Editor’s Note: On this Veterans Day, as the nation pauses to honor those who have served this country, here is a November of 2017 story about the journey of Eric Hollenbeck, a Eureka-born Vietnam veteran and co-owner of Blue Ox Millworks and Historic Park with his wife Viviana, whose poems about his experiences during a […]
Amy Barnes
Posted inWedding Feature
Stone House
For centuries, wedding traditions have been borrowed from across cultural lines to ensure luck, happiness, fertility and fortitude. Most wedding customs Americans hold dear are rituals that in fact come from somewhere else. The tradition of a bride wearing something old, new, borrowed and blue stems from Victorian English times. The classic American wedding cake […]
Posted inNews
‘In the Interest of Justice’
I’m driving in the Safety Corridor when Eric Hollenbeck calls. “Are you in Eureka?” his voice gravels from the car speakers. “I got something I wanna show you.” A short while later, I navigate my Subaru down the Blue Ox Millworks driveway; around potholes the size of hot tubs. I dodge a couple of cats […]
Posted inNews
The Journey of Radioman
“This play is so important. I’ve never read anything like this.” “Same shit, different war” “My father. My uncle. My sister.” “You gotta get through it somehow.” “It’s a tense time right now.” “It ain’t just a woodworking shop.” “PTSD.” “You gave words to something I experience every day.” “I feel this enormous weight.” “Thanks […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
The Spirit of a Place
“You’re playing hooky today,” Jerry Rohde’s mom informed him one autumn morning when he was 12. They piled into her 1954 Ford sedan and headed into the San Bernardino Mountains to explore a historic Wild West village she visited when she was a girl. Set in a pine forest surrounded by steep cliffs and rocky […]
Posted inStories
The Spirit of a Place
“You’re playing hooky today,” Jerry Rohde’s mom informed him one autumn morning when he was 12. They piled into her 1954 Ford sedan and headed into the San Bernardino Mountains to explore a historic Wild West village she visited when she was a girl. Set in a pine forest surrounded by steep cliffs and rocky […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Reunion
I am in a state of panic, deep-cleaning the refrigerator. I have also vacuumed the garage and deadheaded every petunia on the property. In a text this morning, I told my friend Peri that attending tonight’s high school reunion felt like opening a grave. Later, while obsessively cobwebbing the upstairs windows, I think it’s not […]
Posted inStories
On the Rise
In the buttery warm bakery air, plump loaves rest on cooling racks like hens in a coop. The back door is propped open to let the breeze in as three people work at a wooden slab table dusted in flour. With one eye on the clock, the bakers knead and form dough. “Deli rolls come […]
Posted inNews
Get to Work
At a little house on Maplewood Drive, the radio is tuned to KRED and a country song swings its way across the windswept, sunny lot in McKinleyville’s newest 32-acre subdivision. Building Trades teacher Dave Enos is in the garage with a clutch of high school students, engrossed in fixing a broken saw. Out back, young […]
Posted inStories
The Craftsman
“Here’s a cool thing. I just figured it out,” confides Eric Hollenbeck, sitting on a worn chair next to a scavenged 1960s Double Star potbelly stove. “You know that saying, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’ Well, what does that mean?” He coughs a deep, smoky cough and continues. “Does it make you physically […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The Market
Would you rather kick back in the sun, quaffing a draft kombucha and nibbling a Garden Goddess wrap, or hunker down and watch football amongst the barflies with a pint of local beer and a cheeseburger? Luckily, at Fieldbrook Market and Eatery, you can do both. Not to mention draft cider and corn hole, Diet […]