Oh yeah? What's good about it?

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning  Center which is just up the road from here, released this animation of the 1964 tsunami for Good Friday this year.

Every year when Good Friday comes around, the apprehension level rises a bit.  While Christians go to church, others of us check our emergency stashes to make sure we're ready for some sort of disaster.  Of course it's a bit of exaggeration, but that apprehension has its roots in reality.

You see, the two biggest disasters in the history of Alaska occurred on Good Fridays.  Those would be the largest earthquake ever measured in North America and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, now only the second largest U.S. oil spill after BP outdid us in the Gulf of Mexico a couple of years ago.

Just for background: That earthquake measured 9.2 on the scale and destroyed parts or all of several communities along the southcentral coast of Alaska.  The quake and tsunami killed 115 people, some of them as far south as Crescent City, California.  A lot has been written about it and there isn't much value in repeating all that here as is the case with Exxon Valdez as well.

But the coincidence of Good Friday disasters may be something to acknowledge.

Now, on another, lighter note, there is the word "tsunami."  Years ago I used the term "tidal wave" in a short news item in Alaska magazine.  A scientist friend wrote a friendly letter pointing out that seismic sea waves have nothing to do with tides and the proper term is "tsunami."  I wrote back (not for publication) that my job as a writer was to translate scientific language to common English to better allow the general public to understand.  But, at the same time I did not wish to be deliberately wrong, so in the future I would refer to those waves as "goddam big waves."  But the story didn't end there.  A few years later I met a woman who spoke fluent Japanese, enough so that she taught English in Japan for a time.  I asked her if there was a literal translation for "tsunami."  She had to do a bit of research, but in time came up with this answer: "literally translated from the Japanese, tsunami means tidal wave."  Oh well.

Anyway, Happy Easter. Let's hope we get there again.

It seems Alaska isn't the only place that has suffered Good Friday disasters. After a couple of comments on my facebook page, I did a search and found several more

1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on Good Friday.
1979 Though it happened March 28, Three-Mile Island nuclear plant meltdown was still considered a potential disaster on Good Friday April 13.
1788 Massive fire destroyed 850 buildings in Spanish colonial New Orleans
1968  Interisland New Zealand ferry Wahine hits reef and sinks, killing 53 people
2011 Tornado leaves 22-mile path of destruction through St. Louis area.
2010 Powerful winter storm hits several North Dakota counties, knocking out 10,000 power poles and hundreds of miles of electrical lines.

And winter drives on into spring

View from the East Pole March 23, 2013

This is just a teaser because nothing has been posted in a while.  To rearrange a cliche: "Words at 11."

Those who criticize old age, are condemned to live it

I've tried to keep this blog, if not positive, at least humorous.  But one lingering thought has overridden that goal, so it is shared here and then we move on.

Several years ago, a woman whom I once loved, and incidentally prided herself on her frankness, told me I was old and unattractive.

She turned 50 today. 

How does it feel, Beyotch?

The long way home

It's been way too long and, well, too nice out, so here's something interesting anyway.

There's a story floating around today about a dog that escaped an Iditarod musher about 300 miles into the race and eventually made it most of that distance almost to home.  An old friend who used to live in Nome posted it on facebook and I took advantage to point out this was not the first time an escaped dog had made the journey back home.  As a matter of fact the leader of the first team to win the Iditarod, way back in 1973, escaped almost immediately after crossing the finish line.

There is one error in the news story in the clipping. It is a lot farther than 107 miles from Nome to Red Devil. Here is what I wrote from this and other sources:

"(Dick)Wilmarth’s lead dog, Hotfoot, didn’t hear all the speeches and hoopla at the finish. Somehow in the milieu of the arrival and being unhitched from the sled and team, the dog took off that same day. A frantic search of Nome failed to locate him and his owner eventually had to go home without his most famous dog. Thirty-one days later, Hotfoot trotted into Red Devil, lean and hungry but other than that, in fairly good shape. It’s 344 air miles from Nome to Red Devil and that probably only begins to measure the circuitous route a dog might take. In the process, he had to cross the Yukon and the Kuskokwim rivers, though most likely both were still frozen in April. None of the accounts mention whether he still wore that collar of bells when he reached Red Devil." -- From the upcoming book tentatively entitled Iditarod -- The First 10 Years.

The collar of bells refers to something that happened in Nome.  A law dating back to gold rush days requires mushers driving dog teams in town to hang a bell on their lead dogs to warn people they are approaching.  When Dick Wilmarth pulled up onto Front Street to win the first Iditarod, a woman walked out, blocked his way, and put a collar of bells on his lead dog.  Welcome to NomeAlaska.  (That's not a typo.  People there say "NomeAlaska" as if it were all one word.