Chris Smith: Sonoma County’s Pothole Bandits pick a new most miserable road

No one knows better than the Pothole Bandits that cratered, cracked, washboardy roads rattle teeth and punish automobile suspensions throughout Sonoma County.

These two safety-minded vigilantes have picked a new favorite as the worst local road of them all.

The Pothole Bandits, you may know, are a retired couple who patrol county roads and streets on a motorcycle.

Upon spotting a deep, dangerous pothole or other asphalt hazard, Peter Babcock and Lauren Roy stop. They pull out orange spray-paint and stencils.

And they paint warning circles around the potholes. They also provide additional notice-of-peril to motorcyclists, bicyclists and drivers by painting arrows and skulls-and-crossbones on the approaches to the holes and fissures.

Peter and Lauren have marked some truly hideously pocked and crumbling roads. But none, they say, like the south county’s Walker Road, between Pepper and Valley Ford roads.

“It’s hard to believe a road can be this impassable,” the Bandits wrote on their Facebook page.

They were so appalled by the condition of Walker Road they painted it with the usual warnings and added, “BAD ROAD.”

With that, Walker Road surpassed the pair’s previous No. 1 ghastly lane, Barnett Valley Road, south and west of Sebastopol. They wrote on Facebook of Barnett Valley Road:

“What a rollercoaster ride over a myriad of potholes, old and new patches and crumbling roadbed! A shame, considering the beauty of the area! Too bad we couldn’t enjoy the scenery as we bounced down this carnival ride.”

On their Facebook page, with its nearly 600 followers, the couple accept requests for roads to check out and, perhaps, to tag for the benefit of oncoming potential victims.

Bless you, Bandits.

HHHHHH

ALIVE AND COOKING: Once a year, like clockwork, Paul Marini and his wife, Leslie Hart, appear at Petaluma’s main fire station with dinner.

It’s a really nice dinner, crowned with a home-baked apple pie or maybe a crisp with rhubarb that Leslie picked from her garden that same day.

The couple recently served firefighters a fifth annual thank-you supper. Exactly five years earlier, Petaluma first responders saved Paul’s life.

Then 69, he was lifting weights at Myles Ahead gym on Payran Street when his heart stopped. Paul feels certain he’d have died then and there had his lifting buddy not been Jude Prokop, a Petaluma fire captain.

Jude shouted to the gym manager the phone number for Petaluma’s emergency dispatch center, and set to work performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Paul.

“CPR saved my life,” said the retired geneticist.

Every year on the anniversary of his revival, he and his wife treat Petaluma firefighter-?paramedics to a meal.

If only he could, Paul would prepare and deliver a feast of gratitude to everybody who takes the few hours of CPR training that prepares them to respond should someone collapse like he did.

Paul knows that most people who suffer sudden cardiac arrest outside a hospital die. He can’t make us all dinner, but he can, and does, wish that if we’re ever presented the opportunity to save a life, we’re able to seize it.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.