August 24, 2004

Going through my bookmarks last night, as I do from time to time, I came across the CCAT website at HSU. Instantly, I was hit with the familiar pangs of longing for the town of Arcata, the county and college of Humboldt, and all things eco.

As usually happens during one of these episodes, I spent the next thirty minutes looking through the CCAT links, checking to see if anything had been updated, smiling at the pictures of scruffy, flannel-and-Gortex wearing students and volunteers.

CCAT is one of those strange places that will forever represent a certain ideal for me. CCAT will forever represent my 1 ½ years at Humboldt—the best, worst year and a half of my life. CCAT was my first glimpse into the flavor the Humboldt county. Before I had even been accepted into HSU, I was mentally preparing myself for the experience, I scoured the web for some hint of what to expect--and found very little.

It was 1997 after all, the web was not nearly so ubiquitous and informative as it is today. The official HSU website was minimal, and I was unable to locate a single personal website from Humboldt county (still a difficult task). But I did find the CCAT website, complete with pictures and plenty of content. Not much, but it would do.

That little website taught me how to make a worm bin, and solar-reflecting curtain. I stayed up reading about bicycle-powered blenders. The next day, I told my “I’ve found the club I’m going to belong to at Humboldt,” and showed her the website. She seemed genuine thrilled—probably because I had actually shown interest in something social.

And the ironic thing? I’ve never been there.

Sure, I intended to ‘join’ CCAT, but it just never happened. By the time I got to Humboldt, I had started dating this guy—long distance—and I was a lot busier and a lot less lonely that I had anticipated. I did not actively commit to things that might tie up my weekend. More often than not, I could not even commit to Friday afternoon classes. If the CalTrans website told me that 101 was clear, I was half way to the Bay Area before my classmates had finished Remote Sensing lab.

So, no, I never got involved with CCAT. I passed it every day on my way to the parking lot, but never stopped to go inside. One time, my botany T.A. Billy took us to the herb garden to identify plants, but that was as close as we got to ever ‘using’ CCAT in one of our classes. And although I once sent Rita Celestial and Sidney down the hill to take the tour while I finished my chemistry study group, I never got around to taking the tour myself.

And every time I come across the website, I think to myself “I really should.”

Maybe when I go to get my masters…