These are getting harder to write. We’re a baker’s dozen games into the season, still three games under .500 at 5-8, and looking poised to remain so. “This is the slowest start the Crabs have had since I can remember,” said Hugh Scanion, Crab Grass Band founder and unofficial team historian. It isn’t that they’re […]
Thomas Oliver
Thomas Oliver lives in McKinleyville.
Posted inNews
Crabs Split Seals Series
The San Francisco Seals flippered their way into town Tuesday and split a two-game series in almost perfect symmetry. Tuesday night the Seals got on the board first, second and fourth, and sauntered into a 6-2 victory. Though the Crabs outhit the Seals 8-7, a dearth of extra base hits and a few costly errors […]
Posted inNews
Win One for the Gipper
“Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day! I’ve got a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way.” My Grandmother used to sing that every morning to wake up my brother and I. And I, not being a morning person, hate hate hated it. Nothing worse than being rousted by someone an hour and […]
Posted inNews
An Ignominious Opening Weekend for the Crabs
You wouldn’t know it from the sky but summer is here and in Humboldt that means it’s Crab season once again, baby! Yes, folks, the best time of the year has arrived and our favorite decapods took the field this past weekend against the Corvallis (Phil) Knights. It was a bespoke nightmare tailored with stranded […]
Posted inPerfect Trips
Perfect Spring Trips
Green is our middle name. Not only is Humboldt County home to emerald forests that stretch for miles, it is also an eco-friendly community with a unique history of conservation. Here are a few of the ways you can explore the North Coast that celebrate and preserve the environment. Good deal. Outdoorsy Type Arcata Marsh […]
Posted inArts + Scene
A Shakespearean Tragedy-Comedy Cocktail
The Winter’s Tale The canon of William Shakespeare is mostly discussed by superfans and laypeople alike as split between dramas — be they blood-soaked epics of kings or more intimate affairs — and comic frolics. There are a few that can’t be filed away so neatly. The Winter’s Tale, now onstage at North Coast Repertory […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Spear Fishing Huntress
Brandi Easter is a tallish, strong woman with shades of mermaid-green hair hiding along her shoulders. As most competitive spearfishers do, she has a day job. She’s a commercial photographer. On the table in her studio where we met was a bevy of Lacey’s Cookies, her latest project. She’s been sprinting around all week trying […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Old Haunts
We’ve all been there. You’re a middle-aged “retired” (read, talentless) dancer, furtively packing to leave your husband for the umpteenth time, trying to convince your brother this one will stick while he blathers on about his fleet-footed fiancée. Oh, you haven’t? In that case, you may not identify with the setting of Ferndale Repertory Theater’s […]
Posted inShopping
The Green Scene
Did you know that one of the country’s oldest dispensaries is located in Arcata? HPRC opened in 1999 and has been serving Humboldt ever since. Walking down Arcata’s Sixth Street, it’s easy to stroll past HPRC. With its simple, dark wood and frosted glass exterior and no obvious signage, who could blame you for having […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Fra-gee-lay Nostalgia
Taking place just after the Great Depression in a small Indiana town, the 1983 movie A Christmas Story tells the tale of one young man’s fevered quest for a toy firearm. It’s quaint, blackly funny and a yule-tide classic. The musical reworking, A Christmas Story: The Musical, currently showing at the Ferndale Repertory Theatre, carries […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Word Play
As a young boy, I lost a classwide spelling bee on the word “broccoli.” My teacher said I spelled it with two ‘l’s (I didn’t, and I will die on that hill if I must). So when Chip Tolentino (Evan Needham) was eliminated on “tittup” in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I empathized. […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Boo! Scaring the Pee Out of People at a Haunted House
“Oh, great! My scare-ninjas are here,” A man I’m hoping is named Micah says. “So you’ll hear Olmec talk, and then the lyrist will give her little speech and I want you to follow them upstairs and jump scare them when they’re in the heavens. Does that make sense?” “Not really,” my friend Dexter and […]