Reynolds’ Men’s Wear on Franklin Street has been a fixture in this town since Amberly’s grandparents opened it in 1966. Before that, it had been a menswear store for nearly forty years, outfitting the workmen of our community. Her parents James and Ilah bought the store in 1971.
When her father decided to retire in 2007, Amberly, then 28, convinced him to sell her half interest, and let her run it. “It’s the only exclusively men’s store on the coast. In fact, men’s only clothing stores are rare throughout the world.” He tried to dissuade her. “He knew how hard it is to run a business. He wanted me to get a government job with a regular paycheck and pension,” she said with a laugh. “But the store had been in our family for 41 years. I’d worked with him since 2003. It was my love and I wanted to keep it going.”
The timing of her takeover wasn’t ideal. In 2008, the economic crash began and accelerated in 2009. The Franklin Street renovation project happened in the summer of 2009, virtually closing down the street. “I was able to hang on because my dad owned the building and charged cheap rent.”
I suspect it was more than just cheap rent that allowed Amberly to hang on and thrive. Her quiet, soft-spoken demeanor belies an inner strength that is awe-inspiring.
***
Amberly graduated from Fort Bragg High School in 1997 and went to Sacramento Community College. She thought she might become a teacher. “I also worked at a Christian elementary school as an office lady. It was there I learned that I didn’t want to become a teacher.” She laughed. “It’s a really hard job.”
In 2001, she moved to Mount Tremper, New York. “My sister Karen lived there with her baby daughter. I took care of the baby during the day while she worked. I also worked the overnight shift at a 24-hour K-Mart. That was the coolest job I ever had. Not many people shop in the middle of the night, so I got a chance to visit with my co-workers and make lasting friendships.”
A year later, she returned to her previous job in Sacramento. “In January 2003, I moved back to Fort Bragg. For a boy,” she added with a laugh. This boy was Vince Caccamo who she’d known from kindergarten, but lost touch with after high school. He’d graduated from UC Berkeley and returned to work in his dad’s construction business. “I was home for a visit in 2002 and ran into him at the Caspar Inn. I remember I was wearing jeans sprinkled with pink glitter.” She smiled at the memory.
After she moved to Fort Bragg, she worked with her dad and found she really liked it. “My favorite time of year is prom when guys get fitted for tuxedos. There are so few chances for them to get dressed up, which makes this time of year so special.” While dating Vince, she took classes at the local College of the Redwoods campus. In 2005, she enrolled in Humboldt State. “I went to school during the week and came home on weekends to work. I finished my BA in Cultural Anthropology in three semesters.”
Amberly and Vince were married in June 2007. They had their first son Matteo in 2009. Two years later, George was born.
Her dad passed away in June 2009. “The building needed a foundation and the store needed freshening up. It hadn’t changed in years.” In November, she leased a building a few doors down, moved the store, and added women’s clothing. “I took out a three-year lease. The plan was to renovate the old building and move back. Instead, I started having babies and that plan was delayed four more years.”
In February 2015, she decided to take Reynolds’ Men’s Wear back to its roots and spin off the women’s section into its own store across the street—Wren’s (a play on Women’s Reynolds). Then came the shock of her life—a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The new store opened in April. A week later, she discovered she was pregnant.
“I’d always wanted a girl and thought this could be our chance. But I had cancer and didn’t know what that meant for the pregnancy.” Chemotherapy treatments began during her second trimester. When asked how she coped with the rigors of cancer treatment combined with being pregnant, having two small children and running two businesses, she said, “I just got up each day and did the best I could.” It helped that both of her sisters work for her—Karen at Reynolds’ and Michelle at Wren’s.
Admitting she had cancer is not easy for Amberly who describes herself as an introvert and private person. “But it’s part of who I am, part of my story.” Baby Raphael was born on Thanksgiving Day 2016. “Even though we’re not very religious, we gave him a name that means ‘God’s Healer.’”
Raphael
Eighteen months later, Amberly has recovered from cancer and learned how to live again. “I have a new outlook on work—why I do what I do. I do it for my family—they mean everything to me.”
Matteo
Amberly notes many changes in Fort Bragg, mostly surrounding the economic shift from logging and fishing to tourism. “We carried the Ben Davis line of work clothes forever, but I recently closed my account with them. My customers no longer need those types of clothes. There are new people moving here with different ideas mixing with the good ol’ boys. As a fifth generation native, I understand and respect the good ol’ boys—those who never left the area. But I think it’s important to go away, gather new information and ideas, and bring them back home.”
George
As with all change, she notes the good and the bad. “I like seeing downtown stores filling up. I’m part of the Downtown Watch group of business owners who meet once a month to talk about our businesses and promotion. Tourism is great, but hospitality and retail jobs don’t pay much. A lot of our future hinges on what happens to the G-P property. I’d like to see some type of industry that capitalizes on the ocean—like a research facility, aquarium, and marine life rescue center.”
The future is something she thinks about each day. “I plan on running these stores forever and making enough money to support my employees. I’m also working on a blog, the theme of which will be a play on the words Mom and Entrepreneur—Mom-preneur. It will focus on lifestyle or clothing.”
There’s no doubt that whatever challenges Amberly faces, she will conquer them and thrive.
At the age of 27, Gus is like a man from another era. He is extraordinarily polite, respectful, quietly self-confident, and a hard worker. In high school, he entertained the idea of going to college and majoring in marine biology. By his senior year, he realized this wasn’t his passion, and he didn’t want to waste money on an education he might never use. At the age of 18, he went to work for a building contractor. After two months, he was recruited by Williams Electric in Mendocino where he remained for nine years. “I learned to wire anything from a small shed to a smart home that can be controlled with a cell phone.” Through this experience, he discovered his true passion—electricity.
Gus’s work ethic is inherited from his parents. When he was a year old, they moved to Fort Bragg from Mexico to work in the fish processing industry. “This was in 1990 when fishing was booming,” he said. “My parents made minimum wage, but sometimes worked 40 to 50 hours of overtime a week. For a number of years, we lived in an apartment with another family while my parents saved enough money to buy a house.”
Gus’s wife Sierra works for Harvest Market. They’ve been married five years. “I met her in 2011 when our local Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall needed a major renovation. Three hundred volunteers from throughout the state showed up and over the course of two weekends, we gutted the place and rebuilt it.” Sierra, who lived in Chico at the time, was one of those volunteers.
When Sarena unlocked the doors to the Frame Mill Artworks on the morning of March 22, 2017, she excited and nervous. The previous owner Robyn Koski had helped make the transition as smooth as possible, but there was so much Sarena didn’t know, like the flow of the business or the nuances of her employees. Her nerves were further rattled when a supply truck pulled up to make a big delivery.
w much he loved the area. I liked him, but wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. I was considering an MFA program at Mills College. Instead, I moved back to Fort Bragg in 2003 to live with my parents. I needed time to think about what I wanted to do with my life. Within six months, Sean also moved here and was hired by Western ACI as an arborist.”
The Frame Mill had been on the market for a few years. Sarena’s background in framing allowed her to imagine buying it. She spoke to friends who own businesses and they assured her becoming a business owner was one of the best things they’d ever done. She looks back on this now and chuckles. “It’s like talking to parents when you’re considering having a child. They tell you how wonderful it is, but leave out the part about sleepless nights.”
Sarena is pleased to discover her business is part of a little neighborhood hub. “People bring in family photos and art projects. It’s fun to help design a way to display them. I’ve been warmly welcomed by the downtown business community.” She plans to evolve the Frame Mill Artworks into a maker’s space. “So few places make what they sell. I want to eventually create affordable art that people can buy to furnish their walls.” In the meantime, she’s learning how to merchandise the store with items that appeal to locals and tourists. “It’s hard because people have a variety of tastes, some very different from mine.”
Returning to the town where she once felt like an outsider has been a positive experience for Sarena. “It used to be ‘What family are you from?’ Now many people live here who don’t have roots going back generations. New people are moving in and young ones are moving back, some bringing families with them. The more our town can do to be a place people are attracted to—like the opening of the coastline via the coastal trails—the more it will encourage young people to move here.”
Aspen Logan did not grow up in Fort Bragg. Neither did her husband Jeremy. But she has roots here that extend back to the 1920s when her maternal great grandparents built a house on Perkins Way. In addition to having traveled the world, the couple has lived in Los Angeles, Scotland, and Canada. Self-proclaimed risk takers, with backgrounds in the video gaming industry, they never imagined one day they would buy Beckman Printing and Black Bear Press in Fort Bragg.
“Beckman Printing fit our skill set—mine as an animator and illustrator and Aspen’s as a project manager,” Jeremy said. “My mom has been in printing for 30 years. When I walked through Beckman’s doors the first time and smelled the ink, it felt familiar, I felt at home. It appealed to us to run a business that did work for other businesses. It would give us the chance to learn what was going on.”
Their business has grown, especially in the areas of design and branding. To reflect the broad spectrum of all they do—graphic design, web design and printing—they’ve changed the name to The Color Mill.
“Why of course I know 
Regular play dates ensued, alternating between the Turner house and ours. It didn’t take Packie long to abandoned them for the rough and tumble company of boys.
In the fall of 2008, Bryna left Fort Bragg to attend Mount Holyoke in western Massachusetts where she earned a BA in Theater. She went on to obtain an MFA from Rutgers in New Jersey. At the tender age of (almost) 27, she’s written six plays. She lives in Brooklyn where Laine and I met her and their long-time friend Britt Calder for lunch. Afterward, we walked around the area, Bryna and Britt touring us through a neighborhood where mature trees break up the concrete landscape. Raised among the Northern California redwoods, they have a special appreciation for trees.
We parted with hugs, disappointed we wouldn’t see Bryna at the play that evening. In the first few weeks of the run, she’d hide in the back of the theater, near the light board, and spy on the audience. It was nerve-wracking to anticipate their reaction. Would they laugh at the right moments? Were they paying attention or were some reading their programs? Overall, the response was positive. Still, she found it stressful to watch her work being performed. She’d wait for the closing show to see it again.
At the end of the performance, Laine and I stayed in our seats for a few minutes, overcome by the brilliance we had witnessed. “My friend wrote this,” Laine said, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m so in awe of her.”
When Josh’s girlfriend Lia Wilson told me what he does for a living, I simply had to meet him.
Josh worked three part-time internships. He monitored the news and developed press kits for Environmental Media Services, a non-profit environmental public relations firm. He worked for filmmaker John de Graaf in coordinating the first Equinox Environmental Film Festival (later named for Hazel Wolf), soliciting in-kind donations and arranging other details. At 
In August 2011, he moved to Berkeley and became a private investigator with the Mintz Group, a multinational firm. A friend referred him, but he got the job because of his law office and writing experience. “We conduct a variety of investigations, none having to do with cheating spouses.” He laughs. “We focus mainly on three areas: due diligence, including extensive background checks on candidates for high level corporate jobs, and background checks prior to business deals; disputes, which means uncovering whatever it is lawyers need to know for a given lawsuit; and anticorruption. Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, it is illegal for American companies to pay bribes to win job bids in foreign countries. Sometimes companies will contact us to investigate the practices of their employees abroad. We have offices in Asia, Latin America and Africa, as well as the U.S., Canada and London.”
As a teenager, Kerry devoured Vogue magazine. “Fashion is an art form—not just something to cover your body with,” she said. “From runway couture to black yoga pants, it gives you an opportunity to express your inner self in ways large and small, obvious and subtle.”
Because of her deep love of fashion, it makes sense that Kerry would eventually own a clothing store. But first she would graduate from high school and tear out of town to travel the country before returning to hold two to three jobs at the same time in order to make a living.
In 2011, Hilary White asked her to work one day a week at If the Shoe Fits—a consignment clothing shop on Franklin Street. “A year later, Hilary took me to dinner and said she was buying Understuff. She added, ‘I want you to buy If the Shoe Fits.’
and taproom with food currently under construction on Elm Street (north of town near the old bowling alley). They hope to open in early summer 2017. When that happens, she’ll work three to four evenings a week in addition to running her store. When I marvel at her ambition, she says, “I’ve never been afraid of having multiple jobs.”
I met Laura Lee 24 years ago when she was 19 years old. I was captivated by her name—one that seems suited to a line of specialty dairy products—perhaps yogurts and cheeses—some type of creamery to reflect her wholesome sweetness. From our very first meeting, I could tell she is a person who leads from the heart.
Laura is sometimes astonished that she’s worked at Feet First for over 20 years. “It’s given me a chance to build cherished friendships. I’ve met a lot of people in our community and returning visitors. One of my favorite parts is watching the kids grow up. There are kids I’ve known since I helped tie their shoes who now bring their own children into the store.”
Like most businesses, Feet First has changed over the years. “I remember when athletic shoes were mostly white with a little color pop. Now it’s all about the colors. Right now, leisure shoes are taking on a look inspired by athletic shoes. When the [Georgia Pacific] mill was open, work boot sales were steady. We still sell them, but hiking boots are more popular among men.”
Recently, she’s started calling friends and arranging gatherings. “You know how it is when you run into people and say ‘We have to get together soon’ and you never do? Well, I’m telling people, ‘Now’s the time.’ When the weather improves, I’m going to invite people to bonfires at the beach after work.”
I sat down with Justine Lemos, owner of at 
Justine was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship in 2003 which allowed her and Grady to live in India for 10 months while she researched ancient forms of Indian dance. “We lived in remote village in the southwestern part of the country. In order to buy anything refrigerated, we had to travel an hour and a half by local bus.”
Justine taught online classes—Cultural Anthropology, World Dance, Linguistic Anthropology, Anthropology of Art—through colleges in Southern California. She often worked on her laptop at The Company Store. When the flower shop in the building went of business, she thought, “That should be a yoga studio.”
Justine has mixed feelings about being back home. “I was gone for fifteen years and never thought I’d return. But I compared everywhere I lived to here and those places always came up short.” She feels limited career-wise, but grateful to be able to raise her son near her parents. “I had a special relationship with my grandparents, and I’m happy Ravel is having the same experience.”
It Happened at Purity 