Osprey Spring 2017

Est. 1973

Spring 2o17

Life On the Line Athletics Crisis Heroin Epidemic Urban Homesteading Blazing Trails Student-run magazine

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Karl Holappa LAYOUT EDITOR James Towney PHOTO EDITORS Race Blackwell Jared Funk SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Alexia Neal Madelyn MacMullin DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Amy Torres COPY EDITORS Neil Brown Harry Limonadi Cameron Cable ADVISER Prof. Vicky Sama

ONLINE AT ISSUU.COM/OSPREYMAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS Karl Holappa Race Blackwell Neil Brown Cameron Cable Jared Funk Harry Limonadi Madelyn MacMullin

Robin March Alexia Neal Annamarie Rodriguez Rigmor Soerensen James Towney Amy Torres Hannah Williams

Cover Photo

Highliner Matt Paris walks across a line near Trinidad Head

By Race Blackwell

Letter From the Editor Photo

By Race Blackwell Staff Photo By Jared Funk

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editor@ospreymagazine.com Osprey Magazine c/o Department of Journalism & Mass Communcation 1 Harpst Street, Arcata, CA 95521

Letter

from the

Editor

Well, here we are staring at the end of another academic year. For some of us, myself included, it is our last at Humboldt State, and I for one will miss it dearly. For those of you just getting started in this beautiful place, I have a few tidbits of advice.

First and foremost, take full advantage of the cultural resources we have on campus and in the surrounding community. They will create memories for you that will last a lifetime. Second, get out and enjoy nature. It is beyond abundant in this region, and it provides the ultimate form of stress relief.

I will finish with one final request. Utilize campus media to keep yourself engaged in the serious issues that unfold around you. As journalists, we put in countless hours to make these issues accessible and easy to interpret. In doing so, it is our goal to promote dialogue between students and administration, and as a result increase transparency from the top down.

Of course, there is a lighter side to what we do as journalists. We take great joy in profiling local events and lifestyles. These are by far the most fun to cover, and it is our goal in doing so that they may inspire you to try something new.

You will see both sides of the spectrum reflected in our content for this issue of Osprey. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed producing it for you.

Have a great summer.

Karl Holappa

Table Of Contents 22

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6 12 18 22 30 36 44 50 54 56 58

Forged In Fire Time Out! Big Dreams in Small Spaces The Needle and The Damage Done A Minor History Dialed In the Zone Life On the Line From Bees to Booze Islands of Red in a Sea of Blue The Long Goodbye Badminton: Top 5 5

Close Up

Rich Tobin gets a closer look to accurately work on his project on Feb. 20

Forged in

Fire

A glassblower's experience

By Neil Brown

Photo by Race Blackwell

Photo by Race Blackwell

A

Spark Up

Rich Tobin starts up his glass blowing torch with a flint spark lighter

bright flame from the blowtorch bounces off the glass bong in Rich Tobin’s hands as he rotates it to attach a black and white striped decorative piece. Tobin has been working on this project for two hours, and if he makes a simple mistake it could shatter. Heating up a glass rod to molten temperatures of about 1,500 degrees, Tobin is able to weld the decoration onto the bong before placing it into a kiln.

“Until I found glassblowing I didn’t think I could make money off my art,” Tobin said.

Tobin has been blowing glass for seven years, starting as a hobby and eventually turning it into a career. He rents out a small studio apartment in Arcata with two others, where he repairs broken pieces, fills requests for specific glass art, and creates basic smoking pipes and bongs that sell reliably well. He earns about $3,000 a month.

“Some glassblowers wouldn’t have a job without the weed industry,” Tobin said. “The whole industry was launched by those selling pipes or bongs.”

Tobin usually makes smoking pipes and bongs as his main source of income, selling to local head shops as well as in online auctions and Facebook groups, but they aren’t his favorite things to make. He prefers creating artistic marbles and pendants, but they don’t sell as well as smoking paraphernalia.

“The market for art pieces is small while the market for pipes is huge,” Tobin said. “But you can’t pay bills with marbles, so you make pipes instead. You just do it to get money for rent.”

Holding the cold side of a glass tube, Tobin blows into it while continuously rotating the incandescent blob. He is trying to inflate the glowing heated end of the tube equally on all sides to create his desired shape, something that requires patience, steady hands and a good eye.

“It gets tough doing the same thing over and over again without mixing it up,” Tobin said. “You have to stay creative and try new things.”

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By taking broken shards of colored glass, called frit, Tobin is able to burn the colored pieces onto his projects. Tobin modifies this technique by using a glass rod with little bits of silver on the end, which applies a unique color when burned away.

“It took me around two years of experimentation and practicing before I was confident enough to start selling my work,” Tobin said.

Jason Whitcomb is a glassblower and the owner Flame On Working in his of Smoke Talent Industry Arcata workshop, Lifestyle in Eureka, where Tobin heats the glass up to molten the inside of his shop is filled with smoking paraphernalia temperatures of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Two black glass spiders with brightly colored legs stand in a case, which upon closer inspection turn out to also be pipes. The unique pieces in the case aren’t for sale and are some of Whitcomb’s more prized creations.

“You gotta make the pipes and the bongs and the affordable stuff that people want in order to keep the oxygen coming and PGE on,” Whitcomb said.“Then you take all that extra income and do what you want, like trying a new head piece or investing in new machinery.

That’s the balance, you try to squeeze out as much time as you can to get to the fun stuff.”

Whitcomb has been blowing glass for 19 years and considers pipe and bong making to be an essential skill for glassblowers who want a steady income.

“Every artistic medium has their foundational pieces, the bread and butter items, and these items help build a particular skill that can be used in the future artistically,” Whitcomb said. “The bread and butter items help to hone your skills and are usually demand driven.”

Whitcomb says we have been in a modern glass blowing Renaissance in the past twenty years, propelled largely by glass blowers experimenting with smoking paraphernalia.

“There was an explosion of art and art exploration in the pipe world, where everything is being pushed to the limits at such an aggressive pace,” Whitcomb said. “What’s being produced now is mind-blowing in scale and breadth in comparison to what we’ve seen in the past.”

For students looking to get into glassblowing, they won’t be able to find a good place at HSU. According to chemistry professor Robert Zoellner, the only type of glassblowing offered on campus is in an inorganic chemistry lab, where students are taught how to repair glass vacuum seals. Tobin has plans on teaching glass

Photos by Jared Funk

blowing lessons to beginners, and shops such as Soulshine Arts in Eureka offer glass blowing classes for $50 per person or $90 for private lessons.

“I highly recommend everyone trying it at least once,” Whitcomb said. “There’s still something magical about glassblowing.”

Flame On Flame Working On in his

Working in his Arcata workshop, Arcata workshop, Tobin heats the Tobin up heats the glass to molten glass up to molten temperatures temperatures

All Done

Tobin's finished product

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Team Spirit

Fat Jack riles the crowd during a Humboldt State football game

TIME OUT! HSU athletics department misses the budgetary endzone

By Karl Holappa

Additonal Reporting By Rigmor Soerensen

Photo by Jared Funk

T

he most noticeable items on Rob Smith’s desk are the jewel-encrusted rings. They represent the two conference championships he achieved as head football coach at Humboldt State. When he reminisces about those victories, he describes the atmosphere as electric.

“It was as good as it gets,” Smith said. “It’s why you play the game. Things like that are really special, and what’s fun is to see how the community and the campus get behind what we do.”

The on-field triumphs of Lumberjack athletics are overshadowed, however, by major problems facing the department. The current revenue model is not working.

Emergency funds are depleted, and the athletics department is operating on a $600,000 yearly deficit.

“I am keenly aware of the issues created by the sense of uncertainty surrounding the future of HSU athletics,” HSU President Lisa Rossbacher wrote in a memo to Interim Athletic Director Tom Trepiak.

The woes of the athletics budget can be traced back to 2007. Budget cuts throughout the CSU system prompted Humboldt State to divert general fund money that had always gone to athletics to academics. To supplement the loss, almost 80 percent of student fees, more than 4 million dollars, were then diverted to athletics.

In 2010, then-President Rollin Richmond raised the IRA fee, despite a 2-1 student vote against the increase.

Humboldt State now has the highest IRA fees in the CSU system, with each student paying $674 per academic year. The remainder of the athletics budget

comes from revenue generated by ticket sales, donations, and sponsorships, but in the past two years, this has not been enough to cover costs. This year athletics is again operating in the red, so the university had to use $500,000 from its general fund to bail out athletics.

Last fall, in response to the budget crisis, President Rossbacher hired consulting firm Strategic Edge to conduct an athletic’s assessment. Strategic Edge is co-owned

by Chuck Lindemenn who was HSU’s athletic director from 1985 to 1995. His 153-page assessment, which cost $35,700, studied options the university could take to fix the athletics budget shortfalls. The options included dropping certain sports, dropping athletics entirely, joining alternate athletic conferences in Division II, or dropping to Division III. The report said that dropping any sports would reduce the deficit but would create other problems such as decreased enrollment. It added that a conference or division change would not produce significant savings.

The assessment concluded that the most logical options for eliminating the deficit would be to increase alumni and community donations, place more emphasis on club and intramural sports, re-divert State General Funds, or more surprisingly, add additional sports to the athletics program.

HSU athletics are important for the local community.

This importance is backed up with money, and lots of it. According to the assessment, in 2015, the athletics department received $246,280 in donations, compared to the $13,189 average for other schools in the conference.

“This county is amazing in its support,” said Trepiak.

HSU Athletics funding sources: How it stacks up against other schools Student IRA Fees Towards Athletics (2015) At HSU 4,221,875 CCAA Median 2,181,874 Division II Median 16,737 State General Fund (Direct institutional support) towards athletics (2015) At HSU 706,885 CCAA Median 2,104,708 Division II Median 3,560,703

Where your $674 annual IRA fee goes

$155 — Radio and television, newspaper publications, forensics, music and dramatic performances, concerts, marching bands, and art exhibits 14

$519 — Athletics

Source: 2016 Intercollegiate Athletics Assessment

Show Me The Money

Interim Athletic Director Tom Trepiak speaks at the annual fundraiser at the Seqouia Conference Center in Eureka

“They love sports, they love athletics. They want to see us strong.”

Trepiak says one way to get more money for the athletics program is to offer more scholarships.

“The formula is easy: you give more scholarships, you bring in a higher caliber of athletes,” he said. “They perform better on the field for success and the community gets behind that and wants more, which creates more scholarships, which creates even more qualified student athletes and even more success.”

In March, the athletics department held its 32nd Annual Celebrity Dinner and Sports Auction at the Sequoia Conference Center in Eureka. The main purpose was to raise scholarship money. The event was attended by local businesspeople, HSU athletes and coaches, and members of the school administration including President Rossbacher. It was an important show: the athletes dressed to the nines in cocktail gowns, suits and ties.

The items up for bid were eclectic: mattress sets, cords of firewood, vacation rentals and a fishing boat and trailer.

Trepiak auctioned off a dinner for six where he would cook his “world famous lasagna.” It sold for $550.

“People have spent as much as $10,000 on one item to show their support,” Trepiak said.

It was truly a social event with several movers and shakers in attendance. That evening, athletics broke the auction’s fundraising record, raising over $250,000.

“That really demonstrates the support for the university, for the athletic program and in particular the students,” Rossbacher said.

NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young headlined the event, and spoke to the crowd by video.

“Most every school has an athletics budget that’s

Photo by Jared Funk

strained,” Young said. “We’ve got to have flourishing athletics programs. We’ve got to have flourishing arts programs, where the spirit is fed and people learn how to be and how to achieve.”

Young donated a package to the fundraiser that included tickets to a Monday night NFL game of the winner’s choice, including an on-field experience and lodging. It sold for $10,000.

During a break in the auction, about two dozen student athletes came to the front of the room to encourage attendees to donate money specifically for scholarships.

Junior Defensive Back Jeff Shott choked back emotions as he told the crowd about his experience as a nonscholarship athlete for his first years at Humboldt State.

He received a scholarship last season and said it was the proudest moment of his football career.

“Only a select few of us are going to be able to play professionally and our degree is the most important thing,” Shott said. “We wouldn’t have all of our programs if it wasn’t for you guys.”

After the Strategic Edge report was released in December 2016, President Rossbacher responded with a memo to Trepiak in January, saying that she would create an “ad hoc task force” to further research viable options to eliminate the athletics deficit. The goal was to have a concrete plan of action in place by spring. In February, Rossbacher wrote another memo to Trepiak stating that she would no longer rely on a task force.

“As president, I am ultimately responsible,” she wrote in the second memo. “Therefore, I have decided to seek individual perspectives and advice from a variety of people with a range of viewpoints, with a goal of making decisions as soon as possible this spring for immediate

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Spring Fever

Jacks line up for a play during a spring practice session

implementation. The process will involve my having conversations-both in person and on the phone-with a wide variety of people and small groups, to invite ideas, potential solutions and insights into the options.”

In an interview with Osprey, Rossbacher described these people in general terms as coaches, faculty members, staff, administrators, students and community members. In March, Rossbacher wrote yet another memo that pushed back any hope of a concrete solution.

“While cost savings are possible, even substantial savings are not likely to produce a significant impact on the budget deficit,” she wrote.

In the meantime, the seemingly impossible task of creating a balanced athletics budget falls on the shoulders of Trepiak. According to Rossbacher’s memo, Trepiak must submit a proposed budget for the next five years that must not use any money from the university’s general fund, nor can it call for increased IRA fees.

Trepiak said that the initial shift to IRA funding was seen as a quick fix during a time while the budget was strained. He said the decision was meant to have long-term viability but that did not end up being the case.

“I saw it as potentially problematic because it’s totally tied to enrollment,” Trepiak said. “If enrollment increases then you’re fine, and it did for many years. But when enrollment decreases you’re in trouble, and that’s what’s happening now.”

Trepiak says that athletics fundraising adequately covers scholarships, but that the problem lies in the department’s operational budget. Why the shortfall? He points to decreased enrollment, lack of access to the university general fund, as well as mandated salary and benefit increases for athletics staff.

“We know we are going to pay more money and we know we are going to get less money, so how do we match that?” Trepiak asked. “We’ve got to figure out more creative ways to raise money.”

At the most recent fundraiser,

Photo by Race Blackwell

Trepiak tried to raise more money for the operating fund by soliciting donations for team equipment and travel costs. Donors had the opportunity to fund a specific item listed on TV screens in the event hall.

The experiment raised $7,600.

“It wasn’t like a slam dunk major victory, but to me it was encouraging,” Trepiak said. “We’ll have to take that piece and grow it.”

Another Hail Mary attempt at alleviating the deficit is to turn to the Internet.

“We’re going to have crowdfunding for athletics in things that make sense that people will want to help fund and it will be on operating side things,” Trepiak said.

In the meantime, Trepiak has sent budget spreadsheets to coaches to identify where they can cut costs.

He says that cutting sports is not a desirable option.

“That’s the challenge I have, is to try to develop a plan where we do not cut sports,” Trepiak said. “Cutting sports is short-sided.”

Using the football team as an example, he echoed the findings from the Strategic Edge report.

“The loss would be greater to the general fund than what the team costs to maintain,” Trepiak said. “If you cut football, you’re actually taking money away from the university. You’re not saving anything.”

But some universities find budget solutions by cutting football. Coach Smith’s previous coaching job at Western Washington University exposed him to the challenges of budget deficits. Western cut its football program shortly after he left.

Although he sees similarities between the two situations, Smith says community and alumni support for athletics is much greater in Humboldt County than in more suburban campus locations.

“This is important to this community and that cannot be denied,” Smith said. “When you look at attendance, when you look at fundraising, when you look at all the things related to that, it cannot be denied.”

Smith does not think the deficit is

the fault of athletics. He says success on the individual teams can help increase exposure for the university and help eventually alleviate the budget deficit.

“As coaches we’re educators and what we do is teach,” Smith said.

“Let’s not downgrade the importance of what is learned through an athlete’s participation in their sport. I believe strongly in what we do.”

Smith says that when it comes to the question of how to save money, cutting football often comes up first.

“Football is always the elephant in the room,” he said. “You’ve got people asking will the program will be here next year. I don’t make those decisions, but I believe 100 percent it will be because this community deserves a football program it can continue to support.”

Osprey attempted to reach other coaches but received no responses.

There appears to be no real solution for the deficit at this point.

Reliance on IRA fees has proven to be unsustainable and fundraising cannot cover the gap. President Rossbacher stated that general funds will not be provided for future athletics budgets.

In an email interview, we asked Rossbacher if she would cut sports to alleviate the athletics budget deficit.

“We have to consider every option to ensure that all HSU programs are financially sustainable,” Rossbacher replied.

Coach Smith has cautious words of advice.

“When I read about possibilities or when we experience cuts, that’s part of college athletics,” Smith said.

“I also hope that the people who make those decisions do so with a clear mind of what it is they’re dealing with because it’s so positive. There’s so much good in what we’re doing.”

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Big Dreams in

Small Spaces urban homesteading takes root in Arcata

S

hane Keller has a sweet, simple dream where he walks around the block and doesn’t see green grass in the lawns of neighbors. Instead, he sees kale and rainbow chard painting the ground around each house, with an abundance of food growing in the yards. This dream of selfsustainability could become a reality, and Keller thinks Arcata just may be the town to lead the movement.

“I had typical dreams of getting to the countryside to have an ecovillage,” Keller said.

“But I hadn’t thought of a comprehensive ecovillage in a town or city until about three years ago.”

This year, Keller plans to grow 2,000 pounds of produce at his urban homestead project, Way of Life. The overall growing space of the garden in Sunny Brae takes up around 1,600 square feet of currently cultivated ground. Despite its small size, it will produce enough to meet the vegetable needs of about 10 people a year.

Keller started the project with hopes to

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By Alexia Neal

inspire others and defy the idea that a big plot of land is needed to successfully grow food. He said the yard is a sort of living suburban sculpture — it changes with the seasons and the years.

And it all started with getting rid of the normal monocropped grass lawn.

“It is our way of inspiring the community,” Keller said. “We don’t currently make any money off of it, but it is an example of how people can live.”

The homestead is organic and uses sustainable techniques to maximize production. There is a greenhouse for starting sprouts and growing lettuce, a rainwater catchment tank, multiple raised planter beds, biochar charging containers for wood ashes, vertical wooden growing racks and a complex composting system.

Way of Life grows leafy greens, winter squash, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, strawberries and broccoli. Keller said they are planning to build a chicken coop and a food forest.

Most of what is grown on the homestead is given in exchange for helping hands from

Digging In

Keller loosening the soil in a garden bed on April 2nd

Photo by Race Blackwell

community members. Partners and volunteers are able to take a fair share of produce for their day’s work.

Garden partner Samantha Stone sits on the edge of a garden bed with a bag full of rainbow chard on her lap after a few hours of working at the homestead planting strawberries.

Her eyes squint in the sunshine while she looks at the neighbors’ lawns. To her, the green grasses are wasting land that could be used to grow food.

Stone says that it’s sometimes hard for people to understand the idea of bringing back the commons.

“So many layers of our social lives and upbringing say differently,” Stone said. “It’s not ‘mine and yours,’ it’s ‘ours.’ It’s kind of decolonizing the mind in some ways.”

Meka Hunt teaches an Urban Homesteading course at the Campus Center for Appropriate Technologies (CCAT), based on teaching skills of self-sufficiency and sustainability. The class tours Way of Life each semester, and she said students leave inspired by the amount of food produced and the efficiency of the space.

“Shane has the most radical and effective way of approaching that, which is to be a display garden, to be an example of exactly the type of change that needs to happen on a bigger scale,” Hunt said.

While sitting on the vegetable terraces outside of CCAT, Hunt said that the reality of every house becoming an urban homestead may go against the common paradigm now, but it will someday be the norm.

“This change is not so radical,” Hunt said. “Community is ancient, working together is ancient and working with the earth is ancient. We just need to reclaim ourselves and our earth and each other. It’s just a change of mindset.”

Keller and his life partner Linda Peterson rent the house at Way of Life to tenants that agree to have people work in the garden. One garden partner and house tenant, Israel Pichardo, said he spends time each day studying the plants to figure out what they need to grow.

In the greenhouse one morning, Pichardo kneeled down to observe the

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"This change is not so radical." growing lettuce heads. He watched a trail of ants roam the soil near the plants. He immediately knew what they were doing — hunting aphids.

“The ants mine the aphids,” Pichardo said. “They reproduce them so they can get the aphid’s honey from the sugar of the plants.”

Pichardo explained that aphids are small bugs that gather the fruit and vegetable sugars while eating them. Pichardo used an organic method to get rid of the bugs, slowly and carefully washing each lettuce leaf with Dr. Bronner’s soap.

His passion for growing food is what led him to move into the homestead. He is now the head caretaker of the property and a garden partner.

“Usually in farming communities, you learn by being a little kid and just going out with your dad; you know when to plant, you know what to do when things go wrong,” Pichardo said. “I learn by messing up alot and by having a lot of practice.”

Keller was finally inspired to get rid of the green lawn and plant food after listening to Karen Litfin, author of the book “Ecovillage: Lessons for Sustainable Community.” She gave a lecture at Humboldt State in 2014.

“She explained that Arcata could be an amazing ecovillage,” Keller said. “It was a shift in my perspective.”

Keller hopes his small but abundant garden inspires others. And so far, it has.

Photo by Race Blackwell

Spring Break

Lindsey Clifford and Shane Keller break up the soil in the garden beds before some spring planting on April 2nd

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the needle and thebydamage done Race Blackwell & Jared Funk

Full Circle

Used needles in a sharps container during a needle exchange at HACHR

Photo by Jared Funk

S

Founder

Brandie Wilson, founder of Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction, during needle exchange

tacy Cobine breathes air into the mouth of a heroin addict who is asphyxiated from an overdose. She knows the drill: “thirty chest compressions, two breaths, repeat.” But her breath into the victim comes right back out, just like a deflating balloon. She continues CPR until the ambulance arrives, but the overdose is fatal.

Cobine is a volunteer for the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction with experience resuscitating overdose victims.

“People in general look at drug addicts as pieces of shit and they don’t ever try to take the time to understand why is that person like that,” Cobine said. “What drove them to the point where they are like this? The majority are trying to mask pain or they were using opioids that their doctor prescribed.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 13,000 Americans died from heroin overdose in 2015. In Humboldt County, five people died from heroin overdose that same year, according to the California Department of Public Health. The same report shows 2,657 people died from heroin-related causes from 2010 to 2015.

Brandie Wilson developed the idea to bring harm reduction to Humboldt County after she had lost friends to heroin overdose and created

the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction.

She began sending out emails to every national drug policy organization to get grant money to start the Harm Reduction Center.

“Harm reduction is by drug users for drug users,” Wilson said.

According to Wilson, the Harm Reduction Center gave out 240,000 free, clean, new needles while receiving 194,000 used ones last year.

They also distributed more than 2,000 doses of naloxone, an opiate inhibitor that can reverse an overdose. Wilson says they were able to reverse more than a hundred overdoses in 2016. The goal is to also distribute twice the amount of naloxone this year. Wilson says that the overdose rate for 2017 is on track to match the year before.

“We’re having an overdose almost every week,” Wilson said. “In the face of an overdose epidemic our numbers didn’t rise—that’s a success. That’s a fucking weird success. But that’s a success.”

Wilson is the only paid staff member at the Harm Reduction Center. In order to exchange needles and provide services, the center relies heavily on volunteers.

“We have volunteers from people who need probation hours, we have volunteers who are homeless, we had volunteers who are from HSU,” Wilson said.

Cobine has been in shooting galleries in Eureka, where needles are strewn across the floor with six people, heroin addicts, passing around a used syringe like a joint. Over the years she would bring a backpack full of supplies to these shooting galleries to help keep heroin addicts from overdosing. No matter how much she would take, they would always need more.

“It’s really hard when people accuse us of being enablers,” Cobine said. “I hate hearing that or at least I used to hate hearing that until I realized that in a way we are enabling people. We’re enabling them to take a little more control over their health. We’re enabling them to have clean supplies, we’re enabling them to start feeling like a human being again.”

Cobine’s drive to help heroin addicts comes from losing a close friend to an overdose. His name was Jynx and he had locked himself in a bathroom to shoot up where no one could get to him.

“Everybody was nodded out and then when they got in there it was too late,” Cobine said. “So that kinda drives me to pass out the naloxone because I hate heroin, I hate it, I hate that drug. But I can’t judge people for it because you know I’m not them. I don’t know what pain they’re feeling.

But I always try to tell them, don’t use alone, don’t use behind locked doors. We’ve saved over a hundred people with this stuff. It feels good to know that.”

Photos by Race Blackwell

Preparation

Stacy Cobine makes naloxone kits

“Harm reduction is by drug users for drug users.”

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Jim Longhi goes down to the gulch in Eureka and hides in the bushes so little kids walking by will not see him.

He fills his used syringe with muddy puddle water and injects it into his arm, leaving a trace mark next to his faded tattoo.

“That almost killed me, I was dying from it. Literally dying,” Longhi said. “It paralyzed half my body. It was going to paralyze my whole body and then I was going to die. They told me, ‘you are going to die. If you don’t go have this surgery done right now you’ll be paralyzed at any moment right now from moving.’”

Longhi, born and raised in Eureka, says he started shooting heroin when he was 10 years old. His brother was the biggest drug dealer in the city in the 1970s, and according to Longhi, even his brother didn’t know he was on heroin. The now 53-year-old says that he can’t simply quit cold turkey after 43 years of shooting up.

“You know, I kick myself in the ass every fucking morning I wake up sick. If I could start it over, I would. I would’ve given a shit,” Longhi said.

“I’ve been doing it for so many years, really, it’s going to be really hard to kick. If I do it cold turkey, it’ll kill me.”

Longhi was a labor worker, pulling

green chains at a sawmill and getting carpal tunnel in his hands before he went to prison. He recalls being in riots and stabbing people in prison.

Once he got out, he started to use what his brother taught him about hustling.

“People give me money, they trust me with it to go get them something and I come back with it, either the money or their drugs,” Longhi said. “I won’t score for little kids and I won’t score for pregnant women. I draw the line right there because I want to give that little kid a chance, and I want to give that baby chance at a better life than this. Don’t go stealing from average people because it’s not going to get you nowhere -- it’s just going to get you busted and people are going to hate you. There is a better way to fucking deal with it.”

At one time, Longhi spent $56,000 in four months on heroin and was using up to nine grams a day. He was told that at night when he slept, they could smell heroin coming out of his pores.

“This is the only thing I’ve known all my life,” Longhi said. “I don’t know anything else.”

Longhi tries to save money to get off the streets, but his biggest problem

According to the California Department of Public Health there have been 26

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is the possession and camping tickets he gets from the Eureka Police Department.

“I’m tired of cops hassling me,” Longhi said. “I know I put myself there, now I’m trying to get myself off the streets and the only way I can do that is if you guys stop giving me camping tickets.”

Eureka Police Chief Andy Mills says that the police department’s main prerogative is to seek out and arrest heroin traffickers and not just users.

“As long as the demand is there, the pipeline is going to continue,” Mills said. “We have to do something that sends the message to those that would harm others by taking a stand and saying that is unacceptable in our society.”

Chief Mills says that harm reduction is a possible solution.

“I’m generally in favor of needle exchange programs because it reduces the prevalence of HIV and AIDS as well as Hep-C,” Mills said.

“The last thing I want is for them to share dirty needles with somebody else so that more people get Hep-C or HIV. So we’re working on a couple of different levels to try to reduce the problem.”

Heroin deaths in Humboldt County from 2008 to 2015 Photo by Race Blackwell

Jim Longhi, born and raised in Eureka, has been shooting up heroin for 43 years

“You know, I kick myself in the ass every fucking morning I wake up sick.

If I could start it over, I would. I would’ve given a shit,”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, heroin addicts run the risk of serious, long-term viral infections such as HIV, Hepatitis C and B, as well as bacterial infections of the skin, bloodstream and heart.

Unfortunately for Jim Longhi, Eureka police officers are not tolerant when it comes to dealing with heroin addicts on the streets.

“We are a law enforcement agency and so often times we’re enforcing the law, to be very honest, we’re not too excited about your average heroin user,” Mills said. “But when we get up into the amount of pounds of tar heroin, that’s a substantial amount and we try to aggressively go after those folks.”

Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction has lost several consumers and volunteers to overdose and incarceration this year. Brandie Wilson asks herself every day how she, and those participating at the center, can deal with and cope with losing another person.

“No one has to hide a conversation here,” Wilson said. “They talk it through in a real way. We just try harder after every situation.”

There is no stigma at the Harm Reduction Center.

“I’m glad these guys are here,” Longhi said. “I was using old needles, sharpening them on matchbooks just to get them sharp. You reuse them again and clean them out with alcohol but it made me so screwed up by doing that.”

Stacy Cobine, 44, remembers the first day she participated in the Humboldt Area for Harm Reduction.

Shortly after that, she joined and started volunteering for them.

“This organization saved me though,” Cobine said. “I had no selfesteem, I hated myself. This place makes me feel like I’m not so old.”

There’s a push to get law enforcement and the city council to see the benefits of harm reduction and from that be able to make new drug policies that work for Humboldt County.

David Showalter, a Ph.D. student at the University of California in

28

Photo by Race Blackwell

Berkeley, sits poised in the Humboldt Harm Reduction Center kitchen. He talks with volunteers hours before a needle exchange with his voice recorder lying flat on a plastic gray folding table in front of him. He is conducting an in-depth dissertation project comparing opioid use and overdose in urban and rural parts of California.

“We can not only understand differences, but know how to write a policy that’s actually going to address what problems look like in different places,” Showalter said.

Showalter has also spent time in the Sierras Cascades in towns ranging from a few hundred people to a few thousand. Due to the small population size, one overdose death can have a ripple effect on the community.

“Because everyone knows everyone,” Showalter said. “If we can prevent one death per year, it’s going to drop the overdose rate pretty significantly.”

Before attending the University of Berkeley, Showalter developed an interest in drug policy while at the University of Chicago. He did so by volunteering with Chicago’s needle exchange program called Chicago Recovery Alliance.

“Very quickly I thought it was really amazing because people who use drugs, or formerly use drugs, actually like having control over their own lives,” Showalter said.

Berkeley started doing needle exchanges 27 years ago. According to Berkeley’s Needle Exchange Emergency Distribution, they

“This is the only thing I've known all my life.”

exchange on average more than 11,000 needles per week. Showalter said that local circumstances affect the way drug policies are written such as population size, services available and geography.

“The needle exchange that I help run in Berkeley, we do things a certain way,” Showalter said. “But if you’re out in a community like Humboldt, you have to adapt to the local circumstances. Sometimes the policies we have in urban areas just don’t work up here.”

Brandie Wilson got approval from the Arcata City Council to bring needle exchanges to Arcata. Volunteer Rachel Waldman, a masters student in social work at Humboldt State, operates the Harm Reduction Center out of a big white cargo van that

drives around town.

“I had a course on harm reduction and really fell in love with the concept,” Waldman said.

The outreach in Arcata offers the same services as the center in Eureka.

They take syringes, cookers, water, clean and sterile cotton balls, wound care kits, bleach kits, condoms, lube and a big cooler of water for people to refill their bottles. Yet, it hasn’t been easy.

“It’s been really hard to find consistent areas to find consumers,” Waldman said. “It’s been a struggle in Arcata.”

According to Waldman, consumers in Arcata are hidden more so than in Eureka. The outreach is unfamiliar and due to stipulations set by the Arcata City Council they can’t exchange at the Plaza. Waldman says that through this outreach, the Harm Reduction organization has been building trust in Arcata.

“I think that there’s definitely a big difference,” Waldman said.

The next step for the Harm Reduction Center is to provide a safe consumption site for heroin users.

On March 28, Wilson and other volunteers participated in a mockup at HSU’s Goodwin Forum as a part of the Criminal Justice Summit.

According to a survey conducted by the American College Health Association in 2016, 32 out of 862 student participants have used opiates.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Cobine said. “To teach them the right way, to give them the supplies to do it the right way.”

Scarred

Jim Longhi shows scars from using

29

A MINOR HI

ISTORY

By Hannah Williams Photo Illustration by James Towney

32

Photo from A History of the Minor Theatre, Arcata California, 1914-1924 by Robert Titlow

I

saac Minor stands under a majestic wooden marquee in a bowtie and tophat, greeting townspeople exiting their horse-drawn carriages.

They’re entering his new theater on the corner of 10th and H Streets in Arcata, called Uniontown at the time. Minor joins the audience of more than 500 people inside. On the stage, three girls in white dresses stand in a gondola as part of the opening night ceremony. With a golden harp in her hands, the girl in the middle raises a bottle of perfume above her head and smashes it on the stage.

“I christen thee Pettengills’ Minor Theatre, with the essence of celandine, the symbol of joys to come,” she’s quoted saying in the Arcata Union newspaper. “May you ever be a joy to all present and future citizens of Arcata and the strangers who may enter the gates of the city.”

Eight pigeons fly out from behind the girls and hover over the townsfolk on the balcony. Pettengill’s Minor Theatre officially opens on December 3, 1914.

More than 100 years later, Arcata local Josh Neff bought the theater with his business partner Merrick Mckinlay in 2015.

“There’s a culture that surrounds the Minor, and it’s partially because it’s never been anything but a theater,” says Neff in his sunny office above the lobby. “It’s a rare thing for any business to run for that length of time, and it’s even more unusual to have a building serve the same purpose for 103 years, that’s remarkable.”

He grew up going to the Minor, attending the afternoon dollar movies and sneaking into the midnight showings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Neff wanders around under the stage at the front of the main screening room. Before being his storage area, the place under the stage was used as dressing rooms for live performances.

Old School

Opening night at Pettengill's Minor Theatre on Dec. 3 1914

33

34

Photos by Jared Funk

“I have five different generations of seats from the Minor,” says Neff, pointing to a pile of seats in the corner.

“I find myself getting completely lost down here.”

Robert Titlow studied the Minor Theatre’s history for his 1959 San Francisco State University thesis. He wrote, “If drama was never a vital force in the community, movies were.”

Seeing the need for movingpicture expansion, Minor asked the Pettengill family to help him build the theater. The Pettengills already ran the two other theaters in town, Minor’s Excelsior and The Pastime.

“If you’ve got the money, I’ve got the know-how,” said Mrs. Bert Pettengill, who is quoted in Titlow’s book.

The first years of Pettengill’s Minor Theatre included silent films, circus groups, and Harry Houdini.

The trap door from Houdini’s first show is still there.

Two years after the theater opened, on December 11, 1915, Minor died and left the theater in the care of the Pettengills who ran it with the help of local theater manager George Mann. In 1938, when Mann’s Arcata Theater Lounge opened, the Minor closed.

For the next thirty years, community groups tried to reopen, preserve or destroy the Minor, but it wasn’t until 1971 that the ownership changed when HSU graduate David Phillips and his friends bought the decaying theater and added two screening rooms. There were dollar movies for kids and throwbacks for the parents.

This year, the 50th Humboldt International Film Festival returned to the Minor. Nairobys Apolito, a HSU senior, is the film festival codirector.

“It’s a homey place and it’s where it all began,” she says. “So it’s great to have it back to its roots.”

New Owner

Josh Neff stands in front of his Minor Theatre at the corner of H and 10th Streets in Arcata

Today, Minor moviegoers can order hot dogs topped Got Water? with kimchi and root beer floats delivered right to their seats. A vintage water inside the Locally sourced food and beer is sold next to traditional fountain Minor Theatre movie treats. The owner still greets patrons as they walk through the antique lobby, and it still shows movies like “Casablanca” along with newer films like “Beauty and The Beast.”

“It’s always served the exact same purpose for the community,” Neff says. “Entertaining and enriching, and that’s what the Minor has always had. Always.”

Writer Hannah Williams is a shift manager at the Minor Theater

35

Photo by Jared Funk

DIALEDIN

THE ZONE

Blazing new mountain bike trails in the Arcata Community Forest BY HARRY LIMONADI

37

W

ith a sudden yelp, followed shortly by a dull thud, Tom Phillips trips and falls in the dense brush deep in the Sunny Brae forest. Fellow cyclist Steven Pearl yells out and asks if he is ok.

“I’m just clearing a path,” Phillips replies with a sheepish grin while clambering to his feet.

Philips and Pearl, joined by their fellow cycling enthusiast Sean Tetrault, are out on a brisk Saturday morning trekking through the woods to scout out a good spot to build a bike trail. The three are members of the Redwood Coast Mountain Bike Association, which develops and maintains trails in Humboldt County.

Over the next three hours the trio use marking tape to flag out the path the future trail will take. They make notes on natural features to figure out how water will run off the trail in order to prevent erosion. The city of Arcata owns the land where they are surveying. Phillips says that working with the city’s Forest Management Committee is key to getting the trail approved.

“Let’s show the city what we can do, if we can build the trail top to bottom,” Phillips says.

Finally, the general shape of the trail is decided. Phillips takes out a GPS and starts recording while hiking down the envisioned path. With the legwork out of the way, the group must now create a proposal to get the city’s approval.

The lack of bike-specific trails over the years led to renegade trails such as Sam’s Trail in Sunny Brae.

In designing trails, Phillips strives to balance the wants of cyclists, hikers, and horseback riders while adhering to the city’s management plan.

“My theory has always been you can manage use in a couple ways: you can be prohibitive and punitive and try and fight things, which is no fun for anybody,” Phillips says. “Or, you can manage use in making the right thing more attractive than the wrong things.”

38

The Plan

Map from the city of Arcata with orginal illustrations by Tom Phillips

39

With this principle in mind, the decision is made to propose renovating Sam’s Trail and make it an official route.

A month later the trio stands before the Arcata Forest Management Committee in the City Council Hall chamber to make their case.

“The proposal briefly, is making Sam’s an advanced trail, a directional trail, making a short connection to the existing directional trail, and that would get almost all the downhill mountain bike traffic off the Ridge trail,” Phillips says.

The group takes seriously complaints about cyclists traveling at unsafe speeds downhill.

“Removing that downhill traffic from the ridge trail and creating small spurs could create a huge relief,” Tetrault says.

In creating a trail system with frequent banks and turns, the plan is to increase safety by lowering speeds without taking away the fun factor.

“Ideally, you’d make 10 to 15 miles an hour feel like 30,” Phillips explains. “Blasting straight down a logging road is really what we don’t want.”

Mark Andre is Arcata’s Director of Environmental Services and a member of the Forest Management Committee. He considers how trails like the ones Phillips is building will affect the area ecologically.

“Forest trails must be surveyed for rare plants and be consistent with the Forest Management Plan,” Andre says. “The city must also review the project under the California Environmental Quality Act.” Phillips found his passion for cycling in Santa Cruz before moving to Arcata in 1994. While attending HSU majoring in Environmental Resources Engineering, Phillips found fellow cyclists among the student body.

“We’ve had a really great mountain bike community since I could remember,” Phillips says.

Faced with a lack of mountain bike specific single-track, cyclists at the time strayed off the beaten path.

“We wanted challenging trails,” Phillips says. “And challenging trails

40

tend to be ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ or outright illegal trails.”

So that’s what motivated Phillips to start building bike trails in the Community Forest with the city’s blessing.

“Our main goal is to get trails built, to increase the number of trails and keep those trails maintained,” Phillips says.

Phillips says the mountain bike association serves a greater purpose in the biking community. They do more than build trails, such as putting on events.

On a brisk Saturday morning in February, about 20 cyclists gather in the Arcata Community Center parking lot for a 50-mile training ride that is about to wind its way up into the hills through Butler Valley. Local cyclist Kaydee Raths was among them.

“It’s nice to get out and ride with a bunch of people that are a lot faster than me and be able to be inspired by their speed and know that I’m not just out there riding by myself,” Raths says.

The ride, which is more like a race, is the second in a five-part yearly series called Banana Slug, put on by Phillips’ mountain bike club.

Phillips has played an instrumental part in the local mountain bike community over the years. In addition to the trails he’s building in Arcata, he has built trails in other areas of Humboldt County. He did the majority of the work building new bike trails at Lacks Creek. That’s on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management off Highway 299 northeast of Blue Lake. Phillips and Tetrault began flagging trails there in 2010 with former Bigfoot Bicycle Club head Tim Daniels and Joey Klein, the lead trail designer for the International Mountain Bicycling Association, among others.

“Without a good core volunteer group who would take ownership of it, then you’re dead in the water,” Klein says. “Those guys, they’re my heroes. They were coming, driving two hours plus to go do work days.”

With a trail plan in place for Lacks Creek, they started fishing for

Helping Hand

Hollie Ernest volunteers to build Lacks Creek mountiain bike trails

Photo by Jared Funk

Photo by Jared Funk

“My dream is for the community to be aggressive at building trails, build a lot of them, and build a really comprehensive trail network.”

Getting Air

Harry Ward catches air off a newly built jump on Tomfoolery trail in Lacks Creek

grants. Phillips co-authored a funding proposal with help and input from others, which was submitted to the state’s Environmental Enhancement and Mitigation Program under the Humboldt Trail Council. In 2013, it was approved and the nonprofit was awarded $270,000 to develop trails.

The project was then contracted to Greenway Partners. Work was also subcontracted to Phillips’ company, Fogline Trail Systems, which provided field management and an excavator used extensively to build the trails.

Before Lacks Creek, Klein and Phillips worked together with others on the 23-mile Paradise Royal trail in the King Range National Conservation Area near Shelter Cove.

It was this work with the Bureau of Land Management in Southern Humboldt that laid the foundation for future bike-specific trails elsewhere.

“BLM were the first ones to do it.

You can pretty much say it happened at King Range right there,” Klein says. “It’s being spread all over Oregon, stuff in Utah is blowing up, Colorado and Nevada. It is really taking off.”

While work at Lacks Creek was originally estimated to be completed in 2015, it has taken longer than expected. Phillips continues to work on the project that started seven years ago.

“My dream is for the community to be aggressive at building trails, build a lot of them, and build a really comprehensive trail network,” Phillips says.

As chair of the county’s biking club, Phillips strives to keep the organization focused on working on trails.

“We’ll be out there maintaining and improving trails that are out there and making them more fun,” Phillips says.

At the end of March, Phillips and fellow mountain bike enthusiasts returned to Lacks Creek for their first trail day after a particularly wet winter. Armed with chainsaws, leaf blowers and a bunch of hand tools, the group split into teams to repair weather damage to nearly 11 miles of trails. After hours of labor, they meet back at the trailhead to enjoy the fruits of their labor and go for a ride.

“We still have half a mile to a mile of trail to build and finish up that I’m just going to go out there and do,” Phillips said. “I figure it’s my responsibility to finish.”

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Life Line On THe

Taking balance to new heights

W

ith just a small bag on his back Joey Croft bought a one way ticket from Seattle, Washington to Turkey. After sleeping on the roadside and hitchhiking through Europe for four months, Croft decided to return to the United States. But when his passport was scanned in Boston, his ticket printed a big X across his face. He was flagged by border control.

“I was nervous,” Croft said. “My friends joked about me being on the terrorist watch list, and I said ha, ha, no way. And then I was.”

While standing in customs, he was asked what he was doing in Europe for so long with just a small bag and a change of clothes. His answer, “highlining through Europe.”

“He said, so you’re trying to tell me that you went to Turkey to go walk tightropes?” Croft said. “And I said, yeah, that’s exactly what I did.”

44

By Annamarie Rodriguez Border patrol persisted with more questions. Croft said they thought he was radicalized and joined ISIS. So Croft showed the border patrol pictures of his highlining adventures.

After hours of questioning Croft and searching through his belongings, they let him go.

“I don’t think I am on the terrorist threat list anymore,” Croft said.

Highlining is an extreme sport requiring a few tools but a lot of skill. Highliners walk across a oneinch piece of webbing wrapped around two objects, such as between trees. A line can be rigged hundreds to thousands of feet up in the air.

Highliners use a harness to attach themselves to the line in case they slip. According to the International Slackline Association there has been a spike in injuries from one injury in 1999 to 69 people injured in 2016.

According to Mark Andre, Arcata’s Director of Environmental

Full Eagle

Highliner Austin Maguire walks across a line near Trinidad Head 164 feet above the ocean

Photo by Jared Funk

Services, in Humboldt County there are no laws and regulations of highlining yet. However, he could not imagine allowing highliners to rig lines hundreds of feet up in the air because of the potential harm.

“We do not want to set up guidelines that are high risk on city grounds for public safety,” Andre said. “The university has enough trees, why don’t they do it there?”

Eight hundred feet in the air at Yosemite National Park, Humboldt State student Nathan Golwitzer is walking a two-inch wide highline. It’s his first time ever doing this line. The thin webbing suspends across one cliff near Rostrum towards another thirty feet away. Golwitzer takes his first step. With his teeth clenching and hands tightened into a fist, he takes a second step, but this time, Golwitzer tumbles. Gravity jerks him downward. With his body attached to the mainline, he begins to bounce up and down like a yoyo.

“It was orgasmic,” Golwitzer said.

“At the end of the day we all die and everything we do doesn’t fucking matter at all.”

46

Hang On

Nathan Golwitzer sets up an anchor for the highline near Trinidad Head

Photo by Race Blackwell

47

“You kinda think you died, then you realized you just escaped death.”

Croft traveled across the globe to Turkey, Thailand, Germany, France, Italy and Japan in pursuit of walking highlines. In the forest of Impalia, Turkey, Croft slid his bare feet across a 262 foot long line rigged 150 feet up in the air. The smack of the rope breaking nearby branches echos, and like a spider he dangles in the air and climbs back up his webbing. The constant repetition of walking and falling is challenging.

“At the end of the day we all die and everything we do doesn’t fucking matter at all,” Croft said. “It’s a way that I seek self improvement. It’s a way I get to have these great feelings of accomplishment.”

Golwitzer values his freedom to travel through California in his blue van to highline. His mom is unhappy about his minimalist lifestyle. She’s from South Korea and her parents lived through the Korean War. Golwitzer said his mom has a different perspective of how he should live his life in America and said he is thankful for the opportunity she gave him.

“It is such a perfect example of privilege,”Golwitzer said. “I get to choose to be in this environment to have this struggle.”

For Golwitzer, life is about living minimally. He wants to live off the land and use nature to its full potential so that he can highline around the world.

“I am in control, I have the knowledge and skill set to do what I believe in my head,” Golwitzer said.

“I am making my imagination a reality.”

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Look Out

Matt Paris (left), Nathan Golwitzer (center) and Joey Croft (right) scope out a spot to establish a new highline near Trinidad Head

Photo by Jared Funk

From Bees to

A local meadery creates a buzz

By Madelyn MacMullin

P

aul Leslie was eight years old when he and his grandmother found a swarm of bees in her garden. They asked the man next door to help remove them.

Calmly, he reached his bare hand inside the swarm and grabbed the queen, then walked off with the rest of the bees grasping onto his hand and arm.

“Of course, at the time I didn’t know that he was looking for the queen and that is why all the bees clung to him,” Leslie said. “I spent the rest of the summer trying to find swarms of bees and take handfuls of them, but they would never all hang onto me. Thankfully I was never stung from that.”

Leslie has since learned how to raise his own bees. What started as a small hobby in 2012, grew into 27 hives within a year. In 2014, he started using the honey he collected from his hives to make mead, using an old Scottish family recipe he got from his grandfather. The following year he made his first sale of mead as Humboldt Honey Wine.

As Leslie’s knowledge of honey grew, so did the number of his hives. He recently had 100 hives, but some did not make it through the winter. Mead is sweet wine made from honey that became popular in many northern countries such as England, Ireland, and Russia, where grapes were hard to come by. Each recipe for mead starts similarly; honey, water, and yeast. To create variations, Leslie adds fruits and spices.

50

Booze

“The Cyser we make actually comes from an old Irish recipe,” Leslie said. “There was too much calcium in the water from all the limestone, so they started to dilute the honey with apple juice instead of water.”

Leslie started selling his mead at the Arcata Farmer’s Market two years ago. He sold the only two cases he brought with him and had to call his son to bring him more. The following month he sold seven cases in one afternoon.

Leslie now sells mead from his winery in Old Town, Eureka, Arcata Farmer’s Market, Eureka Natural Foods, the North Coast Co-op, Costco and Good Earth Natural Foods in the Bay Area.

His Traditional Sweet mead is $20 and his other flavored meads go for $25.

“I don’t see myself being as big as Lost Coast Brewery, but if you asked me two years ago I never thought I’d be here,” Leslie said.

“I’m going to ride this horse until it drops.”

Jaime Cohoon, owner of Ewe So Dirty, sells soaps and balms made with honey, beeswax, and pollen from Leslie’s bees. She has even come out with a line of soaps that reflect each one of Leslie’s meads.

“Their mulled honey wine is to die for,” Cohoon said. “I get a sample shot every weekend and it makes my whole day better! I do not drink much, but that is one treat that I simply cannot pass up.”

Eureka resident Heidi Collingwood has been working with Leslie to place some of his hives in her orchard to pollinate plants.

Bottles Up

Paul Leslie on the bottling line in the back room of Humboldt Honey Wine

Photo by Race Blackwell

Photo by Race Blackwell

Tasting Time

Paul Leslie entertains a guest in his tasting room

She has an apple orchard on her property along with a well-maintained garden. It is important for bees to pollinate plants to help them thrive, and it is also good for the bees to diversify the flavor of their honey.

“I thought about raising my own bees,” Collingwood said, “but it’s just so much work.”

Collingwood maintains her land without the use of pesticides or harmful chemicals, which is also one of the main deciding factors for Leslie when moving his hives to new locations. He will not place a hive where his bees may be exposed to pesticides, as it can cause illnesses or even wipe out an entire hive.

“We’re not trying to make more honey, we’re trying to make the best honey,” Leslie said.

Collingwood met Leslie through the Humboldt County Beekeepers Association when she was looking for someone to bring hives to her property. Since then she has also become a big fan of Leslie’s mead.

“I love it,” Collingwood said. “I have three bottles stashed away in my closet right now.”

Joseph Werner, a former Humboldt State student, also enjoys Leslie’s mead. He first discovered Leslie at the Farmer’s Market last summer.

“The Traditional Sweet is a little too sweet for me,” Werner said. “I’ve had some other meads that are a little less sweet, but I like going in and trying his other flavors. The Cyser is my favorite.”

Humboldt Honey Wine is a family operation. During store hours Leslie is behind the counter. However, his wife, daughter and in-laws all pitch in to get work done behind the scene. It takes three to six months to complete a batch of mead and a few weeks to fill about 750 to 1,500 bottles.

“I love what I do every day,” Leslie said. “I get to play with my bees all the time and then to indulge my more creative side I get to come make wine.”

53

Islands of Red in a sea

of Blue

Conservatives contemplate the age of Trump at Humboldt State By Cameron Cable

A

s AJ Keech walked to his Biology class at Humboldt State University, he passed by a loud demonstration on the quad with dozens of people protesting against newlyelected President Donald Trump.

One student rallied the crowd on a microphone while others waved homemade signs with slogans such as “Fuck Trump” and “Not My President.” On that day in early November, the campus was in shock and dismay.

Keech, a 22-year-old biology major, voted for Trump.

“I actually had a Trump pin on,” Keech said. “And then when Trump won, I took it off because I was afraid of being targeted in some way.”

Keech does not feel comfortable adding his conservative viewpoint to class discussions, and prefers his biology classes because he says they generally stay independent from politics. Some of his peers assume

54

that, as a biologist, he must be left wing.

“Sometimes I feel really alienated as a conservative in the sciences, because it can seem like they’re mutually exclusive,” Keech said. “I’m living proof that they are not.”

Keech says he was really uncomfortable in class when his professor showed a historical video detailing a Canadian populist politician and drew comparisons to Trump.

“It was weird,” Keech said. ”It was like, what does this have anything to do with plant ecology? I think it was just on her mind.”

Keech says his peers lump all conservatives in with people who are fanatically devoted to the alternative right.

“There are some Trump supporters who give, I don’t know if moderate is the right word, but everyone who is not a fanatic, a bad name. Like those people giving the Nazi salute,” Keech

said. “Obviously it’s not to the same degree, but it’s really made me feel for Muslim people about how it’s those conservative people. I’m lumped in with these fanatics.”

Up until last semester, the nowdefunct club on campus, College Republicans, was the primary gathering point for campus conservatives. According to former club President Kenneth Pocasangre, the club was faced with a difficult decision after the club’s parent organization required its members to support the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

“We voluntarily disbanded rather than support Trump,” Pocasangre said. “The vote was 100% unanimous.”

According to Pocasangre, the former members of the College Republicans are hoping to re-establish themselves under a new organization for the fall semester.

Everett Heath is the president

of the Young Americans for Liberty chapter on campus. He is a 22-year-old Microbiology major who describes himself as a conservative libertarian.

Young Americans for Liberty can be seen on campus most visibly through their free speech events. An oversized beach ball is rolled around the quad, and any passerby is free to write whatever they want, much like a mobile graffiti wall. Heath doesn’t like Trump.

“He really wants to control the economy, he wants to control the social aspects of people’s lives,” Heath said. “He ran on a conservative platform, but he’s not a conservative at all.”

The majority of student voices heard on campus were against Trump, such as Jenny Drake, a 22-yearold Religious Studies major and Jill Stein voter.

“Trump is living proof that you buy your way into power,” Drake said. “He has no political experience, and won despite his racist and misogynist campaign.”

Michael Masinter, a 30-year-old Environment and Community graduate, voted for Hillary Clinton. He dislikes everything about Trump, from his personality to Trump’s view of the government as the “enemy.”

“Trump is dismantling the American government

to give corporations free reign over the country,” Masinter said.

While Keech does not regret supporting Trump, he has not been entirely happy with the president’s performance.

“I don’t think I had a better option,” Keech said. “I think everyone thought both options were horrible.”

Today, the election furor has mostly passed.

While Keech had fallen out with the more outspoken of his liberal friends, the months following Trump’s inauguration have seen a thaw in strained relationships.

After finishing his homework one night, Keech meets up with a friend for a few beers. He hasn’t spoken to him since the election five months ago.

Their last encounter ended in an exchange of profanity. He recalls the earlier hostilities but holds no ill-will over their disagreement.

“There were all these awkward interactions between me and some of my friends, but it’s just not a thing anymore,” Keech said. “I’ll see them and it just takes a bit of liquid courage, and I’ll just bring it up. It’s water under the bridge. Let’s be friends again.”

55

The Long Goodbye An essay by Robin March

Photo Illustration by James Towney

F

ire crackles in the old brick fireplace in my grandma’s den, illuminating the room dimmed by heavy rain and roaring winds outside.

My sister Sarah, our three cousins, niece and I sit scattered around the room. We talk about returning to school, new jobs, teaching, raising a family and getting married. We have convened here regularly for over two decades, but this is the first time we have all been together at Grandma’s in over five years.

With a smile on her face and in her eyes glimmering in the reflection of the fire, my grandma is delighted we’re here. Having her granddaughters and great-granddaughter together again is soothing to her soul.

“What made that trip so special was that we were all able to be there with Grandma at the same time,” Sarah said.

My grandmother Eunice Mae Knowles celebrated her 95th birthday last October. Three months later, I received a text message from my cousin Frankie. She and the others were planning the trip to visit our grandma so we could all see her together.

Grandma shared with our parents that she has recently felt that her soul is preparing to leave her for what lies beyond this life. We took this is a sign, so we packed some necessities, hopped in cars and a few planes and headed to Clayton.

“I felt very happy,” my mom Karen told me initially when I asked her how she felt about our visit home to see Grandma. “I know how precious you girls are to her, and just how much she and Grandpa enjoyed being a part of your lives while you were little and that she continues to.”

Most our family is spread out over hundreds to thousands of miles. Even when we can come together, it’s rare that all five of the granddaughters can be there together.

“This trip was special for that reason, and because we were able to be there with Grandma at her house, which we all consider to be like a sacred place,” Sarah said.

Photos contributed by Robin March

The loss of a grandparent while in college is common. HSU offers students who have dealt with loss services from individual counseling to support groups. The Health and Wellness Center on campus offers Counseling and Psychological Services for these needs and more.

“We run one grief group per semester,” said Margaux Des Jardins, who has a Doctorate in Psychology and works in the Grief and Counseling group. “It starts early in the semester and we max out at eight people.”

Each semester it is decided whether the group will close to new members, and when. In total, the Wellness Center offers 18 support groups and nine workshops. Des Jardins offers an alternative for students that are unable to get into the campus group.

“Hospice of Humboldt also runs several grief groups which are dropins,” Des Jardins said.

From outward appearances, Grandma is healthy. She’s as clever as ever and although hard of hearing, can still hear her cat purr and birds chirp outside. Time is not guaranteed though, and from experiencing the loss of beloved family first-hand while at HSU almost four years ago, every moment within reach is worth grasping.

We have gathered in the room, the same group of women, as far back as I remember. We have spent decades of holidays around the same roaring fireplace, with my uncle playing piano and a choir of voices echoing through the room.

We know that the time we have with our grandma is precious. Our time spent together now is about appreciating her, learning about the woman who raised those who raised us, taking all advice she can give and just enjoying any story she feels like sharing.

“Grandma is nothing but a force of love,” Sarah says. “She is so kind and has such a great personality, that alone makes her an amazing role model. She’s like a true Disney princess, with the animals following her and all.”

We ask Grandma about her life growing up. As a preacher’s daughter with three siblings, she played basketball, ran track and was part of the glee club.

“My father, you know, was really strict,” Grandma says. “If we had church, I went to church. It didn’t make any difference if I was supposed to play basketball or not. We had this Friday night game, the girls always played their game first then the boys played. So I had to go to church, but after I’d been to church it was alright for me to go to the high school. So my brother and I went to the high school to see the boy’s game. The members of my team were always like ‘Oh Eunice, don’t let the coach see you here. He’s really mad that you weren’t here tonight.’ All he could say was, ‘damn that preacher’s daughter, damn that preacher’s daughter, damn that preacher’s daughter!’ Because they lost that night and they were blaming me, so I stayed out of his sight!”

We are so fortunate. I am so fortunate. I love my grandma with all of my heart, and every day I aspire to be even a little bit closer to the woman she is. Whenever I call and apologize for not connecting after a while, she always reassures me that she knows we’re all busy. When I’ve arrived at her house in tears from stress, she’s hugged me tight and reminded me that it’s okay to cry and be upset. Her support has balanced me and reminds me often to mimic her humbleness and calmness as I enter the world a potentially more aware woman.

“Grandma has a very calming and peaceful way about her,” Sarah says. “She is very strong in spirit and shares a deep connection with the higher powers of this world, nature, and the Divine. I’ve always felt so lifted in spirit after spending time with her, and that through spending time with her I might also be able to connect with those higher forces at work.”

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TOP 5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW TO PLAY BADMINTON

By Amy Torres

1. The best racquet: Li-Ning N80 Badminton Racquet costs around $1,400.

2. Best place to play: Lucknow, India.

A plane ticket there from Arcata would cost around $2,800.

3. A badminton court is 44 feet long by 22 feet wide.

4. The birdy is called a shuttlecock.

5. Anyone is welcome to play at HSU on Sundays from 12-3 in the West gym.

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