Just for the grins

Some time ago I mentioned moose nuggets. Just to prove a point, it is true they are used for jewelry and doo dads and such. I particularly like the mooseltoe.

Some days you just have to love Alaska

Fairbanks man jailed for driving forklift while drunk

And it seems so much was left out of the story, like, how did the two pickups end up in the ditch in the first place? Winter drag race?

I have a friend who while working in a fish processing plant won a bet that he could pick up a quarter with a forklift.

Journeys, projects, voyages and art -- another random thought

A project brought the train of thought to mind, but they all have a certain progression in common. There is always the optimism of beginning and jumping in. But not too long after that comes the realization stage. A friend once described it as this: We were beginning an ocean voyage and he apologized right off the dock. What he said was please be aware that about a day or so into this I will go into kind of a funk. It was when he realized having done this before he had just done it to himself again, committed with no way out. On this particular voyage it was my first offshore and I didn’t get it, but later in life as I embarked on journeys of one sort or another I did. Building houses comes to mind after the few first boards are laid on the foundation and I was left alone to finish the house, knowing how long it was going to take there was always a moment of depression. It happened in writing as well; at the beginning I could see the end, but a week or so into it I could only see a year of writing ahead. I think that was at least part of what caused my loss of interest. Not only did I see a year of writing ahead, but I was unhappy with what I had done already and I didn’t like the main character and he was based on me. Then life stepped in and piled on, and I never really went back to it. But that gets off the subject. Once you get past that initial realization about the monumental task in front of you, you shrug your shoulders and go for it, knowing it is the only way it will get done and for the time being it is your way of life, your raison d'etre and from then on you separate the project into incremental, attainable goals, a floor laid, a page written, a waypoint on a voyage passed and life goes one small step at a time working toward the whole. When the project is finished, the house built, the voyage completed, the book written, in this case the living room remodeled, there is a moment of satisfaction, a moment of accomplishment, a moment of achievement, but those moments are fleeting.

It was after I completed this most recent project, the living room floor and trim that I realized the last step in the process. Of course there are always a few odds and ends to complete yet, you have to clean the boat, polish up some spelling and grammar, still put down a little trim here and there but for the purpose of the project that moment comes when you have the feeling (and relief) of completion.

Sitting on the couch looking over this most recent one it hit me and as I thought back through others they all had this same aspect in common. The realization is that despite all you are feeling you have accomplished, life has not changed in any meaningful way. I was sitting on the same couch, watching the same tired television shows I had watched when there was a ratty old carpet under me instead of a brand new laminate floor. It happened, I realized in all the houses I built, at the end of every voyage and eventually at the end of every book: No matter what the accomplishment life did not change. The next day I woke up alone, went to work, came home, turned on the television and went to sleep as I had every working day since this latest period in my life began, I suppose that is to be expected, but in my mind it seems life should change in some dramatic way somehow. It doesn’t.

What has me wondering now is what happens at the end of the global journey, the entire project. Do I sit somewhere drooling in a wheelchair wondering if at the dock after the voyage through life, completing the last chapter, I am left with the same feeling? Does it mean that for all of it, nothing really changes despite your tenure on earth?

The realization stage with only a couple of sticks of baseboard to go.

And one more random thought having to do with the solstice. My niece who was here this summer wrote a happy solstice note and said she couldn’t believe it has been six months already since her trip. When someone talks about the rapid passage of time I usually remind them that each passing year is a smaller percentage of the whole life and as those percentages grow smaller and smaller time seems to pass more swiftly. So maybe it all comes to this, time really does move faster with age and the end comes when we reach escape velocity and what amounts to a soul spins off into space.

Scattered thoughts at Solstice time

A few rambling thoughts on the event of the 36th Winter Solstice experienced in Alaska. To begin with, the temperature is 40 degrees, very un-Alaska like especially after two weeks fluctuating between plus and minus 10. There is at least snow, now, and maybe it will hold up through a warm period. Snow is light at the East Pole, 17 inches as near as I can tell which may hinder plans to go there for Christmas and New Year’s.

On to random thoughts: Trickle-down economics ­-- that wonderful Reagan-era phrase that really meant give to the rich and hope a few crumbs trickle down to the rest of us. Since then the rich and the rest of us have actually moved farther apart. So it goes. But inadvertently President Obama has created a trickle-down economic effect that actually works. It goes like this: My nephew hit a deer with his vehicle a week or so ago. Not much damage, a headlight and some trim it looked like from the picture he sent. But a few days later came this note: “Once again I have to thank the Obamathon for filling up the junkyards. Got all the plastic pieces and a battery pan for 65 bucks!!!”

It was the Cash for Clunkers program. It had to be expected the yards taking in all those clunkers didn’t totally waste them and salvaged as many parts as they could. Now the yards are full of parts: with a big supply prices come down, the original owner saved supposedly by trading in on something new, the new-auto industry got a shot in the arm, which should mean more jobs and more money in the economy, the junk yards made money taking in the clunkers, and now are making more selling the parts, and the people (like my nephew who probably won’t admit it) who still own clunkers, can find parts for them at reasonable prices. Was it all worth it? Sure seems like it to me.

Another random thought: A couple of months ago the mayor of Anchorage vetoed a measure that would have given equal rights in things like housing, job discrimination and health care to gay people. A young columnist in the Daily News took him to task about it. In the course of her diatribe she wrote that it turned out the mayor was in fact, just “an old white man.” Somehow, having to admit that I, too, am now “an old white man,” that phrase irritated me. While gay rights is not exactly my cause, I can certainly sympathize and am all in favor of everyone in this country enjoying the same rights as every other person in this country. But, the thought process went on,

Besides wanting to tell this sweet young thing that all old white men do not think the same, I wanted to point out what this generation of old white folks did when we were young. There was civil rights, there was the Vietnam war, there was relevance in education, there was the environment and even, gasp, women’s rights. Gay rights had not quite come on the scene, at least in a big way. But a lot of us now old white folks, even men, did what we could for each of those causes. And, there was hope that as that generation matured we would take over and change the world into a better place for all.

The realization is, we failed. While some of us were fighting the good fight, a lot of others, probably the majority, stuck to their books, kept their heads down and went on into business, law, government and on and on, and those were the ones who rose to positions of power bringing with them the old ways we were fighting so hard to bury. To be sure, there have been tremendous successes but just look at the health care debate in Congress to see who really won. We were the generation who brought on free clinics but we were also the generation who brought on Joe Lieberman. the Party of NO and Mayor Dan Sullivan of Anchorage, Alaska. So, in the end what prevailed was an evolution of the status quo with only as many social progressions as the old white men felt comfortable allowing.

However, blanket condemnations are not helpful. As we learned in all those rights progressions, not all African Americans are alike, not all minorities are alike, not all women are alike and not all gays are alike. Get this straight: Not all old white men are alike either.

What this young woman needs to do along with her generation, is pick up the torch where we dropped it. Challenge those old white men (we called them the establishment) and carry on the fight until it is actually won.

I suppose that is enough rambling for one day. Have you missed me? For all who enjoy this sort of thing “HAPPY SOLSTICE”

Mostly finished

Ran out of money before I got the trim done, but other than that ...