Veteran Sonoma County peace/justice activist Mary Moore has stood at the gate of the Bohemian Grove near Monte Rio many times to hoot at the well-connected men driving in.
But you can believe that Mary, founder decades ago of the Bohemian Grove Action Network, will have nothing to do with the group that may protest and picnic at the gate as the Bohemians' Midsummer Encampment kicks off this weekend.
Mary has her issues with the men of the Grove, but the accusations made in fliers calling for people to confront them on Saturday and Sunday, the 16th and 17th, are way too much for her.
This is stuff from beyond the fringe. The flier, found also at commoncrime.net, exhumes and reconstitutes crazed allegations that the "satanic" Bohemians "conduct a ceremonial sacrifice of children where they will be symbolically set on fire."
Whoever's behind the planned protest this weekend adds some wild-eyed claims that appear to originate with the Democrats Against UN Agenda 21 crowd.
"To decrease the population," the call to action says, the men of Bohemian Grove "want to install toxic smart murder meters, mandate vaccines, spray us with aerial toxins, mandate toxic mercury light bulbs and create perpetual wars leading toward a World Government and Hitlerian New World Order."
Mary sighs. "They have every right to protest," she said, but she'll be staying at home this weekend.
Summing up what's always been her campaign's interest regarding the campers at the Bohemian Grove, she said, "We're less concerned about what they're doing inside than their policies affecting the outside world."
MARIA CARRILLO'S VASE? On Saturday at the ruins of the Carrillo Adobe, a good guy named Mel Bjork brought back a possible historic treasure that his late father unearthed from alongside the ruins about 30 years ago.
It's a ceramic vase that Maria Carrillo, matron of the first non-native family to settle in what would become Santa Rosa, may have have made and buried for good luck in about 1837.
Mel, 50, is a longtime Santa Rosa water department employee who fired me an email after he read my profile last week on Larry Carrillo and the mystery of the origin of the earthen ranch house that his ancestors built.
Mel said his dad, Melvin Bjork Sr., took a metal detector to the Carrillo Adobe in the late 1970s or early '80s and dug up a rusted metal box from near the ruins.
Inside was a painted, two-handled pottery vase. And inside the vase was a sock-like sack with something heavy in it.
"I remember he was real excited because he thought it was going to be gold coins or something," Mel said. "But it was rocks."
Melvin Bjork gave the vase to his son, who set it in a dark closet for safekeeping. Mel said that years later he loaned it to a friend who took it to a history teacher at Santa Rosa Junior College.
The teacher told Mel there was a story that when the widowed Maria Carrillo left San Diego and brought her children to the property she'd received in a Mexican land grant, she brought with her a vase and some stones from her place in San Diego. Mel recalls the JC teacher saying that when her new adobe ranch was completed, she buried the vase and stones outside the front door to bless it.
Mel said he's thought for years about giving the vase to someone in the Carrillo family, and upon reading about Larry Carrillo, he knew it was time.
Several members of both families met at the adobe on Saturday and Mel gave Larry the vase.
"This certainly has a story to it," Larry said. He hopes that eventually a historic park will be created on the adobe and there will be opportunities to exhibit the vase and other artifacts.
Since Mel took the vase from the closet days ago, he'd sweated possibly breaking it. After giving it to Larry, he said, "It's good to have it back where it belongs."
Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.
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