Friday, March 28, 2014

A most fortunate encounter

This day started with a disagreement with the editors of the new Iditarod book over whether something did or didn't happen during the 1974 race. I distinctly remember watching mushers cross the ice on two rivers near Anchorage. Others say that only happened in the first race in 1973 and in '74 there wasn't enough ice so they had to truck the dogs over two bridges to restart on the other side.

I even have a photograph of one team on the ice, but have no idea where it is so proving my point was difficult.  I had to leave the issue unresolved but I thought at least going my way and head for Anchorage.

I stopped at one of those super stores to get cash and something to eat.  While I was waiting for someone to sell me a few chicken tenders, I looked over into the seating area next to the delicatessen section. Sitting there was one of the mushers who actually crossed that ice during that 1974 race.  Disagreement resolved. Right now.

I had not seen him in at least 25 years. Dick Mackey had gone on to win the Iditarod in 1978 by the slimmest margin in history, literally by a lead dog's nose.

The next year as a race official he flew along the trail just as I was doing, gathering material for "The Last Great Race." At every stop we sat around fires or tables laden with beaver stew or on steel folding chairs in village community centers and Dick Mackey shared his knowledge with me, analyzed the progress of various mushers, assessed the quality of the trail, and the quality of different dog teams as the race moved toward Nome. I can honestly say he made my book so much better than I could have done without him. His expertise and willingness to share it meant so much to the finished product and I have been eternally grateful for his help.

And there he was sitting with his wife in the deli section of Fred Meyer on the very day I needed to confirm there was ice on the Matanuska River in 1974.

To tell the truth we talked so much I almost forgot to ask him about that. We covered how we are dealing with aging, firewood,  and views of the modern race compared with the old days. It had been a tough trail this year, but in the years Mackey ran the race they were all tough and the race did not get nearly the tactical support it gets now.  Even the trail itself was not guaranteed to be there.

"One guy this year complained it wasn't fun," he said. "you know in all my races, even running on a clear night with everything going well and stars shining or the moon or northern lights, I never thought of it as fun." he said, "satisfying, yes, but work, not fun."

The comment hit home. I have a friend who thinks everything is fun. But, everything isn't fun. I have built three houses during Alaska winters and while I found that satisfying, and I was happy about it, it was never, ever fun. I was glad to hear someone else enjoyed experience the same way I do. And as far as the tough trail this year, I knew what he was getting at, but I had to say I have not run the race so I have no standing to say what is tough and what isn't and who has it harder and who doesn't, but then I looked at him and said: "what you guys went through just doesn't compare with today."

And he said about the fun complaint, "you know three girls finished last this year and they came across the finish line with 12 or 14 dogs and all smiles. And they did it in 11 days." They found a way to have fun. In his day, Mackey ran races that took more than 20 days.

We have other shared experience too.  He is 81 now and I mentioned that I was planning for 81 by mapping out how much firewood I need to put in to get myself to that point so I can still make it to the East Pole, with a lot of the work already accomplished.

He laughed, smiled at his wife and they agreed they have about five years worth of firewood stacked right now. Made me feel like my plan is good, given that I have almost 10 years to get to 81 with five years of firewood under the house.

So, with the firewood issue settled, the state of the race thoroughly discussed and most of all the disagreement about ice on a river in 1974 resolved we said our good byes and went our separate ways again.  I felt richer for the experience.

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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

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Sports malaprops

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Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

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