Wind pulsed through the domed labyrinth of quartz monzogranite as I scrambled downward looking for a safer descent. The spring sky was a typically cloudless and brilliant blue. Above, the murmur of voices from the knot of students and my co-instructor at the tabletop summit some 20 feet above faded in and out with the […]
Life + Outdoors
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Nielsen Rated
Friday afternoon at the Adorni Center, a brilliant spring day. Seals swam up and down the harbor, clearly visible from the great glass wall on the north side of the big multipurpose room. It was a momentous day. Inside, 37 sworn officers of the Eureka Police Department – just about the entire force, except for […]
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Tim’s Books
It was a melancholy time on the Northcoast Environmental Center’s front porch last Friday. Volunteers had set up three or four folding tables, and on each of them they had placed hundreds of books. These were the books that didn’t sell at a big booksale the weekend previous. Now they were selling for 25 cents […]
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Get Your Glitter On
If you hiked to the top floor of the Eureka Municipal Auditorium last Saturday night, it might have made you dizzy. No, not the height – though it was plummetous – but the action down below on the dance floor. Nearly 2,000 people had unwittingly formed themselves into a pulsing neon arrow (sans the real […]
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Pedagogue Cobb
A few weeks past, an explosion was reported at Arcata High School. Witnesses said that it seemed to issue from Doug Johnson’s AP Government class and that it had a vaguely Texan accent. That explosion was David Cobb. Cobb was the last in a trio of speakers to visit the 16 Arcata High AP Government […]
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The Business of Bees
I’ve been away from the garden too long. After a couple of months on the road, the place is a mess. Those hard freezes back in January turned some of my favorite shrubs into popsicles, but somehow spared the weeds, which have taken over. I’ve got some serious garden restoration work to do – and […]
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Fa Show
It was chilly last Thursday night at 9 o’clock. Too cold, in my opinion, to be outside wearing a tank top. But there they were, maybe a dozen girls and women, high schoolers and twentysomethings, shivering on the 5th Street sidewalk in spaghetti strap tops. Just looking at their neon-lit arms gave me goosebumps. All […]
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Serendipity
"Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering a farmer’s daughter." Julius Comroe Jr. Looking for a change of pace last month, my wife and I opted to sleep on the marble slab called a futon instead of our comfy bed. I was awakened after dawn by her exclaiming, "Oh! That’s why […]
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Logger Heaven
There it was, corralled behind a thin rope inside a grassy expanse at Redwood Acres: the retired figure-conscious logger’s dreambike. No, nothing noisy or fume-spewing, chrome-boasting or rubber-laying – those kinds of bikes are for sissies. This was a deceptively delicate, spindly blond wood affair, stationary, with the playful look of an old Flexible Flyer© […]
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Happy at home
Dow’s Prairie artist Susan Fox [with her collie, Niki] has spent just one year in her current garden, but she’s spent most of her life in Humboldt County. (To see her art, check out her show at Miller Farms in April.) Here’s what she has to say about her life as a gardener: What’s the […]
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Wilderness Rx
As I gaze back over the 15 odd "Off The Pavement" articles I have penned for the Journal, it would seem one big theme has emerged. I might define my overall interpretation of them as something like, the necessity of being outside.So if this theme has appealed to you, then you are in luck. This […]