Saturday, December 22, 2012

Across the great divide (well, a divide anyway)


Between Miles 13 and 14 of the Old Glenn Highway lies the divide separating the Matanuska and Knik valleys.  It has been more defined at times but in the same place on other days.

Several posts on this blog mention that at times the temperature here at the house will be 10 to 20 degrees colder than in town just 10 miles away and today was no exception. Fifteen below at the house, just about zero in town.  The geography of that circumstance has slowly been revealing itself over the years and today a distinct border was blatantly obvious.

But first a bit of geography.  That geography of the Matanuska-Sustina Borough is first defined by two valleys, the Matanuska River Valley and the Susitna River Valley.  It has always been an irritation that people and most of the area media refer to it as the Mat-Su Valley or just "The Valley."

Having lived in the Upper Susitna Valley (that's where the East Pole is) where the residents take the distinction seriously, I have always tried to use "valleys" or the specific valley.  Since moving here, I have discovered there is a third valley, the Knik River Valley.  Each of these has distinct weather patterns.  Most often, it will be coldest in the Knik Valley but with little snow and even less wind.  To the west, the Matanuska Valley, in the middle, suffers hellacious wind storms and receives very little snow.  

What there is usually blows away in the next wind blasts.  To the west and north, the Susitna Valley often is warmer and it receives more snow.  No mountain ranges define the distinctions between the valleys  at their lower ends and most of them are on relatively the same plane.  They are more defined by drainages.

For instance you would have to work at it to define the divide between the Matanuska Valley and the Knik Valley.  I doubt there is 20 feet difference in elevation along the road between the two.  Still whatever that difference is, it creates different weather patterns.

All that is to get to the discovery recently of the actual dividing line, a line made subtlely obvious as seen in the attached photograph which I took today.  Note to the right of center (east) the hoar frost in the trees.  And then the left (west) while there is some snow on the branches there is little or no hoar frost. 

The National Snow and Ice Center defines hoar frost this way:

Hoarfrost A deposit of interlocking ice crystals (hoar crystals) formed by direct sublimation on objects, usually those of small diameter freely exposed to the air, such as tree branches, plant stems and leaf edges, wires, poles, etc., which surface is sufficiently cooled, mostly by nocturnal radiation, to cause the direct sublimation of the water vapor contained in the ambient air.

 At the divide, at least two elements could create the phenomenon of the diffence on each side of the line.  One is that it is colder to the east, which is the Knik Valley, and that most likely creates conditions more conducive to the formation of hoar frost.  The other is that it is windier to the west in the Matanuska Valley and what hoar frost does develop is whipped off the trees.
Why bother with all this.  Curiosity.  Fascination.  Perhaps a need to understand.  What's next?  Explore and find one spot with the calm of the Knik Valley the warmth of the Matanuska (when the wind isn't blowing) and the snow of the Susitna.  Perfection.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

An eve of Christmas past


For the first time in maybe eight years, I sat  down at a bar tonight.  For most of my adult life a drought even eight days long probably would have been unheard of.  I had arrived early to meet my son, daughter and son in law for a Christmas dinner, meeting in a restaurant because we were all going our separate ways for the holiday.

As I pulled the stool back I might have stumbled a little and it created some motion in my peripheral vision.  That sort of vision used to be vital for any foray into a bar in younger days.  And, this time it had not failed me because there on a stool just one empty one removed from mine sat a beautiful young woman who had turned and gave me a bright smile, then turned back to what she was doing.  The old habits of that peripheral vision had not failed me.  I hesitated for a moment thinking I might take the stool right next to her, laughed silently to myself and sat where I had originally planned.
I ordered a single malt on the rocks to sip until my kids showed up and had the first sip of scotch in nine months.  The slight familiar burn and then warmth felt good and, relaxed a bit, I turned to take in the surroundings. 

It was then I discovered just how much my old familiar world had changed.  Where in a past incarnation I might have tried to strike up a conversation with the woman, maybe offer to buy her a drink, that was not going to happen this night and not just because I was probably at least twice her age.  The thing she had turned back to look at was a Smartphone and she was avidly typing in some text.  A couple of stools farther to her right, another nice looking young woman was doing the same.  To my left a young man also was staring into the light of his phone.  Pretty soon I was doing the same, texting my daughter to let her know I had arrived early and had settled in at the bar.  And then of course I had to check email, and why not see who's been on facebook and pretty soon I was as mesmerized with my phone as was everyone else along the bar. The smartphone had taken over what used to be, well, more social.  How does a guy break into that to say "hey, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

It was such a far cry from times I had spent in other bars at other Christmases.  I liked to wait until the last possible day to shop.  I would go downtown, shop for a while and then head for a favorite bar; in Buffalo it was Jew Murphey's and Anchorage the Club Paris. Both  are or were in the case of Murphy's located in the downtown shopping area in their respective cities. I would wander stores with my list buying things until I couldn't stand it any longer.  At that point I went to the bar.  I had a couple of drinks, enjoyed the atmosphere until I relaxed, then asked the bartender to keep my parcels behind the bar and ventured out again and shopped for a while.

The day would progress like that, shopping in between interludes at the bar.  Toward afternoon as offices let out the places would fill.  At Murphy's, particularly around Christmas, somebody high from an office party would take up the piano and soon enthusiastic song would fill the place.  Club Paris was quieter but with the same sort of crowd.

One year  in early evening Christmas Eve I was sitting next to a woman who also was sipping a drink.  We started talking a little and she said she was having trouble finding something for her father.  She said he lived Outside and  she liked to send him something that said "Alaska."  I wrote down the name of a book of mine and told her to go next door to the book store and buy a copy.  If she didn't like it I would make it right.  To my surprise she did it.  When she came back she showed me the book and asked me what was so special about it.  I said, "How about if I sign it for your father."  She had a proper reaction.  We talked for a bit more and then she thanked me and said she had to leave.  All the while she had a wrapped package on the bar next to her.  She handed it to me and said Merry Christmas.  Later on it turned out to be  a box of matching wine glasses. 

After she left I went shopping again, but I had run out of steam and returned to the bar within an hour, knowing shopping was over for the day.  It being late evening, the bar had filled and I sat down on the only open stool which happened to be next to another woman, this one closer to my own age.  We struck up a conversation and she was lamenting the fact that she couldn't find a nice red sweater for Christmas.  It just so happened I had noticed a display of them on my last tour.  I told her I had seen some in JC Penney right across the street and where they were in the store.  She said she was desperate and would go look.

The bartender laughed at me.  "That's the second one you talked to who ran out of here," he said.

But this one came back.  She was quite happy; she had found a sweater she liked.  She sat down and bought us both drinks.  We talked for some time as the conversation turned personal heading for intimate. Being who I am, I considered, but I could be fairly certain my new wife was not going to appreciate me giving myself this sort of Christmas present.  So, when the woman very seriously invited me to leave with her, well, I declined as graciously as I could, given how sorely tempted I was.  Live to shop another day, I guess.

Thinking back on it now, I have to wonder how that interlude would have gone in the age of smartphones.  Frankly after what I saw tonight, I doubt any of it would have happened. It just doesn't compute.

JUST A SIDE NOTE:  My son is coming here for Christmas dinner.  On the way home I got to thinking about him driving the same route and came to a realization.  Good grief I am the one now who lives over the river and through the woods.  Literally.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Wait, did I dream I lived in a gingerbread house?


Home, sweet gingerbread home. The blue roof, the orca cutout on the front, moose in the yard, and yes, there is usually some wood to be split right about where she put it off to the left.

Another view with
the artist's cousin on his
snowmachine.
The front of the house with the
Orca cutout on the door.
My niece is halfway through her second year in a school for chefs.  

Slowly as I was coming awake this morning and checking facebook this note showed up and then the ensuing conversation.  Her project is a gingerbread house which I recognized almost immediately.

She and her significant other had visited there a couple of years ago.  She built this scenario mostly from memory (but admitted to a few peeks at the Internet) and the detail is pretty amazing.  I am putting explanations in the photo captions, so bear with us.

Here is a portion of the conversation as it went on facebook:

Niece: go look at pics i just put up
11:26am
The north side of the house.  The wood stacked under the house is
right where i put it. The design in the large window is
supposed to be the reflection of Mount McKinley.
Me: Love it.
do you mind if i share?
11:26am
Niece: go for it
11:27am
Me with a wiseass comment or two about my influence on your tender young mind
11:27am
Niece: well of course!
11:27am
Me the blue roof is the giveaway
11:27am
Niece: not the orca?
11:27am
Me  OMG i hadn't noticed that
11:27am
Niece: the blue roof almost didn't happen...  I had to look at the pics you have up on the web last night to make sure the colors were clos-ish
11:28am
This is the view of Mount McKinley from that window.
Me closish enough
wow that is just amazing.
11:28am
Niece: eh, there was some artistic license in there
11:28am
Me I am going to have to look for a picture with the orca on the door to compare
11:29am
Niece: everyone else was doing more traditional gingerbread houses...  I wanted one that told a story
11:29am
Me of course there always is......  but the story of a reclusive uncle?
11:29am
Niece:  or the Uncle who lives far away and has neato adventures
I almost hid a bear in the outhouse but decided against it
The back of the house. I love the candy cane pilings
supporting it.
Then there was this exchange about the quality of the work.

Niece:  i am way too critical
judging is tomorrow morning
11:32am
Me: ok let me know
11:32am
Niece:  mine is the most lively, but not the most clean

 11:32am
One of those chores that has to be done when we have
a heavy snow winter, shoveling the roof.  One winter
there was seven feet on it. Isn't the smoke 

coming out of the chimney cool?
Me: ok here is how to express that.   this is a rustic scene.   when building in the bush nothing is ever square and level lol (especially if it has stood there for almost 30 years and endured several earthquakes)

It is to be judged for her class work and then if she wins there, it will go to a city-wide competition, a cheffy thing as the artist says

And last, the raven in the spruce with a snowmachine
standing by.
To be honest I was knocked over.  How neat is all I can think of to say.

  
Thank you, Celeste, you just put a smile in Christmas.


AN UPDATE: This from the artist a few days later:  "End of the story I did not win.  Not sure of how the judging went down but a friend of mine did win so that was a happy thing.  Our Chef instructor said we all got A's and it was the best group of houses they have had in years to choose from."

However, she won with an A+ with a tougher bunch of judges, the Jones Family.

Winter warmth in the age of recycling



 One of the drawbacks of the layoff from the newspaper last February didn't become evident until just a few days ago when the pile of fire-starting newspapers dwindled to nothing.  There was always a ready supply of discarded papers to bring home for that purpose, but the pile hasn’t been replenished since then.  It actually takes more newspapers these days.  The shrinking of papers in the era of electronic journalism led one old Alaska hand to complain, "there ain't enough paper in one to start a good fire."

This seemingly endless period of days when the temperature stays between zero and minus 20, ate up the supply left over from last winter pretty quickly.

Faced with building one of those Boy Scout fires with a little teepee of sticks and some tinder made of crumpled up tiny spruce twigs, which was not going to happen, the search began for a new supply.  So, with the temperature up to a warm minus 10 the first stop was the neighborhood transfer station.  The lady there was very helpful, saying, no, no newspaper there, but try the recycling center to which she furnished the map.  A quick perusal showed it was an old map and the center hadn't been where the  map showed for at least three or four years.

A 15-mile trip to the borough landfill led to the center which was just down the road, fortunately. At the center a very pleasant woman said, yes, indeed, there was newspaper available  She pointed the way, produced  a pair of noise suppression ear protectors, a bright orange safety vest and indicated a door that opened into the main plant.  In there after a few shouts back and forth with an also ear-protected forklift driver, he pointed out a pallet filled with already bundled throwaway newspapers.  Better than a treasure chest!

Two of those bundles looked sufficient especially now that a ready supply was just a few miles away, but on the way out that nice woman called and said you have to pay for those.

What?

She must have picked up on that first reaction because she called out the person responsible for the collection.  He quickly began explaining why they charged, mostly, he said it was to keep track of how much material the recycling center has kept out of landfills.

A dollar a bundle didn't seem all that bad, particularly when it was going to such a worthy operation.  What followed was a conversation about all the uses the people had found for recycled materials.  But he hadn't thought of the use of newsprint for starting fires.  He seemed open to the idea of getting one of those rollers and producing newsprint logs.

But he did point this out: From January to September this year the recycling center diverted and processed 1,132 tons of material, sold another 8 tons through the reuse store, like those two bundles of newspaper; and, kept another 300 tons of recovered resources out of the landfill by indirect means.  One of those was material for making building insulation. All in all this little recycling center hidden away in an obscure part of the group of valleys in the borough, kept 1,440 tons of all kinds of refuse out of the landfill.

That and making the fire now warming this little house much easier to build.

END NOTE: For those in the area, the (Matanuska-Susitna) Valley Community for Recycling Solutions plans an open house beginning at 1 p.m. Dec. 21 complete with Santa and Mrs. Claus to explain recycling for the kids.  The date also celebrates two years since the center opened.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Creeping white death

It's been zero or below it seems like forever now, probably a month.  Today it has been 20 below just about all day.  Might have gone up to minus 10 for a while,  all of it leading to literary inspirations like this one:


Cold crept across the land like a misty white shroud of death, leaving only a mortal silence, a silence similar to what a man must leave at the moment of passing.  But unlike the man whom others would take away, the cold stayed, its frost coating the tree limbs and twigs, a hole in one trunk frosty all the way around as if the tree exhaled there and its breath froze. A slight covering of snow provided the only music and that only when one stepped on it. That crunch of shattering flakes of ice and the frozen leaves underneath signaling the passage of anything heavy enough to crush the crystals something that seldom happens in the immobilization of the world at this temperature.

Monday, December 3, 2012

How much wood could a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck wood


 Ten below zero today but still had a new visitor.  Well, not new, but he stuck around today and I went outside and stalked a little.  It is either a hairy or a three-toed woodpecker.  They look very much alike.  I noticed on the earlier shots with the downy on the feeder and now this one, look how they stabilize their position on the tree with their tail feathers.

Here's a gallery of more shots of this one today plus others that have visited this winter so far.

On an unrelated note: There's a new gadget on this blog at the bottom of this column.  Take a look and if you want to see whose writing yours resembles, click the link.  I am all OK with who I resemble.  My friend who writes a lot of nonfiction wildlife and adventure books, got Rudyard Kipling.  See what yours is like and post it as a comment.

Friday, November 30, 2012

The singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound






Back when I had to do such things I always thought it was a good day when it started with a mechanical success.  Well, today, it may have taken a good part of the afternoon, but my first project turned out to be a computer success.

A couple of days ago I managed to transfer all the killer whale calls I recorded on cassettes in Prince William Sound to digital.  Since then it has been one experiment after another to somehow get those sounds published online.  After several attempts at trying to publish the raw audio, I gave up and started playing with iMovie, and voila, on only the third attempt,  connected the gallery of whale photos with one tape of the best of the sounds recorded and this is it.  I hope it is enjoyed.

And, yes, I know a lot of the photos are a little fuzzy. In my defense, first they are all taken from the moving platform of a boat and I always had to drive the boat and make sure other people got good photos and all I could do for the most part is quick shots out the wheelhouse door.

Here are links to other posts about the whales on this blog:

Whale watching: Who's watching whom?

Sorry, Sea World trainers, no sympathy

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

A correlation between cold and random observations?


Perhaps a boreal chickadee

Thoughts these days seem to be more random than coherent, even.  Part of that is probably due to the fact that we have had clear and cold weather  zero to ten below, and no snow for what seems like a month.  Tends to discourage outside activity.

So here's another conglomeration from a reclusive Alaska life.  First, a new bird species.  That fellow on the right, I am pretty sure, is a boreal chickadee, the first one spotted around here.  They've probably been here before but just went unnoticed or unidentified.  Lighting is pretty poor now that the sun has gone behind the mountain until sometime in February so getting the colors right is hit and miss.  Boreals have something of a reddish breast while the others are white.

Also showing up this week a hairy woodpecker.  Only got a fleeting look at him but he held on there long enough for a quick slightly fuzzy photo.  Only regulars that haven't bee around are the ruffed grouse but they have usually showed up later in winter, so there's lots of time.  That plus with only an inch of snow cover, they are probably finding enough food in their usual haunts.

Hairy woodpecker probably.
On the world front, just a couple of things:  First, remember when the 24-hour sports networks started up?  You were as likely to see a Lithuanian men's water polo game as you were to see American baseball, anything to fill the time.  That sure has changed.  Now in between games and a news update here and there all those networks have to offer as a bunch of guys shouting at each other as if whoever Jim Harbaugh picks to start at quarterback is just as important as fiscal cliffs or wars in Afghanistan. 

And given how good they are at predicting the outcomes of games, they have no more credibility than any of the rest of us. Given a choice the networks could dump those characters and show us more of that game in Afghanistan where horsemen fling a goat's head around.

On a brighter side, something cool came out of the Sandy Storm disaster.  I saw two different stories about guys who owned hybrid cars, using the stored electricity run through converters to power things like lights, microwave ovens, cell phone chargers and almost anything else they needed to use.  Mine had a 90-volt battery  and some others go up to 100.  They will recharge on less than a gallon of gas so they are pretty efficient as well.  Then there's one that has solar charging and that just might be the emergency ticket.  Come to think of it, an inverter on a regular car battery would at least charge the cell phone or iPad.  Give those guys credit for inventiveness.

Black-capped chickadee all fluffed out to keep warm.
A while back, there was a post about killer whales with a rather large photo gallery.  In it I said someday I would get my audio tapes of the whales transferred to digital.  Did that. Now trying to figure out how to post them.

And then last, that picture at the right, a regular old black-capped chickadee but taken with a new toy.  More of that to come.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving perfection -- man style


There are some real advantages to living alone.  On of the biggest arguments I remember in the family when I was there for a holiday meal came during a football game.  It was 1971, when the Kansas City Chiefs met the Miami Dolphins in a playoff game, one that turned out to still be the longest game in NFL history.  It lasted 82 minutes.

But the NFL meant nothing to my mother and her dinner schedule for that Christmas Day. Born of rigid German stock the schedule was hers and woe be to anyone who didn't want to go along. When dinner was ready you went to the dining room.  She called dinner a few minutes before the end of regulation.  I objected and said the game was almost over.  Even that was not going to be tolerated, but by the time everyone moved to the table and we argued a bit, the game ended.  Well, it  headed into the fith quarter.  I put up a fight,  offering to eat in front of the television.  No one was going to be allowed to do that.  All right, I'll come to the table for the prayer and back to the game. Nope, you are in my house, you will sit down at the table when I say it's time.  But this is a playoff game. 

Not too important to her, I could tell, as she crossed her arms and planted her feet glaring at me.
All right I just won't eat dinner then.  That of course was not going to be tolerated, nor was sitting at the table where I could see the television.  I even offered to do that with the sound turned off. There was no one else in the family even vaguely interested in football so I was on my own. Today, I can't rmember how it ended, but I am pretty sure I capitulated, rather than bear the guilt of spoiling everyone's Christmas dinner. She was good at guilt.

Miami went on to win the game on a field goal halfway through the sixth quarter.  But I didn't get to see that.

So with that as background, here's the perfection.

Three games today and I worked it out this way:   During halftime of the second game, Washington Redskins vs. Dallas Cowboys, I managed to mix the stuffing, stuff the turkey and get it into the oven and only miss about two minutes of the third quarter.  I pulled off a few odds and ends during commercials.  Then, at halftime between the Patriots and Jets, the turkey, obviously a small one, was done.  It was a long halftime and that helped.  I manged a quick pot of green beans, mashed the potatoes,  mixed up the gravy, hacked a couple of pieces of meat off the turkey and dug out a couple of serving spoons full of stuffing.  Made it back in front of the TV with a plate full of Thanksgiving in time for the second half kickoff. And I did it all without any real hurry.

So, pie?  I ought to have digested just enough to make room for that by the end of the game.
All of it accomplished and I might have missed two or three plays is all;  oh, except for falling asleep during the second quarter of the first game.  And, no arguments about anything.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Creative exercise for the paranoid


A thought after yet another detective TV show in which an almost impossible preponderance of circumstantial evidence tells you despite all of it, this is not the criminal because it is just too early in the broadcast:

OK, here is the exercise:  Quickly, ignoring random violence or something that happened in the commission of another crime (say, robbery), if you, yourself, were found murdered, who would the prime suspect be?  Don't think it through, you probably already have the answer.  Who was the first person who came to mind?

Now turn it around.  In whose murder would you be the prime suspect?

Most of us live lives much less dramatic than a television detective show, so answers might not come very easily.  I had a quick answer for one of them, but not the other and don't expect it to be revealed.  After all, neither of us might have a provable alibi in case something were ever to happen to the other and saying it here might end up being part of that circumstantial evidence.

All sitcoms tonight.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Some days it's great to be a writer, even an old one

This from Tom Walker who produced all of the marvelous images in the "Wild Critters" books.

At a book sale and signing today a handsome young woman, a smile as wide as the Susitna, ran up and asks, "Do you have any Wild Critters" left?" The answer was just one and she bought it. We had a nice conversation and then she said, "I loved that book when I was kid." Now, Timothy, author pal, in an instant I felt 100 years old...so, share the moment...

P.S. She knew one of your poems by heart! The duck one, of all things.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Some random thoughts over the course of an Alaska winter day

Not sure here whether to start or end with the lighter part of the day,  So, maybe start in the middle if that's all right with everyone.


 For some reason today seemed to be a day where the idea of alternative energy showed up in several places,  First there was the picture the other day of a high speed rail line in Europe. Built over the tracks was what looked like a miles-long cover creating something of a tunnel for the trains.  The cover consisted of solar panels and the railroad was generating much of its electricity from solar power.  Inventive, don't you think? 

Then this morning somebody posted that other picture.  That is a bridge in Italy where wind generation units had been built right into the structure.  In addition to making use of otherwise unused space, the designers created a bridge that is architecturally pleasing as well as functional. What else should we expect from the people who brought us the Sistine Chapel and the Ferrari?

Those solar panels along the roadside are actually stand
over a high-speed rail line in Europe.
Later in the day,  a story in the Huffington Post told of out-of-work miners hired to install solar panels for a a facility in West Virginia, right in the heart of coal country.  That is something so often left out of the discussions on alternative energy.  Sure those guys were installing the solar panels, but somebody had to build them, and somebody is going to have to maintain them.  Somebody drove the trucks that delivered the raw materials to the factory and somebody has to drive the trucks that deliver the panels to the installation,  There are people who have to design the installations and people who clear the sites for the panels.  Electricians have to connect it all into the national grid.  In other words, that ubiquitous campaign word JOBS.  Yes, isn't it wonderful, the alternative energy industry actually creates jobs. Who knew?

What's bothersome is supposedly the United States is the technological leader of the world.  Oh yeah?  What about the bridge with the wind turbines in Italy, or the European high speed trains in a tunnel of solar panels and that parking lot in Germany mentioned in a previous post  covered by solar panels.  Is there any example  of those in the U.S?  We see fields of wind generators or solar panels but where are we integrating them into infrastructure.  When do we start taking this seriously?   Oh, I remember now, We have a fourth branch of government called the fossil fuels industry.

It seems at least most candidates think you can't get elected in this country unless you say the magic word "jobs."  Well, here are a bunch of jobs just waiting to be created.  But then there are more traditional jobs also, building a pipeline to transport the dirtiest oil possible all the way across the United States from somewhere in Canada almost to the Mexican border.

And, speaking of jobs, did anyone catch all the humor floating around today on the news of Hostess going bankrupt?  Twinkies and their shelf life?  American icons?  Hoarding? My favorite was this one tweeted by that old friend, the Bronx Zoo Cobra: 

"@BronxZoosCobra
You shouldn't be eating Twinkies anyway. They have only 2% of your recommended daily amount of rodent."

And a few people blamed it on unions.  The union movement could be a long discussion to be avoided here, but there is plenty of evidence that paying people a living wage does not necessarily mean a company has to go bankrupt.  Want to see what really did Hostess in?  Who killed Hostess Brands and Twinkies?  Sounds a little bit like Bain, doesn't it?

By accident I happened to see the  other side of the closing today.  I had to go to the Teamsters Building in Anchorage to pick up a credential I need for a job I am trying to obtain.  As I was leaving  a guy stood up to take his turn at this employment counter.  He said he had been laid off by Hostess this morning. All of a sudden the jokes didn't seem so funny anymore. Somewhere I had read 14,000 people were going to lose their jobs. I bet some of them are electricians.  Welcome to the 47 percent.
Two male pine grosbeaks came to the feeders today, the first
of the winter that I have seen.

So, now for the lighter fare.  There seem to be more birds every day, including more chickadees than I have seen before, also juncos and nuthatches and a few female Pine grosbeaks.  This morning two males showed up.

Then, later in the day a hairy woodpecker started pecking around the dead tree out front but he got away before I could grab the camera.  Glad to see him back.  So, that has all the regulars back except the grouse.  I did see another bird that I couldn't identify.  It was probably just smaller  than a robin and all gray that I could see, but the light was coming from the other side of it.  Maybe it will show up again when the sun is shining a little brighter.  Meanwhile they are eating through the sunflower seed as fast as I can get out to the feeders.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Cancer takes a dear friend






As an editor at Alaska Magazine in the late 1970s, part of my job was to talk to people who brought stories in for our consideration.  It's the kind of job that in time you almost dread seeing someone come through the doorway looking anxiously, their precious manuscripts gripped tightly in their hands.  But it had its joys also.  Among the stories about "me and the old lady drove the Alaska highway and thought you would like a story about it;" "I saw the northern lights last night and just had to write a poem about it;" and the literature proposed by young collegiate writers, once in awhile a gem showed up:  a real sourdough's tale of life in the wild, often written in longhand on unlined paper; and even less frequently a beautifully written piece by a competent writer about a subject that Alaska magazine actually wanted.

During that tenure Patricia Monaghan walked into the office.  She was probably in her late 20s or early 30s at the time and working as a journalist in Fairbanks.  I wish I could remember the subject of the manuscript she brought now, but it has escaped me.  What I do remember is recognizing immediately that this was not one of our ordinary contributors.  Beautifully written and expressive the story whatever it was, I recall almost jumped off the page at me as I scanned it.  She was offering the story and also wanting to make contact to send us more as time went on.  One of the unfortunate parts of that job was knowing the magazine would never pay enough to keep the really good writers contributing for very long.  I knew immediately she was one of those.  We would get maybe three or four stories and then she would outgrow us, as so many others had.  But for that short period of time the magazine would benefit.  I doubt I said it that first time, but I am sure I did at some point in our relationship, that she was too good for Alaska Magazine.

Over the next few years we became close friends, often getting together when she came to Anchorage or when I went to Fairbanks.  No matter what we were doing the conversations always turned to writing.  I have never joined writers groups or much wanted to discuss it.  To my mind writing is not a team sport; it is done alone, isolated and best kept in isolation.  Pat was more of a group person, but she also understood.  Talking about writing with her was different. We weren't discussing and criticizing each other's work.  We discussed craft and word usage and at times even read a little of each other's work when asked and offered suggestions.

The work she hadn't shown anyone else yet was what impressed me most.  At that time she was just beginning to explore what would become her life's work.  I realized that of all the authors I knew or know personally, she was the one whose talent and intelligence left me in awe, the one person I ever knew who I accepted was a much  better writer than I am.  When someone I thought that much of, told me she liked something I wrote, it held great meaning for me.  She was never overly effusive, she wasn't like that  so I was pretty sure she wouldn't lie to me just to be nice.  She was very selective in what she complimented and never criticized, and I could tell by what she didn't mention what she didn't like and those parts I would work on.  I did the same with her. 

In the 80s we lost track of each other for a while.  She left Alaska for Chicago and I went off on my adventure.  The next I heard from her was shortly after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  I had taken her out in Prince William Sound on my boat and she remembered that.

She sent me this poem she wrote about the spill:

There Is No Way Back
By Patricia Monaghan

On the radio, an old friend's voice
chokes with anger and grief.
At the Stony Island intersection
I am stuck, gridlocked in place.

Stalled in traffic uselessly
weeping I listen to the news.
The light turns yellow, red
again; a sudden cry of horns.

Salmon in the tide pool, whales
beside the boat: memories flood me.
The traffic surges forward,
each car spuming its exhaust.

Now the announcer decries
the otters' oil-soaked coats.
I speed home along the freeway
surrounded by the names of animals.

I have fished the Sound, watching
slow fog fall on the blue shore.
--Someone passes me, too fast.
I brake as I approach the exit.

Anchored over the crab pots
I have watched the day moon rise.
A red sun sets now over
the Halsted Street bridge.

I want this to be easier. I want
to forget that oil fueled our boat.
I want to hate the vivid city
as a kind of expiation.

But I've burned trees as fuel.
I have boiled crabs alive.
My trapper friends kill for luxury.
Gardeners rub their hands with Vaseline.

There is no way now to be innocent,
no way for it not to be night and
each of us unprepared to pilot
through these rocky narrows.

And there is no way back.  There is no
part of the world that is not part
of the world.  There is not one of us
who was not on the bridge that night.

It may have been the first, but it was not the last time she brought a tear to my eye.

From then on we corresponded occasionally, the old way with letters actually written on paper, so it was not often.  I recall sending her a copy of  Keep the Round Side Down when it came out and hearing back from her typically finding what she liked "the author long-known as something of a male chauvinist pig, actually wrote a woman character who is interesting, complex, intelligent and strong."

Then the Internet came along and we embraced it.  Our correspondence picked up, first through email and then through social media.  She had a web page, I had a blog, we were both on facebook and we discovered the joy of instant messaging.  With almost instant access we worked through our writing sometimes together at least until we discovered that what we were really doing was encouraging each other's attempt at the greatest of all writing obstacles --  procrastination.  Our conversations fed our procrastinations and in realizing that, we laughed.

Some of those conversations found their way onto this blog.  These are the links:




Then late last year she was diagnosed with cancer.  Soon that often became the subject of our conversations even though we tried to steer clear of it.  She suffered through several unsuccessful therapies and we discussed them.  I have never been through this with anyone before and was not sure how to act, what to say, what to do.  I had all the sympathy in the world for her and at times her pain and her frustration were mine as well, though I know mine could not have been nearly as severe as hers.  I thought about it quite a bit and decided a lot of sympathetic words were not going to help, nor was phony encouragement.  In her posts on Caringbridge and to friends she said this was going to be fatal but none of us wanted to believe her.

I finally decided that if I could, I would do things to make her life more bearable, perhaps even giving her some joy.  I started telling her stupid jokes.  It thrilled me when she would write back that one of them had made her laugh.  But that wasn't enough.  When I was laid off last February and people asked me what I was going to do, I only half jokingly had said, "go to the Lady Gaga concert."  So I asked Patricia if I could take her.  She jumped at the idea.  I even sent her links to videos of my favorite Gaga songs.  I bought the tickets.  And several times over the ensuing few months she would mention looking forward to the concert.

When she listed all the things she packed to take to her chemotherapy sessions, I realized many of those could be replaced with an iPad.  As I had just bought a new one; I sent her the one I was replacing.

When I went fishing in September I sent her a bunch of fresh salmon.  One of the last meals she wrote about when she still could actually eat, she had that salmon with a small group of friends.

Since then I noticed a difference in activity.  I seldom received an email.  Her husband Michael McDermott, who endured every minute of the suffering with her, started writing the Caringbridge posts.  I noticed she was seldom on facebook any more and I began to fear the worst.  A couple times I saw a Caringbridge notice in my email and was very hesitant to open the link, not wanting to read what was becoming inevitable.

When one came Sunday morning I didn't open it right away.  Somehow I knew.  I watched some pregames football show for a while, but my mind was racing and also thinking how stupid it was to watch unimportant events on TV when I needed to look at Caringbridge.

When I did, from her husband, this is what I read:  "My beloved Patricia passed away in her sleep last night."

Even expected, it was shocking and I spent most of the day alternately feeling stupid about watching football and fighting back tears.  A few days have passed and I have recovered and accepted what was after all the only outcome as she had told us.  One thing we spoke about at times was as writers we had something to leave behind for others to remember.  Patricia has left more than most, and even more with me because from now on every time I sit down to write I suspect she will be there and that's all right, but she has left a big empty space in my mind as well.

The makeup guerrilla who possesses enormous musical talent, a few years ago wrote a song about a devastating trauma in her life.  In it she described something of a Stockholm syndrome in which she became entangled in the mixed reactions of loathing and, at times, liking what was going on. In the song, as she related her feelings when the trauma finally ended, she could only ask, "what am I going to do now; what am I going to do now?"

That is exactly the feeling overwhelming me as I contemplate the future after the loss of my friend Patricia. What am I going to do now?

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