Thursday, January 28, 2016

A memory for Throwback Thursday

Finally a smile on her face once she got me to
 do it her way.
Well, for lack of anything creative and substantial, elements that have been elusive these days, here's one for Throwback Thursday.

For what reason I have no idea, but today driving around doing errands I got to thinking about the first time I took my daughter into the Bush.

It was Easter weekend, probably in 1978. We had been invited to visit some friends who lived off the highway a hundred and twenty-five miles or so north of Anchorage. We could drive to fairly close but then it was a hike of four or five miles to their cabin. I packed snowshoes and took a sled thinking I could haul my 3-year-old in the sled along with our gear and a box of goodies for our friends.

The day proved bright and sunny, the kind of perfect one you find in late spring in Alaska. The snow on the trail had set up so hard you could walk it like a sidewalk and we headed in. But almost immediately ran into trouble. My daughter absolutely did not want to ride in the sled. She complained, she cried, she was just miserable and I was at a loss for what to do. I let her walk for a while but even as slow as we could go she couldn't keep up, and of, course, as a youngster that age is prone to do, she found dozens of interesting things along the trail to explore rather than keep the pace.

We proceeded slowly. She walked sometimes, then rode in the sled for a while crying all the while. I suppose anyone who has ever dealt with a petulant child who will not be mollified can understand the frustration. When we had gone about halfway, we ran into my friend and his daughter who had started out the trail to meet us. I have often wondered what their first impression of my daughter and her tears was, not to mention what a terrible parent they might have thought I was.

About 10 years later on her first trip to the East Pole I remembered 
the lesson.
But as we stopped and chatted for a minute she resolved the issue. She finally was able to communicate to her child-deaf father what she wanted to do. She wanted to stand up. I looked over our outfit and then slid the box of stuff to the middle of the sled. Then I strung a bungee cord across the top of the box from one side of the sled to the other.

With that she could stand in the back of the sled and hold onto the bungee cord, in the relative position of sled dog drivers, whom she had seen in action previously.

After that she only had two words for me: "Go faster!" Ha! We arrived at our friends' cabin in a short time with one happier camper ready for her adventure.

Monday, January 18, 2016

A single shade of gray

Redpolls did crowd a feeder one day.
A strange pale has fallen across the neighborhood since the return from the East Pole. The sky has been mostly undefined gray and temperatures for a while dropped to near zero. A brief snowfall combined with the cold has coated the trees in a latticework of white. The sun rises and sets behind the mountain still so there is no direct sunlight even as the hours of daylight grow longer by about six minutes a day.

The bird feeders ran out during the absence and there have been very few birds around since I returned and those that do show up have done so on an unusual schedule. They mostly arrive and feed in late afternoon and not many, just a few chickadees and nuthatches. I did see a hairy woodpecker one day and twice about a dozen redpolls came by, but for the most part they have been ignoring my yard. Every morning I go to the windows as soon as there is light to look for birds, but almost every morning no birds are flying around, not even as simple movement among the dense tree branches farther out in the yard. During past Januarys and cold spells they usually worked the feeders all day long and I had to fill them almost daily. I filled them when I first got here and since then have only had to add about half to fill them again and that only once.

One reason may be an aggressive squirrel that I have seen charge at the birds on the ground to chase them away. I saw one up on a feeder one day also, so I let that one go empty and left it that way for a few days. The neighbor's almost feral cat has left tracks all over the yard. too, though there has been no sign it actually caught a bird, at least not yet.

More redpolls.
So you add the gray atmosphere and the lack of birds to the general malaise that accompanies re-entry from an extended adventure and it's fairly easy to imagine the mood around here these days. I stayed at the cabin long enough to be living there. I read years ago that moving residence is one of the five most stressful events in people's lives – leaving the East Pole after a month almost qualifies as a move.


The sun should emerge from behind the mountain any day now, so perhaps things will brighten then and maybe it will bring the birds with it. The East Pole also stands on the north side of a hill and doesn't get sun for a while in winter. Out there I know January 14 is the sun day the first day of the year direct sunlight hits the cabin. That's a date always easy to remember because it is also my son's birthday, another form of son day, if you will. And, to top it off, he was born on a Sunday. As I recall the sun shows up here around the same time so perhaps if the gray ever lifts some sun will shine on this life again and then we can look forward to that first warm kiss of light on a cold cheek that comes as rays from the sun begin to carry some heat with them in February.


Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Passages by the numbers lead to a revelation

That's right, it's a Lady Gaga t-shirt and I got it at a concert.
It's about those milestone birthdays, mostly the ones that have zeroes in them.

The first few you look forward to, those big days in the teens; first big one is the year you can drive. That was 16 in my case. The next was 18; you could drink in New York in those days. Of course you could count on getting drafted at that age also. The next is 21, today's drinking age and in some states, pot age. Oh yeah, in my day that's when you qualified to vote but I don't recall particularly looking  forward to that.

Then somewhere during the next nine years that balance shifts and you begin to dread those birthdays with zeroes in them. Thirty, forty, OMG 50, even.

Thirty was fine; I was embarking on a new job and a new marriage and in that period a move to Alaska, so there wasn't much time to worry about life at 30 and being over the hill.

Forty was the best ever. I had reached several lifetime goals in the previous year; my first book was published, I was an established boat captain, I had recently purchased my own little piece of Alaska where I intended to build a cabin and, I woke up on my 40th birthday in the cabin of a 44-foot sailboat 1,000 miles off Cape Mendocino, California, on my way to Hawaii with a few friends.

Friday, January 1, 2016

New Year's Eve 2015 - 2016

Angels' Light on New Year's Eve.
The day started with a bang. Rain blowing in my face as I opened the door under a deeply gray sky. I did a couple of chores outdoors in the rain, but the main job of splitting firewood was going to have to wait. One of the nice things about Bush life, you often can put things off and wait for better weather. It takes some patience.

Then the preciptiation turned to snow and the wind picked up from the southwest, unusual for this hillside where the wind is usually gentle and comes from the southeast. The snow and wind reached blizzard status for a while as I watched and let my thoughts wander.

The other night I had dinner with some friends who have lived this way and one asked me what I do all day. I didn't have a ready answer and mumbled something about firewood. It's difficult to explain
This is the Glassmasters suncatcher
version of the Michael L. Smith photo
that hangs in my window.
all the little putzing chores and repairs I have done – things I put off on weekends when there isn't much time. Today I thought of an example. I have a stained glass image of the angry bluebird. For years it has hung in the window over my desk but at an angle to the window that didn't allow direct sunlight to shine through. Every time I have noticed that angle it irritates me but I have never bothered to do more than turn the picture which swings right back to its original position. Yesterday as I looked at that bird for a minute it hit me that all I had to do was turn the hook it was hanging from to get it into proper position. Easy peasy, now it is oriented properly; all I need is some sunshine to get the full effect. And that's the kind of stuff I have been doing here for a month in addition to gathering firewood and general chores. Oh yeah, there was the great shrew hunt too.

The blizzard finally blew itself out after some pretty strong gusts. It looked like some trees might go down but I didn't hear or see any. There is that question again - yes trees make sounds when they fall whether anyone is around or not.

About then I noticed the angel's light. Not long after that the sky brightened but left the mountain shaded in clouds all day.

Time to head down the hill and split some wood. I did a couple of sleds full and hauled them one at a time up the hill. Unfortunately I couldn't take the wood directly to the pile because the snow on the roof had started to slide. Shortly after I came out in early December I had gone up on the roof and shoveled down the ridge to break that surface tension and cleared above the smoke stack so the snow would not take the pipe with it when it slid.

Each side of the roof is 392 square feet and covered by densely compacted snow at least two feet deep. That adds up to heavy. You don't want to be under the eaves when that lets go. So I had to dump the wood under the porch for the time being rather than take the chance of having a ton or two of snow land on me.

Back down at the chopping block I heard part of the roof slide, about half the uphill side, no help for access to the firewood piles as they are under the downhill eaves. I split a little more wood and hauled it up to the porch and quit to take a nap. Just as I was dozing off the whole downhill side slid. The house actually feels like it jumps a little when that lets go. Very strange feeling, and no fun when you live in earthquake country and don't expect the roof to give up its snow.


So after dozing a little more I went out and stacked the wood. I've barely scratched the surface and what I've already split is about half a cord.

For New Year's Eve dinner I had a New York strip steak, with a small can of peas. That's the first beef I have had since my medical emergency last spring, well, except for the rare 97 percent lean hamburger. So, all good.

That was probably the biggest meal I've had out here this month except for the rack of lamb at Christmas. I fought through the urge to take a nap because I had one more New Year's Eve plan.

In my putzing I came across two full moving boxes loaded with old receipts, cancelled checks (remember them?), tax returns and one badly conceived novel. That seemed perfect for what I had in mind and as a friend said later, it was a great way to send out the old in order to welcome the new.

I had set those aside for a New Year bonfire and about 10 p.m. headed down the hill to the open spot where I often burn stuff. With help from what little remained in an old can of Coleman fuel, I set myself quite a blaze for a while and as I watched, the Northern Lights came out overhead and stayed for maybe half an hour.  At one time three distinct bright green bands stretched from horizon to horizon. And while the moon was behind the mountain here, its light was hitting Denali and at 11 o'clock at night, dark, you could still see the mountain almost 200 miles away.

Very few recollections came to mind from the past year despite the tranquility of the moment. Except for the aforementioned medical event, it was a pretty uneventful year. It closed out with this wonderful month at the East Pole, so that's at least a positive ending as is the fact that there is more firewood under the house now than when I arrived Dec. 1.

But there is this: With Elon Musk in the world and his succes with Space-X completing a round trip into space, I feel very safe in saying, "yeah, baby, let's go for another orbit and ride this rock around the sun one more time."

Angels' Light

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