The great Humboldt diner crawl

by Valen Lambert

In a Western world fraught with the tasteless chrome of modern design (AKA gentrification), we seek refuge in vestiges of the past. That’s why nothing hits home more than the timelessness of a good ol’ fashioned diner.

Americans love diners; besides baseball, rock n’ roll and the worst gun violence in the world, it’s a sliver of culture we can really call our own.

What does it take to be a diner? I can tell you it is not looking like the nauseating drab that is Toni’s. What they need is a waitress who is certainly going to call you hun. They need to serve eggs, sausage, bacon, toast and pancakes. They need to have the worst coffee you’ve ever had in your life. The food is always mediocre at best and the interior design needs to look like the inside of a 1970’s old folk’s home, or the kind of retro where you’d expect Elvis to walk out of the bathroom at any moment.

Tucked away in the 1,500 person town of Redway, just a 5 minute drive from Garberville, lives Deb’s Great American Hamburger Co. If you ever really want to wow a hot date or need a moment of respite on your heinous commute to anywhere south of Humboldt county, this is the place to go.

Walking in, I could tell it’s the kind of spot that serves as a living room for locals. A little boy was running around while his parents watched a show on their laptop. In the corner were several arcade games where two guys drank beer and cussed over a deer hunting game. Then there was me, bent over a slice of pie.

It’s got faded black and white checkered floors, and the walls are adorned with tacky Betty Boop memorabilia and pictures of motorcycles. It’s got classic American breakfasts and dinners. It’s wonderfully retro; the ghost of an American past. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to a Twin Peaks diner around here. If you need a muse to write a Tom Waits song, this is the place.

The email panicked current students, many of whom expected to return to on-campus housing in the fall. This prompted an immediate response. A post circulated on social media inviting students to gather that night to organize. At the meeting, a large crowd of students filled the Gutswurrack, voicing their concerns with over-enrollment and planning a protest scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 8.

Filling every square foot of available standing room, students even packed onto the balcony. Organizer Lars Hansen spoke using a megaphone, and called on members of the crowd to voice their opinions on the new policy.

“We wanna know what’s going to happen to our housing, what’s going to happen to our community, and what’s going to happen to Humboldt,” Hansen said.

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FEBRUARY 17, 2023 AT 2:30PM-4:30PM IN GUTSWURRAK STUDENT ACTIVITIES CENTER 2ND FLOOR

FOCUS GROUP: BIPOC AND CAMPUS CULTURAL CENTERS

Learn about:

How much will the fee increase?

How will increasing the Student Association Fee make a difference?

For any questions contact: hsuas@humboldt.edu Instagram: calpolyhumboldt_as

LAYOUT EDITORS:

AUGUST LINTON

ANGEL BARKER

CAMILLE DELANY

NINA HUFMAN

DEZMOND REMINGTON

WEB EDITOR:

ANGEL BARKER

DELIVERY DRIVER:

JASMYN LEMUS

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER:

AUGUST LINTON

FACULTY ADVISER:

DEIDRE PIKE

CONTRIBUTORS:

AUGUST LINTON

CAMILLE DELANY

JAKE KNOELLER

DEZMOND REMINGTON

JASMIN SHIRAZIAN

EMMA SJOSTROM

VALEN LAMBERT

ALINA FERGUSON

HARRISON SMITH

The Mission of this newspaper is to fairly inform and share the stories of the Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community. We strive to report with accuracy and honesty. We hold ourselves accountable for errors in our reporting. We invite all readers to participate. Views and contents of The Lumberjack are those of the author and not those of Cal Poly Humboldt. Unsigned editorials appearing in the Opinion section reflect a majority opinion of the editorial staff. Advertising material is for informational purposes and is not an expressed or implied endorsement of such commercial ventures of The Lumberjack, Associated Students or Cal Poly Humboldt.

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“I can’t fathom why you guys are accepting this many students when you can’t support them,” student Julia Kurtz said.

She questioned the logic of reserving the on-campus housing for freshmen and incoming transfers.

“If you are proud enough to put your current students in that housing, you should be proud enough to put new students in that housing,” Kurtz said.

Humboldt has a well-documented problem with student houselessness, a situation that some students said the new on-campus housing rules will make worse.

“I can just sleep in my car on campus, because that’s not any shittier than living in a motel, and it’s 10 to 15 times cheaper,” student Sam Mah said.

Many are considering dropping or transferring out of Humboldt in the wake of this announcement, according to students in attendance.

“You have capacity that’s limited and you’re putting no limit on the flow,” Jack Williams said. Some raised concerns that the massive influx of students into the community without adequate on-campus housing to support them would strain relationships between students, the University, and the community.

“It seems like you just shift responsibility of building up infrastructure onto the community,” Alan Cooper said.

One of the main issues brought up by students was the lack of basic amenities at proposed housing locations. The rooms at the Comfort Inn don’t have kitchens, which poses a serious problem for students on EBT and those with dietary restrictions.

Students with disabilities are concerned with accessibility at the temporary housing locations. They also raised the issue that those who gain access to on-campus housing through their accommodations would be outed as disabled to their peers.

“Every single upperclassmen that has disabilities or problems with mental health, what the fuck are they going to do with us?” one student asked.

The University administration was represented at the meeting by the newly appointed vice president for Enrollment Management & Student Success, Dr. Chrissy Holliday, as well as Indian Tribal and Educational Personnel Program (ITEPP) coordinator Sasheen Raymond and Stephen St. Onge, Humboldt’s Executive Director of Auxiliary Services.

Several of the students speaking purposefully gave admin a chance to respond to their comments, but often their response was lost, drowned out by the large crowd and interrupted by jeers. Holliday especially struggled to be heard over the crowd completely filling the Gutswurrack.

They offered little reassurance or explanation of substance, but expressed their sympathy for students impacted, and their commitment to hearing student perspectives.

“We will come and get beat up over it if we need to,” St. Onge said.

He explained that they were being required by the CSU to enroll more students in order to get funding.

“Now you need to hit this FTE [full time enrollment] and draft a plan to do it,” St. Onge commented. “We’re looking at some different options, hopefully in a week or two we’ll have some more information.”

Recent rumors and apparent email leaks indicate that the University is considering the purchase of a barge that would moor at the Eureka docks and house 650 students. At one point during the meeting, alleged evidence of the barge plan was airdropped to attendees’ smartphones.

University officials did not respond when asked for comment.

At the end of the day, the damage to morale was already done. Students felt betrayed by the administration. The school’s liberal reputation and reported recent influx of cash seemed incongruous with what many perceived as a shocking disregard for the housing policy’s impact on continuing students. At the end of the meeting, there was a call to bring the protest to the Arcata City Hall on Feb. 16.

“I thought ‘this is a school that’s going to see me, that’s going to hear me,’” Haley Kitchman said. “I’ve lived in motels and it’s traumatizing. It’s not easy, and it’s not okay.”