall be the number of the peas. Three peas is as low as I will go and that’s final. OK two, but thou should be aware that children who do not eaten the peas lovingly prepared by their mother do thrive not and grow pale and wither away such that they are too weak, yea, even to hold their dessert spoons, even if the dessert is sticky toffee pudding. Secretly feed not the dog thy peas for I have eyes that are not only quick and smart but in the back of my head and I will know of your transgression and will practice admirable but very difficult to maintain consistency in my dessert threats, and a pushover am I certainly not.

Eat ye not of the bib or of the table-edge or of my cell phone or of your brother. Show your brother not what is in your mouth especially if it is the food thou hast just pilfered from him. Pilfer not thy brother’s sustenance, yea even if he hath pilfered yours yesterday. Stab ye not thy brother in the head with your safety fork, and now lo, even as I have said it, it has come to pass…

Freak not out at the blood on thy brother’s temple gushing now onto his romper. I will perform thy freaking out for you. Canst thou at least stop screaming while Mommy calls 911 and attem-

Call your sister not a booger-head and speak no falsities about how it was her idea. She is two. Ask not for whom the naughty step awaits. It awaits for thee.

Thou that was rich in toys and crayons, where now are thy playthings? In the cupboard, that’s where until thou canst learn to heed the word of thy mother: thy mother who is exceeding wroth right now and on whose last frayed nerve thou dangerously danceth; thy mother who is wise and knowledgeable in all things except getting a good wing on my eyeliner, or signing my name with a sophisticated grown-up flourish, or 401K stuff; thy mother whose word thou must heed eternally for she sayeth so and she is thy mother. And one day hence, a great age from now, thou will beget thine own children and lo, if they are as naughty as thou, verily thou will see-est what I mean. And wryly then will I chuckle.

And at night, after bath, and story and unexpected vomiting of stolen Twix and second bath and second story, ask ye not why I have suddenly taken up smoking for the first time at age 32 and also ask not why it smells like that time the dog got sprayed by a skunk. Look, just ask ye not, OK?

Why is Mommy exceedingly giggly?, thou might asketh? Well, o my children, mine own loinfruit, the apples of mine eye, dearer to me than mine own heartbeat and mine 1891 Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. 1st edition “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” before the chewing, thy mother is sore wearied and bloodied and hath Pop Tart in her hair and is now just waxing hysterical merry, for verily one might as well laugh as cry. Slumberest now, dearest loinfruit, for I do love thee mightily but now I just desireth to collapse and watch my program.

ULTRA LUXURIOUS EAST END ESTATE

Everything about this private estate has been refined and perfected to create one of the most magnificent properties in Ojai. On 9+ acres with truly exquisite gardens, the entire property has awesome views of the valley and mountains to the west. The compound includes a main house, a guest house, a studio, a pool, 2 greenhouses, an entertainment barn, a pool house, a brand new tennis court with pavillion, solar and a well. Every location takes full advantage of the natural beauty and each detail has been finished with the utmost care to make it breathtakingly beautiful, warm and luxuriously livable.

LuxuryEastEndEstateOjai.com

Price Upon Request

A luxury villa/vineyard estate providing the ultimate in architecture, design, craftmanship, and setting. Brand new construction of the 5100 sqft, 4br/5ba home is finished with the highest quality materials, appliances and fixtures. An H-shaped floorplan separates private sleeping areas from public social areas. The open living area includes a chef’s kitchen, a 2-sided fireplace, and a wine tasting room. The grounds feature a 100% organic vineyard, pool/spa with epic views, and multiple courtyards and verandas to take full advantage of the spectacular natural setting.

Offered at $8,995,000