Tuesday, July 14, 2009

As the world turns

Last night a story came across about the Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival and how a bunch of rowdies disrupted it. The festival is the small town’s summer carnival and gets its name from what moose leave behind in winter.

With no leaves or grass, moose generally eat twigs in winter and their droppings are little nuggets of pressed wood, with a consistency somewhat like particle board used in building houses. There is no smell, the nuggets are as hard as wood and you can pick them up with no ill effects. People even make jewelry out of them.

But not everyone gets the humor of moose droppings. One woman Outsider heard of the festival and wrote a very angry, demanding letter wanting to know how far they dropped those moose and were they hurt. For a while the logo for the festival became a moose dangling in a sling from a helicopter. So, this festival has been going on for 37 years as a family friendly affair with a tongue in cheek sense of humor. Until this year.

Apparently a group of youngsters from out of town raised hell, drinking and carousing and ruined it for the regular folks. One of the carousers even drowned when he jumped into the river and never came up.

The story quoted an Amanda Randles, a bartender at the Fairview Hotel (which is a story all its own). She was complaining about how the festival was disrupted.

Having known the Talkeetna community for years (it is the closest town to the East Pole) I questioned whether that name was correct. I know a Pam Randles from around that country and also a Pam Ranalls, who I know is a bartender there. I discussed it with a woman at work who is familiar with the area and even asked the reporter how old she thought the source was, thinking maybe she had gotten the name wrong. She said the woman sounded between 20 and 40. That didn’t fit with the age of the women I was thinking about. This led to a discussion of the two women and eventually to Pam Randles’ husband Slim and we what remembered about the two of them. It was in that discussion that the realization hit.

Their daughter was named Amanda. I remember holding her in my arms when she was a baby just struggling with her first words. At the time Slim and I both had long dark beards and dark rimmed glasses. To the chagrin of all of us, the baby tugged hard on my beard and said “Da-Da” for the first time.

But, I thought she would be too young to be a bartender at the age of 20 or so. Then we started going through the years. O M G! By our count she has to be 36 or 37. This little girl whom I remember mistakenly calling me Da Da is not only old enough to be a bartender, she is old enough to be the bartender in a famous Alaska saloon. But worse than that: SHE IS OLD ENOUGH TO BE COMPLAINING ABOUT THOSE DAMNED KIDS!

Can the Pioneer Home be far off?

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Lazy, hazy days of summer





We are sure having those. Temperatures in the 80s this week with no letup in sight. Might be comfortable somewhere, but here it is just damned hot. A couple of months ago I mentioned the expert at the Bureau of Land Management who said we would have a light fire season because it would be cool and wet. Guess what. Cool and wet turned into hot and dry and we now have 70 wildfires burning across the state that have already consumed 629,739 acres. So much for the light fire season. One fire already has burned 125,000 acres. The picture is toward the mountain I have photographed before, only you can't see it today because of the haze from the smoke drifting over us from the fires farther north.

In other news, i saw a bear on the way home last night, on the bicycle path near Eagle River. A little farther along I saw a late-night hiker walking toward the bear. Nothing in the news this morning so everyone must have passed all right. It was a small black bear, so probably pretty easy to chase away if they did happen to meet.

Then there is the garden. The owl must have fallen asleep on duty and the squirrels stripped the plant. Kind of disheartening but now we have entered phase two as seen in that picture. Heavy bird screen around the plant, supported by stakes and held down with spikes and rocks. So far so good. This is quite the plant. It already has produced at least a dozen berries and there are at least half a dozen more on it now ripening. If you look you can see some red around the base. I went looking today for a live trap but no luck. I will find one and that is phase three. After that it starts to get serious. Then there is the second bloom on the Himalayan poppy. Another one is ready to go. And there are new flowers, yellow ones on this broad-leafed plant i have no idea what it is.

So with haze and bears (three so far this year) and strawberries and new flowers, not a bad day to be alive.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Son of Only in Alaska

As newspapers continue to decline, more ways to miss them come up. A fellow the other day cancelled his subscription because: "There ain't enough paper in them any more to start a good fire." I use those outdated phone books these days but it is more work.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Berries, bears and John Dillinger

Two more strawberries tonight. That makes it me 5 squirrels 2 and they haven't gotten one since the owl took his post. One more shrew in his food tonight. On top of that it looks like the Himalayan poppy as ready to show two more blossoms, PLUS the big plant with the wide leaves looks like it is going to pop a couple of yellow colored flowers in the next few days.

Went to see Public Enemies tonight. Good movie all around and I am continually amazed how Johnny Depp can be so credible in so many different roles. They made Dillinger a little more human than my impression of him has been and funny but in all the pictures i remember seeing of him in Life magazine, I don't remember a smile even. Of course in all those pictures he was headed into jail, so perhaps it was a not funny time for him. They did show the time he broke out of jail using a gun he carved out of soap though i didn't catch that they showed it being carved or that it was made of soap. The biggest surprise, though, was that the lady in red wasn't in red at all but in white and orange. Now you have to wonder if the story was just myth and the movie got it right or if the movie played with the facts to avoid the cliche. At any rate a good movie especially now that I can go to a movie for less than the price of a $15.99 DVD. Now that i only use a gallon of gas to make the 50-mile round trip that is.

So, the topper for the day? Besides the strawberries? I saw a black bear cub amble across the road on the way home.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Habitat




All right, I have tried to live in harmony with nature, live and let live and work around any animals in the neighborhood, with the exception of a few arachnids and other assorted bugs on one type or another. But, now they have gone too far and it is one step short of all out war, and that step can be taken if this keeps up. I have a wonderful strawberry plant in my little flower garden. Something, and i think it was one of the squirrels, ate the first two ripe berries. This is unacceptable. So the first step has been taken: A sentry posted. It already chased one of them away. Although owl statues in harbors end up with gulls standing on them or worse. The next step will be a frame and netting. If that fails the live traps come out and those squirrels are on their way to the river. We shall see. In the meantime i saved two strawberries... my first crop.

The garden evolution

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

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

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel