“This was, to me, the nut of a coming together of different groups of people who needed each other,” Captain Rainbow said. “They needed us to do the work for free, and we needed them to provide this space and this place and the possibility that we could have a dance hall again.”
Even if a hippie had a bad encounter with an old timer at the Bucket of Blood saloon the night before, Rainbow said, “The next day, hungover, both of you would be hanging sheetrock together, and you’d find out that, hey, you’re all right.”
Instead of drinking or talking politics, they were building something together.
“I gained a lot of friends in the valley that way. I’m not sure this holds for everyone else in the valley, but for me, that was the time things opened up, because we were engaged in a common purpose. Rather than looking at our differences, we were looking at our samenesses,” Rainbow said.
As the Anderson Valley Grangers saw their peers getting older, they looked around at the younger volunteers who were showing up with skills and interest, and they saw something else: potential Grange members.
Captain Rainbow remembered, “One day, one of those guys came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you know, you want to join the grange?’ And my eyes got big, and I went, ‘Really?’ And they asked other people who had been volunteering, as well, to become members. We couldn’t believe it. We went, ‘What? You’re kidding. You really … you want us? You want us?’ And they did.”
Both sides had to compromise a bit. When they became members, the hippies had to go through some rituals, learn the secret handshake, and the password. This new contingent wasn’t going to go all in for the traditions of a fraternal organization, but Captain Rainbow and others learned the origins of many of these rituals and began to understand.
“The secret handshake and all that stuff came about because they would go to Washington D.C. and lobby for farmers’ rights,” Rainbow said, “and they had to know who was a Granger.”
Soon enough, Captain Rainbow found himself appointed Grange Master, and he’s been involved ever since.
These days, people know the Anderson Valley Grange Hall for its annual variety show and as a place to hold meetings, dances and quinceañeras, but it still has agricultural connections.
The reality of this was on full display in early March. The parking lot was packed before the official start of the event at the hall.
Local food groups rented out the Grange hall for a day of education and seed and scion exchanges.
