Tim Rossovich 1946-2018

This is a pen and ink sketch I did in 1973.  It is of USC and Philadelphia Eagles football player, Tim Rossovich.  I admired how he played the game with wild abandon.  This was a very simple drawing, but I decided to post in now because I heard that he passed away recently on December 6, 2018.

Samurai Warriors

This pen and ink drawing is supposed to have sort of a comic book style to it.

Trout--Carved on Leather in Rustic Frame

This is a leather carving of a trout on a piece of leather with a tree branch frame.  It might be nice in a cabin or a "man cave"

My Year at Humboldt State University (1975-1976)

            MY YEAR AT HUMBOLDT STATE UNIVERSITY  (1975-1976)

Dedicated to Doug and Vince

            In the fall of 1975, I transferred to Humboldt State University for my senior year of college.  Previously, I had attended Golden West College for two years and Long Beach State University for one year.  At the time, I was also considering going to San Diego State University because several friends from Golden West were attending that school.  I had heard about Humboldt from a few people and noticed it was one of the Cal State schools furthest north in California.  When I would talk to people about Humboldt, I would ask them questions about the school, like—how is the Business Department, is it difficult to get classes that you need to graduate, etc.  The answer was always similar from these different people—“Just go there.”  But what about… “No, just go there.”  There was almost a spiritual nature to their answers.  So, in September of ’75, I packed two suitcases and a footlocker, got on a Greyhound Bus in Huntington Beach and started the approximately 24-hour bus ride to Arcata, California.

            I had always led a relatively sheltered life growing up in Orange County, California.  I had very protective parents and for the most part was a pretty obedient son.  For me to travel 800-some miles away from home and to be completely on my own for the first time in my life was an experience and an education in itself.  Still, my parents insisted that I could not take my car with me and, as a senior in college; I would be living in the dorms.   ALL seniors in college live in apartments, or somewhere near campus on their own.  Not me.  I was going to live in the dorms with incoming freshmen and a few junior college transfers.  Although I was older, my maturity level was probably around the same as everyone in the dorms.

            Humboldt was on the Quarter System (Rather than Semesters) at the time, so we didn’t have to be at school until late September.  My parents and Janice, a girl I was dating at the time, took me to the local bus station.  I said my good-byes and turned around and saw a girl that I had dated a few times in the spring of that year.  I had been working at J.C. Penneys and a lady who worked there heard that I was planning to go to HSU in the fall.  She gave me the phone number of a girl named Dawn who was also going to attend Humboldt.  She found out when I was planning to leave and bought a bus ticket on the same bus.  When I saw her (with Janice standing right there) I got so nervous I had to go into the bathroom to throw-up. (I did this every once in awhile when I was growing up.)  I said good-bye to the people who were staying and got on the bus with the people who were going and off we went.

            We changed buses in Los Angeles and again in San Jose.  Even though I wasn’t currently dating Dawn, I felt obligated to see that she got to HSU safely.  We had a layover in San Jose in the middle of the night.  There were some tough and weird looking people in the bus station at that time of the night.

            Finally, we got on the bus for the last part of the trip.  We stopped for breakfast somewhere along the Northern California coast then arrived in Arcata in the late morning.

            Dawn had some friends who were already up at school and they picked us up at the bus station and took us to the campus.  She went to her dorm hall, and I went to mine.  Dawn was a really nice girl and we saw each other a few times while we were at school, but nothing more really developed with our relationship. 

            I picked up my key and carried my luggage up to the third floor of Redwood Hall.  I opened my dorm room and looked at the two desks, two beds and two small dressers.  The walls were white cinder block and it had blue shag carpeting.  I closed the door and sat down on one of the beds.  I was exhausted from the trip (we really didn’t sleep on the bus), apprehensive about being on my own, and worried if I could navigate my way through my final year of college in this strange new place.  I had the feeling that I had made the biggest mistake of my life.  The only thing that kept me from going back home right that minute was that I could not take another 24 hours on a bus—and I didn’t know where to find the nearest airport.  Otherwise I would have been gone.

            I tried to gather my composure.  I remembered that when I was at Golden West College, many of my teammates had been Vietnam veterans.  I thought how much they would have rather been going away to college and living in coed dorms instead of being drafted and shipped off to Southeast Asia to fight in an unpopular war.  I opened my footlocker and took out three art posters I had purchased at Long Beach State.  Two of them were Picasso’s—one was of a hand with flowers giving it to another hand.  The other one was of Don Quixote.  The third poster was a Van Gough, The Bridge at Arles.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I later thought of how symbolic those posters were for me at the time.  One was of a loving relationship; one was about an adventure, and one was a bridge, which took you from one place to another.  Once I had the posters up on the wall, the room looked a little friendlier and familiar.  While I started to unpack, some kids came down the hall asking everyone to go into town for dinner at a Mexican Restaurant.  I quickly finished unpacking and joined them for dinner.  I had a great time with them that evening and it continued that way through the entire school year.

            One of the first people I met that first night at the Mexican restaurant was a girl named Nancy.  She was from the Central Valley of California—a small farming community.  She was a sophomore and had live in the dorms as a freshman.  She was the sweetest, nicest person in the dorms.  Everyone liked her.  She was sort of like a Princess Diana-type of person.  She would be nice to everyone, whether they were the most popular student or the shy, geeky, bookworm student.  She had a disarming charm that would make you feel relaxed around her.  She was also a good listener.  She made you feel like what you had to say was so interesting to her.  She finished her schooling at Stanislaus State University and taught kindergarten in her hometown.

            Another good friend of mine was Dave.   He was a good guy who would do anything for a friend.  After graduation, he worked for Cal-Trans and lived in the San Luis Obispo area.  Years later, he attended our wedding.

Me in front of Redwood Hall in 2018

            My roommate showed up a few days after I arrived.  His name was Doug.   To get assigned to the dorms, we all had to fill out this long survey to match us with our roommate.  It asked everything you could imagine, from political views, to religious views, to life-styles.  On everything that they asked, I put that it didn’t matter to me.  The only thing that I specified was I wanted a non-smoker.  Well, Doug comes in and tells me that he played football in high school (like me), played center in fact (like me), and then proceeded to light up a cigarette.  I said, “Doug, you can do anything you want in this room, but please don’t smoke.  He said that was fine with him because he had been trying to quit anyway.  He was a great roommate and we had lots of fun together throughout that school year.  After graduation, he went back to his old high school and became a wrestling coach (like I went back to my old high school to coach football).  Unfortunately, he was killed while driving home from a wrestling match when a drunk driver hit Doug’s car.  He was a good man.

            At Humboldt, the dorms had LGA’s (Living Group Advisors) rather than the usual RA’s (Resident Advisors).  The girls’ LGA on our floor was a girl named Leora.  She was such a nice person.  She had a lot of patience, which she needed to put up with all of us.  Because the girls and guys dorms shared each floor, she not only had to deal with all her girls, she also had to deal with some of the guys that would venture into the girls part of the dorms.  I probably teased her too much and gave her a bad time—for which I am sorry.  She is a very sensitive person.  When I was down about something, I would listen to Linda Ronstadt.  Leora would tease me about that.  She believed in some eastern religion.  Later, I think she was a student teacher on an Indian reservation near HSU.  I am sure dealing with Indians was much easier than being an LGA for our dorm.  She was a good friend of Nancy and I wondered if she told Nancy that I was always teasing her and very immature.  If she did, she was right.  I was both.

            Karen lived in the girls’ dorm.  She had gregarious personality—always laughing and joking.  The boys did not intimidate her; in fact, she enjoyed hanging out with them.  Her third-floor room was tucked on the inside corner of the L-shaped dorm building.  Her window was adjacent to the window in a little study lounge on the boy’s side of the dorms.  One evening, she was in her dorm room studying or talking to someone on the phone…or both.  Her window was open as was the window to the study lounge.  (None of the windows in the dorms had screens)  I was in the study lounge and decided to do something very foolish and dangerous.  I stepped out of the study lounge window and into the window to her room—both three stories up and above a concrete entryway.  Needless to say, she was stunned and got a big kick out of it.  We became good friends and commiserated with each other about our relationships.  Karen was very close to a very interesting guy named Vince who lived in the dorms.  Vince was sensitive and cared very much how everyone was doing.  He had dark, kind of long hair, and wore dark rimmed glasses.  Many people sought out Vince’s advice.  He was a good counselor and people trusted him.  Unfortunately, several years later, Vince passed away.

            Karen had an older sister named Kathy, who came up to HSU to visit in the spring.  She too had a fun personality and Karen introduced me to her.  Both sisters were seriously into Belly Dancing and were in good shape.  I asked Kathy if she would like to go have some drinks at one of the bars in town. She agreed so we walked into town.  Now I know it is sexist to say things like this, but Kathy could definitely turn a few heads.  We go into the bar and she sits on a stool with her back to the bar with her elbows on the bar…and did I mention she was wearing a tank top.  Oh, my, gosh.  Every guy in the place was staring at her—probably wondering what a girl like her was doing with a geek like me.  I seriously thought I would have to fight everyone in the place to protect her honor.  Luckily, nothing happened and we had a good time.  Later on, back in the dorms, I was telling everyone about what had happened.  Karen interrupted and said, “HEY!  That’s my sister you’re talking about!”

            Karen transferred to Sacramento State University and after graduation worked for the U.S. National Park Service.  She has had a very successful career which included meeting several U.S. Presidents.

            Another great friend was Steve from the Livermore area.  He had gone to Granada H.S. where he also played football.  He had red hair and a mustache and looked like a Viking.  All the girls on our dorm floor thought he was very handsome but he had a girlfriend back home.  Although he never dated anyone at HSU that I was aware of, he was a very good friend to everyone in the dorm.  We hung out a lot together.

            Dale was from the Bay area—a very funny guy.  He would make goldfish mobiles out of ribbon and coat hangers for everyone’s dorm room.  He was a forestry major and the class on plant identification was one of the hardest. It was the deal-breaker in that major.   I think it was called Dendrology or something like that.  Going into the final exam, he said that he needed to get an “A” on the final to get a “D” in the class.  He bought champagne to celebrate, one way or the other, after the test.  He didn’t get his “A” on the final, but we all helped him drink the champagne anyway.

From left to right:  Dale, Vince, me, Steve

            When you get a bunch of fairly intelligent college students in an isolated area like Arcata, California (People would say Humboldt was behind the Redwood Curtain”; a spoof on “behind the Iron Curtain” of the Soviet Union) they can be very imaginative on how they entertain themselves.

            One night, there was a knock at my door.  Someone was going down the hallway, recruiting people to go down to the California Highway Patrol Office and steal the big, golden bear statue that sat out in front of the station.  It was like a scene from the movie “Animal House” (which came out two years later).  One guy had on a ski mask.  Another guy had on camouflage clothing.  About six of us jumped in some guy’s Jeep and drove down the hill to the CHP office near the freeway.  One guy jumped out and scouted the area.  There was a one-story building with a big window in the front of it.  Through the window, you could see the radio dispatcher at his desk.  Our scout came back to the Jeep that was parked about a half a block away in a field and reported what he saw.  Besides the dispatcher, there was no one else in the area.  We drove the Jeep with its lights off to the edge of the gravel parking lot in front of the station.  Next to the flagpole was the bear statue.  It was heavy and would barely fit in the back of the Jeep.  I pictured us all being arrested and me being kicked out of school for this prank.  As we had the bear almost all the way to the Jeep, a voice came over the P.A. system in the parking lot.  The dispatcher, who was watching us from the big window said, “Don’t drop it.”  At that point, I realized we weren’t committing a crime.  It turns out the bear was actually made by an HSU art student and then it was given to the CHP.  Each year, some students steal the bear, but always return it.  It must have looked funny as we drove off into the night with this huge bear’s but sticking out of the back of the Jeep, while all of us hung on for dear life.  Feeling very much like Dorfman in the movie, “Animal House”, I thought to myself, “This is GREAT!”

            We used the bear statue for the centerpiece of a party that weekend in the dorm lounge area.  Later the next week, the vile, evil members of Sunset Hall stole the bear from us.  Shocked by this act of aggression, we considered an all-out assault, a nuclear attack, or a commando raid to regain possession of the coveted golden bear.  Then, a dorm wise-man with a much cooler head reminded us that whoever ended up with the bear, had to bring it back down the hill and return it to the CHP.  Impressed by this guru’s wisdom, we let Sunset Hall’s transgression pass without retribution.

            Another diversion was mattress rugby where they would stand a mattress up in the rather narrow hallway and guys would hurl themselves against it trying to push it to the end of the hallway for a score.  Guys on the other side of the mattress would be trying to push in the opposite direction.  In the whole year of playing this, I don’t think anyone ever scored, but we used up a lot of excess energy while playing it.   A 1-0 outcome would have been a high scoring game.

            A stop was finally put to all rugby games when one of the unfortunate victims was the drinking fountain in the middle of the hallway that someone caromed off of and broke the pipe.  We took up a collection to pay for the damage.

            We had to take up a collection for a broken window from a snowball fight that got out of hand.  Someone drove a pickup truck to the local mountains and came back with a truckload of snow.  They thought it would be fun to throw snowball at each other in the quad between Sunset and Redwood dorms.  Unfortunately, it almost turned into a small riot.  There was one broken window and another collection to repair the damage. 

            A calmer dorm sport evolved and that was hallway golf.  These guys set up a miniature golf course in the narrow hallway with some interesting and creative features using things like a shot glass, a bong, and a jock strap.  Clusters of guys huddled against the wall in various places along the course and clapped politely at each good shot.  No damage here and lots of fun.

            Early in the school year, I worked up enough nerve to ask Nancy out on a date to the local movie theatre in town.  We had two theatres in Arcata—the Major, which was an art deco theatre built in the 1940’s and showed new releases; and the Minor, which was built in the 1800’s I think and showed old movies.  We walked to the Minor and saw some old movie.  Afterwards, I walked her back to her dorm room.  I kissed her good night and left.

            Well, like in any small community, everyone knew what everyone else was doing.  So, by the time I got back to my room, everyone wanted to know how the date had turned out, especially since it was Nancy—someone that everyone loved and admired.  I learned one of the biggest lessons of my college career that night.  Never kiss and tell.

            Someone asked if I kissed her goodnight and I said yes (it made me sort of a local hero).  By the next day, someone had told Nancy that I was telling people about this kiss.  She confronted me in the hallway and asked if I had told everyone that I had kissed her.  I felt sooooooo bad.  I couldn’t believe I had gone out with the most popular girl in the dorm and within 24 hours, she was REALLY mad at me.  I said yes, I had told.  She was fuming.

            Then I said something like, “Wait a minute.  I didn’t tell everyone that we slept together or that we did anything else.  Everyone thinks the world of you Nancy and they were interested in what we did on our date.  They were asking in the most innocent sense, if we kissed.  That’s all.  They were happy for you and for me.  They were not ruining your reputation.  They all think the world of you.”

            Somehow, I talked my way out of that one.  She calmed down a bit and wasn’t as mad anymore.  What I said was true however.

            We started hanging out together quite a bit.  We would talk about so many things.  You know when you really hit it off well with another person and you can talk about anything together—that is what it was like.  One time, we talked about the cultures of our respective hometowns.  She asked what I would wear to a party in southern California.  I told her—flip-flops, Levi’s, and a Hawaiian shirt.  She said that if I wore that to a party in the Central Valley, I would probably get beat up.  I asked what a guy would wear up there.  She said, NEVER Levi jeans.  It had to be Lee Jeans (I am not sure why) and never a Hawaiian shirt.  We laughed.

            One of my most memorable times with Nancy was when she drove me (she had a car at school, I didn’t) to Mad River Beach one afternoon.  We spent a few hours walking along the beach and talking.  Now this beach was nothing like the beaches we had in southern California.  Down there, the beaches were flat sand and had a busy highway behind them.  Up here, there was a beautiful pasture and barn, just behind the beach.  The beach itself had dunes and tall grass growing out of it.  There was driftwood everywhere and you could smell the wood burning in small fires along the beach.  It was one of the most picturesque places I have ever been.  I took a photo of Nancy sitting on a dune with the sun setting behind her.  I don’t know what ever happened to that photo, but I will always be able to see it etched in my mind.

            We dated a bit more after that, but when she returned from Christmas vacation, she was engaged to her boyfriend back home.  I barely spoke to her after that.  One time during the winter quarter, her fiancé came up to HSU to see her.  I had heard he was coming and was a little put off about it all.  I was convinced he must be a jerk.  I bumped into him in the cafeteria one morning.  He didn’t know who I was, but he started a conversation and seemed like a great guy. 

            We (Redwood Hall) played Sunset Hall (our arch-enemies) in a game of football.  They had this big burly guy who always wore bib-overalls.  We called him Igor.  He was there toughest player and tried to hurt people when he played football.  On our team, there were five of us who had played football in high school.  Four of us had played center, and one had played guard.  When we made up our team, we all played wide receivers, running backs, and quarterback.  We ended up falling behind in the game although I had a nice catch in the corner of the end zone for a TD—with my feet dragging to stay inbounds.  In true sophomoric fashion, I checked to make sure the girls from our dorm, who had come down to watch the melee, had seen the catch.  I acted very cool, like I did that all the time.  Late in the game, the five of us decided to play in the offensive line.  We had this one guy, I think his name was Flynn, playing running back.  He was a quick guy, even though he was wearing hiking boots for the game.  We gave him the ball about 8 straight times while in the offensive line, we were pulling, and trapping and cross-blocking—and went right down the field and scored.  It showed me how important the offensive line is to a football team.  Afterwards, we had a dorm party (we had a party for just about anything).

            Sometimes someone in Sunset dorm would play their stereo really loud; as sort of a taunt to us.  One day, early in the school year while they were blasting us with their stereo, this one guy from our dorm who had really long hair (I think he moved in a little after the school year started) listened for a minute and said, “That’s nothing.”  I thought it was pretty loud although I only had a $99 J.C. Penney’s stereo.  This guy takes us back to his room (which faced Sunset Hall) and there is the biggest speaker I have ever seen in my life.  It was actually a stadium speaker in a large speaker cabinet.  His amp looked like something from NASA.  He turned it up (he never turned it up all the way) and just DESTROYED Sunset Dorm.  Ships at sea could probably hear his speakers and with no distortion.  It was amazing.  You could put a full beer bottle on the speaker when it was cranked way up and the vibrations would make the bottle slide right off the top of the cabinet.  Amazing.  Our stereo (well, his stereo) kicked Sunset’s ass.

            Another time, we played “touch” football on the concrete in the quad between the dorms.  Somehow, I ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw and broken nose.  These were the worst injuries I ever had, and I had played six years of high school and J.C. ball.

            One of the strangest coincidences in my life occurred up at HSU.  Down the hall from our room were these two guys, one of whom was pretty funny.  I can’t remember his name, but he was a motorcycle rider from Tehachapi, California.  He was a real character.  He was always pulling pranks and teasing people.  One time I was talking to his roommate, Tim.  I was telling him that his roommate reminded me of a guy who lived a few houses down from me back home.  He was always doing the same thing to people.  Tim said that when he was younger, he had a friend who was the same way.  I told Tim that the part was that this kid’s dad was a preacher. Tim said his friend’s dad was a minister also.  I said, “That Randy was a real character.”  Tim just looked at me in amazement.  His friend was also named Randy.  It turns out that we both knew the same guy.  Tim knew him when he was younger and I met him when his family moved to our street.  Later, Randy and I were roommates back home.  It was certainly a weird coincidence though—six degrees of separation.

            One of the best weekends I had that year was when a girl from the dorms named Barbara asked me on a Friday night if I wanted to go to San Francisco for the weekend.  She was sort of engaged to a guy in the Navy at the time and I was dating someone else.  One of the things that I promised myself that year was that I would be more spontaneous; something my parents could never be.  Even though it was Friday evening, I said yes and we drove about seven hours through the night to Hayward, California.  She knew a family there and called them asking if we could spend the night with them.  We got to their house about 2 or 3 in the morning.  We stayed up at least another hour while we talked to them, so it was really late when we went to bed.  The lady, who was very nice, said we could stay in the room down the hall.  When Barbara and I walked in the room, there was only one big bed.  We looked at the bed, then we looked at each other, then both of us started laughing.  I said that I would sleep on the floor, but she said no, we could both sleep together since we were both so tired.  We got into bed together and I asked her, “Do you think that the lady thought that I was your fiancé?”  Barbara started to laugh and said, “Maybe!”  Because we were so tired and slap-happy, we were howling laughing.  I told her that the lady must be hearing this and must be thinking that we are really “going at it” in here.  We both almost fell out of bed laughing at that.  We had tears rolling down our cheeks and could barely catch our breath.  Finally, we got to sleep (nothing happened between us). 

            The next day, Barbara took me on a tour of San Francisco, mainly around Fisherman’s Wharf.  It was one of the best times I have ever had.  I felt very grown up and independent.  The weather was crisp and clear.  She was a lot of fun to be with.  We had no commitments.  We listened to a musician in a café, drank wine, and saw the sights.  It was truly an adventure.

            Barbara was from southern California and after I graduated, I would visit her and her family during the summer.  I really enjoyed her mother and like Karen, she too had a beautiful older sister.  Barbara ended up marrying Steve, one of the guys from the dorms.  She also became a teacher in the Central Valley.

            Some of the guys were pretty good fishermen.  They would come back with salmon and cook it in the little kitchen downstairs.  One time, they went crabbing down on the wharf and I went with them.  This Hispanic guy showed us how to bait the traps (they looked like wire pyramids that were open flat).  We’d put a piece of dead fish in the middle of the trap and then throw it over the side.  We’d drink a beer and then pull up the trap.  We’d pull it up on to the wharf and it would be full of crabs hanging on the bars trying to escape.  When he put the trap down on the deck, it opened and the crabs started crawling every which way.  I almost jumped in the water to escape the little rascals.  The Hispanic guy knew which ones were legal to take and how big they had to be.  He sorted through them and we cast out the trap a few more times.  We took the crabs back to the dorms and had a crab feast like you’ve never seen.  We fed everyone we could find in the dorms until they were full and couldn’t eat any more.  It was delicious.

            That whole north coast area around Humboldt has so much natural beauty to enjoy.  One of the many scenes I remember was driving with a friend along Highway 101.  We were driving along a pasture to the west of us as the sun was setting.  For one fraction of a second as I looked out my window, there was a cat walking along the top rail of the pasture fence with the big orange ball of the setting sun right behind him.  I will always remember that picture.  There were many other beautiful spots—Trinidad, Moonstone Beach, Patrick’s Point, and Fern Canyon among them.

            At some point in the year, one of my best friends, Ed, came up for a visit with some of his friends from the seminary.  Ed was studying to become a priest.  When they came, I took them to Fern Canyon.  The canyon walls are about 30-50 feet high and you walk along the small creek that runs through it.  Covering both sides of the canyon walls are nothing but lush green ferns.  It looks like a primeval forest.  As we walked out of the canyon and on to the beach, we saw a herd of Roosevelt Elk that were in a meadow that overlooked the water.  Ed and his friends had so much fun that they stayed a few extra days and got into big trouble when they were late in returning to the seminary.  Ed became a deacon and performed our wedding ceremony.  Presiding over the ceremony was Father Steve who was a classmate of Ed’s and accompanied him on the visit to HSU.  Steve later became the principal of Mater Dei H.S. in Santa Ana, California.

Near Fern Canyon.  Me and Ed on the left.  Steve is on the right.

            Everyone on campus seemed to be like me.  We all kind of missed home.  We all knew when the next time we would be leaving campus to visit our family and friends in our hometown.  At some point, my perspective changed.  I was having so much fun and making so many new friends—it just sort of happened.  One late afternoon, I was heading back to the dorms and saw some people I knew.  We greeted and I said to them, “I will see you back home,” meaning back at the dorm.  I was surprised how my perspective had changed.  That’s how much I loved being at Humboldt.

            One of the best pranks occurred in the spring.  Sunset Hall was our nemesis and Igor continued to give us a bad time every change that he could.  One day, I was passing a room on our floor (the 3^rd floor) I looked in and several guys were filling a large plastic trashcan with water.  It was the size of an oil drum.  I asked, “What the heck was going on?”  They said that Igor walked back from class each afternoon on the walkway just below this dorm room.  Well, I had to watch this.  Sure enough, just as the can is filled, here he comes.  I had my doubts that they could hit him with the water from that height and I was afraid that if the can fell too, it would kill Igor.  It took four of them to lift the water-filled can and get it to the edge of the window.  Then they tipped it over and, “bulls-eye!”  They drenched him from three stories up.  Everyone ran back to their rooms and locked their doors.  I don’t think anyone came out for like two or three day.  Igor came up to the third floor yelling and screaming and vowing to emasculate all of us with his chain saw.  He was furious.  But, “Hey Igor—we got you!”

            In springtime, they have “Lumberjack Days” which is like a party/carnival on campus.  They had silly team and individual contests and, back then, a local liquor store provided the prizes.  They had “bed races” and “sack races”, but also wood-chopping contests and axe throwing contest for the serious lumberjack types.  Third Floor, Redwood came in second place and won several cases of beer, which too few drank too much but no one drove anywhere since we were there already.
 
             One girl in the dorms was Tracy, or maybe it was Traci—I can’t remember.  She was a very sweet girl who lived in Saratoga, California.  Her father was a nuclear neurologist or something like that.  I think she said that there were only three doctors in the country who did that and her father was the only one on the west coast.  I went and visited them once.  They lived in a mansion.  I remember they had a huge family room.  On one wall, they had what looked like an old-fashion soda fountain set-up with old jars with all sorts of ice cream toppings.  It was so cool.  Tracy, or Traci was fun to talk to and hang out with.  I met her younger brother and gave him my Pittsburgh Pirates baseball hat.  He seemed to really like that.  Her whole family was very nice. 

            Although I was a Business major, one of my favorite classes (and I did attend classes from time to time—all evidence to the contrary) was an Astronomy Class.  The instructor, who appeared to be pretty old, was so enthusiastic about his subject.  Besides the lecture part of the class, we also went to the HSU observatory and used a rather large telescope.  One of the highlights was seeing the rings of Saturn through it.  It really stirred an interest in astronomy that I still have today.

            Another time, I was in the computer lab, working on a project.  I finished in the late afternoon and was walking across the campus towards the dorms.  The sun was setting, there was a chill in the air, and as I passed the Music Department, someone was playing classical music on the piano, which sort of provided a soundtrack to the scene.  It was such a surreal moment that I stopped and thought to myself—this is an unbelievable experience that I will never forget.

            Another girl from the dorms that I met was Brenda.  She was a high-spirited, Irish girl from the central coast of California.  I think she gave me a bloody nose the first time I met her.  She threw her softball glove at me and hit me in the face.  She and her roommate were like little banshees.  One time, while I was studying in my room with the door open, they both came running into my room and took all the drawers out of my desk and my little dresser and threw them upside-down in a pile in the middle of the room—all the while laughing hysterically together—then ran out of my room.

            She had a charming way of looking at you without looking at you—kind of a sideways glance.  And she definitely had that Mona Lisa smile—very subtle—when she was about to pull a prank on you.

            The girls in our dorm had a powder-puff football game against Sunset.  They asked me to coach it.  Brenda played wide receiver.  She was totally un-coachable but a good athlete.  I wanted her to run a curl pattern on a pass play.  She ran a streak instead, caught the ball and scored a TD.  Oh well.

            We started dating in the spring until the end of the school year.  We had lots of fun together and she was one of the few people from HSU that I saw again a few times after I graduated.  After she graduated, Brenda got married and went to work with the National Forest Service and works in the northern California area.

             When I graduated, I was driving home down Highway 101 with my parents.  In another car, right next to us, Brenda was driving home with her parents.  It was funny at first and we waved a few times.  Then I just pulled over for a little while and let her get way ahead of us.

            When I was called in for my graduation check, my counselor said I was all ready to graduate in June.  I remember that I felt bad because it meant my time at HSU was coming to an end.  When I graduated, I handed the card to the announcer (who was one of my professors on the School of Business) and he didn’t even look at it.  He just called my name because he knew me and I walked across the stage to receive my diploma.   That’s what a great, small college atmosphere they had at Humboldt State.

            Writing all of this has been a fun experience that has allowed me to go back in time for a while.  I hope that you enjoyed reading it.  I could probably write a mountain of other things that happened to me during that school year; it was truly one of the most memorable in my life.  Some are too personal, some are still a little painful, but all of them added to the experience that I will never forget.

Humboldt visit in 2018.

            I have been back to the HSU campus about four times since I graduated in 1976.  It is so fun and exciting to be back on campus.  Every time I go, I meet new people who are kind, intelligent and understand the attraction of Humboldt State.

            To this day, I still have dreams about returning to Humboldt, and walking around the campus, looking for my friends.

Altamira Cave Painting

My son and I once visited the Hemet Maze Stone, a prehistoric petroglyph, in Reinhardt Canyon near Hemet, California.  I was also intrigued by the cave drawings in the movie, "The English Patient".  I wanted to do a watercolor painting of a Native American cave painting, but found the Paleolithic painting from the Altamira Cave in Spain to have an interesting composition.  I like the way most of the animals are running from right to left, but some lighter, ghostly animals are running in the opposite direction.  I usually sign and date my artwork but for some reason, like the original cave painting, I thought it better to leave it unsigned.

Water Lily

This is a watercolor of a water lily that bloomed in our little goldfish pond.  The blossoms last a very short time.  I think the photo below of the actual water lily is so beautiful.  I don't think the painting captured its beauty as well as the photo.

Half Hull Ship Model

In June of this year, we stayed in a cabin on the coast of Maine with our son and daughter-in-law, and her family.  The cabin was at the Hiram Blake Camp.  In the dining room, they had a Half Hull Ship Model on the wall.  That was my inspiration to do this piece.  In the 1800's, shipwrights used these models as a guide for the ship's design and to insure the ship would be symmetrical.  My model is made of mahogany and is mounted on a poplar board.  It will remind us of our wonderful time on our trip to Maine.

Basket-Weave Holster

This is a holster for a small frame, .22 revolver.  It is not from a kit.  The holster pattern is my design and is cut from one piece of leather.  It is hand-stitched and hand-tooled with the basket-weave design.  It has a slight forward cant.

El Vaquero Viejo (The Old Cowboy)

On a recent trip to Maine, I got to talking to a talented, young artist named Mallory from Colorado.  She told me about Gouache paint, which is a water soluble paint that is thicker than watercolor.  I tried it on the whiskers, mustache and hair of the subject in this painting.  My model was a photo by J. Peter Mortimer that appeared in the November, 1980 issue of, "Arizona Highways" magazine.  Mortimer's comment on the photo was, "You really have to go below the surface and try to show some of the inner feelings, inner workings of a person."  I tried to capture the accumulated wisdom of this old cowboy.

I used this photo as a model.

"The Duke"

This is an old pen & ink sketch I had done many years ago.  I found it while going through an old portfolio.  I hope people recognize him as John Wayne.  I like the cross-hatch shading on it.

St. Louis Cathedral--Jackson Square, New Orleans

This is a pen & ink and watercolor painting of St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square in New Orleans.  The white exterior seems so pure in contrast to the bawdy nature of Bourbon Street, which is only two blocks from the Cathedral.  It was founded in 1720 and opened in 1794 making it the oldest cathedral in what would become the United States.  It is not an "exact" replica of the Cathedral--rather, it is my interpretation of it.  It is also one of the few churches I can think of with a clock on its exterior.

Texas Longhorn Holster

This is a holster from a Tandy Leather kit.  It has a Spanish Floral design with a Texas Longhorn Steer on it.  I can not take credit for the beautiful belt shown in the photo, but they do match up well.  I gave this holster to Debbie Clark,  a friend and co-worker of my wife.  It is my hope that Debbie wears it one day in the Rose Parade--which she has appeared in twice already as part of the equestrian group, "The Mane Attraction." (Photo Credit:  Debbie Clark)

Pittsburgh Steel Mill

I have always wanted to do a painting of the steel mills of Pittsburgh.  I was born in McKeesport, which is outside of Pittsburgh.  My grandfather, Gaetano Carrozzo and my Uncle George Klipa both worked in the steel mills.  As a child, my Uncle gave my father and me a tour of a steel mill.  It was like standing in front of the gates of hell.  The noise was deafening, the heat was searing, the smoke and smell of the place was over-powering.  I wanted to try to do a painting of the interior of a steel mill, but could not come up with a good subject that I thought I could capture.  Instead, I used a beautiful painting called, "Steel Mill Verticals" by Claire Hardy as my model.

Mosquito Recycled Sculpture

This is another project using some recycled elements.  While on a walk picking up trash with my wife, she found a finial--that round ball that goes on top of a newel on a stairway banister.  I used that as the head of my mosquito.  The finial is mounted on a table leg, which forms the body.  The wings are old coat hangers.  I used hardware from around my garage to finish it off.  If it blows in the wind, I guess it would be considered a kinetic sculpture.

Basket-Weave Knife Sheath

This is a knife sheath from a Tandy Leather kit.  I tooled a basket-weave design on it.  I gave it to my friend, Tom, who is a collector of all things "western".  He keeps his rather rare, 1920's Sheffield made Wade & Butcher hunting knife in it.         (Photo Credit:  Tom Boyle)

Slim Jim Holster with Spanish Floral Design

This is another Slim Jim holster.   It is not from a kit.  The holster pattern is my design and is cut from one piece of leather.  I did it for my friend, Tom, who has a ranch in New Mexico.  It has an original Spanish Floral design on it.  Tom keeps his Colt Navy 1851 revolver in it. (Photo Credit:  Tom Boyle)

"The Notch", Murrieta, California

On the west end of Murrieta, there is a trail that leads up to the Santa Rosa Plateau Nature Preserve.  There is a little gap in the hillside and the trail winds its way up the gap.  I don't know if there is an official name for this natural feature, but some people call it, "The Notch".  We can see "The Notch" from the front window of our house.  The trail is closed to the public with several locked gates across the trail, however one time my neighbor Rob and I hiked up the trail to the plateau.  Years ago, my son, Michael and his MVHS Football team were lead on a run up the trail by Coach Compton. Below is a photo of "The Notch".

Hummingbird

My wife enjoys watching the Hummingbirds in our backyard when they come to our fountain.  I tried to use a wet paper in doing this painting, letting the colors run and bleed into each other (Sfumato technique).  I would like to develop my skill in this technique since it works so well with watercolor.  I used an ultra-fine felt pen for the beak and eye.

This was my first attempt, with which I was not happy.  My daughter, Caroline, who is an excellent artist, gave me some ideas on how to improve it.  I was using the technique within the subject, but not on the edges of the subject.  Also, the colors were too brilliant.  I softened the edges and muted the colors down a bit.  I think the top one looks much better.

San Giorgio Maggiore by Twilight

I wanted to do a painting of something we saw on our trip to Italy in 2016.  This is of San Giorgio Maggiore across from Venice.  I have wanted to "loosen up" my paintings, so I used Claude Monet's impressionistic painting as a model.  Below, you can see Monet's original.

An interesting footnote... I usually frame my paintings in dark wood or black frames.  For some reason, I chose a fancy gold frame.  I thought it might defuse the bright colors of the painting.  I don't know why, but I just wanted it in the gold frame.  When my son, Michael,  saw my painting, he said, "Oh, The Thomas Crown Affair".  I didn't know what he was talking about--then I realized that is the painting that gets stolen in that movie...and it is in a fancy gold frame.