I Love Cloverdale
I recently wrote of my love for Cloverdale. It looks like I'm not the only one with the Santa Rosa Press- Democrat featuring Cloverdale in a story today. Good things happening there according to the P-D. As I wrote in the comments there, the only downside to Cloverdale is it's in Sonoma County, but I'll still enjoy staying there when we get the chance.
We can now expect HOJ to pipe in and run Cloverdale down since he doesn't like anything.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 1:32 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Hoj is a he??
Of course. Look no further than the name: HenchMAN Of Justice.
Screw Cloverdale.
Back in the late '70s when I first traveled up here from SF before moving here, well before the Cloverdale bypass, they used to have an ingenious fund-raiser on the 4th of July weekend for the CVFD. There was one stop light through town and apparently it was under 'local control' at that intersection for that weekend as opposed to normal timer or traffic sensitive control.
Traffic was deliberately stopped on the 101 corridor, even when there was no traffic on the cross street (it was a T crossing) that needed to turn, and, onl a few cars were allowed through at a time till the next surprise red light came on.
They had a fire truck parked on the right hand side of the 101 lane northbound on Friday and Saturday with a large sheet or tarp spread out in front of it.
The idea was, if you wanted to speed up your delay at that stop light you had better toss money into the sheet or you'd have a longer wait. As a result of that gimmick traffic was backed up through town almost as bad as pre-bypass Willets, so it took awhile to get through that damn burg. They repeated the same routine on the Sunday or Monday in reverse on the southbound side at the end of the long weekend, so in effect, they got you both coming and going.
After the Cloverdale bypass became a reality I often wondered, as I sped by the place looking down on it, how the CVFD now funds their operation.
I'm all for VFDs but Cloverdale's were just petty pirates.
Hater HOJ here chiming in.......
Cloverdale used to suck wads, now that it's bypassed, its a wonderful site unseen.
" how the CVFD now funds their operation."
I don't know but the P-D article said something about the town having some million dollar surplus now.
California has many nice towns and cities. It's nice to see you refer to another place in a positive light. I meet so many people who like to talk negatively of anywhere but Humboldt.
Ya, those be the gubbamint type of people deflecting attention away from their shitshow clusterfuck leadership......
I don't miss those 20 mile long back ups AT ALL. You know who else used to make a fortune on those "fundraiser" days? Fosters Freeze. And the two gas stations in town. It was our own small-town hillbilly racket right here in Cali.
Since the bypass, C'dale has become quite the kitschy, upscale boutique town. Which isn't inherently a bad idea, but it's drove the old locals out of business unless they went into something different there. It's a lot more walkable and my kids like to go through if only to see the changing artwork when we jump off the bypass and roll through town. It did go off a cliff economically for a while, as will happen at first, but it's rebounded.
Still do not miss those miles and hours long back ups because of that one goddamn light that changes at will (or....at the command of a creative city worker working it). Same will be said of Willits too someday. I'll visit more actually if I don't have to choke on fumes for over an hour to get through a small town, deal with the Eurtweekers on the corners and just an overall grungy atmosphere that those tie ups brought. TMOB
I don't really remember much of C-Dale before the bypass. My only memories come from driving through there while on military convoys on the way to annual training while in the National Guard and we always went through in the middle of the day.
I used to have C-Dale and Willits mixed up in my mind, but no problem now that I go through them both regularly.
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