Cherry Tree, Fig Twig ... and all-Local news

There was a bit of a skirmish in the T/S comments section over folks who said Ferndale High football players party at the site of the old Cherry Tree youth center that, I think, is at the end of Main Street.

I assume most high school kids party somewhere...football players, band members, etc. It seemed odd that kids logged on and had no idea where the Cherry Tree's even located.

Back in the 1960s the Cherry Tree was a teen dance spot -- a youth center for the groovy generation. I was too young, so I don't know how it connected to the Fig Twig in Eureka -- a dance place/youth center. I vaguely remember a place like those two spot in Arcata...I'm thinking the Apple Blossom, but that's probably not the name.

That was back in the days when kids could conceive of having a good time with adults around.

It was also the time when adults didn't try to police all the fun and growing up and acting out that's involved in being in high school. I never saw the chaperones at our school dances. We were showed up a little drunk once in awhile...people (not me) got stoned down in "The Pit" parking lot at Eureka High, then showed up at the dance. I honestly didn't know kids smoked dope...in 1972. I was slightly sheltered as a child and never really got into wild partying...just enough to build that false courage some guys need around females.

Now, school dances wouldn't attract anyone. They don't have them here. They're a rare and special event, not to mention costly, in Placer County. I explain to adults all the time that...kids don't want to go where adults are monitoring them so closely.

I actually cornered a strict mom who was a pretty wild girl in her day. She was going on about how her daughter's dances NEED a ton of supervision. I asked, "How many dances would you have gone to with me in 1972 if there'd been 20 adults breathing down our neck?"

Me? I'd rather have my kids at a dance, with chaperones in another room pouring punch, than have them out looking for place to raise hell away from adults. My younger kids aren't ready to party, but you get my drift.

If we leave them alone, give them space, maybe they won't run off and hide from us to have fun.

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I wonder...would you buy and read the Times-Standard if it was 100% local news? 100% local sports?

The Napa paper where I work will run any local story...even produce local copy of questionable merit...to fill its pages. In the process, the paper doesn't pay any real attention to Bay Area news or sports.

I don't think an all-local news paper would sell.

Do you?