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Mr. Pardini: You’re welcome. It’s nice to have you. Lulu: You were born here in the Valley right? Mr. Pardini: No, I wasn’t, and I really hate to answer this question because I wanted to be born in the Valley. My parents were living in a log camp in Peachland and when I was about ready to come along, my mother went to Stockton because her mother lived there. She was a midwife. So my Mom went to Stockton and I was born there. Two weeks later we came back to Anderson Valley. Lulu: What was it like growing up here back then? Mr. Pardini: Oh, I had really fun times in Navarro when I was a kid. You kinda had the run of the place. You could do whatever you wanted. You could go fishing anywhere or hunting. Well, it was sort of like a ghost town there in Navarro with all the old buildings and train sheds and the old sawmill. You could play on all of it. We spent a lot of time doing that. It was really fun. Lulu: What was school like when you were young? Mr. Pardini: Much different than today. One room, one teacher, eight grades, and if you got out of line you got your butt whipped, and I mean good. I’m not so sure, but maybe some of that shouldn’t go on the tape, but I’m from the old school and that’s how I believe. One of the teachers we had, a man teacher, kept a box of barn shingles along side of his desk. If you got out of line, he’d bend you over his knees and bust of a hand full of shingles on your backside and when he got done you cleaned up the mess. Then when mom found out, you might get another thrashing when you got home. Lulu: Why did you decide to stay in Anderson Valley? Mr. Pardini: There was never a doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t be here for the rest of my life. My roots were here, my family--I was at home. I just knew I’d never be happy anywhere else but in Anderson Valley. I just never had the desire to leave here. Like I said, it was just home. Lulu: How has Anderson Valley changed in your lifetime? Mr. Pardini: Well, there has been a lot of changes. There are, as far as I’m concerned, far too many people here. This probably isn’t a very nice thing to say, but between the tourists and the traffic, Boonville, I should say Anderson Valley, has become a destination. People are actually coming to Boonville for, you know, the beer and the Hotel and other things. It’s just too many newer people. People don’t get that because they weren’t here all their lives like I was. And we have seen it quiet and peaceful, without all the noise and racket, and whatever goes on now. Lulu: The first time you met with us, you explained that Navarro (pronounced Navahrro) is really pronounced (Navair ro). Can you tell us a little about how Navarro used to be? Mr. Pardini: Yeah, something I’d like to mention would be how it was there when I was a young guy. Everybody, or most of the families, had a milk cow, or even two or three milk cows, and of course chickens and pigs and everything. Times were hard and that’s how you lived. But getting back to the difference between then and now is our milk cows ran on the highway and the railroad tracks. And after the morning milking, we’d turn them loose. And at night, the boys in the family would go gather them. We had bells on them. They might be anywhere from Floodgate to Northfork. And you know, they’d wander off the road here and there. Maybe the cows would leave the road to find some better grass and we’d listen for the bells. And they’d generally get together during the day and be in a bunch at night. We’d bring them home. We’d come by our house and our cow would stop and come in. Then the next family’s cow would stop and come in. We’d milk them that night and keep them in the barn or a pen and turn them loose again the next morning. I don’t know that any of them got hit by a car. And, like I say, they were out on the--well we called it the road. It wasn’t a highway in those days. And the same way with the chickens. Everybody had chickens and they all ran together during the day. Everybody’s chickens got together and had a good time and they laid eggs in the redwood suckers. And if you needed eggs, you went out and parted the bushes and got you some fresh eggs. Things like that, I remember, I really miss. You couldn’t do that again, no way. A cow wouldn’t last ten minutes on the highway. Lulu: Can you tell us something about Boontling--its origin? Mr. Pardini: The version I like, and there are several, and I think is probably right is that Boontling actually started in the hop flats in Bell Valley, you know, where the Toll House is. They used to grow hops there and it seems that the women actually started it. They were doing some gossiping and the kids got a hold of it and, I don’t know, they made a little trouble with the families. So these women started these-- well they ended up being Boontling words to what they called "shark the kids," which meant "to fool them." But the kids weren’t fooled and the first thing you know they were picking up the words and learning Boontling. I think that’s probably the way it really started. Lulu: How did you learn Boontling? Mr. Pardini: I learned most of my Boontling when we came to Boonville in 1946. We knew a few words in Navarro. Like I knew "tweed" which was a kid boy. I knew "applehead", that was your girlfriend. And I knew "bahl", which meant good and a few other words that I can’t mention. But that’s about all we knew down there. When I came to Boonville, I picked up a lot. Lulu: Can you tell us about your close friends, like the late Floyd Johnson? Mr. Pardini: Yes I’d like to tell you about my close friend Floyd Johnson. I really miss him. He was a wonderful man and the best friend I ever had. And the first time I met Floyd was at the Philo store. His uncle owned that, or his great-uncle, I’m sorry. At the time, my dad was working for his great-uncle. We were camped out beyond the Faulkner Park in a tan oak or tan bark camp. We went down to get groceries one night and this boy came out of the store with a couple baseball gloves and a baseball. I was up on the old truck, on the back, and he said, "Hey kid, wanna play catch?" I said, "Sure." So I got down off the truck and, while the folks were buying groceries, Floyd and I played catch. And when we got done, we went in back of the store where his great-aunt and uncle lived and she poured us a big glass of lemonade. We became good friends and we were best friends until he passed away, five years ago I guess. I really miss him. He was a wonderful friend. They didn’t come any better than Floyd Johnson. Lulu: I heard that your brother is named Mancher. Could you explain that? Mr. Pardini: Well, that’s his nickname, or you might call it a Boont name now. My dad used to call him little man. We’d get ready to go somewhere and he’d say, "Come on little man." And I had a great-uncle in Navarro who didn’t speak good English. He was from Italy. He tried to say that and it’d come out, "Come on little manch." So that kind of stuck with him and it went from little man to little manch and eventually mancher and he’s still called that. His real name is Robert and sometimes somebody will say, ‘"What’s Bob doing," and I’ll say, "Who?" and I don’t know who they’re talking about. "Oh, Mancher, yeah." Lulu: Do you remember any other early residents of Navarro that you and your family knew? Mr. Pardini: Very few left actually-- Maryjane Best. I don’t know if you know her or not. She lives down by Floodgate--this side of Floodgate. Her family lived on Northfork, and she’s the only one left that I went to school with in Navarro and in the Valley. And the other one is Bobby Glover, but I didn’t go to school with him. He was a little older than me. I can’t think of any others that are really left here in the Valley that I went to school with in Navarro. Lulu: Can you tell us your story about Vinegar Ridge? Mr. Pardini: Well, my mother’s family settled there in probably 18--about the early 1880’s. I think they had probably the first vineyard. I have a picture of that vineyard. Their name was Valenti. I had two, let’s see, great-uncles. My granddad and grandmother lived there for a time. My mother was born on Vinegar Ridge. We’re calling it Vinegar Ridge. Some of the people up on Greenwood Ridge, don’t like it called Vinegar Ridge. They’d want it called Greenwood Ridge. But the old-timers called it Vinegar Ridge because they used to go there during Prohibition and buy wine. They said the wine was sour as vinegar and that’s how it got its name. Lulu: You said you were camped in a tan bark camp when you met Floyd Johnson. Can you tell us some stuff about tan bark? Mr. Pardini: My dad had a contract with Floyd’s great-uncle this particular year I’m talking about. He would go in with men in the spring of the year, peel the bark off and let it lay most of the summer and come back in the fall and take it out to a landing with pack mules. They’d load it on a truck and take it to wherever they processed it. They used it for tanning leather. They got the tannic acid off it. That’s why they call it tan bark. I remember--well my job that summer was keeping track of one of the mules my dad had. You loaded most of the mules, tied the bark down, swatted them on the rump and they’d go to the landing. A couple guys down there would unload them, tie the hooks back up and send them back to the woods. Well, this one, Jack, would go hide after they loaded him. He’d go in the huckleberry bush or somewhere and get lost. My job was to keep him in line, and I hated him! I shouldn’t tell this, but I used to go down at night in the corral and shoot him in the butt with a B-B Gun. My dad caught me one night and said, "You shoot Jack with that B-B Gun?" And I said, "No." And he said, "Yes you did; I saw you!" and he took my gun away for the rest of the summer. I wanted to be doing other things, you know, and I had to take care of that cock-eyed mule. I really didn’t like him. Lulu: Can you tell us any other old time stories about Anderson Valley? Mr. Pardini: Yeah, we could talk a little about the old party line--the telephone. They tell the story about John Lee Rector. He used to live out here toward Yorkville. He liked to listen to everybody’s conversation. In fact most of them did. When the phones rang, in those days, they were the old hand-crank type, the rings might be two longs and a short or whatever. Anyhow, there was a lot of what Boontlingers called "jennybeckin’." That meant listening to a phone conversation you shouldn’t be listening to. John Lee Rector was real bad for this and everyone knew it. Vern and Hale Burger set him up one time. They got on the subject of sheep and they knew that--well they could hear John popping his lips wanting to say something during this conversation. Pretty soon one of them made a statement and he said, "Ain’t that right, John?" And the guy goes, "Yeah you’re damn right!" and then hung the phone up. But there was a lot of that--really a lot of it. Lulu: You come from a family that’s been in the Valley a long time. Can you tell us about the Pardinis? Mr. Pardini: Yeah, I might say that I’m really not a Pardini. My dad was adopted by Joe Pardini. His name was Guisti. My grandmother went with Joe Pardini in Italy. Guisti came along and she married him. Joe Pardini was heartbroken. He came to America. He came to Elk and later moved to Navarro. Three years later Grandpa Guisti died in Italy. Joe Pardini heard of this and he wrote a letter to Grandma and asked her to come to America and marry him. He would send the money. By this time she had my dad and my aunt. So she did and Joe Pardini adopted my dad. Him and Grandma never hit it off. It didn’t work. They had another son, Danny, and he was killed at Dimmick Park in 1951. But the marriage never worked. It just didn’t happen after that. By the time Grandma got here, Grandpa Joe Pardini was drinking and gambling a lot and it was really hard for her and two kids. She took in laundry and did all kinds of things to make a go of it until they finally got the hotel in Navarro that had been built originally to be a hospital and drug store. That didn’t work out because they decided they wanted this closer to the mill so Grandma had saved enough and with a little help from her brother they bought this building and made a hotel out of it. Lulu: Oh. You have a lot of historical photos and things in your house. Can you tell us about some of them? Mr. Pardini: Yeah, you’re looking at this picture of the dedication of when they started Highway 128 from Flynn Creek to Navarro-by-the-Sea, or down to the ocean. The picture was taken in 1922. They said everybody in Anderson Valley was there at this dedication. They had a big band from Cloverdale to make the music and you can see old steam shovels and old-time trucks in the photo. And that was the beginning of 128 to Navarro-by-the-Sea. Lulu: How did Navarro get its name? Mr. Pardini: Navarro originally was Wendling because of G. X. Wendling who came there and built the shake mill to start with. An order was mistakenly sent, one time, to Wendling for--I don’t know how many bundles of shingles or whatever. Instead of going to Wendling, California, it went to Wendling, Oregon. So G. X. Wendling said, "Something’s got to be done about this!" and he wrote the Postmaster General or whatever and wanted it changed. Navarro-by-the-Sea had been abandoned by that time. It flooded, raised heck down there and ruined everything, but the Post Office and all the equipment was still there and it was called Navarro so they moved it to Wendling and from then on Wendling became Navarro. Lulu: Do you have any other stories about Anderson Valley before we close? Mr. Pardini: Yeah, I’d like to tell you one about myself. One morning, before I left home, I heard a lot of gunshots up toward my grandmother’s hotel. We lived about 200 yards away. I run out the door to see what was happening and there were several people outside with shotguns shooting in the air and somebody hollered, "The War’s over!" It was the end of World War Two so I thought, "I better help them out a bit." So I ran in and got my Dad’s shotgun and I ran down off the porch steps and in my haste to get some rounds in the air I shot my Dad’s spare tire off the pickup. My mother came out and she says, "You know I think World War Three’s going to start when your dad gets home." He was so happy that the war was over, it was no problem. We got away with it. Lulu: Thank you very much, Mr. Pardini, for sharing your stories with us. This has been Lulu McClellan, a seventh grader from the Anderson Valley NCRCN’s Oral History Project. |
