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Episode 12: John Schaeffer

Jan 31, 2019 — Today we’ll hear from John Shaeffer, owner and founder of Real Goods, now in Hopland. John is the epitome of the old-fashioned entrepreneur, with an eye for innovation. As a communard who worked on computers for the county during the mid-seventies, he was in the unique position of straddling the old and the new: embracing primitivism while using cutting-edge technology.

His stories (and their digressions) keep that dichotomy alive. In the middle of a recollection about skinny-dipping in the moonlight with friends, he offers a detailed account of how communards milled wooden beams, using a 1963 Chevy with a 13-year-old kid behind the wheel.

As a reminder of how history develops even as we are documenting it, we spoke on the morning of July 27th, hours before the River fire raced through the hills of Hopland. That blaze would eventually combine with the Ranch fire to become the Mendocino Complex, the largest conflagration in recorded California history.

We should note that Real Goods is an underwriter for KZYX.

 

44133_jan_31_js.mp3
Half-hour interview with John Schaeffer, aired January 31, 2019.

john_schaeffer_lightly_edited_for_web.mp3
Lightly edited interview with John Schaeffer.