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| Simone Wilson, Bliss Buys & Joe Leary, 1980. Maureen Hurley photo |
I ran into former Sonoma County Stump founder and editor, Bliss Buys after a poetry reading, the Petaluma Poetry Walk. Bliss, Simone Wilson and I had lunch at Dempsey’s and reminisced. I am sorry to say that I did not take any notes, it was a whirlwind visit. A blast from the past. Simone and I booth cut our journalism teeth at the Sonoma County Stump. There was so much more catching up to do, as I hadn’t seen Bliss since the Stump folded in 1981, when I was new to writing. I worked at the Stump from 1979-1980 until it folded.
I had a camera, I happened to live near the Sonoma County Stump office, I wandered in once day to see what I could see, and next thing I knew, I was given the centerfold to create a double-truck spread on Sonoma County poetry, and a deadline—and the rest is history. —The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump
Bliss and I met up in Petaluma the next day as she needed to meet up with her clients, to renew ads for a antiques periodical she had founded in 1989. It was so enthralling to trail after her as she visited a plethora of Petaluma antiques stores. The antiques guide went from a small Sonoma County monthly throwaway tabloid newspaper to an annual West Coast guidebook. Bliss was touching base with her clients.
Bliss wrote this synopsis in a Facebook group, Russian River History and Memories, “Our first office was on River Blvd. in Monte Rio where we got flooded. The last one was over the Mexican restaurant in downtown Forestville. At one point, we were located behind the Rio Theater in Monte Rio. We had an office on Hwy. 116 north of Sebastopol (where the late, beloved Joe Leary came onboard), one in Guernewood Park (where we got flooded again). There were two periods when we couldn't afford an office and worked out of my home, once in Pocket Canyon (where my partner was Patrick Lanzing), once on Trenton Rd. in Forestville. I wish I remember the last name of the designer of the masthead...John something. The theme was borrowed from a painting by Joan Miró depicting a tree stump that has one of its roots firmly gripping the axe that did the job. Probably the most complete collection of The Stump that exists, went to the museum at Sonoma State University. It may even include some of the very first editions, when Jack "The Carpenter" Husband started it and I was the typist. Deadlines were typically all-nighters. We typed the text, cut out the columns and pasted them with melted wax on big galley sheets. Those copies might still be there, in some dusty corner of the SSU storeroom. We had a good run—more than ten years.
What follows is an ad hoc oral folk history interview with Bliss at her son Jay’s house on Pepper Road, Petaluma, reminiscing about the past. As is with most verbatim conversations, it’s sometimes disjointed, but one of the things I’ve learned about collecting oral folklore from my UC Berkeley professor, Dr. Alan Dundes, is to not try and fix syntax, grammar, or timeline. Nor interrupt.... Akkk!
We had dinner at her son’s place, and were sitting in the living room. Bliss was on a roll, talking so fast, that I had a hard time keeping up, so some of that disjointedness is the fault of the scribe using an iPad to take notes, vs. pen to paper. I inverted a couple of sentences for continuity. But it’s otherwise stet.
At one point, I would love to turn this piece into a proper interview, or perhaps Bliss herself, might be induced to document that part of her life—an extraordinary life lived on the edge of the continent, at the cutting edge of social change.
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| Bliss, a name that Lou Gottlieb gave her: how much bliss can you tolerate? |
For example, I had no idea that Bliss was part of the Morningstar community, I knew some literary bits from Ramon Sender Morningstar, so as the tale began to unfold, I was not prepared for that segue, I had goosebumps, and wanted to stray off-path, ask questions, but I sat on my tongue, or rather, thumbs. There was so much I wanted to ask her about Morningstar Ranch, Limeliters founder, Lou Gottlieb, and the Diggers as my mother’s bohemian history was part of that past. From the Morningstar letters I learned that Lou had the temerity to die on Bliss’s birthday. Another interview. Someday. And then Bliss was off back home to San Carlos, Mexico in the morning. No such thing as recollection in tranquility....
Bliss Buys remembers (oral history) at her son Jay’s place off Pepper Road, Petaluma (this is from my raw notes, found in my Notes app. She was talking so fast, I had trouble keeping up, is an understatement.)
Bliss Buys: I was with the Sonoma County Stump for 10 years. The Stump began in 1970 or 71. Jack Husband started the newspaper. I was walking down River Road, there was an old hotel that flooded regularly for rent, but the insurance paid out every year, and we moved in. We were in the basement, so we got flooded out.
Jack needed a typist and I needed a job, thats how it began. I wrote the Morningstar Ranch story, but it was 3 or 4 months before he even read it. Finally he published it on my birthday, July 11th, it was his present to me. And so it began.
We started out with a regular typewriter, then someone named Dave loaned us a Selectric typewriter.. The Stump was always located in the river area, We had newspaper display boxes but people kept stealing them. At one point we charged for the paper but people kept stealing the money.
After Jack left, I made the Stump into a free paper, after a year when it landed on my shoulders. We expanded to Santa Rosa, there were serious things happening with the board of supervisors, we had to cover that stuff. Water quality control board. Because of the stories, I was asked to be on the board. I covered the Diablo Canyon story, and passed onto my board members, but nobody read it. Part of my concern was that there was talk about putting a nuclear plant in Sonoma County, at Bodega Head, somebody interviewed Rose Gaffney. And the story broke. Big time.
Joe came in one day to that ramshackle place we had in Sebastopol, he wanted to buy into the paper, we were desperate money, so he bought in for $500. He had an interest in alternative energy, he wrote a feature every issue.
After we moved the Stump offices to The Forestville Inn, I lived with a man named George, from Porter Creek Winery. I lived there for a while but the Stump office was in Forestville. It was during the gas crisis. The commute was a problem.
Pocket Canyon, Randy the carpenter. Jane Hamilton built a beautiful double desk, for me and Patrick, we were together for about two years. He threw a mineral water bottle at me and stomped out. That was not the end of Patrick. We moved to the Forestville Inn, by then I was with George, When George and I split, my son, Jay and I slept on the floor of the Forestville Inn. That was our lowest point. We moved so many times, every other year, it seems.
Morningstar Ranch, I lived there before I worked for the paper. I went back to interview Lou Gottleib, later the title of the story and my name came from something that Lou said. He said it all comes down to how much bliss can you tolerate, that was when I took on the name of Bliss. (It suited her better than Joan.)
I built a handmade house with Steve and my son, Jay who was one and a half. Our treehouse was two stories tall, but the sheriff came and tore it down. I moved to Morningstar Ranch during 1969 or 70, Jay was born in 1968. After the 2nd or 3rd time the sheriff demolished our home, I talked Steve into moving to River Road in Monte Rio, he was on SSI, and I was on welfare. We had a little courtyard, and a utility building. I remember the tv, we watched Star Wars. First there was the gas crisis, then the drought, at one point we had no water. Steve and I had a falling out, I wanted to be involved with the community, but he didn’t, so I left him and camped out.
I moved to the Villa Grand hotel, I had my own room there in Monte Rio.
We moved to Port Roberts in Washington, and were there for several months, I came back to Monte Rio. The day I got back, Jay took off, that was when I ran into Jack Husband, in his 30s. Everybody called him Jack the Carpenter. He only stayed with the paper a year and a half, and then he was gone.
At that time, I was interested in communal living, alternative education, and alternative energy sources. Those were the kinds of stories I wrote. The origins of the paper date back to the end of the Vietnam war. There was a lot of passion, we did a lot of articles about that.
One of the things I did at the Stump, was that I drew cartoons, that drawing of Abe Lincoln standing on a stump was mine. Jack and I came up with the logo, a tree stump, the idea of the axe succumbing to the tree came from a painting of Juan Miró.
The only training I ever had, the only time I ever conceived of myself as being a writer, was because of a professor I had in college.
I was just finishing junior college. My mother wanted me out, I had a stepfather. We didn’t get along. My stepfather was an alcoholic, it was oil and water. I was living in Dallas, I grew up in Corpus Christi, so I stayed with my dad a few months. I got a ride to Dallas and was dropped off at the YWCA, the next morning it snowed, it was the first time I ever saw snow, the first time, so I got a job with a cotton shipping co.
My first crush was Bob Thomas, he was in navy, and stationed in Long Beach. One day he called me up said, let’s get married. He just wanted a girlfriend, he never had any intention of getting married. I had made one trip up to San Francisco, so I just packed up my stuff and moved to the city with one of his friends. It was 1964.
When the Stump finally folded, the Press Democrat did a story, a photo of me sitting in the empty office, it was a sort of a victory dance. I eventually worked for the Press Democrat selling ads in the classified dept, there was still a dress code in 1983-84, we couldn’t wear pants, it was so regimented.
Then I worked a while for Optical Coating, I was there as a temp, they put me on a research job, photovoltaics, but they let go of the research, leaving it to Japan and China.
While I was at Ockley, Tom at The Paper asked me to sell ads, he promised me $1000 a month, plus commissions. The regular ad sales person went on vacation, so I maintained her account, then Tom fired me.
I went to work for the Bingo Bugle, boring boring boring, but they had another little paper called Antique Adventures. They were going to close it down, and I said I wanted to keep doing the antique paper so, they basically sold it to me and they also sold me a Mac, $1000 for the whole thing. This was during 1984 through 1986.
I was living in Santa Rosa, in Bennett Valley. In 1989 I moved out to Petaluma, to Red Hill Road, right before the Marin County border, to the MacEvoy Ranch, but then it was bought by the newspaper heiress, Susie Slessinger, and we had to move out, back to Santa Rosa, then to the McBrown Ranch in Petaluma. Bill Wiley ? connected with us, we moved out there and I lived there until I was ready to give up on him, he was having problems with alcohol, so I moved to Gualala in 1989. I lived in a hotel, and I was playing music.
And then we produced second edition with the map guide. We kept the monthly publication going until we moved to Mexico. We kept our boat in Mexico, and commuted back and forth.
I was able to produce the paper and the antiques guide in Gualala where I was night manager, at the Sea Cliff Motel, I had a flat there. I was still working at the inn when the Twin Towers were hit.
We had three distributors, two had never gotten their books, when we were in Mexico, we realized we needed to be more hands-on. But Jim was drinking heavily. That’s when we decided to call it quits, and we quit doing the monthly newspaper in 2004.
We got back together, as we had a boat, he took the boat to Puerto Vallarta, a 33-foot Morgan Islander. He realized that if he didn’t quit drinking that he would die. That was when we got back together. Resurrected the antiques guide.
The Stump office was in the basement of that old hotel, when it flooded again, Jack left the paper. (And Bliss was left holding the bag). The 2nd place we moved to, was a house that straddled a creek, between Monte Rio and Guerneville. But that place didn’t prove adequate, so we moved offices again. We moved at least 4 - 5 times. Then we moved the Stump into the downstairs of my house off River Road, in Forestville, but I moved out of the house in Forestville, and into another place in Guerneville, then to Sebastopol, that’s when I met Joe Leary.
We started out with a regular typewriter, then someone named Dave loaned us a Selectric typewriter.. The Stump was always located in the river area, We had newspaper display boxes but people kept stealing them. At one point we charged for the paper but people kept stealing the money.
After Jack left, I made the Stump into a free paper, after a year when it landed on my shoulders. We expanded to Santa Rosa, there were serious things happening with the board of supervisors, we had to cover that stuff. Water quality control board. Because of the stories, I was asked to be on the board. I covered the Diablo Canyon story, and passed onto my board members, but nobody read it. Part of my concern was that there was talk about putting a nuclear plant in Sonoma County, at Bodega Head, somebody interviewed Rose Gaffney. And the story broke. Big time.
Joe came in one day to that ramshackle place we had in Sebastopol, he wanted to buy into the paper, we were desperate money, so he bought in for $500. He had an interest in alternative energy, he wrote a feature every issue.
There are archives of the Stump. A woman named Mary Meyer collected all the issues and took them to Sonoma State library.
I lived on a road parallel to River Road in Pocket Canyon, with Stump editor Patrick Lanzing, we were together during 1974, it was during the gas shortage, I left him soon after. We moved to a place across from Speer’s Market on Trenton Road. My son Jay was 7 years old in 1975, and was going to Forestville school.
I lived on a road parallel to River Road in Pocket Canyon, with Stump editor Patrick Lanzing, we were together during 1974, it was during the gas shortage, I left him soon after. We moved to a place across from Speer’s Market on Trenton Road. My son Jay was 7 years old in 1975, and was going to Forestville school.
After we moved the Stump offices to The Forestville Inn, I lived with a man named George, from Porter Creek Winery. I lived there for a while but the Stump office was in Forestville. It was during the gas crisis. The commute was a problem.
George was a newspaper hoarder, in the living room there was a pile of Stump issues all the way up to the ceiling. He pulled out the very first issue, handed them to me, and I sat on the floor and read the first issue, and cried.
Circa 1980. We were barely surviving on ads, I was on welfare, they knew I was on welfare, they allowed me to collect ads. I could just barely cover the rent. I couldn’t afford to pay rent in two places. The Stump was at Trenton Road, back then.
Pocket Canyon, Randy the carpenter. Jane Hamilton built a beautiful double desk, for me and Patrick, we were together for about two years. He threw a mineral water bottle at me and stomped out. That was not the end of Patrick. We moved to the Forestville Inn, by then I was with George, When George and I split, my son, Jay and I slept on the floor of the Forestville Inn. That was our lowest point. We moved so many times, every other year, it seems.
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| Patrick Lansing |
Morningstar Ranch, I lived there before I worked for the paper. I went back to interview Lou Gottleib, later the title of the story and my name came from something that Lou said. He said it all comes down to how much bliss can you tolerate, that was when I took on the name of Bliss. (It suited her better than Joan.)
I built a handmade house with Steve and my son, Jay who was one and a half. Our treehouse was two stories tall, but the sheriff came and tore it down. I moved to Morningstar Ranch during 1969 or 70, Jay was born in 1968. After the 2nd or 3rd time the sheriff demolished our home, I talked Steve into moving to River Road in Monte Rio, he was on SSI, and I was on welfare. We had a little courtyard, and a utility building. I remember the tv, we watched Star Wars. First there was the gas crisis, then the drought, at one point we had no water. Steve and I had a falling out, I wanted to be involved with the community, but he didn’t, so I left him and camped out.
I moved to the Villa Grand hotel, I had my own room there in Monte Rio.
We moved to Port Roberts in Washington, and were there for several months, I came back to Monte Rio. The day I got back, Jay took off, that was when I ran into Jack Husband, in his 30s. Everybody called him Jack the Carpenter. He only stayed with the paper a year and a half, and then he was gone.
I could either keep the Stump going, or let it fold. But there were still people contributing to it. There was a guy doing the books and collecting the advertising, before he left, he showed me how to do the books and to carry on. I was not not a really good salesperson, I was more interested in the editorial aspect. Patrick’s first fight, was that he wouldn’t sell ads, nobody wanted to sell ads.
The paper was printed in Sonoma, then later by the Healdsburg Press, we were still typing the copy on typewriters, and we made the titles and headlines on a compugraphic machine at the News Herald. We hot-waxed on the headlines. It was a private webpress, a giant machine as long as this room, they also printed the Argus Courier.
At that time, I was interested in communal living, alternative education, and alternative energy sources. Those were the kinds of stories I wrote. The origins of the paper date back to the end of the Vietnam war. There was a lot of passion, we did a lot of articles about that.
One of the things I did at the Stump, was that I drew cartoons, that drawing of Abe Lincoln standing on a stump was mine. Jack and I came up with the logo, a tree stump, the idea of the axe succumbing to the tree came from a painting of Juan Miró.
The only training I ever had, the only time I ever conceived of myself as being a writer, was because of a professor I had in college.
I was just finishing junior college. My mother wanted me out, I had a stepfather. We didn’t get along. My stepfather was an alcoholic, it was oil and water. I was living in Dallas, I grew up in Corpus Christi, so I stayed with my dad a few months. I got a ride to Dallas and was dropped off at the YWCA, the next morning it snowed, it was the first time I ever saw snow, the first time, so I got a job with a cotton shipping co.
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I was living in Dallas when Kennedy was killed. I was working for a stock brokerage company, I was on my lunch break, I came back and the office was in chaos. The stocks tanked, then shot up. A lot of people made a lot of money on Kennedy’s assassination. I had a series of jobs working for the stock brokerage, I was a secretary, a receptionist, the low girl on the totem pole.
My first crush was Bob Thomas, he was in navy, and stationed in Long Beach. One day he called me up said, let’s get married. He just wanted a girlfriend, he never had any intention of getting married. I had made one trip up to San Francisco, so I just packed up my stuff and moved to the city with one of his friends. It was 1964.
When the Stump finally folded, the Press Democrat did a story, a photo of me sitting in the empty office, it was a sort of a victory dance. I eventually worked for the Press Democrat selling ads in the classified dept, there was still a dress code in 1983-84, we couldn’t wear pants, it was so regimented.
I went to work for the Bingo Bugle, boring boring boring, but they had another little paper called Antique Adventures. They were going to close it down, and I said I wanted to keep doing the antique paper so, they basically sold it to me and they also sold me a Mac, $1000 for the whole thing. This was during 1984 through 1986.
I was living in Santa Rosa, in Bennett Valley. In 1989 I moved out to Petaluma, to Red Hill Road, right before the Marin County border, to the MacEvoy Ranch, but then it was bought by the newspaper heiress, Susie Slessinger, and we had to move out, back to Santa Rosa, then to the McBrown Ranch in Petaluma. Bill Wiley ? connected with us, we moved out there and I lived there until I was ready to give up on him, he was having problems with alcohol, so I moved to Gualala in 1989. I lived in a hotel, and I was playing music.
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Jim Cochran and I met in 1989. That was when Jim and I started doing music together, we were married in 1992. We had started the Antiques Guide. The newspaper was a monthly. There was a woman selling advertising for us, she said you can make a map insert guide, and Jim jumped on it. As soon as we got it printed and distributed, we went to Costa Rica for a month.
And then we produced second edition with the map guide. We kept the monthly publication going until we moved to Mexico. We kept our boat in Mexico, and commuted back and forth.
I was able to produce the paper and the antiques guide in Gualala where I was night manager, at the Sea Cliff Motel, I had a flat there. I was still working at the inn when the Twin Towers were hit.
We had three distributors, two had never gotten their books, when we were in Mexico, we realized we needed to be more hands-on. But Jim was drinking heavily. That’s when we decided to call it quits, and we quit doing the monthly newspaper in 2004.
We got back together, as we had a boat, he took the boat to Puerto Vallarta, a 33-foot Morgan Islander. He realized that if he didn’t quit drinking that he would die. That was when we got back together. Resurrected the antiques guide.
Full circle.
Sept 20, 2018
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| Joe Leary& Bliss Buys, ca. 1980. Maureen Hurley photo |
See the Blogger webzine, Cochran’s Collector’s Guide, 2017; their Pinterest, and their Facebook pages. The guide has gone to PDF format, see also, my 2014? blogpost, The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump. When I revised my blog, and made an attempt at filing my stories in chronological order, I moved the blogpost to 1979 to give my blog some continuity, but then I lost the creation date in the process. At least I know it was after 2011, vis à vis the Mary Moore letter. See also Ramon Sender Morningstar The Digger Archives. I found this reference in the March 1978 Oak Leaf: Jerry Garcia Band and Robert Hunter’s band Comfort will be appearing at the Sebastopol Veterans Auditorium on March 22 to do a Benefit for the Sonoma County Stump, a local newspaper. Tickets are on sale now so if you’re interested, go get ’em while they’re still available.
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