Friday, June 25, 2021

A close encounter of the bear kind

Not the same bear. This one ran 
through our yard in Valdez then 
hid behind a tree in a yard across
the street.
 After a black bear and her cubs interrupted a foot race in Anchorage recently, an Alaska-themed 
facebook page asked followers to offer their stories of bear encounters. While considering that I realized I had never put an account of my closest grizzly encounter here, so rather than lose it among many and perhaps more exciting stories, I’m putting mine here instead.

It happened this way: If you’ve read this blog before you probably know the cabin at the East Pole stands high on a hillside. In the days when I smoked, rather than have the place smell like a smoker lived there, my favorite place to smoke was leaning out an open window with a view downhill and all the way to Denali. Doing that a day after I’d hiked in one August, I heard a loud crack of wood below me and somewhat off to the west. As I watched, a full-grown grizzly broke out of the brush at the bottom of the hill. Behind her came one, and then another and then a third cub. These were second-year cubs almost fully grown but just enough smaller than the mother to identify them as yearlings.

As they progressed across the bottom of the hill the sow approached the beaten down weeds I had trampled on my way up to the cabin the day before. I figured she would catch my scent and want nothing to do with a human and head on to the east. Instead, she halted, snuffled a little, lifted her head to look around and then put her nose down and turned to follow my trail. I watched her slowly progress toward the turn that led uphill and when she reached it she started up the hill with the cubs hot on her heels. As the situation developed, it proved fascinating for a time until I realized she would follow that trail right to the cabin and maybe I should get ahead of this situation before it turned serious. With a warning flashing in my head of a friend’s comment one time:  “I like to make it uncomfortable for bears to be around me,” I crossed the cabin considering the options. I decided to grab the large-bore rifle I carry for bears, but also a handful of bottle rockets and a lighter from a stash I keep next to the door for just such occasions.

Then I stepped out onto the porch. I did that just in time to see her back as she turned the corner in tall grass that led straight to the cabin, her nose still down on the trail. At this point she only had about 50 feet to where I stood and she was approaching fast.

Not letting go of the rifle, I fumbled a bottle rocket out of the pack and holding it in the hand and arm that also cradled the rifle, I flicked the lighter and lit the fuse. I held it long enough for sparks to begin coming out of the cracker with enough force to fly off and let it go. It landed in front of her just before it went off.

What happened next left a lasting impression. First I heard a roar, then she stood up on her hind legs, her head swinging from side to side trying to locate the source of what to her probably had changed from food to danger. Now, any grizzly or brown bear I had ever been close to was stuffed and on display. In those poses, the fur is always matted down and the bear looks skinny. Let me tell you a full-grown, live bear only 20 feet from you with its fur puffed out looks a whole lot more formidable  than that bear in the airport. Still I kept my head and managed to light off another bottle rocket. This one hit her high in the chest between her forelegs when it went off. With that she let out another roar and did something of a bear pirouette, dropped down onto the first cub in line where it squealed loudly. All three took off running back down the hill.

I watched them disappear into thick brush, but as I listened, the sounds of their escape stopped way too soon. They had gone out of sight, then apparently stopped still trying to figure out what she was running from. I’m not sure she ever saw me standing on the porch above her.

After that experience I found a use for this gift from my
            kids. Motion detector Billy Bass ought to frighten any
            bear off the porch. "Take me to the river …"
With my friend’s advice still loud in my head, I tried to make their visit more uncomfortable yet and fired another rocket in the general direction they had run. I heard another roar and then what sounded like four bulldozers hurriedly pushing through the brush in a generally northwest direction. This time their noise slowly fell off as they made their way farther from the cabin and I started to breathe a little easier. In time I couldn’t hear them anymore and figured that was the last I would see of them, at least that day. I took some bear precautions like putting some pots and pans on the porch that would make noise if they came up onto it.

About half an hour later, I was moving around outside (my rifle close at hand) and I heard three distinct gunshots quite a distance away in the direction the bears had headed. At that point I found myself hoping someone hadn’t shot them — that those were just “bottle-rocket” warning shots.

At that point I took a little measure of congratulations to self; we had met with no damage to anyone and we all lived and maybe even the bears had learned a lesson in avoiding humans. When I hiked out a couple of days later I watched the trail carefully where I guessed those shots had been fired but saw no signs of a violent meeting anywhere.


Black bears interrupt Mayor's Marathon

Lost hiker found after bear encounter

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Sunday, June 13, 2021

Aging — a different perspective

Two incidents recently brought about a detour on the road through aging. The first was fairly simple. As I was waiting for the consultation on my regular semi-annual lab tests. As I was waiting for my turn I watched an elderly man hobble out — bent over, moving slowly, shuffling his feet in short steps. I watched until he disappeared. Later after the meeting with the doctor, I was checking out and had a brief interchange with the doctor and the office manager. The latter asked how I was doing. I looked at the doctor and said “she could probably tell you better than I can. I feel pretty darn good.” I don’t know why but I always like to joke with medical people.” I mentioned a couple of problems had turned up then blew it off saying I all told I am in great shape and added “and I bet I am older than that guy who just shuffled out of here.” The doctor’s eyes widened, but then she agreed” “Yes, you are.” With that and feeling good I skipped out of the place.

The second one was a little more intricate and gave a pause for the cause. I went for a consultation over an ultrasound examination of my carotid arteries, both have which have been operated on in recent years to clear blockages. (I know, hold your snickers; there WAS a reduction of blood flow to my brain. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?) Anyway in the lead-up to the meeting an aide was gathering my vital information and in the process accidentally called me old. Then she caught herself and apologized effusively.

I told her she didn’t have to apologize. I said, don’t; I AM old, I’m 78 for crying out loud.”

“Yeah but …”

“Look,” I said, “ I don’t mind being old and I don’t deny it and I don’t try to look or feel younger.

“ You can’t fix aging, but you can deal with it.”

“First you have to own it. Accept it. You are never going to be younger so why worry about that? “And you really can’t fight it.

“But you don’t have to give in to it. Keep doing what you want to do, even if you have to slow down a bit or figure out better ways to lift heavy objects and most of all (in my case anyway) stay focused on what you are doing, don’t let your mind wander when you start out to do something. That way you will have fewer times when you walk into the kitchen and forget why you went there. I'm mpot talking about the bigger things in life that take focus, but more about the minor things like walking or tying your shoes. Last wintr I was walk among the woodpiles under the cabin and instead of watching where I was going my mind went somewhere else. Not focused on where I stepped I put my full body weight onto a chunk of firewood that rolled underneath my foot, I lost my balance, twisted as I fell and landed on my back, slamming my head hard on one of the cabin's support pilings. I had to check myself for a concussion after that one. Or it can be even simpler. I have often found myself in tying up my boots, my fingers wrestling with laces for minutes at a time while my mind gos off to vist a girlfriend from 1981. That's the stuff that needs focus.

I used to joke about memory loss, minor loss anyway, like when you can’t remember the name of an actor in a movie, or that the safety lock on your chainsaw is most likely why you can’t rotate the chain. It’s because at this age you have so much more embedded in your memory than when you were younger and it takes longer to find a single bit of information. So, not an age problem but a data and machine memory storage problem. Then I read one day that there is scientific research done on this very subject and my joke is true. The mind stores immense numbers of information bytes and has difficulty finding a single fact in all that storage. I wish I had saved the article.

So, moving on, owning my age and even looking forward to what I can do at 80, which is only a year and a half away.

I have never been one to set long-term abstract goals, but one keeps turning up and popping out of that database. I don’t wish him or that guy hobbling out of the doctor’s office any ill. My aging had nothing to do with them and theirs has nothing to do with mine, except for one little thing.

I would like to outlive Keith Richards. That’s all.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021

Kitty

 How long has it been? Six years plus, I think, since the day “they” picked you up. A long silence. I have no idea if you’re dead of alive. Alive, I hope, and in your mid-30s. The only reason I am writing today is I watched The Golden Compass tonight. That is one of the movies we were going to watch together and it brought you to mind. I guess from now on I will watch them alone. I won’t load you up with my story because there are lots of ways to keep track of me and if you give a shit at all you have done it already. So, best wishes. The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful,

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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

Commenting on an athlete with hearing impairment he said the player didn’t show any “uncomfortability.” “He's not doing things he can't do."

"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

"He's got to have the lead if he's going to win this race." "

"Kansas has always had the ability to score with the basketball."

"NFL to put computer chips in balls." Oh, that's gotta hurt.

"Now that you're in the finals you have to run the race that's going to get you on the podium."

"It's very important for both sides that they stay on their feet."

This is why you get to hate sportscasters. Kansas beats Texas for the first time since 1938. So the pundits open their segment with the question "let's talk about what went wrong." Wrong? Kansas WON a football game! That's what went RIGHT!

"I brought out the thermostat to show you how cold it is here." Points to a thermometer reading zero in Minneapolis.

"It's tough to win on the road when you turn the ball over." Oh, really? Like you can do all right if you turn the ball over playing at home?

Cliches so embedded in sportscasters' minds they can't help themselves: "Minnesota fell from the ranks of the undefeated today." What ranks? They were the only undefeated team left.

A good one: A 5'10" player went up and caught a pass off a defensive back over six feet tall. The quote? "He's got some hops."

Best homonym of the day so far: "It's all tied. Alabama 34, Kentucky 3." Oh, Tide.

"Steve Hooker commentates on his Olympic pole vault gold medal." When "comments" just won't do.

"He's certainly capable of the top ten, maybe even higher than that."

"Atlanta is capable of doing what they're doing."

"Biyombo, one of seven kids from the Republic of Congo." In the NBA? In America? In his whole country?

"You can't come out and be aggressive but you can't come out and be unaggressive."

"They're gonna be in every game they play!"

"First you have to get two strikes on the hitter before you get the strikeout."

"The game ended in the final seconds." You have to wonder when the others ended or are they still going on?

How is a team down by one touchdown before the half "totally demoralized?"

"If they score runs they will win."

"I think the matchup is what it is"

After a play a Houston defender was on his knees, his head on the ground and his hand underneath him appeared to clutch a very sensitive part of the male anatomy. He rolled onto his back and quickly removed his hand. (Remember the old Cosby routine "you cannot touch certain parts of your body?") Finally they helped the guy to the sideline and then the replay was shown. In it the guy clearly took a hard knee between his thighs. As this was being shown, one of the announcers says, "It looks like he hurt his shoulder." The other agrees and then they both talk about how serious a shoulder injury can be. Were we watching the same game?

"Somebody is going to be the quarterback or we're going to see a new quarterback."

"That was a playmaker making a play.”