OJAI WITHOUT US

‘The species will continue, whatever apocalypse we manage to unleash. It just won’t be much fun to live through.”

— Naomi Alderman

My former boss, friend and mentor, Bob Wick, died last year, and I am still struggling to fill the hole. I’ve known him since I was 10, and we became especially close eight years later when his son Stanley, my best friend, died tragically at age 18. (As if there’s any other kind of death for an 18-year-old). My own father had died two weeks prior, so we bonded over grief. Few substances are more durable.

Bob’s family owned three dozen newspapers, including at one time the Ojai Valley News, which is how I, circuitously and fortuitously, ended up here. Best decision I ever made, though I thoroughly enjoyed working for Wick Communications as an editor and publisher for 15 years. It didn’t just feel like family. It was.

Bob was a well-known sculptor of monumental bronzes, often representing female nature forms, with built-in earth elements. He showed the cycle of birth and death in layers of that expressive metal, many incorporating cacti and desert plants, like 10-foot-tall hybrids of vegetable and mineral. Bronze is an interesting substance; an alloy of tin and copper that takes on a beautiful patina with age. Alan Weisman’s book, “The World Without Us,” reports on what would happen to the world should humans vanish overnight. For example, the first rain will take out New York City’s subway system, where dams hold back 13 million gallons of water every day. Our homes, depending on where they’re built, will fall apart in 50 to 100 years and completely vanish in 500 years. But bronze will likely be the last man-made trace remaining, surviving as long as 25 million years. So it’s not implausible that all the future may know about us and our time is through the art of Bob Wick. With his expansive kindness, wisdom and enduring artistry, I can think of no one I’d rather have represent us to that far-off future.

This sense of impermanance and ephemerality comes often when I’m down to the last stages of assembling the Ojai Quarterly It’s not the stories we cover — they are eternally relevant. As in Ecclesiastes: “What was will be again. There is nothing new under the sun.” The persistence and resilience of Ojai’s downtown during the twin tests of the Thomas Fire in late 2017 and the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 showed the substance behind our mystique. These businesses are critical to Ojai as a living community because nearly two-thirds of our city budget comes from tourism. Ojai Music Festival Artistic Director Ara Guzelimian makes reference to that ineffable, even mystical quality to Ojai as he prepares for June’s highly anticipated return of Rhiannon Giddens, this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in Mark Lewis’ profile. So we’re happy to also have Kit Stolz’ interview with Rhiannon on the publication of her children’s book, “Build a House.” Of course a bright talent like hers would be appreciated in Ojai.

And from where else but the “Little Orange” could the antic word-slinging talents of someone like Sami Zahringer come together? Peter Fox takes us deep inside the mind of this comic legend. As always, Sami caps the issue with her highly anticipated column. We will not hold it against you if you start from the back of the issue and read your way forward. It’s hard to resist.

In some sense, the Ojai experience ranges far and wide; Jerry Dunn takes us on a tour of Pasadena, the once-stolid exemplar of what passed for the Old Guard in California and is yet a vibrant intersection of money, art and history. We are proud to publish Chuck Graham’s journey into the Mountains of the Moon as he travels vertically through the diversity of Africa’s terrain and wildlife.

Ilona Saari’s profile of homegrown restaurauteur Sophia Miles of Deer Lodge and now Tres Hermanas fame brings all those themes together; resilience, persistence, talent, enduring values and a place to call home. I have every hope those Ojai values will last as long as Bob Wick’s bronzes.

BRANDI CROCKETT is an Ojai pixie tangerine peelin’ native and an editorial and destination wedding photographer. Check out her work at fancyfreephotography. com

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

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.

CHUCK GRAHAM’S work has appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Canoe & Kayak, Trail Runner, Men’s Journal, The Surfer’s Journal and Backpacker. is an independent artist, designer and curator. She is a member of Ojai Studio Artists and runs utaculemann.design.

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

JESSE PHELPS grew up in Ojai and has written extensively for and about the town. He enjoys freelance projects and throwing things. He can be reached at jessephelps@ outlook.com

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

The village of Ojai takes it name from the Chumash village of Ahwa’y, in upper Ojai. It means “Moon,” according to Julie Tumamait-Stenslie, Chumash elder. Remains of a village site in what is now Libbey Park date back to 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Check out our full-length interview on the Ojai Talk of the Town podcast.

IN BRIEF: OJAI TALK OF THE TOWN PODCASTS

INGRID BOULTING’S VARIED CAREERS

Ingrid Boulting has been photographed more than all but a handful of people during her years a top model with Eileen Ford’s agency and as an actor in “The Last Tycoon” among other roles. But her work as a visual artist has been the constant theme. She is also a well-known yoga teacher at her Sacred Space Studio. The podcast conversation covers those subjects with deep dives into her youth in South Africa and England and Ojai life.

CONNECTING OJAI’S WILDLIFE

Beth Pratt, California director of the National Wildlife Federation, came to Ojai and on the podcast recently to talk about co-existing with mountain lions. She recently organized the memorial service for P-22, the mountain lion that roamed Los Angeles for 12 years. She also spent ten years getting the wildlife corridor over U.S. 101 at Liberty Canyon. She talked about Ojai’s wildlife coexistence issues and much more.

Brian Teacher joined the podcast to talk about his professional tennis career on the day he was honored by the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament with entry on to the Wall of Fame in Libbey Park.

Teacher, an Ojai champion while at UCLA, won the Australian Open in 1980, and reached No. 7 in worldwide rankings. He also recently launched Full Court Tennis, a tennis teaching app. We talked about Ojai’s importance to the tennis world as well as saving whales with a friend’s technology.

INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT WITH OJAI’S OWN KIMBERLY CLUFF

Kimberly Cluff is the legal director for the California Tribal Families Coalition and was present for arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court during Haaland v. Brackeen, a test case which threatens the Indian Child Welfare

THE FAMOUS FLYING TIGERS & OJAI

ONE: Claire Lee Chennault was a master of the air, developing many of the techniques fighter pilots use to this day. He became a household name in the early days of World War II, even before the U.S. officially entered the war, for recruiting volunteer pilots and forming the 1st American Volunteer Group, aka “the Flying Tigers,” to assist the Chinese against the invading Japanese Imperial Army.

Frequently outnumbered, Chennault’s exploits led to unexpected victories, boosting morale on the homefront, badly battered after Pearl Harbor.

After seven heroic months flying routes from bases in Burma, the Flying Tigers were absorbed

Act of 1978, which protects Indian children from centuries of being taken from their families and put up for adoption. A ruling is expected this summer. She is also an Ojai native, whose parents owned the Oaks at Ojai spa for decades. Cluff said if the Brackeens succeed, it could mean the end of Native American sovereignty as we know it, leaving their lands subject to takings for oil and gas extraction, mining and water rights.

TWO DEGREES

BETWEEN

2 of OJAI SEPARATION into the 14th Air Force, with Chennault as their commander. They continued to score important aerial victories for the Allied cause.

TWO: Post-war the Flying Tigers garnered further fame and laurels, with several films depicting their exploits. The survivors would hold reunions every year, events that were notorious for being rowdy and raucus. Many of those reunions were held at the Ojai Valley Inn and form part of the folklore of Ojai old-timers.

The widow Madame Chennault, a controversial social fixture of the Washington, D.C. scene, carried on that Ojai tradition into the 1980s.