The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents 9,000 service workers and 11,000 patient-care workers throughout the UC system, has been fighting the university for higher wages since its contract expired in January 2008.

The union argues its case based on the wages that workers earn for comparable jobs at nearby institutions, labeling the UC salaries “slave wages” or “poverty wages” and picketing campus with such signs.

After months of negotiations and no progress, the workers filed for impasse, which involves a third-party mediator coming in to help solve the problem.

The union originally intended to strike during the end of the last school year, but was delayed by continued negotiations, and staged a five-day strike statewide beginning July 14.

The workers have had support in their efforts from several student groups, which has led to the formation of the Student and Worker Coalition for Justice. Together, these groups have staged several protests and rallies, including a rally at UCSF in August, union delegates sent to Sacramento to garner political support, and a protest outside the office of Richard Blum, chairman of the UC Regents.

With their contract still in the air, expect to see more from AFSCME in the coming year.

Cleverly nestled away on the quiet end of Front Street, the Firefly boasts back-country charm and a sleepy, old-town kind of feel. This place is a favorite of folks living on Beach Hill, and is mostly run by students from UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo. There’s a rustic wood-post fence that lines a front porch where you can sit and enjoy your drink while the sea breeze blows through the windchimes. The ambience is very down-to-earth; my coffee came in a unique, Zodiac-designed mug and the barista was busy making savory bacon and cheese scones. There are also two large bookcases and WiFi if you feel like zoning out for a while. This is the perfect place to “get away from it all.”

If you ever get one elaborate drink here, make sure to get the Menehune Mocha on the rocks. It’s a blended raspberry mocha and will absolutely knock your socks off. Bad Ass is a bright and friendly place and is known for its tropical, Hawaiian-themed drinks and décor. There are a couple of computers for customer use and a big-screen TV in the lounge area. Bad Ass offers free computer use for their customers and all you need is a receipt of your purchase to surf the net. This place is also kid-friendly, verified by a play area for toddlers near the front.

Make sure you know what you want before you get to the register; these guys take their coffee seriously. “Perg’s” is located on Cedar Street right in the heart of downtown. It’s a beautiful Victorian-era house that’s been converted into one of the best-known coffee shops in Santa Cruz. There’s plenty of room to relax on plush sofas or at one of their many tables; or if the mood so strikes, you can sit and enjoy the sun on the charming outdoor porch and garden. Perg’s also serves beer and locally made wine from the Bonny Doon vineyard. There’s free WiFi and it’s not unusual to see other students congregating here to study or socialize.

Closer to campus and accessible by any bus that runs by Bay and Mission, Coffeetopia is an ideal place to go when you’re over on the West Side. The shop is on the small side so there isn’t much desk space if you’re looking to study, but the baristas are friendly and very helpful. I asked one to make me his favorite drink and was pleasantly surprised when he proudly handed me a delicious, run-of-the-mill cappuccino. This is a great, traditional coffee shop that will give you the best of the basic espresso varieties. Flares of beach culture add to the laid-back atmosphere. Colorful oil paintings by local artists are hung on the walls and there is a weather and surf channel to keep you up-to-date on the present conditions. Complete with WiFi and two computers in back for customer use, this is a student-friendly, albeit small, place to go and get some work done while enjoying a good ol’ cuppa joe.

Little Shanghai has been around for just over twenty years in the heart of downtown serving locals and tourists various stir-frys along with noodle bowls. The weekday lunchtime special runs just under $7 and is great for a quick lunch. During the night, dinner is a little more formal with a “sit-down and order from the menu style” but still has that casual feeling.

This is a great place to go for lunch or breakfast. I loved the healthy sandwich choices and the menu was catered toward vegetarian tastes. There is a large outdoor seating area with lots of room to spread out and enjoy the sun. Its locations are a bit removed from the bustle of downtown — one in the River Street shopping center and one in the homey Seabright neighborhood. These guys pride themselves on their mochas; try out the Crème Brulee or the German Chocolate Mocha for a treat. The only bummer is that they close up shop at 7 p.m. on weekdays, so it’s not a prime place for a late-night study session.

As far as I’m concerned, Fin’s is the friendliest of all the coffee shops. The baristas will remember your face and favorite drink and there is a great feeling of community here. This is a wonderful place to go if you want to meet some of the non-downtown denizens, yet still feel part of the Santa Cruz scene. There is live music every Friday night and I was lucky enough to hear an outstanding bluegrass group perform. The atmosphere and superb espresso are what makes Fin’s a great spot to chill out and meet some locals.

This is a nice place to go if you’re craving something sweet. The Buttery has lots of tasty and reasonably-priced pastries. You can get anything from an espresso cookie (similar to a Russian teacake) to a custom-made birthday cake. It’s a little crowded here and there is more emphasis on the bakery and lunch items than the coffee. I wouldn’t suggest this as a study spot, but if you’ve got a hankering for something flaky, buttery, chocolaty, you name it — definitely come here and indulge your sweet tooth.

Where to start with Lulu’s? Excellent cappuccinos, excellent service, excellent ambience, not to mention excellent hours! Lulu’s is open every night of the week until midnight, which makes it a prime and popular place to study and socialize. On the downside, Lulu’s can be a little crowded, especially around finals week. But the espresso drinks are first-rate, there’s a wide assortment of snacks to choose from if you’re feeling peckish, and the front patio is great to sit and people-watch.

Located in downtown’s historic Octagon building, this smaller branch of Lulu’s is a bit pricier and more polished than its sister shop on Pacific. The coffee is vacuum-pressed, which ups the price by a few cents but makes for a fresher taste. The layout of the shop is posh and simple; small mahogany tables are set up around the inside perimeter, which makes for a great place for a relaxed, solo study session. The outside patio is nestled up next to the Museum of Art and History and although the seating is limited (be prepared to have to jump on the first open deck chair available), it’s a quiet place to go to enjoy a classy cup of coffee.

I love this place because of the abundant selection of brewed coffee. There are almost two dozen different drip flavors to choose from at any time, so you don’t have to settle for any set menu of pre-brewed java. They proudly serve Fair Trade Organic coffee, so for the globally conscious, this is the place for you. There is live music on Friday and Saturday nights, and some performers make use of the upright piano. This isn’t the ideal place to study as there is limited seating and it can get a bit noisy, but it’s a great place to go when you’re strolling down Pacific and need a pick-me-up.

The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
400 Beach St.

The Boardwalk is a magnet for out-of-towners and kiddie parties, but don’t think you can’t have a good time here with your college buddies, too. Starting in September, the Boardwalk is open weekends only from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and will have significantly fewer tourists. Relive your childhood in the arcade, challenge your friends to laser tag (spoiler alert: they don’t allow running), and if you are feeling bold, go for a spin on the Fireball, a ride that is sure to rock your world.

The Boardwalk Bowl
115 Cliff St.

The local bowling alley has something to keep you busy almost every night of the week. Bowl without breaking the bank on Mondays and Tuesdays, when games are half-price. Bring your glow sticks for atomic bowling on Thursdays and Sundays, when the lights go down and the party begins. Saturday is Rock and Bowl day, while karaoke can be enjoyed five days of the week. Check their website for a schedule of live music, too.

Midnight Movies at the Del Mar
1124 Pacific Ave.

You aren’t a true Slug until you’ve participated in a midnight movie at the Del Mar — yes, participated. Don’t think you can sneak away to a quiet, empty midnight showing of your favorite cult classic; and why would you want to? These movies are often packed, rowdy and guaranteed fun. Not to mention admission is cheap and there are raffles and prizes. Fridays and Saturdays only. The tradition returns Sept. 19 with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Santa Cruz Roller Palladium
1606 Seabright Ave.

How many towns these days can boast an old-school indoor roller rink? Santa Cruz may be one of the few. Open year-round, bring your skates — or rent a pair — and take advantage of this fun treasure. The Palladium is open for public skating sessions, but can also be rented out for parties (just imagine the possibilities for a theme … Saturday Night Fever anyone?).

Hookah

You young‘uns are lucky when it comes to under-21 nightlife. Whereas only a few years ago there were none, there are now two poppin’ hookah bars in town. Giza Hookah Lounge is located conveniently close to campus, at 1515 Mission St., and open until 1 a.m. on the weekends. If you find yourself downtown and in the mood for some relaxing shisha, check out Madani Hookah Lounge at 2017 N. Pacific Ave. Madani’s is open until 3 a.m., and the dim light, mystical music and plush couches allow you to imagine you’ve been teleported into a genie’s bottle.

Farmers Market
On Cedar and Lincoln St.

It would be a shame to wait until you’ve lived off campus for a while before discovering the magic that is the Santa Cruz Farmers Market. If you don’t have class on Wednesday afternoons, head downtown to roam the aisles of locally grown, organic and delicious veggies, fruits, artisan bread and pastries, fair-trade coffee, colorful flowers, fresh seafood and more. The market is also a good place to stop by for lunch or dinner, with tasty options like Mexican and Indian. Join in the drum circle that pounds away beside the food aisles, or just sit and listen while chowing down. The Farmers Market runs from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday. For a closer-to-campus, equally treasured version, visit the West Side Farmers Market on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 2801 Mission St.

The Mystery Spot
465 Mystery Spot Road

The Mystery Spot may be a tourist trap, but it is also something you can’t go four years at UC Santa Cruz without checking out once (and once is definitely enough). Trek out there on a lazy Saturday, pay the five bucks, let yourself be amazed by the tilts and illusions, take some pictures and voila — you’ve participated in a Santa Cruz rite of passage. Located at 465 Mystery Spot Road, the attraction is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We Are California Grown

http://www.wearecaliforniagrown.com/

(831) 345-9502

Twenty-two-year-old Spence Hinkley started and owns We Are California Grown, an apparel line hailing the Californian way of life.

“I went to boarding school on the East Coast during one of the coldest winters they had,” said Hinkley, explaining why he wanted to open a store specifically for and about Californians. “I didn’t want anything to do with it. I think that’s where I got all my California native pride.”

Originally a skim board company, We Are Californian Grown evolved into a clothing line because of higher demands for apparel.

“We cater to all walks of life in California; not necessarily [only for those] from California, just those who appreciate the lifestyle,” Hinkley said.

Adapting to the market was not the only influence that changed Hinkley’s original plans for the store. A falling-out with a former business partner hindered the company’s growth in the beginning.

“My partner and I didn’t see eye to eye [about the company’s direction],” he said. “It was a bad break-up that took a while to get over and restart California Grown. I started from scratch by myself.”

Hinkley, who never finished college, says he is proof that a college degree is not necessary to own a successful business. For him, the entrepreneurial route proved more worthwhile than any formal education.

“I’m horribly dyslexic,” he said. “I think in my personal case, it would have taken too much time and I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now.”

The Back Perch
UCSC’s Academic Resource Center

Recent UC Santa Cruz graduate Paul Heiman opened The Back Perch this past academic year, a coffee stand located in the Academic Resource Center. As a former music student, Heiman knows what it feels like to wander around the Music and Art buildings looking for a bite to eat during long days at the studio.

“I take the term ‘starving artists’ literally when I say it,” he said. “As a musician, I’ve been through the routine of eating out of vending machines.”

Although his vision of feeding fellow starving artists at his alma mater has become more than a mere thought, it did not come without some doubt from others.

“Nobody gave me the time of day,” Heiman said. “I would ask for something and they would never get back to me. I would have to call them a lot and really push.”

Other businesses’ presumptions of student entrepreneurs added to difficulties of opening a business.

“I would ask them to make a delivery here and they’d said ‘UCSC? We can’t do that,’” he said. He found that mentioning established businesses, such as his father’s coffee shop, Caffé Pergolesi, gave him some leverage.

Although his father’s help proved valuable while starting his coffee stand, Heiman’s vision became a reality through his own funds and efforts.

“All the money is my money from my savings,” Heiman said. “But he’s definitely there to help figure things out.”

So Fresh Clothing
911 Cedar St.
(831) 600-8703

Matt Isles and Jack Beran, both in their twenties, run one of the few hip-hop stores in Santa Cruz.

Thanks to his five older brothers, Isles grew up listening to hip-hop and has always been passionate about the music and culture.

“We always wanted to dress nice, stay fly, so why not open a store like that,” he said.

Before Isles’ idea came into fruition, he met his business partner while working at Streetlight Records. Beran, a recent graduate of UCSC, serendipitously met Isles as an interested customer.

“I feel that Jack and I are prime examples of young people [making it in Santa Cruz],” Isles said. “He took the college route, I tried but it didn’t really work out. We came together and both showed [that either way] you can really be successful.”

Behind a glass counter full of hip-hop albums, Isles greets most of his customers on a first-name basis and knows exactly what they’re looking for in the store.

“There are people that come in here and all they want to buy is a white t-shirt or they listen to a particular type of music so, I have that ready for them,” he said.

While they easily maintained good relations with costumers, the guys found that it was a challenge to convince neighboring businesses that such a young business and unique-to-Santa Cruz idea could sustain itself.

“When you say ‘hip-hop,’ ‘urban,’ or ‘street,’ it’s going to scare [people], and it did,” Isles said. “I think it was a long time coming. People always [associate] Santa Cruz with hippies but UCSC has many students, especially kids from the Bay Area and LA, who are a part of [a growing hip-hop] culture in Santa Cruz.”

Isles and Beran had to continue persuading realtors and building owners to give them a location.

“I think the most difficult thing to do is trying to prove to the community that your ideas are going to work, that you’re credible, and you’re going to pay rent,” Isles said. “Money always talks. To me, it’s about being at the right place at the right time.”

RCO
209 Laurel St.
(831) 475-2463

Michael Branson is the co-owner, manager, and buyer of RCO, a northern-Californian-minded boutique in downtown Santa Cruz.

“A lot of people would look at our place as a hip-hop clothing or urban wear store, but I don’t really like [being categorized]; it’s different,” Branson said.

He feels that the clothes RCO sells provide an exclusive market not found anywhere else in Santa Cruz. Branson believes that his young age is advantageous in gearing his store to target audiences, as compared to older owners trying to be successful with a similar theme.

“I think there are stores that are trying to do this in other cities, but they have someone with money who’s a lot older and not attached to this market at all,” he said. “You can tell when you walk into their store and see what they carry.”

Still, the owners have found that many are quick to judge their store.

“They would give us a weird eye and ask us if we really wanted to do what we’re doing because [this market] is something they’ve never heard of,” Branson said. “Yeah, it’s tough, but any small business that you open takes three to five years to see some actual profit.”

Gaining trust from buyers was one of the big challenges the owners had in the beginning stages of their business.

“We had to get a lot of brands and have the space already. We weren’t open for business, but we had to be open for a couple of months and show people what we were doing before we got an agreement on getting clothes,” Branson said. “You gotta learn fast.”

Firefly Café
131 Front St.
(801) 598-3937

Josef Slowik and his girlfriend Caitlin Parker own and run Firefly Café, a small coffee shop on the fringe of downtown Santa Cruz.

The high living cost in Santa Cruz attributed to the demanding monetary sacrifices the couple had to make.

“Caitlin put in her entire college fund and I gave up everything I had for it,” Slowik said. “There was a point in the business where there was no income coming in but we still had to be here almost eight hours a day. It’s really hard trying to live in this town.”

Despite financial difficulties, the feat of establishing a business on their own was worth all the sacrifices.

“We were really tired of working for other people. I was working at the UPS store and I was thinking, ‘That’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life,’” Slowik said.

Luckily for the café, there are local property owners such as Joe Quigg, the landowner of the Firefly Café, who believe in younger businesses as an essential part of city’s development.

“I think he really wants to see people succeed,” Slowik said. “He made us work for it but he was there when we needed help. He likes to push, to see this whole town grow.”

The Krate
803 Pacific Ave.
(831) 466-3865

Childhood friends from Las Vegas, Brandon Spector and Michael Snider dreamed of opening their own store since they were teenagers.

“We were just figuring out a way to support ourselves by doing what we love most, and this was the only way we can do it,” said Spector, the 28-year-old co-owner of the Krate.

Today, in their eclectic store on Pacific Avenue, they sell vintage boomboxes collected over the years, boutique clothes and music records, among other art-inspired merchandise.

“This store is a reflection of the kinds of things that we have involved ourselves in in our lives,” Spector said. “There’s no sub-cultural affiliation, but we definitely cater to a broad audience.”

From designing the look of the cash register to having artists show off their work in their store, Spector and Snider have involved themselves in the arts and brought their ideas to Santa Cruz.

“We’re not just in it to make the buck; we want to get the community invested,” Spector said. “We’re looking at the bigger picture.”

The Krate was not exempt from the financial difficulties that come with new businesses. In the process of getting the Krate up and running, the two friends learned about the complexities involved in financing a business.

“In order to get a loan for small businesses, you need assets — you need strong assets — and you need incredible amounts of credit,” Spector said. “You really have to be a very special individual to be 28, or 25 or even 30, to qualify for a loan.”

To increase their income, Spector and Snider have found other means to continue funding their store. Spector is a DJ, owns an eBay business, and does occasional construction on the days he has off at the store, while Snider uses his artistic abilities with web design to get by.

“This is no joke. This is my entire life. It’s hard to have a girlfriend, it’s hard to have a dog, it’s hard to put food on the table,” Spector said. “My word of advice is if you think you want to have a business, it has got to be so ingrained in you that you are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. If you still feel that way, go ahead and do it because you got nothing to lose except all your money and all your time, but you only live once. Carpe diem!”

At the beginning of my sophomore year, I joined the school newspaper and my eyes quickly opened to so many faces and voices that I was too ignorant, or simply asleep, to see or hear before. It forced me to talk not just to professors and TAs, but to athletes, locals, dining hall workers, and so many others who together form the pulse of this place. It made me keep my head up so I wouldn’t miss the faces in the crowd, all with their own stories to tell. It made me walk to class without earphones so I could hear the redwood trees swaying and the snippets of conversations on everything from the effects of pesticides on farming communities to Mrs. Dalloway’s innermost struggles. It made me open my eyes to my surroundings so I wouldn’t miss the distinctive Santa Cruz sunsets while riding the bus home.

I encourage you to get caught up in the intricacies of all that surrounds you at UCSC, but don’t forget that there’s more outside our bubble.

Remember, for example, that this summer we came together in Beijing to cheer for our athletes who reminded us to take pride in this country – one that in recent years has become harder to cheer for. Once the Games were over, our focus shifted back to the coming election, which will undoubtedly be one of the most significant in our nation’s history, defining our generation and forcing us to think more critically about our future.

Across the state, fires burned through homes at the same time that service workers at all 10 University of California campuses started sparks of their own, striking for higher wages and slowing the daily functions of each campus to a near-standstill. While we Slugs were on summer vacation, the university and the city of Santa Cruz decided to proceed with the Long Range Development Plan, which had been under discussion for months and prompted students to rally in protest last year, some even living in trees to make their point clear.

Now we’re here at UCSC – some of us for the first time and some returning. Before we get caught up in classes, let’s take a moment to consider this as a time and a place that will be unlike anything we’ll experience again. When else will you run naked in the rain and not get arrested? Where else can you climb a redwood overlooking the bay and then, a 10-minute bike ride later, arrive at one of the world’s greatest surf spots? Take advantage of the fact that this university offers a class that will teach you how to ride those waves. Talk to the people who serve you food in the dining halls; they might be the most significant conversations you’ll have here. Watch a volleyball match with 200 other Slugs cheering for a game-winning kill. Go howl at the full moon once a month in a drum circle behind Colleges 9/10. Here, as UCSC students, we can do these things and more. The only thing that can keep you from them is you.

Find a way to plug into the community. Read the paper, watch the news, do something that allows you to paint your own picture of this stunning place. Get out and take it all in before your time here is up, because it goes by fast. Wake up and welcome to Santa Cruz – now go see why so many of us decided to come here, and why after four years, we find it so difficult to leave.

Samantha Thompson
Editor in Chief

That something is a mountain bike and that big backyard is UC Santa Cruz’s Upper Campus. Slug mountain bikers have access to an underappreciated gem overlooked by those who believe that the town’s world-renowned outdoor recreation stops at the shoreline. But fleets of weekend warriors often go out and hit the trails traversing Upper Campus and its surrounding parks.

These trails bring out a wide range of riders who crave a dose of adrenaline. They bring out crowds of spandex-toting, cross-country riders enjoying the ascent, the slightly nutty cyclocross riders cranking off pavement road bikes, the few and the proud 29ers sitting slightly higher on their 29-inch wheels, the well-rounded, all-mountain riders pumping the descent as much as the climb, and half-maniacal free riders playing with gravity. The area provides some challenging terrain for most riders, but has called to arms the free riders in particular.

Free riders rip on built-up downhill trails but thrive on natural elements. The goal is to find an original route down the face of a seemingly impossible descent, or drop on a mountain by using all the skills of riding and then apply them to natural elements. The Upper Campus of UCSC contains a myriad of built and natural stunts for any rider willing to work a little to find them.

As mountain biking continues to diversify into specialties, the boundaries continue to expand and the possibilities for riders become seemingly endless.

These photographs were are all taken off the beaten trail in Upper Campus. Be aware that some trails in the Upper Campus area do cross private property and could lead down toward Highway 9. These areas are not bike-legal and tickets have been, and continue to be issued to violators. It is important to remember that the riders pictured have years of experience, and while they may seem a little extreme, their heads are still atop their shoulders. So be sure when going out to ride to stay on the right trails and stay safe.

Santa Cruz’s reputation as a quirky, organic-fed culture is nothing new. However, when it comes to being internationally recognized as a hotbed for artists, art galleries, and an established arts community, such as those belonging to New York or Los Angeles, Santa Cruz has always fallen short.

“There was the myth that you couldn’t really sell art in Santa Cruz, that galleries wouldn’t work, and that artists couldn’t really support themselves,” said Emily Reilly, former mayor of Santa Cruz, who worked alongside Scudder to promote the arts during her two terms in office.

“There has been low self-esteem on the part of Santa Cruz as an arts community,” she said.

In the past, the lack of venues to show and sell art — which caused many local artists to either exhibit their art in larger metropolises such as San Francisco or L.A. or even move away — hindered the development of a flourishing arts scene. But over the past five years, a rapid change has taken place due to the efforts of many organizations and many dedicated individuals.

Enter Kirby Scudder.

Blowing into Santa Cruz on an East Coast breeze, Scudder’s idea of what an arts community should be came from his experience growing up in SoHo, a then-emerging art district in New York City. A love of bicycle riding ultimately swayed him away from his brief stint working for the city of San Jose and pedaled him into Santa Cruz.

“Kirby was really able to see when he came to town that this community is vital and vibrant and that it is easy to be successful in a profitable way, not just by creating beautiful art, but by actually supporting the arts community,” Reilly said.

Scudder began selling his paintings in an empty retail space off of Pacific Avenue in 2002, where he received throngs of questioning artists doubting the success of his gallery based on the past failures of the few others.

“I came to the conclusion both through my business experience and as an artist that there were too many artists here without any representation,” Scudder said. “There were no galleries and all these artists.”

To remedy this problem, Scudder founded the Santa Cruz Institute of Contemporary Arts (SCICA), of which he is currently the director. Together with the City Redevelopment Agency, Scudder also began opening “Question Mark Galleries” in 2004, temporary art galleries created in empty for-lease spaces.

“We started creating all these galleries that were all very different and dedicated to serving the community at large and it just kept steamrolling,” Scudder said. “We needed to do more and more because there was such a demand for this, and we started to create this art scene.”

Since the days of the “Question Mark,” an infectiously vibrant change has been sweeping through the Santa Cruz arts community, revitalizing the interest of the many involved and affected.

This includes Susan Hillhouse, curator of exhibitions and collections at the Museum of Art and History.

“Santa Cruz is becoming a different town than it was before the earthquake,” Hillhouse said.

The infamous 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which rocked and rattled the San Francisco Bay Area and parts of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, unnerved citizens and damaged many buildings and businesses.

“It took a long time for the town to come back and be reinvented,” Hillhouse said. “But out of the rubble came a lot of new ideas and a lot of new energy, and then people like Kirby came along.”

Joint efforts from the Redevelopment Agency, the City Council, the SCICA, and many other art affiliates and artists are raising the phoenix from the ashes and lifting the city to new heights by providing the venues and support needed in order for the arts community to prosper.

In only a short amount of time, galleries such as the Hide, the Mill, the Dead Cow, the Felix Kulpa Gallery, along with Michelangelo’s Gallery and the Attic surfaced to promote the arts and provide support for the many existing and emerging artists.

However, creating an organized arts community requires more than simply opening up permanent galleries. Local artistic talent is also gaining exposure with help from a black-and-white cow-spotted bus and the First Friday Art Tour.

A small $5 donation gives artists, students, and arts enthusiasts unlimited rides aboard this eclectic moo-mobile, allowing the public the opportunity to check out the latest art happenings and events at their leisure. The monthly tour takes participants to most galleries in Santa Cruz in one night.

With support such as this, Scudder feels that the future of the local arts community looks far from bleak.

“There is this expectation now that there is an art scene here,” Scudder said. “There are now places to go, to show work, and to feel proud about. This all ultimately leads to the Tannery.”

Once home to the historic Salz Tannery, the Tannery Arts Center will be Santa Cruz’s ultimate art showcase.

The current three-phase project developed by the City of Santa Cruz and Artspace Inc., a nonprofit developer of affordable space for artists, is transforming the 8.2 acres of land nestled between the San Lorenzo River and Highway 9 into the future site of a thriving artist colony.

Initially purchased by the Redevelopment Agency, the Tannery Arts Center comes with a price tag of around $42 million. Borrowing, grants, fundraisers, and other sources, none of which will come out of the city’s General Fund, will finance the project.

With construction presently underway, the Tannery Arts Center, when complete, will boast 100 units of low-income live/work housing for artists and 35,000 square feet of working studios for individuals and groups. Shared work studios will provide space for kilns, darkrooms, printing presses, hot shops and foundries.

Artists are expected to move in by February of 2009.

A 150-seat Performing Arts Center, a permanent home for the Santa Cruz Ballet Theater, outdoor exhibition space, classrooms, offices, and coffee shops will complete the Tannery Arts Center’s transformation into a bustling center for the arts.

This massive project is not under the radar of community members. On June 7 and 8, the public raised approximately $55,000 from art sales and commissions at the Mill Gallery’s “Art for Art” exhibition and benefit. The benefit was also the Mill’s biggest opening to date. Also in June was the Dead Cow Gallery’s “A Month of Dance in a Small Room,” to promote the performing arts.

Joseph Hencke, executive director of the Hide Gallery, is a believer in the Tannery Arts Center’s ability to transform Santa Cruz.

“If the Tannery flourishes in the ways that it should, what the end result will be, if this is all successful, is that Santa Cruz will become a solid destination for artists, art buyers, and people who enjoy art,” Hencke said. “Santa Cruz will be made into a destination place to experience the arts.”

Local painter Barbara Leites also sees the benefits that the Tannery Arts Center and the direct involvement of many have provided.

“I think the work in Santa Cruz is now at a higher level. There are a wide range of things that can now be taken advantage of and a lot more options when it comes to showcasing art,” said Leites, who is also a teacher at Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School. “Selling art will be made a lot easier if the Tannery gets a good grip, really screens people and actually has artists living there.”

Public spaces such as bars, clothing stores like the Cardboard Spaceship, and coffee houses such as the Firefly Café, Lulu Carpenter’s, and the Stevenson Café have furthered the movement by turning their walls into places for artists to locally display their art.

The celebrated hipster hangout Caffé Pergolesi is no stranger to this concept, with the walls of its four rooms dedicated to local artwork and photography.

“We give the ‘starving artists’ a venue to show their work and to provide support for them,” owner Karl Heiman said. “We don’t censor art here and thus make it easier to show many types of art a lot of other places wouldn’t show, such as nudity, horror, and blood.”

In addition to the support from gallery and non-gallery businesses, the city itself is seeing the art scene as a selling point for tourism, which many think will benefit the city economically.

The term for this idea is “Cultural Tourism” and the concept is simple. Investing money into arts and culture projects and events will encourage tourists to spend more money attending exhibitions and performing arts shows, which are normally pricier than spending a day at the beach.

A survey conducted by Americans for the Arts and the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County shows that the non-profit arts and culture industry in Santa Cruz has invested a total of $15 million into arts and culture projects, while nonprofit arts and culture audiences have spent $16 million, both of which provide jobs and the revenue needed to drive Santa Cruz’s economy and support social services such as the fire and police department.

“Cultural tourism is a step in the right direction for Santa Cruz toward economic stability. We’re not going to have more factories or more farm land than we already do,” Hencke said. “Cultural tourism has an opportunity to be a much larger tax base without more strain on public works.”

But cultural tourism can only work if galleries and art organizations are dedicated to working together toward creating a community supportive of artists and economic growth.

The closures of the popular Attic and Hide galleries in mid-July left many wondering if the arts in Santa Cruz will actually flourish or if the closures signify the start of a new trend.

“The Attic had been a challenging space for a long time,” Scudder said of the upstairs teahouse, gallery and nightclub. “It tried to take on too much and embrace a lot. Profit was just hard to come by.”

On the other hand, the Hide gallery, which was crucial in representing a younger generation of artists, presents a different story. The desire for Hide partakers such as Henke to try other artistic ventures such as a virtual gallery coupled with “market forces” ultimately saw the timely end to this flourishing hotspot.

Scudder makes it a point not to blame the closures on the slouching economy that many think may stifle Santa Cruz’s creation of an arts community. Instead, the comings and goings of art galleries, much like the Question Mark galleries, should be taken as part of a dynamic and ever-changing process, with spirited and creative out-of-the box thinkers molding the art scene.

It will certainly take out-of-the-box thinking by organizations such as the Santa Cruz Art League (SCAL) in order to renew their image. Founded over 100 years ago, changes in the SCAL’s accessibility are needed in order to involve more members of the arts community.

“We were seen as a very conservative group, especially in the past,” said Carol Jenied, chairperson for the exhibition committee. “But we’ve really been working to change our image and to bring younger people and new people into the building. We’re trying to be more experimental.”

Hillhouse also adds that the Museum of Art and History is also trying to collaborate more with outside organizations and venues and rededicate themselves to local artists.

Building stronger ties between UC Santa Cruz, Cabrillo College, and the city will further help the development of what Hillhouse calls “a philosophically sophisticated town.”

But until the Tannery Arts Center is fully complete, questions and doubts remain as to whether or not it will be the final push needed to successfully turn Santa Cruz into the cultural hub many desire.

“You build but you can’t always expect to fulfill what you do,” Leites said.

But one thing is certain: Santa Cruz is painting its raw canvas and preparing itself for a bright future.

“I’m a real big believer that in the next 20 years Santa Cruz will be poised artistically to be that Mecca for a worldwide art community, although there will be many others,” Scudder said. “You will be able to come here as a serious artist from anywhere in the world and have sufficient infrastructure for you to have an audience and resources.”

When this occurs, says Scudder, “Santa Cruz will really become an incubator, a think tank for the arts.”

Jack’s Hamburgers
202 Lincoln St

My favorite thing about Jack’s is the window decorations. They are adorable and seasonal to a fault, but the windows may be all you see of Jack’s – the hours are sub-optimal. But when Jack’s is open, you can expect to get the best burger in the Pacific Avenue neighborhood, plus fries and a drink, for under 10 dollars.

Like the charming Italian deli that I’ve always imagined exists in the burroughs of New York City, Zoccoli’s has the same man at the register every day. Despite his lack of an Italian (or any) accent, this is my favorite sandwich place in Santa Cruz. Available seating right on Pacific and a tasty, warm tri-tip sandwich make Zoccoli’s the perfect lunch choice.

Planet Fresh puts carrots in their burritos, and I find that indicative of the philosophy behind their food. Everything is fresh (like the name implies), homemade, and inexpensive. The chicken crispy taco is amazing, enormous and runs for about $4.

At some point in my time at UCSC, I had a boyfriend with an expendable income. He took me to the Red Room, a very cushy restaurant that makes up the back area of the popular bar. The Red Room has swanky food and serves it until almost midnight, but don’t scoff at the bill – I warned you.

Little Shanghai has been around for just over twenty years in the heart of downtown serving locals and tourists various stir-frys along with noodle bowls. The weekday lunchtime special runs just under $7 and is great for a quick lunch. During the night, dinner is a little more formal with a “sit-down and order from the menu style” but still has that casual feeling.

Another famed local establishment, Saturn Café is open until 3 a.m. and serves vegan/vegetarian food. I’m a girl that loves her meat, so it took a while for me to figure out what to eat at Saturn Café. For my fellow carnivores, I offer this advice – don’t get anything “meat”-like. It doesn’t taste like meat, and does not satisfy my meat cravings. Instead, stick to their fries (which are crispy and delicious, the ultimate late-night snack) and a chocolate shake (vegan or not, both varieties hit the spot after a night at the bars).

I love “I Love Sushi” for the name. Every time I walked or drove by the restaurant, I had to smile, because they’re right – I really do love sushi. The only thing I love more than sushi, though, is a great lunch special, and I love I Love Sushi’s lunch special. Complimentary appetizers, variety and large portions for about $10. Care for Karaoke? They offer it in a back room.

Zachary’s is only open until 2 p.m. and stays consistently busy. I’m a huge fan of breakfast, but not always ready to face the outside world by 2 p.m. so I rarely paid visit to Zachary’s. But on the days I did, it was never a decision I regretted. Order the Mike’s Mess – nothing could turn me into a morning person, but that dish got pretty damn close.

Vasili’s Greek Restaurant
1501 Mission St # A

Walking into Vasili’s made me want to drive the two blocks down Mission Street to Blockbuster and rent “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” With walls covered in yellowed photographs depicting large Greek parties, this place screams “Opa!” I have yet to walk in and witness an actual Greek dance party going on, but I keep coming back with that hope. Until then, I’ll be satisfied with their lunch special (gyros, fries and a soda for $10).

Around week three (or two) of any given quarter, I’d need a day off. While playing hooky, I would find myself returning to Sabieng for its great lunch special (quality Thai food for under $10!). Sabieng is a great place for dinner with friends or a casual non-date, and is, in my opinion, by far the best Thai food in Santa Cruz.

Almost every guy I met in Santa Cruz loves the carne asada burrito at Taqueria Santa Cruz. Not enough meat for you? Not a problem, they offer an all-meat burrito for the extreme carnivore. All in all, Taqueria Santa Cruz is one among many in the Santa Cruz area for cheap, quality Mexican food.

This small and colorful restaurant is one of the most popular breakfast joints in town, and for good reason. Once your wait is over and you finally get a table, take your pick from an extensive menu of delicious Brazilian fare- from breakfast scrambles to tasty sandwiches. Perhaps most notable is their smoothie menu, which boasts the best Acai Bowl around.

Santa Cruz Diner
909 Ocean St

I came to Santa Cruz Diner many times, and can count only on one hand the times I was sober or not hungover. With that said, I came to love their chicken fried steak. For extra artery-clogging goodness, I suggest a side of curly fries. The Diner also has a good burger. Open 24 hours a day, with breakfast served all day and night, it’s likely you’ll find yourself at the diner for a 2 a.m. stack of pancakes at some point. Another suggestion – leave the Asian foods alone; that’s what Asian restaurants are for.

Hindquarter Bar & Grille
303 Soquel Ave

All you can eat ribs on Monday nights, so it’s best to let the vegan friends sit this one out. It’s a family place, a slight walk from Pacific Avenue, and the meal will run about $25 (with a soda, tax and tip). Let me just repeat something: all you can eat ribs on Monday nights.

I’m a lunch special gal, and Charlie Hong Kong (or just “Charlie’s”) was my go-to dinner place. It’s open until 11 p.m. seven days a week, almost everything is under $10, the portions are huge, they offer tons of vegan/vegetarian options and this is one of the only places that has Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) in the Santa Cruz area.

Adam, owner and manager of the Crepe Place, bought it from its original owners a few years ago. Before that, he worked as the restaurant’s general manager so this is a place that’s not likely to change in the coming years. The Crepe Place is a local favorite and for good reason. They have live shows, great crepes and the restaurant has an adorable back terrace. Prices are a little steep, but the food is scrumptious and portions are sizeable.

When I first moved to Santa Cruz, all I heard from friends and co-workers was how great the Buttery was. It’s a local powerhouse – serving breakfast, brunch and lunch, staying open until 7 p.m. and having a full-service bakery on-site. The crowd is mainly middle-aged yuppies, but it’s worth the trip for their cupcakes – the bottom half is devil’s food cake and the top is cheesecake.

Seabright Brewery
519 Seabright Ave # 107

After hours spent poring through the two-page menu at “the Brewery,” all I ever found was decent sandwiches/burgers, killer garlic fries and appetizers. And beer.

Located across the street from Seabright Brewery, Betty Burgers is probably my favorite burger place of all time. I fell in love with both the crispy fries and sweet potato fries, and the burger. Just thinking about them makes me want one. The prices are about the same as it would cost for a burger at a sit-down restaurant, but it’s definitely worth it for the size and tastiness of pretty much everything on the menu.

Harbor Café is difficult to access without a car, but it’s a reasonably-priced, friendly breakfast place with a beautiful outdoor dining area. And on Fridays, they have all-you-can-drink mimosas.

On a warm day, with the breeze blowing from the north, the band Battlehooch peddles its tunes on the corner of Pacific and Soquel Ave. Beautiful music sounds along Pacific Avenue and crowds grow in appreciation.

Scenes like this don’t happen as often as they used to. As a child growing up in Santa Cruz, I would perch atop my father’s shoulders, watching things unfold and bobbing my head to the beat. Santa Cruz used to be bursting with music; a place where musicians from all over would congregate to display their prowess on the street corners and alleys. Sadly, Battlehooch has become an anomaly in a city renowned for creativity, and children these days only rarely get to appreciate free, unexpected music on a hot day. Things have changed – as they tend to do – but bands like Battlehooch are doing what they can to keep some liveliness in our streets.

“When we tour, we play on the street in every city we visit,” said Grant Goodrich, the band’s bass player. He is tall, with disheveled long blond hair tucked underneath a blood-red headband.

Stereotypically, bass players in a band are more of the background personality, holding down the rhythm and letting the others shine. But, as with their music, everyone in the band has a chance to show their chops to the crowd, and in turn they pander to the crowd with jokes, solos and dance moves.

Don’t be fooled – the street isn’t their only venue. They have been playing clubs and private parties for a year in their current configuration and for four years with a different project before that. But the street remains a place, as it has been for so many artists, of experimentation, casual rendition and quick money-making.

“It’s easy to listen to street performing,” Goodrich said after their set. “At shows we’re abrasive and can be hard to listen to, but here we’re able to advertise our show, practice in a new, foreign environment, and help with the cost of gas.”

Imagine if you will, a Downtown Santa Cruz of 25 or 30 years ago, when bands didn’t play to pay for the soaring gas price, but for the accolades and love they received from the community. Tye-dyed hippies and UC Santa Cruz students milled about innocently in an age that was decidedly less regimented. Laws seemed lax, and people relished the freedom of expression and originality in a post-60’s liberal town. Downtown was the cultural hub that catered to any and all that were willing to throw their cares out the window.

Then, in October of 1989, the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit.

Lt. Rick Martinez has been with the Santa Cruz Police department for over 20 years, and for the past few he has been working the Central/Downtown beat.

“Now we have a less organized street music scene,” he said with a slight twang of nostalgia. “The outdoor venue at the Cooper House used to be the scene. I mean it was big over there, now there are no real venues.”

There aren’t any venues, and the street culture of the pre-earthquake era has had a hard time rebuilding itself after the mass devastation of the ’89 quake. But is that it? Surely those inventive hippies and travelers our town is famous for could persevere through a little earthshaking and concrete crumbling.

“Many of the better acts who used to make Santa Cruz one of their regular stops have no reason to bother,” Tom Noddy, more widely known as The Bubble Guy, wrote in an e-mail. “The money isn’t that good and the police are quick to respond if you have a crowd, which is the very definition of success for the good acts.”

Noddy knows the streets of Santa Cruz. He was the head of the Santa Cruz Street Performers Guild for over 20 years, a group that sought to address the downtown merchants and performers as neighbors dealing with various individual problems, and struggled to keep the Santa Cruz street culture alive.

In 1980, 35 street performers got together and organized the Santa Cruz Street Performer Voluntary Guidelines, a set of regulations to ensure proper behavior and maximum comfort for all people involved in the street scene downtown: the performers, the listeners, and the merchants. The guidelines were amended after the ’89 earthquake to accommodate new and previously unforeseen problems.

“A few years back some activist merchants launched a petition and [city council members] Emily Reilly and Ed Porter carried their program through the city government process,” Noddy said. “While literally ignoring the performers pleading to have meetings with merchants, they passed an absurd set of rules that deny performers the status of stake-holders downtown with a say in their situation.”

Those rules include a curbside-only restriction that forces performers to play at the curb, facing the shops, so that the audience now stands in front of the shop windows. In this arrangement, the poorer acts that don’t attract an audience merely sing at the stores and their employees. Also, performers must be “some feet away from every street corner, every kiosk, every outdoor cafe, every ATM machine, and several other features,” according to Noddy.

The rules appear confusing, but, according to Noddy, they “do what they intended at the time that they passed them: they enforce them selectively as the merchants organization intended.”

Noddy added that this is illegal. The case of Goldstein v. Nantucket, in 1979, says that “merchant approval is irreconcilable with First Amendment protection, it is just what the First Amendment forbids.” Santa Cruz, however, is not the same as Nantucket, Mass., so a performer would have to first assert and then prove that this is the intent and/or practice in Santa Cruz and then get it past the local courts and up to a court whose precedent was binding on the locals. A lot of work for a little live music.

So why wasn’t Battlehooch, whose performance generated a lot of noise and a large crowd, given a cease-and-desist order?

“We don’t give tickets unless we get noise complaints,” Martinez said. “We don’t try and shut down street musicians. We are reactionary and those musicians we do stop are usually in a poor spot and disrupting flow of traffic.”

The police did show up for a brief time in the middle of their set. A hulking officer with a shaved head pulled Goodrich aside for a chat while the audience cried out, “let them play,” “go do something useful,” and “fuck the police.” But Goodrich, as cool as can be, spoke with the officer and returned to the group, drawing hoots and hollers of gratitude from those sitting in the trenches, relishing the scene.

“He just told us that electronic instruments are illegal, but that we could keep going as long as there wasn’t a complaint,” Goodrich said later.

Though many would cite these laws as oppressive, Santa Cruz is actually on par with most of the state in its dealing with street musicians. Battlehooch has been shut down in Santa Monica once and in Portland twice, but generally they don’t get hassled. In fact, playing on the streets has its perks.

“In San Louis Obispo this guy pulls out a wallet with a cop badge then asked us to play a Zappa song and then tipped us 20 bucks. I’m not even sure if he was a cop, but he had the off-duty cop style,” Goodrich said.

Santa Cruz has many local acts as well; there are bluesy guitarists, bluegrass family bands, and classical musicians. Sure the scene isn’t what it once was, but it’s a scene nonetheless.

“Some of the street musicians are jealous, they think I’m stealing their money,” said violinist Erik Schowachert in between sets one sweltering Saturday.

Schowachert plays Vivaldi, Bach, Corelli and Schuman, and he plays them well. He has been playing for 35 years, and was classically trained at the Santa Cruz Symphony and the Cabrillo College Chamber Ensemble.

“You read a sheet of music like the Bible,” Schowachert said between drags from his cigarette.

“There’s no hiding mistakes when you’re playing alone.”

In the world of street musicians, where guitar players are a dime a dozen, Schowachert uses his classical music and violin, which was made in 1871 in a small village outside of Paris, to help him stand out in the crowd. His spot in front of Bookshop Santa Cruz draws a lot of foot traffic, but not a lot of cash. Schowachert says he only plays on weekends, or during the holidays, because it’s the tourists, not the locals, where he makes his real money.

Should he feel bad that people don’t appreciate a trained classical musician, playing for free, on a near-priceless violin? Not really. In 2007 the Washington Post did an experiment at a metro station in Washington D.C. with Joshua Bell, arguably the best classical violinist of our time, playing some of the most elegant classical music ever written on one of the most expensive violins in existence, and he made less money than Schowachert does on a normal day.

In Santa Cruz, unfortunately, there are the musicians that, unlike Joshua Bell or Schowachert, just aren’t any good.

“Send a woman with some money.” This man is barefoot, refuses to be interviewed, and frankly, isn’t any good. He sings softly, luckily, and out of tune next to a bench that is—surprise!—empty. This is the other side of the street scene: the homeless who are trying to make a quick dollar. Some of them are good, others are not.

“The people that go down there to make a buck, but have no skill,” Lt. Martinez said, “they’re my least favorite.”

Not all of the homeless are bad musicians. There used to be a man that would play his guitar in front of Bookshop Santa Cruz, singing “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Wonderful Tonight” while tapping a tambourine with his foot.

I remember another man named CJ Stock who was simply brilliant. He used to sit underneath the parking garage across from Clouds Restaurant, hoping that he wouldn’t be confused for a “sign runner”—one of the multitudes of homeless that panhandle with signs—if he sat away from the melee of Pacific Avenue. I used to sit and watch him play for hours and chat him up at the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company when he was on a break.

“I used to work for two hours a day playing my songs and I would pull a hundred dollars easy,” Stock once told me. “Not anymore – last night I made $13.”

Stock had a young daughter who lived with his ex-wife. Every other weekend he would take her out for ice creams or the movies, depending on how much money he had made. I looked for CJ for three months while researching this article, and couldn’t find him anywhere. I hope that he is all right.

I realize that the phrase “used to” has been employed all too often in this piece, but although the nature of downtown’s creative geography has changed, there are still those who take pride in the alley-ways and small, ever-changing venues of concrete. So when you see Battlehooch, or Schowachert, or one of the few blue-grass bands that show up on holiday weekends, or if you’re lucky enough to find CJ or the tambourine man, sit, stay awhile, enjoy the music, bob your head, maybe even dance. And, when you leave, toss them a dollar and a couple words to let them know it meant something.

Once, after a cup of coffee and stories with CJ, he got up to leave, turned back and said, “You have to have pride in your life. I’ll make a pretty sound with the last breath that I take.” It’s that pride as much as the money that keeps the street musicians coming back to Santa Cruz despite the earthquakes, bureaucracy and inevitable tides of change.

But from the start, Don Weygandt and Doug McClellan were destined to be a powerful, joint influence on the UCSC art department in its humble beginnings.

A few miles up Main Street in Soquel, tucked amidst a rose garden and situated beside a gently flowing creek and a well used, homemade bocce ball court, is the proof.

The men took different paths through life. They traveled different places. But both men served in World War II and brought an undeniable artistic presence to UCSC in the late sixties. As the men chat in McClellan’s living room, the blooming rose garden just beyond the window sill, they fondly compare stories and anecdotes of their times in war, as teachers, and as long-time friends; their paths seem unified now, somehow. They already know most of one another’s stories, but the punch line to each one receives heartfelt laughter, just the same.

Their careers at UCSC are more than 30 years gone. Their students have headed off to Yale and Stanford, made names for themselves and lived their own lives. But the essence of these eighty-somethings is still very much a part of UCSC, and their friendship and art has, with time, only grown stronger.

Weygandt was born in the southern Illinois town of Belleville 82 years ago when McClellan was a four-year old taking summer trips to the ocean from his home in Pasadena, California.

While in their elementary-school years, the younger Weygandt and McClellan looked on, with the rest of the world, as Hitler became the leader of Germany. The tides of the Second World War were slowly beginning to turn by the time they were teenagers. And after accepting high school diplomas, the men had important choices to make about their futures – whether to join in the fight willingly, or be forced into it.

“It was basically enlist or get drafted – I opted, like most of my peers, to enlist,” Weygandt said. “I had fallen in love and I thought to woo my young woman, I should join the service.”

Lust aside, there were other reasons to join the service – for McClellan, it was something he felt he could do to make his family and country proud. The decision for both men was made easier as the Allies appeared to be making headway.

The war lasted only a few years after the men enlisted, and neither man ever found himself facing deadly combat. This lets both men look back on their experience with astute and astounding thankfulness. By signing on the dotted line, they also signed up for world travel, eye-opening learning opportunities, and the chance to develop a sense that their futures were without boundaries.

“I read omnivorously [while in the service]. I was indiscriminate, like a monkey going from one banana to the next. That’s really how I got educated,” McClellan said. “I was exposed to all these different people – different ages, races, walks of life. I had been sheltered from so much, so it was tremendous. When I got out, it gave me the sense that I could do anything.”

By 1945 the overseas battle had ceased, but the battle at home to rouse pre-war spirit and economic stability was just beginning. In 1946, to counteract the lag in the economy and boost national morale, the GI Bill was enacted, which sent countless veterans like Weygandt and McClellan out into the post-war world to get educated.

“Some politician, somewhere, decided that if [the government] could get all these men coming back from war into school, get them educated, they might do something with themselves,” Weygandt said. “I remember the day I got my release papers, one of [my friends in the service] was standing there, and I looked to him, wanting approval I guess. He looked at me and winked and said, ‘Get the hell out of here! This is your chance!’ So I did.”

With the help of the GI Bill, Weygandt earned his undergraduate arts degree at Washington University in St. Louis, while McClellan, on the other side of the country, hoping to design automobiles one day, completed a two-year art program at a Los Angeles community college and graduate school at Claremont College.

Both men cite their enlisted experiences as what strengthened their understanding and value of friendship and amity.

“In the service there was a definite sense of camaraderie,” Weygandt said. “I appreciate it so much…remembering all the support we felt, it was overwhelmingly important and overwhelmingly impactful.”

After completing school, neither man fell right into teaching, though it didn’t take long.

Weygandt tried his hand at mapmaking, an area McClellan delved into while living in a trailer in Japan during the war.

Each man cites early adulthood as the time when artistic inclinations began, and college allowed them the opportunity to turn these inklings into actual artistic skills and perspectives.

In 1967, Weygandt arrived at UCSC ready to teach. Four years later, McClellan stepped on campus for the first time.

“I didn’t know that I wanted to teach. And when I eventually came to Santa Cruz, there wasn’t even an Arts Division. But I figured it was something I could do. More legitimate than just being an artist,” McClellan said. “About three days in, I realized I really liked it, though….so I stayed until 1986.”

It wasn’t until the men had been teaching for a few years that the arts at Santa Cruz earned its own department, though it was less organized and centralized than other, better-established departments. But according to Santa-Cruz based painter Tim Craighead, who worked with McClellan and now lectures at UCSC, McClellan and Weygandt were critical influences on campus.

“That the UC was able to get both of these men in the system was really extraordinary, and it was huge for the arts department,” Craighead said. “[Don and Doug] had these fantastic minds and they were coming to this little town on the coast, and their being here really transformed Santa Cruz.”

According to McClellan, the professors in the fledgling department were essentially gypsies, roaming around campus without any real facility. The thought of such a group of artsy teachers, roaming from classroom to classroom, basement to basement, amidst the famous Santa Cruz redwoods, rouses an eclectic image.

While eclectic to an extent, with artists of various ages and backgrounds lassoed in from all over, the department was a political nightmare to some.

“There were a lot of petty politics at that time,” Craighead said. “They didn’t seem to get involved in them. There is nothing more vicious than university politics, and nothing less important than them. But there was a lot of that flowing around in the [early days of the department]. Part of what made Don and Doug great professors was that they refused to operate in that zone. They were genuinely more interested in talking with students, getting work done, and moving on.”

Opting out of the in-department dealings and drama together, McClellan and Weygandt began a friendship based on bocce ball games and a shared love for painting and poetry.

Despite the impossibility of making unanimous decisions within the art department, despite clashing personalities, and despite being without a central facility or proper financial resources, the university still turned out a successful and talented group of students.

“Somehow, through that diversity, students got something they could cherish and use. We taught the hell out of them,” McClellan said, a sense of both pride and wonderment in his voice.

For McClellan and Weygand, teaching the hell of their students was far from the dictatorial and elitist manner of leadership that such a statement might conjure.

According to UCSC art department graduate and current lecturer, Miriam Hitchcock, Weygandt was influential with his input, but also very unobtrusive.

“Don was trained as a mime, and I saw a lot of that essence in his teaching.,” Hitchcok said. “His body language was very informed and sensitive, he noticed everything, and in his quiet, light manner of giving attention to the art you had done, you began to pay more attention yourself. He had a truly unique and special way of teaching and an unbelievable amount of respect for his students.”

According to Craighead, McClellan treated his students as equals and had profound respect for their artistry.

“I had such admiration for him as an artist, but also as a teacher. He would treat us as valuable artists even though we were a bunch of students fumbling about,” Craighead said. “He took us seriously and in doing so, made us want to take ourselves more seriously.”

“Both Don and Doug are really, really good artists. There’s never a guarantee that a good artist will make a good teacher, or that a bad artist will make a bad teacher,” he said. “I’ve come into contact with every type. Some of them just show up to feed from the teat of academia, looking for a way to pay rent. But both Don and Doug were great artists and great teachers, always generous, always giving of themselves to their students.”

Weygandt is now 82 years old, and McClellan is 86. According to Hitcock and Craighead, they are both tremendously achieved artists and effervescent influences on how the art department at Santa Cruz was shaped, and how the students coming into it, year after year, have developed.

Don has spent most of his artistic life attempting to perfectly present his subject, unwaveringly faithful to a single vision. One of his first pieces was a still-life of a vase. He now has nearly 1,000 of his own monoprints, all variations of the same vase, in his personal collection.

McClellan admits to dabbling. He has created numerous assemblages since his Claremont days, many of which sit on tables in his living room and white work benches in his home studio. Of late, he has taken to Photoshop, creating intricate collages using digital photos of his older works.

In their lives, McClellan and Weygandt have seen war come and go, survived school and thrived at teaching, and made names for themselves in the world of art abroad, and especially in the art community here in Santa Cruz. But unchanging over the course of these long lives is their pursuit of that special something.

Sitting in the morning sun at the house where their friendship began almost 40 years ago, McClellan looked up at his longtime friend and colleague with a smile.

“There is something I learned about the world of art,” he said, “but it also really applies to the world in general: some things sing and some things don’t. Some things have that aura, and others just lost it somewhere along the way. Ultimately, you just have to keep searching for the secret, and eventually, if you’re lucky like us, you find it.”

Contrary to popular belief, UCSC is home to a number of sports teams as well as many talented athletes who have helped lead some of those teams to great success over the years. Whether it’s sitting on the sidelines watching the soccer team score the winning goal in overtime or getting in the stands of a volleyball game and feeling the roar of the crowd fill the air in the gym, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you won’t leave a Slug athletics event feeling unsatisfied. With free admission to those with student IDs and only $5 for other spectators, the price is definitely right.

Athletic Director and former collegiate athlete Linda Spradley knows that “the home court advantage here at UCSC is unbelievable.” So don’t underestimate how good it feels to get in the stands clad in Slugwear and take part in the cheers that will push Slug athletes to perform their best and give students a reason to take pride in the university. Go Slugs!

Here’s what students can look forward to cheering for in the fall.

Men’s and Women’s Soccer

Both of these teams have a history of excellence. In the past few years, the men have taken the regional championship title, sent a few top-notch players to the MLS, and made five consecutive NCAA Playoff appearances after posting a 15-5 overall record and a 10-3 record in Division III last year.

The women have made it to the postseason for the past two years and finished last season with a 12-3-2 overall record and 8-3-1 in DIII.

Slug soccer games bring out the biggest crowds of any other UCSC sport with more than 300 fans showing up for weekend games. Word to the wise – be sure to bring a towel or something to sit on to avoid a wet, grassy seat. The men’s first home game of the school year is on Friday, Sept. 26 at 4 p.m. against Chapman University at the Lower East Field, where home matches for both men’s and women’s soccer take place.

The women play their first home game of the school year against Biola University on Sept. 29 at 4 p.m. On Friday, Oct. 23 at 4 p.m., UCSC will take on DIII rivals CSU East Bay in what will undoubtedly be a rousing, can’t-miss game.

Men’s and Women’s Basketball

The quick pace of these games makes them some of the most exciting to come out and watch, and many people definitely do. Both teams play their home games in the West Field House Gym, which was under construction last year, leaving basketball and other teams without proper practice facilities. Having no home games last year was an undeniable disadvantage. But now with a newly remodeled and up-to-date gym equipped with new scoreboards, shot clocks and more, the teams are excited to play at home with those rowdy crowds that truly give them the home court advantage. Basketball games will begin in November.

Men’s Water Polo

After getting the boot in the spring due to budget cuts within athletics, men’s and women’s varsity water polo were told they would have to turn into club teams under OPERS to save money. But over the summer, the decision was made to reinstate the program for one more year to allow players time to make a transfer to a different NCAA program if desired. Players and those in support of the team managed to raise over $40,000 to help keep the program running for the next year.

Despite the teams’ success over the years, with the men winning the DIII national championship in 2006 and the women finishing in third place last year with an impressive 10-2 record in DIII, both teams will turn club after this year. That means this is the last chance to go out to the pool and see these teams compete in NCAA DIII play.

If you haven’t had the chance to see a water polo match, then you’re missing out. The quick back-and-forth nature of the game, along with its tendency to be high-scoring, makes these matches exciting to watch.

Men’s matches start in September and usually run into November.

Women’s Volleyball

Also having suffered from lack of a gym last year, the team is now ready to take on the competition. After playing away matches all last year, the team ended the season with a 14-18 record overall and a 10-13 record in DIII. The older and more experienced players that make up most of this year’s team are looking to get some wins on their new home court.

Swimming/Diving

These teams start competition during the fall, but continue competing into the end of winter. Last year, the swim team sent a number of competitors to the DIII National Championships where the women finished with five All-Americans and the men finished with four.

Off-campus fall sports

Women’s Cross Country – this team has seen a lot of success in recent years, with sophomore and first-year runner Mikayla Murphy setting a school record in the 5-kilometer last year with a time of 18:36.

Women’s Golf – competes at courses around the country all the way through the spring. Last year, junior Jessica Lewis shot a 76, the best score in UCSC women’s golf history.

Winter and Spring Sports

Women’s Water Polo – will begin matches for its final season as NCAA DIII team in the beginning of February.

Men’s and Women’s Tennis – the men’s most recent successes include winning the NCAA DIII National Championship in 2005 and 2007 as well as making it into the playoffs last season. The women are on the rise, going 9-10 overall and 8-2 in DIII last season. Matches begin in January for both teams.

Men’s Volleyball – going 14-11 overall and 8-2 in DIII last year, this team gets better every year and brings out some of the rowdiest crowds that can pack into a tiny gym.

The most recent attacks included the firebombing of two UC Santa Cruz researchers’ homes in early August, in one case leaving a car destroyed and in another starting a house fire. In the latter case, the family was forced to escape from a second story window.

Last February, City on a Hill Press reported on attacks against a faculty member who used animals in her research, in which six masked protesters trespassed onto her property and assaulted her husband when he confronted them at the door.

Guy Lasnier, spokesperson for UCSC, said that the August attacks came just a few days after a stack of leaflets appeared at local Caffé Pergolesi listing addresses, photographs, and other personal information of 13 faculty members at UCSC. The leaflets had threats including “We know where you live, we know where you work, we will never back down until you end your abuse,” Lasnier said.

These attacks come after protesters caused thousands of dollars in property damage to UCLA researchers’ homes through flooding and fire, and widespread threats of violence over the past three years.

The Animal Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Brigade took credit for several of the UCLA attacks, but the Santa Cruz incidents remain a mystery, according to a statement from the University of California.

The Santa Cruz attacks were labeled as “domestic terrorism,” and are now under the jurisdiction of the FBI, according to Santa Cruz Police Department spokesperson Zach Friend.

Special Agent Joseph Schadler of the San Francisco FBI declined to comment on the progress of the investigation, but said that they had been called in because of the FBI’s expertise with certain areas, such as explosives.

A new bill in the California Legislature, written with input from the UC, would make it easier to cite protesters for trespassing on private property, and would make it a crime to publish the personal information of a researcher with the intent to incite violence.

“It’s not just the researcher being targeted,” Friend said. “A whole family was nearly killed. These are not targeted situations … they don’t care if the family is collateral.”

In terms of the bill, “any movement forward on the bill would be better than what we currently have,” Friend said.

The sum of scientists working with animals at UCSC totals under two dozen, Lasnier said, and the work they do could be characterized as treatments for diseases such as “cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, malaria, HIV, cholera, and treatments for poisoning from toxic effects for metals.” The animals involved in the testing are Nematode worms, fruit flies, and mice, he said.

Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty said that a discussion about animal research is important, but strongly condemned the attacks and pushed students to do the same.

“I think it’s important that students, like the community, condemn violence and threats of violence,” Coonerty said. “The actions taken against the research were not protest, they were terrorism. That has to be unacceptable at UCSC.”

Dr. M.R.C. Greenwood, former UC provost and a professor of nutrition at UC Davis, insisted that the bill is intended to protect academic freedom, not animal research.

“Those who oppose animal research even when it is conducted under strict federal and state law are free to express those beliefs,” she said. “They are not free, however, to engage in a terror campaign.”

Greenwood, who is also chancellor emeritus of UCSC, said that the bill is important to track down the attackers and prosecute them “to the full extent of the law.”

“You cross the line when you throw a firebomb on the porch of somebody who has two young children at 5:30 in the morning, fill the house with smoke, and cause them to escape from a second-story window,” she said. “None of us should be sympathetic to the views that these people have if they’re going to be prepared to kill folks for it.”

Welcome to the UCSC Farm.

All that’s left is to open the gate and start to wander.

While thousands of people visit the UCSC Farm each year, as well as the Alan Chadwick Garden behind Merrill College, this farm and garden is home to 40 adults who are learning practical and academic techniques of organic farming and gardening.

This six-month program, called the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture, is offered through UCSC’s Center of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), where the apprentices work full-time on the farm and also attend academic workshops on agroecology and horticulture.

While walking through the 25-acre farm site, Senior Editor of CASFS Martha Brown explained that the aim of the apprenticeship program is to increase both ecological and social sustainability in the food systems by mixing theoretical and practical instruction.

“(The program) is very practically oriented, very hands-on, mostly through skill building,” Brown said. “We focus on not just growing food but also on distribution, availability, and aspects of sustainability.”

Apprentices in the program run the farm by completing necessary tasks including sowing seeds, preparing the soil for cultivation, managing greenhouse crops and even selling the plants at the base of campus each Friday.

As Brown walks to the back of the farm to the rows of flowerbeds, she points to a line of tents at the edge of the farm site where some of the farm’s apprentices reside.

Brian Coltrin, who has been an apprentice in the program since April, lives in a tent on the farm as a means of affordable housing and to gain a greater understanding of farm life.

“[Living in a tent] is a critical part of the program – perhaps the most important aspect of the program,” Coltrin said while taking a break from his work next to the vegetable shed.

The community feature of the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture is unique in that it separates the program from other day-base trainings in plant cultivation.

Food Systems Working Group Coordinator Tim Galarneau knows the importance of community among the apprentices on the farm.

“When they live and work and break bread together it does something very unique and very special,” Galarneau said. “It’s this long-term residential training program, where you see changes in the individuals because of their commitment to community in the process.”

According to Jan Perez, a researcher of CASFS, UCSC was the first university to start a campus farm. Alan Chadwick started the garden in 1967 with apprentices working by his side, using organic practices including composting, the use of organic fertilizers and biological pest control.

In 1972, Chadwick started the UCSC Farm on what was originally Cowell Ranch, as an outgrowth of the student-run garden where people continued using organic techniques.

After more than 40 years of operation, the apprenticeship program has become recognized around the world and inspired other colleges around the country to develop campus-based farm education programs.

Michigan State University, Prescott College and the University of Montana are just a few colleges with higher education farming programs modeled after the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at UCSC.

Josh Slotnick, who completed the apprenticeship at UCSC in 1991, started a similar program at the University of Montana in 1997, where he is the founder and director of the Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society on a 10-acre farm site.

“I thought that what I experienced at UCSC was the best thing ever,” Slotnick said. “And since I couldn’t continue being an apprentice there, I decided to start another one.”

While campus farms have adopted certain elements of UCSC’s farm and gardening programs, Garden Manager of CASFS Christof Bernau believes other programs have developed independently and that, as far as the apprenticeship goes, “there is nothing else like it.”

“Ours is one of the more diverse student farms in terms of the range of crops that are being grown here,” Bernau said while caring for a tomato patch on a hot summer day. “As well as the range of audiences that are being served by the site.”

According to Bernau, the farm and garden sites remain distinctive because CASFS continues to reach out to a broad age range. In the past, apprentices in a particular session ranged from ages 18 to 70. In addition to adult education, CASFS does work with youth from such programs as Life Lab, where children learn about natural systems and sustainability through hands-on learning techniques in an outdoor garden classroom.

“The breadth of the different audiences that are served here in various ways is one of the most unique aspects of [the farm and garden],” Bernau said while trimming diseased foliage away from the tomato plants.

Various people from different backgrounds come from all over the world to complete the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture.

Miranda Roberts, known as “Farmer Miranda” amongst the children who visit the facility, came to Santa Cruz all the way from Maryland to be an apprentice in the program. After receiving her Masters degree in English at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro, she decided to take a turn in her life and pursue a career related to growing food.

“I really just like working in the garden,” Roberts said. “All the hands-on aspects of it from planting seeds to watching them grow, to eating – it’s satisfying.”

Galarneau explained that the education programs of CASFS are models of a concept called Participatory Action Research (PAR), where students learn knowledge from the community in which they work.

“The best way for students to access and engage is to bring students into that base of learning,” Galarneau said. “Students of all different ages come to the farm and have a hands-on, class-based learning system that gives them the fundamentals of setting up agroecological-focused food systems.”

Galarneau predicts that PAR will become an important aspect of higher education in the future. CASFS has put out a publication available for purchase titled Teaching Organic Farming and Gardening, a manual that describes the teaching methods of PAR and how to apply them to the teachings of gardening and horticulture skills.

In addition, the manual discusses the “how to” characteristics of organic farming practices in order to teach others how they can start their own organic garden. The practical skills discussed in the manual include compost production, transplanting, and soil fertility management. The CASFS staff is currently working on translating the manual into Spanish.

While apprentice Roberts updates the blackboard on harvest inventory in the vegetable shed, she reflects on the importance of learning through PAR methods.

“There’s plenty of places where you can go to get a Horticulture degree, but here you get all the skills,” she said.

And with six months of training, Bernau hopes that the apprentices will take their skills and put them to good use.

“Food and food security are pivotal to our survival and pivotal toward social justice,” Bernau said. “I hope people who graduate from this program are going to be individually and collectively playing a significant role in creating more access to it.”

The Alan Chadwick Garden and UCSC Farm are open everyday for visitors from 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. If you are interested in participating in the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture or doing an internship with the Farm and Garden visit http://casfs.ucsc.edu/training.

Concern for a healthy lifestyle has roots in many different social and political changes that have occurred over the last few years in this country. From impacts created through our culture, such as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” and Santa Cruz’s own history of agricultural interest in sustainability, people have been pushed to take more responsibility for their role in the environment.

But as attached as Santa Cruzans may be to being “green,” organic food often elicits complaints that only an elite percentage can afford to lavish on these products because of high prices. For this reason, the attitude toward organic food is closely linked to its accessibility within social spheres, as well as the purchaser’s own set of beliefs.

Considering the customer experience at Safeway, Jeanne Thomas, the store’s local floral manager, believes big food-store chains, like the one she works at, sell organic food as well as conventional food because of their customers’ desire to eat organic.

“[Safeway employees] are here to please the customers,” Thomas said. “And being green is on the customer’s mind. So, you want to please the customers.”

At Safeway, the price for organic food is higher than that of conventional counterparts.

During March and June of this year, iceberg lettuce cost $1.49 a head, compared to organic iceberg lettuce, which cost $1.79. It was the same with regular carrots, costing $1.58 for two pounds, and organic carrots at $1.99 for the same amount.

For some, the difference of 30 or 40 cents for healthier food is relatively minimal and worth it. But for others, such as many restaurants, this price difference is a deal-breaker.

Rigoberto de la Torre, the co-manager of Taqueria Vallarta, can see the effect of these high prices for food on his business and on his workers’ wages.

“Food prices and workers’ wages have been going up,” de la Torre said. “Initial wages started at $6.75 two years ago and now it’s $8, allowing workers to climb up to $9.50.”

De la Torre claims that because organic food is expensive, the restaurant usually acquires conventional ingredients instead. But he and others at the restaurant are concerned for the Santa Cruzan’s interest with healthy food, so in their menu they have a “Vegetarian Burrito” in order to meet some of those concerns. And despite the lack of organic components, the taqueria can boast fresh preparation.

“Even though the ingredients are not organic, the food is done here,” de la Torre said. “It’s food that is prepared throughout the day.”

Alongside big restaurants, local organic farmers are also criticizing the high prices for organic food, linking the prices with the high price of animal feed.

Brandon Faria, a sustainable organic farmer in Watsonville, comes to the Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market, held every Wednesday on Cedar and Lincoln Streets, to sell his produce. He favors the market because it is a way for farmers and consumers to establish and maintain a two-way relationship, where money is concentrated between these two parties and no one else.

Faria commented on the toll high prices for feed has taken on him and his organic eggs, as it has forced him to charge high prices of up to $6 per dozen eggs.

Faria spends about $350 per week on feed. When people at the market buy his products, he gets almost all of that money, unlike at grocery stores where money is dispersed among distributors and people in shipping. The money Faria earns at a farmers’ market goes straight to maintaining his 20-acre farm and hundreds of chickens in Watsonville. He alone takes care of the chickens, makes sure they are fed and maintained, and brings the eggs to the market every Wednesday to sell them.

Also, to show that his chickens are kept humanely, he invites customers to his farm to check on the chickens. According to Faria, his way of living depends on the consumers, and therefore they have the right to see where their food is coming from.

However, Faria believes that if prices for feed were cheaper, he would immediately bring the price of the eggs down as well so that more people could buy them.

Other organic suppliers also denounce the high price of organic food.

Gregorio Guevara, produce stocker and trimmer at organic food store Shopper’s Corner, believes that the high price of organic food forces a sort of elitism, where only those who are economically stable can afford the organic products.

“Organic produce tends to be expensive and it’s aimed to an affluent society,” Guevara said.

Safeway’s Thomas pointed out that the food’s shorter life span is another disadvantage of organic food.

Another problem facing organic food is availability. For UC Santa Cruz students in particular, with the exception of the Food Bin on Laurel Street, the stores where quality, affordable organic food is sold tend to be located out of easy reach.

Shopper’s Corner, for instance, is located on Soquel Avenue, about eight blocks away from the Santa Cruz Metro Center. Staff of Life, another supplier of organic natural produces, voted Best Grocery Store in 2003 by Good Times Magazine in their “Best Of” Reader’s Poll, is almost 10 blocks down Water Street.

In a car, the seven or 10 blocks is a mild drive, but for those without one, the idea of buying organic food is threatened, even dismissed, because of the time, energy, and distance required to buy food that can be bought in nearby chain stores.

Alvaro Franco, a UCSC third-year majoring in legal studies and Latin American/Latino studies, believes that finding organic food creates more hassle in a student’s life.

“Sometimes you just feel like eating just whatever, because you don’t want to go out of your way to eat healthy food,” Franco said.

Franco added that being green and buying organic food is merely a trend. For him, people come out early as being very supportive of healthy lifestyles, but in the end they don’t adhere to this belief.

“Everybody has their faces, but in the end [the trend] is going to fade away,” he said.

However, many people — especially in Santa Cruz — would disagree that eating organic is merely a “trend.” There are UCSC students who adhere to the idea of eating organic food not because it’s popular, but because it’s part of their lifestyles and beliefs.

Valentina de la Fuente, third-year student and community studies major at UCSC, works at the Kresge Co-op, a small, organic, student-run store located at Kresge College. She is concerned with eating organic because it is has become part of her daily life.

De la Fuente grows organic food in her home garden. She’s also involved with a movement that tries to get schools to acquire organic food in its cafeterias, and is currently pushing for Renaissance High School in Watsonville to add such food to its stock.

Sarah Wheatley, a UCSC student who acts as compost coordinator for the Program in Community and Agroecology (PICA), believes it is necessary to have communities that endorse positive food.

“Having community gardens would encourage organic and quality food amongst the people,” Wheatley said.

The Farmers’ Market has about 50 vendors displaying their produce and food. Vendors range from different backgrounds and interests. Some have Mexican dishes displayed with organic ingredients in them. Some sell fresh fish. Most vendors, though, sell organic fruits and vegetables. The environment is similar to a swap meet, and what makes the event unique is the attendees themselves, who prove to be just as diverse as the food for sale.

Old, young, students, children and farmers alike walk along the aisles of the market, all bumping into each other, saying hello, trying to look at each of the booths to get a sense of what the vendor and the produce is like, and whether it’s organic (because not all the food is).

According to Faria, it is the sense of community among the farmers and costumers that keeps the Farmers’ Market going, since they depend on the costumers for their survival.

The appeal of organic food in Santa Cruz has risen to the point of major stores like Safeway adding organic products to their inventory. However, one needs to question the personal price it takes on the general populace, because of the high prices that not all people can afford.

As a concerned and conscious consumer, Thomas recommends that her customers be aware of these differences in price, and to read the label information for the produce. According to Thomas, customers should shop for the healthiest products but with consideration to their situation.

Whether this trend, if it in fact is one, will fade with time, no one knows for sure. For some it’s a lifestyle. But for organic food growers, that process is key for the creation of close-knit communities, and for the growing push toward maintaining these communities alive and strong. However, for these types of communities to even exist in the future years, there needs to be a way that the price and availability of organic food can be accessed by both sides of the socio-economic scale.

Police and Seabright residents alike have decided that the area’s Neighborhood Night, a Tuesday night tradition of community bar-hopping, has gotten out of hand. Although police report rowdiness all nights of the week, they saw increased amounts of violence on Tuesday nights. Over the summer, there were many fights, a stabbing, smashed police car windows, drug deals and drunk driving — including an incident in which someone was run over. Police reported one arrest and 19 citations on one Neighborhood Night alone. Residents, too, are raising their voices, complaining of noise, violence, vomit and urine, among other things. In an attempt to get the “friendly” neighborhood get-together under control, the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) has increased patrol on Tuesday nights and local bars are strictly enforcing rules and occupancy restrictions.

Rape at the Levee

Only a few months after the community was shocked and outraged by the rape of a young woman at an East Side café, another attack has disturbed the peace in Santa Cruz. The victim, a 23-year-old Contra Costa County woman, had met the assailant, a young Frenchman, at a downtown bar on Saturday, Aug. 17. It was later that night, when the two were walking through the San Lorenzo River levee, that the man forcibly raped her. The woman escaped thanks to nearby witnesses who broke up the attack, but the attacker got away. The community flooded the SCPD with tips, and the suspect, 19-year-old Pierre Anton, was arrested within a few days.

Dog Abuse in the SC Mountains

Robert Brunette, a Boulder Creek resident and dog breeder, was arrested on July 31 with 10 counts of crimes against animals. Earlier that week, animal control authorities had searched his property and uncovered a dead dog, five dog skulls and a decapitated dog head. The authorities also rescued nearly 40 sick and abused dogs from the residence. Brunette awaits his arraignment in September.

Development News

While students were taking a breather from classes this summer, the city of Santa Cruz took no such hiatus from town development. Among the proposals and plans is the Delaware Project, a 20-acre live/work industrial complex planned for 2120 Delaware Ave. The Westside complex, approved by the city in mid-July, will have 250 units. A key part of the idea is that driving, traffic and car emissions will reduce from people living where they work.

Also on the agenda is a proposal from Barry Swenson Builder of San Jose to replace the old landmark La Bahia residences with a 125-room luxury hotel complete with a pool, underground parking garage, bar, restaurant, and 3,000 ft of meeting space. The city is set to make a final decision on the hotel, which was protested throughout summer, in late September.

In similar news, Scotts Valley is in tumult over the possibility of a new Target opening in their town, while Santa Cruz debates over a proposed five-story parking garage at Cedar and Cathcart Streets downtown.

Hooray for Happy Hour!

Some of the best drink specials aren’t to be found on a wild night out; so if you feel like a post work cocktail, meeting friends for a drink over dinner, or maybe getting an early start on your night, try any number of Santa Cruz’s happy hours. Here are a few to get you started:

The Crow’s Nest
2218 E. Cliff Dr.

Happy Hour is Monday-Friday from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., and from 3:30 to closing on Wednesdays where they are half off appetizers and well drinks. There’s live entertainment Wednesday through Saturday and comedy on Sundays.

Acapulco
1116 Pacific Ave.

Happy Hour is Monday-Friday 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. It’s half off selected appetizers and a variety of drink specials, including $2.50 Bud pints, $3 Sierra pints, $3.50 house margaritas and a Bandito Rum Punch (think Mexican Long Island Iced Tea) for $5.

El Palomar
1336 Pacific Ave.

Happy Hour is Monday-Thursday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Cantina and 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Taco Bar. They offer half off house margaritas and appetizers and $2 select beers. From 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays it’s Taco Tuesday, also called College Night, with $2 tacos and all-night Happy Hour.

We boozed. We schmoozed. And after all our long nights of research, we’ve come to realize that no two bars are the same, and no two people are, either. Lucky for you, although this town may be small, there’s a bar stool somewhere with your name on it. So if you haven’t already found it, we hope that our very own first annual Super-Duper Primer Bar Awards help give you a taste of what each one has to offer. Because, as our old friend Ben Franklin once said, “There can’t be good living where there is not good drinking.”
Our votes are in. Agree or disagree, love it or hate it – here is our take on the Santa Cruz bar scene. And the award goes to…

The Red
1003 Cedar St.

“The Place to See and be Seen”

Once you get into the bar after waiting in a long line down the stairwell, it’s likely you’ll just have to wait in another long line to get a drink. The mob scene can get a little frustrating, but the bar’s busy nature speaks to its popularity and reputation as the college bar to drink at if you like to mingle. Dimly lit with a color scheme true to its name and comfy couches (if you are spry enough to snag one), this bar is the go-to watering hole for young 20 somethings.

The Red Room
1003 Cedar St.

“The Smoker’s Award”

The Red Room is a lot like its sister bar upstairs, but with a somewhat smaller crowd, a better chance of getting a seat and a little bit of smoke in the air. It’s the best place for a college kid with a pack of Camels to socialize over a drink.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
110 Walnut Ave.

“Best Place to Watch the Game”

If you fancy yourself a beer aficionado, then 99 is the place you want to go to give yourself a taste of the 99 different types of beer they serve. Upon your first visit, ask for a punch card so you can start checking off each type you try. Try all 99 and you’ll be immortalized on the wall with a tiny plaque – quite the honor. There’s also karaoke on Mondays, trivia night on Wednesdays, and often quite a few sports fans packing the bar on big game days throughout the week.

Moe’s Alley
1535 Commercial Way

“Best Place for Live Music”

Moe’s is a true Santa Cruz treasure. With great live music almost every night of the week, it’s the perfect place for those who like to groove to great reggae or see their favorite local band. A night at Moe’s isn’t unlike a friend-filled house party – cozy, cheery, dance-alicious, and with a backyard area for smokers and getting fresh air. Far from the buzz of Pacific Ave, this joint is an Eastside oasis of greatness.

Café Mare
740 Front St.

“Best Dance Party”

Mare is only crackin’ on Thursday Nights when DJs spin reggae or old school hip-hop, but it is well worth the weekly wait. It can get really crowded, but if you feel like shakin’ it to some loud music and don’t mind getting the occasional beer sloshed on you, jump right in and let loose.

Rosie McCann’s Irish Pub
1220 Pacific Ave.

“Where You’ll Get Dragged if Your Friends Want to Grind”

It’s likely that if you have friends from out of town that like to get down, you’ll end up at Rosie’s where they can get a stiff drink and dance to painfully mainstream hip-hop. While it may not be our cup of tea- or pint of beer as it were- Rosie’s seems to attract a fair amount of people, judging by the crowds waiting outside to get in. So see for yourself, but if you do decide to give it a shot and end up throwing back a few while you’re at it, just be careful not to sprain your ankle coming down the steep flight of starts on your way out- trust us on this one.

The Asti
715 Pacific Ave.

“Best Place to Avoid Slugs”

If everything about you screams “UCSC,” you might find yourself feeling out of place at this lower Pacific dive. So if you’re planning on hitting the “Nasty Asti,” you might think about leaving your Sammy the Slug sweater at home. But if you feel up for brushing shoulders with locals and poolsharks, and don’t mind a bit of cigarette smoke, the Asti can provide for a great night of drinking.

Avenue Bar and Cigars
711 Pacific Ave.

“Where Men can be Men”

The Ave is undoubtedly a guy’s bar. There’s foosball, pool, and plenty of sports playing on the TVs. It’s smoker friendly, if you couldn’t already tell by the name, and also has an open outdoor patio and deck where you can sit and socialize. And with specials like $5 pitchers on Wednesdays and a good selection on the jukebox, there’s plenty to keep the ladies paying a visit to the Ave quite comfortable, too.

Cypress
120 Union St.

“Best Place You’ve Never Been”

Not many people know about Cypress, which was the Coastline Brewery not long ago, but it’s only a matter of time. With an all-day happy hour on Tuesdays ($2 pints, half off appetizers), a tasty beer selection and live music Thursday through Saturday, the bar and restaurant is sure to become a happening spot. Large, friendly and only one block up and to the left of the Red – Cypress is definitely worth checking out for a breath of fresh air from the “been there, done that” downtown bar scene.

The Poet and Patriot Irish Pub
320 Cedar St.

“Best Place to Unwind”

Ever wish you could go out on a Friday night in your flannel, drink a tall, frosty Guinness, sit back and play a nice game of Scrabble or Jenga? Your wish can come true at the Poet and the Patriot, where you’ll find people studying at the wooden tables over a pitcher, or shooting darts and discussing Wes Anderson movies. It has a real Irish feel and you’ll often hear the Pogues ringing out from the jukebox. It’s beer and wine only, making it a lot less rowdy and a great spot to go with a friend to have a chat over a pint.

The Blue Lagoon
923 Pacific Ave.

“Provider of the Best Drinking Stories”

Where do we even begin with this one? Don’t go to the Blue expecting to meet nice, respectable dating-material or for a calm, drama-free night of casual drinking. A night at the blue is sure to include cheap drinks ($2 well drinks on Tuesdays is just one of their many nightly specials), dodging the legions of creepers and several bizarre encounters with wastoids. Needless to say, we’ve committed some of our most outrageous partying here. The best way to hit the Blue is with a large group of friends, ready to break it down on the dance floor and prepared to ward of all patrons outside your group who will surely descend on you like hawks.

The Rush Inn
113 Knight St.

“Where Everybody Knows Your Name…”

“…And they’re always glad you came.” The Cheers theme song is definitely appropriate for the Rush. The people who go there really love it and for good reason. The bartenders are friendly, they give good service and yes, they just might remember your name if you make a point to go and enjoy a brew every so often. This smoker-friendly dive has free pool and $7.50 pitchers on Wednesdays, a hot dog and a beer for $5 while you watch football and baseball on one of the bar’s three TVs on Sundays, and even home cooked meals for $3-$5 for Monday Night Football. There’s a great jukebox that has just about anything you’d want to listen to, including the Flight of the Conchords, a favorite of yours truly. It’s a great place to kick back and shoot the shit while shooting a game of pool over a cold one.

Brady’s Yacht Club
413 Seabright Ave.

“Editor’s Pick”

Brady’s is a classic example of why you should give every bar a fair chance. It may a little sketchy looking from the outside- it is a true blue dive bar, after all- but get inside, and well, maybe it’s still a little sketch, but with specials that include PB&J’s (Pabst Blue Ribbon and a shot of Jameson) and even • gasp• “Cum Shots,” how could you not have fun at Brady’s? The pirate motif, pool, Pacman, and pinball, not to mention $2 Budweiser and $3 Coronas on Tuesdays made for an unexpectedly entertaining evening for these devoted researchers. But to be clear, it does turn into much more a dive bar for the rest of the week – Tuesday nights are more of an exception.

The 515
515 Cedar St.

“Classiest Cocktails”

The 515 isn’t the place to go if you’re looking to get hyphy, but if it’s a cucumber martini, candlelight and quiet conversation you’re after, this is your spot. They have an impressively inventive and fancy cocktail menu and upscale beers, all with the steep price to match.

The Parish Publick House
841 Almar Ave.

“Because There’s Nothing Else to do on the Westside”

Though it’s only been open a few months, this establishment has attracted some dedicated patrons with its authentic Irish meals and extensive collection of obscure beers. And of course, the pool table is always a plus.

One Double-O-Seven
1007 Soquel Ave.

“Where to Get Your Game On”

Definitely a guy’s bar and a gamer’s paradise, the Double-O, as most people call it, has pretty much everything you need to stay entertained for the evening. With old sports photos covering the walls, this smoker friendly bar is equipped with pool, foosball, arcade games, darts, and even shuffleboard – not to mention a server to bring you drinks if you happen to be in the middle of a tense foosball battle. And if there’s a big game on, it’s likely that it’ll be playing on the bar’s big screen TV.

Seabright Brewery
519 Seabright Ave.

“The Bro-ery”

The Brewery receives our extra special re-naming award, a rare honor that is only called upon in times of utmost appropriateness and unavoidable puns. And if there ever was such a time, this is it. On any given Tuesday night, also known as Seabright’s Neighborhood Night, The Bro-ery is a sea of backward baseball caps and too-tan girls in tank tops. During the school year, Neighborhood Night becomes a weekly get together for many Slugs who want to rub elbows with other totally-gnarly-dudes and like-way-hot-chicks while demolishing $7 pitchers of decent home-brewed beer. The big friendly bouncers are one the highlights of the place because they seem to know and remember everybody and are likely start up a nice friendly chat when they see you.

City on a Hill Press recently sat down with Walker over coffee and a Joe’s sub to find out just why students call him “the funny bus driver.”

How long have you been working at UC Santa Cruz?
Since about 6:45 this morning [laughs]…I’ve been working at UCSC since September 1995.

How did you get your current job as a UCSC bus driver?
I was unemployed for a couple of months. [When I] applied for [the job], it was a part-time casual position and [UCSC] couldn’t offer me many hours. So I started working on Saturday nights for eight years and I filled in where I could. [Meanwhile] I worked Monday through Friday in Monterey as a milkman.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
Both kinds of wildlife. When you go down the campus hill [you see different birds]. I’m a big-time bird watcher. And I love picking up people and taking them places. Any passenger that says, ‘how did you know I wanted your bus?’ and then thanks me for waiting, makes my day. When a passenger gets on my bus, I make sure he or she will have a smile on their face when they get off.

What has been one of your most memorable or interesting experiences on the job?
Transporting people at the first rain last year. That was pretty bizarre to say the least. But, [as part of my job] I mainly like making up bus stop names.

What are some of the bus stop nicknames and how did you come up with the names?
Two of the hardest ones [to come up with] were Sterile-Merrill and Canadian Crown Whiskey.
1) Sterile-Merrill later became Miller time at Merrill and then it’s as close as I get to Merrill-juana without inhaling. It has to do with how well [the names] progress.
2) I thought of Canadian Crown Whiskey when a whole floor at Crown got cited for being drunk and I thought beer is near, but liquor is quicker.
3) For anti-social sciences one and two, college 9/10, I wouldn’t really say that college 9/10 are anti-social, but when they put up the fence I thought that they are either trying to keep people out or keep people in.
4) At Gradgy-ated student housing, you are a graduate student and you are ‘gradually’ leaving but you are still at school.
5) Party at Porter is one of my favorite nicknames because of the people that are at Porter. On one of my shifts, I picked up a group of people that were sprinting across the street from Porter. I looked at the Porter circle and saw police cars with their lights flashing and the students [that got on my bus] said “we got to get out of here.” I thought that there must be a party that’s getting busted.
6) Fantasy student housing, where it’s the fantasy of going to school and the reality is going back home.

Is there something interesting or quirky about you that people don’t know?
I’m a student of body language. When I was working at a Public Library in Glendale back in college, I would stare off at the lobby and watch people to see what they were thinking, and their [overall] body language. It helps me when I drive a shuttle bus, because then I can figure out who wants a ride or not.

What is something you love most about Santa Cruz?
It’s a great place to ride a bike. I ride my bike back and forth to work, rain or shine for four to five days a week.

Back in March you had heart surgery recently. How did this affect your bicycling routine?
I was riding my bike to work [one day] and I got chest pains…The next day I was riding my bike up High Street, but it got so painful that I had to stop and walk my bike for a while, which I never do. My cardiologist said that I had an 85- to 95-percent blocked left coronary artery…they did a single coronary arterial bypass graph. I was high on drugs for a month and all I could do was walk everywhere. In May I got back on my bike and I’ve been riding ever since.

Do you have any specific goals as part of AFSCME?
Right now we are in the middle of a contract campaign. We had a five-day strike in July, which was the first statewide five-day strike the university has had. Basically, we want equal work for equal pay. We don’t like them nickel-and-diming us on benefits. They give you a nice contract and then they start taking money away from you.

Is there something you would want to change about Santa Cruz?
Since I’m a bicyclist and I commute back and forth to work, I’d say [Santa Cruz] should [offer] a car-driver education about bicycling. Two percent of the bicyclists don’t stop at stop signs, ride on the sidewalk and do whatever they feel like doing. And then the 98 percent of us that do obey the rules to the best of our knowledge gets blamed for the two percent that don’t.

What are some of your plans for the future?
I may travel a little bit, but I get enough travel from people that come back [to school] and tell me about the places where they’ve been.

What words do you live by?
I live for the moment.

Now 21 years later, Skippy has increased the number of participants in intramurals, started an annual triathlon in his name, and more than tripled the number of club sports despite facing an ever-shrinking budget. And throughout all this he has found the time to be a husband and father, not to mention gain 14 world titles in the realm of freestyle Frisbee. So here he is to explain not just the nickname, but the job that has given him and so many students a great amount fulfillment and gratification over the years.

First things first, how did you get the nickname “Skippy”?
It came ironically from an old Frisbee tournament back in ‘81. Some teammates started calling me that in reference to my abilities in freestyle Frisbee and it just stuck. That’s the thing about nicknames – you can’t give them to yourself, so when you get one, you just hope it’s a good one. And now 27 years later, I still go by the same name.

What were your first goals coming into this position?
I was very eager to kind of plug my own personality into it. It was about keeping it fun, making it a little more casual than what it was, and increasing the diversification of it. I wanted it to be very inclusive to the point of if anyone was interested then they could have an opportunity to come down and participate. And then in more recent times when I took over the sports clubs, I wanted to do that but at a much higher level of sophistication.
…I was able to plug some energy into something that had been lying dormant for so long. I think the interest was always there, but students were just accustomed to getting “no” as the answer and here the answer was “yes” and I think that’s what changed the whole approach and shift of the energy to make it more vibrant.

What do you think has been greatest accomplishment in your time here?
I think it’s just the sheer volume of students who participate in these programs. If you consider it’s probably about an average of 4,500 students [per year] for the last 10 years and then about 3,500 for the 10 years before that. This is the start of my 21st year, and so if you add up those numbers and then plug in all the sports club numbers and even beyond that, people who have casually done it or just gone to watch a game and felt like they were a part of something, that’s probably the greatest lasting legacy is just their experience.

What else would you like to accomplish in your time here?
The resources are so limited and the interest is so high that there’s this disparity between the two, so I’m just there to catalyze the two and to hone and refine that interest … With that said, the potential for even greater things is always a constant … and the main thing that holds it back are the main things that everybody is aware of – lack of funding, lack of resources, lack of staff and facilities too. But once those things are in place, I think what we’ll see is a much more vibrant campus, one that retains its students and increases their experiences because for practically every student that goes to school here, their greatest memories aren’t of their major or Bio 101, it’s what they did outside the academic classes. It’s getting new friends that are going to last a lifetime or doing activities with those friends. All of those things come into play and that’s what OPERS is here for and that’s what I’m here for.

What is your biggest struggle in this job?
The money and then the continuing challenge we have of paradigms and preconceived ideas of what our role is and thinking about it in terms of what the true student interest is and trying to get the administration to think about it in those terms … So what’s going to motivate and help you feel connected to the university? Certainly you have activities within your dorm, but is that enough? Not really … Think about how a student would negotiate through these frustrations and eventually find themselves through an activity – and it doesn’t have to be here. It could be SOAR, through the many resource centers we have, all of those things are immensely valuable and I think that’s where the challenge is – trying to bring a new focus to that and look at it in a new light and see what kind of resources can be made for those programs and entities that can enhance them.

Did you think you would end up doing this – working with this age group in sports?
No, but I think I’m always young at heart, so that’s not anything new for me. I feel comfortable with this age bracket, so to speak. And then I think the other part of it is just the rewards of mentoring. It’s seeing somebody finally accomplish something that they’ve worked hard at doing and me getting none of the credit. That really couldn’t make me happier and I’m serious. They’re the ones who deserve it and I feel that it’s my capacity to hone that and refine that and move them forward.

The agreement on the Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) settled the various complaints brought in by separate lawsuits from the City of Santa Cruz, the County of Santa Cruz, the Coalition to Limit University Expansion (CLUE), the Rural Bonny Doon Association and 11 private citizens against the university over its proposed growing plan.

Though CLUE signed off on the deal, which the city, county, university, and CLUE had been hammering out for the past eight or nine months, CLUE founder Don Stevens said that he was not pleased with the final result.

“When you’re going against the university, you have to make decisions, and just from a practical perspective and a legal perspective, we felt we had to go along with the settlement,” he said. “I think that the UCSC growth plan is exceeding the carrying capacity of the community. There are very limited resources for water, infrastructure for roads, room for housing, and this is just pushing us past the limits of what this area can handle in terms of population and traffic and water consumption.”

Stevens specifically pointed out the proposed logging of many acres of upper campus, as well as the plan’s resulting impact on greenhouse gasses. Assembly Bill 32, which passed in 2006, mandates communities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

“The Santa Cruz area will not be able to comply with that state law with this much growth,” Stevens said.

The agreement includes much more specificity about the university’s potential growth, including a promise to house 67 percent of the students contained in the plan on campus. The plan also details that undergraduate enrollment will not exceed 17,500, but allows for continued growth in the graduate population.

The agreement also specifically seeks to address concerns over water access and traffic, two big complaints in the lawsuits. The university would now pay $6,530 per 85,000 gallons over the campus’s current use to pay for infrastructural improvements and developments of new water supplies, according to the LRDP website set up by the university.

The university would also limit traffic to campus and pay the city $366 per trip. The university would also pay for downtown UC offices, and additional funds to implement new public transportation programs with the city, according to the university.

Though traffic remains a hot issue, levels have actually stayed relatively constant since 1998, though enrollment has increased 45 percent in that time, according to Transportation and Parking Services Director Larry Pageler.

Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty is extremely pleased with the result of the negotiations, and said that this agreement was “historic” in the precedent it set for city-university relations.

“UCSC and Santa Cruz have been the poster children for dysfunctional relationships, and I think that this agreement moves us to be a model for how universities and communities can form partnerships,” Coonerty said.

Because universities are traditionally exempt from local land use laws, Coonerty said, cities often have a hard time getting them to pay for infrastructure improvements and facilities for growth. Based on what he called the “perfect storm of events,” which included the new UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal, leadership change in the UC Office of the President, as well as Santa Cruz’s representatives’ powerful placements in the state legislature, combined with two ballot measures passed by voters in 2006, the city was able to reach the deal with the university.

“I think other university communities are already looking at this, and thinking about not only how to mitigate the impact, but how to do better collaborative planning,” Coonerty said.

Also, Coonerty said that Chancellor Blumenthal, who took over at the summer 2006 death of his predecessor Denice D. Denton, had been a tremendous help with the negotiations.

“Between Chancellor Blumenthal and all the previous chancellors, it’s been night and day,” Coonerty said. “He’s been much more accessible, he’s been willing to listen and understand and look for creative solutions.”

Still, the complicated history of the LRDP at UC Santa Cruz leads many student groups to still doubt the veracity of the university’s agreement.

During a Nov. 7, 2007 rally, several protestors scaled tall redwoods on the intended site of a Biomedical Research Facility, declaring their opposition to the LRDP and refusing to come down. The area below the trees, labeled the “Autonomous Zone” remained occupied by anti-LRDP protestors until it was voluntarily vacated at the end of the fall term. The denizens of the trees remain in place, and publicly denounced the summer’s agreement.

“We will not be coming out of the trees,” according to a statement from LRDP Resistance, posted on popular independent media website Indybay.org.

“The University has agreed to pay ‘normal city fees,’ so all the city has won is the ability to subject the University to the same laws as every other corporation operating in Santa Cruz. Having UCSC pay for their impact is not the same as having no impact on the city.”

“The University has not changed its plans to destroy 120 acres of forest and add 4,500 students to this already overburdened city, so our opposition is still essential,” the statement said. “Let the city and University make their agreements. We are here for the forest.”

So who is Carlos Ramirez and what’s the secret to his happiness? He’s someone that hundreds of UCSC students see every day but may not have ever spoken to. He’s the guy that stands behind the front desk at the College 8 Dining Hall and swipes IDs, and he absolutely, whole-heartedly loves his job.

In a position where he stands at the front of a loud cafeteria dealing with hungry freshmen trying to smuggle out oatmeal cookies, one would think that he had more to complain about. But his biggest issue with the job is trying to figure out why there are two cash registers when he only uses one. When others can only smell day-old hot dogs and pizza grease, Carlos smells fresh rosemary.

“I just love my job. I really do,” Ramirez said. “Especially working at College 8. It’s such a beautiful place. You can just wake up in the morning and when you open the door, you get this fresh smell of rosemary outside. And it’s the environment – it’s so appealing.”

Carlos, 28, moved to Santa Cruz almost 11 years ago from Guanajuato, Mexico, following his parents who had moved here when he was just four years old. He has always had an interest in computer systems analysis and robotics, and having studied it in Mexico and the United States, Carlos took a job with Texas Instruments, but left after two years – just in time for the branch’s closure.

“I just decided that it wasn’t for me,” he said. “It was very monotonous and it had nothing to do with people…so one day I was sitting on my couch – I remember that because I wrote it down – and I was like, man I don’t like this job very much. It was 12 hours a day and it was at night from six to six and then I realized I don’t want to do this the rest of my life, working like this. I don’t talk to people anymore.”

Carlos, who has studied at Cabrillo College every year since his move to Santa Cruz, found his calling through an exercise in a psychology class that told him what kinds of work he would be good at.

“It made sense to change to something I really enjoy doing,” he said. “It told me I was more people-oriented and so I thought maybe I should give it a try. So I came to UCSC and applied … and now it’s going to be my eighth year here.”

The surprise of not knowing who he’ll see or what he’ll learn has made each day a gift that he wakes up eager to unwrap.

“I like the interaction with the students,” he said. “They always come up with different stories and different ideas. And it’s always something new … you just don’t know. Tomorrow it could be another person and a different conversation you’ll have.”

Taking every given opportunity to learn, Carlos takes lessons from his Cabrillo classes, such as communications, and applies them to the daily tasks of his job. He started a log of any concerns students tell him they have about the dining hall, which he then types into the laptop, often seen at his side on the front desk, and gives to the manager.

“I say thank you for telling me because by having you tell me, you have done us a great favor – if that issue bothers you, it probably bothers another costumer and that’s not the type of service we want to provide,” Carlos said.

He’s also come to use that ever-present laptop as a place for any good ideas that come to mind that he feels could improve the dining hall, as well as a way to remember interesting conversations that he may engage in that day.

Carlos began a management-training program this summer in order to start making his way up the totem pole in UCSC Dining Services, in hopes of becoming a Unit Manager. He’s currently reading four books, all of which relate to food service management and developing the leadership skills necessary to take on the job he would like to acquire.

His aspirations don’t end there. Until there is an opening for a shift manager, the first step in his climb to the top, he does everything he can to assure that the College 8 dining hall is the best it can be, giving students an enjoyable experience any time they come in for a bite.

In a job that many of his co-workers have shown discontent with – as seen in the American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees (AFSCME) workers’ union strikes of recent months, pushing for higher wages and better benefits – Carlos is content being independent and somewhat ignorant of the union and its efforts to strike.

“I pledge my allegiance to the university if you can put it that way,” he said. “The students and the university have allowed me to make my living in a very comfortable way. In fact I have these phrases that I put on the mirror everyday, one is “smile.” And the other is ‘remember to treat students with utmost respect because they make it possible for you to make your living.’”

When he’s not at work chatting it up with students, Carlos is taking advantage of everything the town and the university has to offer, whether it’s playing a pick-up volleyball game at the beach or checking out as many CDs as he is allowed from the McHenry Library to satisfy his music cravings.

“I have everything I need here,” he said. “There’s a store a few blocks from my house, there’s the Palomar where I go dancing, there’s the beach. If you want to go to the mountains they’re not far away. There are some cool libraries and cafes. Yeah, I have pretty much everything I need.”

And for those who will be strolling by Carlos at the College 8 dining hall front desk, there are just a few things he wants everyone to know.

“Students are the most important people in the university and so they have all my support and they are my friends of course, always,” he said. “If they have a question, they can always ask me. I don’t know if I’ll have the answer, but I can get the person who knows the answer.”

It’s exactly how it sounds: a great, small swimming hole with a fun rope swing and a little beach area where you can lie beneath the trees or bake in the sun. Sometimes you’ll even find a few nudists. So bring some friends and see who can do the best backflip off the swing. Park at Ox Trail turnout on Highway 9 and walk downhill to the train tracks. Head south following the tracks for about a half-mile, then follow the signs and proceed down Eden Trail.

U-Pick at Coastways Ranch

Drive up Highway 1 for about 20 minutes and you’ll find it nestled in, across the street from Año Nuevo. In the fall you can pick your own kiwis and in the spring you can pick your own Olallie berries (a cross between a blackberry, a loganberry and a youngberry). There’s nothing like the taste of fruit right off the vine. It’s all organic, and for a fraction of the price you would pay at Trader Joe’s or New Leaf.

Climb Tree Nine

Come on, man, it’s like tradition, right? Long considered a rite of passage for freshmen, Tree Nine has been testing students’ fear of heights for years. With perfect bare branches to step on, it’s a lot like climbing a ladder. If you make it to the top on a clear day, you get a spectacular view of the bay. You’ve got to do it at least once — even if you’re scared of heights.

Porter Caves

Descend down a ladder into a series of natural marble caverns. It’s not a huge underground network of caves, but there are three or four fun caves to get muddy in and to explore. Lots of people go and burn incense in the caves, leaving a pungent aroma that lingers for days afterwards. However, be aware that the caves are home to rare and sensitive species of critters and insects and that any romping you do may have negative impacts on them. For this reason the location hasn’t been disclosed.

First Rain

It’s been a tradition for as far back as anyone can remember — or at least for a really, really long time. When the first rain of the school year falls, go to Porter College, don’t bring your camera and don’t bring your clothes. No one likes the creepy guy with the video camera standing fully clothed on the sidelines. Get naked, run around and partake in one of UCSC’s finest — and coldest — traditions.

Find a Koi Pond at Pogonip

I’m not going to tell you where it is, because the search is half the fun. When you find it, the 6-by-6-foot concrete box that houses about three dozen fish will be that much better. Located somewhere off the hiking trails in Pogonip, the pond is a picture of serenity, equipped with a little Buddha statue and a quiet that is hard to find anywhere on campus.

Berry Creek Falls

Drive up Highway 1 until you reach Big Basin State Park, right across from Waddel Creek beach. Follow the Berry Creek Falls Trail for six miles underneath ancient redwoods and huge oak trees until you arrive at the first waterfall, pouring down for about 30 feet. Up the trail a little further and you’ll find three more waterfalls. Keep your eyes open for quail, hawks, bobcats, mountain lions and snakes. Be prepared for a four- to six-hour hike, depending on which trail you take.

Here’s a guide to the best views on campus, from breathtaking views near East Field to the highly visible Porter Squiggle. Most of these are obvious, and there are plenty of places not mentioned because some views are more difficult to get to. But while this guide is meant to simply remind you to look up and take in your daily surroundings on the way to class, be sure to take advantage of what UCSC has to offer and do your own exploring in order to find your own sacred spot.

Stevenson Knoll

Located on the east side of campus, behind the white Stevenson dorms (or casas, as they’re called) is Stevenson Knoll, a hillside hangout that overlooks the green, luscious East Field, the gym, the city of Santa Cruz, and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Not only does this knoll boast one of the best views on campus, but it’s comfortable and peaceful with multiple benches (six, to be exact), including a picnic table, that make it enjoyable to sit with a friend or do some homework. There’s no excuse to read or do homework inside when there’s a nearby space like this. Further behind the cove of trees that surrounds these benches is a seventh bench, covered by a permanent canopy, so you can still enjoy the view during the wet Santa Cruz days.

Oakes Meadow

The east side doesn’t get all the fun, though. Oakes has some pretty spectacular views of its own. Oakes Meadow, located behind the West Remote parking lot, is a bed of dry grass, but one of the best places to lay out a blanket and hang out with friends, especially to watch the sunset. Separated by Empire Grade, across the street is a field that looks different every day, depending on the sun, clouds, and the weather. It may not be the best place to go to on hot days though, as there’s not much shade around to keep cool.

Oakes Lower Field

Directly to the left of the meadow is the Oakes Lower Field, a plush field of green grass that also overlooks the ocean. An alternative to the dry grassy meadow, the lower field is perfect for some sunbathing and a picnic. There’s a wooden deck that would be good for doing some outdoor yoga. On a clear night and a full moon, you can sit at the bench and watch the moon reflecting off the water. Breathtaking.

Porter Squiggle

The untitled red sculpture, lovingly nicknamed the Porter Squiggle, sits upon a hill that welcomes entrants from the west side of campus. Atop this metal sculpture (which I think resembles a woman’s curves) you can find people taking pictures for their Facebook profile (be sure to get your obligatory picture too!), or someone singing and strumming the guitar. From here, you can see and be seen by tennis players, College Eighters, and people hustling and bustling at this busy section of campus. Sunsets are beautiful here — the sky is streaked blue, red, orange, and pink and is sometimes complemented with a silver moon, not unlike a watercolor painting. Turn your head a quarter of a turn and you’ll see the Porter Meadow trees lining the horizon like something out of a Bob Ross painting. The Porter Squiggle is an iconic sculpture with epic scenery as well — a place to absorb the characters and essence of Santa Cruz. A sublime place to be.

ARCenter/Music Center

In the middle of campus, between the Media Theater and library, lies the ARCenter, a little-known spot home to many academic programs such as MSI, STARS, and Student Media. Reminiscent of a ski lodge, this is a great location for studying on the patio at any of the abundant white plastic tables and chairs or on a huge wooden bench, with some coffee from the independent, former-student-owned Back Perch Café. This is a serene terrace, which offers views of the Music Center, the ocean, and a wide open plain that is home to countless squirrels, rabbits and deer.

Just down the road is the Music Center, a series of tan block-like buildings that offer a refuge for musicians at Kretschmer Plaza. Elevated above classrooms, this area overlooks a triangular patch of green grass, rolling hills of amber grass, and windy bike trails with bicyclists whizzing by. Another skyline of trees lines the left side. This is a wonderful place to be, where the night feels open and the stars glimmer.