05–08.06.2026
This weekend, the missus and I took off up the 101 for some much-needed change of scenery, as well as a break from the news. For a couple of years now, when we head up to the redwoods, we have been staying north of our old Arcata stomping grounds in a campground with cabins in Trinidad.
We met in college in the early ’90s, when Humboldt was still a state school, and it took me years to get her to want to go back and visit. Now that she is able to see the good aspects of the area—the forest, the rivers, the ocean, the slower pace—she takes joy in planning the trips and counting down the days.
It was just short of a miracle that we crossed paths back in the day at all. I was not supposed to be admitted to the college when I was, and if I had made a different split-moment decision, things could have been very different.
I had become the editor-in-chief of our community college paper the semester we won best-in-state and was champing at the bit to transfer to a four-year to finish off my degree. I just happened to run into Howard Seeman, the head of HSU’s newspaper program, at a journalism conference in Sacramento. He asked if I had ever considered transferring to Humboldt, and I admitted that I had not. I had seen their paper, The Lumberjack, in passing at our office, and knew vaguely where the school was located from my many fishing trips on the Klamath River.
The California Legislature, as is their wont, had fucked the budget sideways, and all state colleges were closed to further admissions as a result. Howard said he would see what he could do and I applied, not expecting to hear anything at least until the impasse was broken. I was getting ready to go to work at Sears one Friday morning when I got a call from Admissions telling me that I had been accepted.
Thinking it would be for the following semester, and I would have plenty of time to disentangle myself from my established life, I said, “Great! When does it start?” When the admissions woman said, “Monday,” it was with no sense of irony or dramatic flourish. When I silently counted the social excisions I would have to perform, tout de suite, she broke in with, “Do you want to go, or not?”
I was still in a daze when I walking into the room where the operators sat. The store had its fill of management, but in reality, it was these two women that held the keys to the kingdom. If you wanted anyone or anything, it was these two that would make it happen. I stopped them in their paces when I announced, “Well, I quit.” They were delighted, however, when I told them the reason was I was going off to college, somewhat less so when I responded to their questions of when that might happen with, “Right now.”
I do think that everyone should pack up everything that will fit in a vehicle and burn it all down at least once in their life. If for nothing else, it will give you a well-earned sense of fearlessness. A certain c’est la fuck it. Regardless, the 101 is long and dark, especially in the middle of winter, and many times I wondered if I had made the right decision.
After crashing out at one of the sketchy hotels out on Giuntoli Lane, I made my way down to the college in the morning and met the first of what would be my newspaper family for the next couple of years. Fellow intrepid Lumberjack Jen Kinavey opened the door to Nelson Hall East and I stepped across the threshold to a new life.
It’s crazy how many things could have gone another way, and maybe some of those timelines would have been fine, but I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. It helped make me the refined curmudgeon that I relish in being today.
No sleep ’til deadline.
30
Román Leão 
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