SMITH: Lake Nicasio loss echoes the past
Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 1:59 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 1:59 p.m.
The loss earlier this month of prominent West Marin rancher Richard Giacomini, whose pickup plunged into Lake Nicasio, is doubly painful to relatives and friends old enough to remember the accident at the same reservoir that took his mother's life just before Thanksgiving 45 years ago.
Giacomini was a young man when his parents, Waldo and Louise, took a drive on Nov. 19, 1967. The car left Point Reyes-Petaluma Road and tumbled into the reservoir.
Waldo managed to struggle out of the submerged car but he could not save his wife. He died a decade ago at age 88.
The Giacominis' son was 71 when, for reasons not yet known, his Silverado pickup smashed through a guardrail, also on Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, and plunged into the reservoir.
The Giacominis have been major players in West Marin agriculture since Petaluma native Waldo moved to Point Reyes Station in 1938 and during WWII set about to turn a vast stretch of marshland into a thriving dairy.
Most of the former ranch is owned now by the National Parks Service, which has restored it to its natural state and calls it the Waldo Giacomini Wetlands.
PRE-HOMELESS:
Sebastopol's Gene and Peggy Raymond dread the first day of December.
They've lived for 20 years in a rented house with their 24-year-old son, Tommy, who can't walk or speak and much of the time requires a ventilator.
The Raymonds are poor and have stayed in the house all this time with the help of a Section 8 subsidy. A few months back, their landlord decided to leave the voucher program rather than make ordered upgrades to the house.
The Raymonds had 90 days, until the end of November, to find another place to live.
Gene Raymond (geneelray@comcast.net) says they've searched to no avail for another rental. The rent can be as much as $1,265 if the owner will accept a Section 8 voucher.
Raymond's guts are in a knot. His son can't be homeless and survive. What happens if November ends and they've found no place to go?
“I don't know,” the worried father said. “I really don't know.”
SWEET MOVE:
One year after a former Marine named Cindy Love opened a little candy-and-party store in Rincon Valley, she is happy to shut it down.
And move into a larger, nice shop just down the highway.
“It's twice as big. It's a huge upgrade,” the ex-warrior said of the new home for her Turtle Star shop. Love hasn't yet opened the place on Sonoma
Highway just east of Middle Rincon Road, but she's getting close.
Once reluctant to talk at all about having served in Iraq and come home angry and out of sync, she's now openly grateful to all the customers who have told her they also are veterans or they appreciate her military service.
“I've carved a nice little niche here,” the candy lady said.
IT'S NOW 12 DAYS since the New York Times ran Pete Wells' serrated and hilarious review of the mega-restaurant Guy Fieri opened within the former Times building on Times Square.
In just 12 days:
The number of Google hits for keywords “Fieri” and “NYT” has approached 5 million.
The Santa Rosa celebrity went on “Today” to rebut the review.
“Saturday Night Live” taped but didn't air a terrific spoof of his response to the piece: “The New York Times reviewing my restaurant is like Architectural Digest reviewing a dorm room!”
David Letterman praised Fieri while working through “The Top 10 Discontinued Items on His Menu.” No. 5: Teriyaki Glazed Napkins. No. 3: Crust-crusted Crust.
Before he was hit by the most personal, bare-knuckled restaurant review ever in the Times, the founder of Johnny Garlic's and Tex Wasabi's was a huge, huge success.
Twelve days later, he's even bigger.
Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.
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