Living in Homer, Alaska can be not only beautiful to behold but exciting to experience. We live near a neighborhood of volcanoes across Cook Inlet. Mt. St. Augustine had erupted in 2007 causing ash to be dropped across the bay and east of Homer. In January, 2009 we had a heart stopping 6.5 earth quake. Mt. Iliamna rattled and rolled and even gave us a lot of red on the webicorders (www.avo.alaska.edu) that week indicating earthquake activity. By February and March, it was the activity of Mt. Redoubt. For two weeks, Redoubt shot ash to the sky north, closing down all our airports, limiting travel, and trapping thousands of travelers in Seattle and Anchorage. Many of our south central Alaska travelers had been landing 600 miles north of us in Fairbanks, renting cars, and driving south to get home. I had heard there was enough ash on the international airport in Anchorage (250 miles north of us) that they were thinking about bringing in truck loads of snow, just to plow up the ash so jets could once again land. A week later, they lowered the emergency notices on Redoubt from Red to Orange and we thought it was over. It had missed us and we were ash free in Homer. The first time Redoubt went off with a wind in our direction, no one still believed it would come southeast after all the false calls of the recent past. I had to teach school all day and parents came to get their children early, only to rush home to safety and to get ready for the ash that destroys cars, furnaces, and anything electrical. Teachers stayed until the last of the children were gone and were told to immediately evacuate. We sealed our outside classroom doors with wide tape and put large plastic bags on the computers before leaving. Everything outside was covered with a thin layer of wet snow and ash. Face masks were provided by the school district for everyone. The ash, a very fine face powder in consistency, stung our eyes and the air reeked of sulfur. The masked auto mechanics teacher hosed down our cars, so we could see to get home. We were told not to use our windshield wipers because the ash would cut the glass. I struggled to see through the grey mud as it got so thick on my five mile drive home. I had to turn on the wipers twice to thin it out as I inched down East End Rd safely while praying I wasn’t doing too much damage to my car. A few days later, all was normal again as though nothing had happened. We were back at school, and the ash seemed to have disappeared. The serenity of life in Homer didn’t last long before things got weird again. In April, I woke up on a Saturday morning to the sound of jets taking off from our tiny Homer, Alaska airport. “Jets, I thought. We never get jets this time of year.” But then, was it jets? Was I dreaming? “Thunder, it must be that,” I thought. “No can’t be, we don’t get thunder in Alaska in the winter, only in the summer.” I stayed in bed. Dawn was breaking, and it was light outside. It was my day off and I could be lazy. Then the phone rattled and rang. I jumped out of bed to answer it. It was my good friend, Jerry. He lived between me and Mt. Redoubt. “Linda, the volcano just erupted big time, and the cloud of ash is coming your way! Did you hear it?” Jerry said.
I am going to enter it again. You can't see paragraphs.
Living by Volcanoes By Linda Thompson
Living in Homer, Alaska can be not only beautiful to behold but exciting to experience. We live near a neighborhood of volcanoes across Cook Inlet. Mt. St. Augustine had erupted in 2007 causing ash to be dropped across the bay and east of Homer. In January, 2009 we had a heart stopping 6.5 earth quake. Mt. Iliamna rattled and rolled and even gave us a lot of red on the webicorders (www.avo.alaska.edu) that week indicating earthquake activity. By February and March, it was the activity of Mt. Redoubt.
For two weeks, Redoubt shot ash to the sky north, closing down all our airports, limiting travel, and trapping thousands of travelers in Seattle and Anchorage. Many of our south central Alaska travelers had been landing 600 miles north of us in Fairbanks, renting cars, and driving south to get home. I had heard there was enough ash on the international airport in Anchorage (250 miles north of us) that they were thinking about bringing in truck loads of snow, just to plow up the ash so jets could once again land. A week later, they lowered the emergency notices on Redoubt from Red to Orange and we thought it was over. It had missed us and we were ash free in Homer.
The first time Redoubt went off with a wind in our direction, no one still believed it would come southeast after all the false calls of the recent past. I had to teach school all day and parents came to get their children early, only to rush home to safety and to get ready for the ash that destroys cars, furnaces, and anything electrical. Teachers stayed until the last of the children were gone and were told to immediately evacuate. We sealed our outside classroom doors with wide tape and put large plastic bags on the computers before leaving. Everything outside was covered with a thin layer of wet snow and ash.
Face masks were provided by the school district for everyone. The ash, a very fine face powder in consistency, stung our eyes and the air reeked of sulfur. The masked auto mechanics teacher hosed down our cars, so we could see to get home. We were told not to use our windshield wipers because the ash would cut the glass. I struggled to see through the grey mud as it got so thick on my five mile drive home. I had to turn on the wipers twice to thin it out as I inched down East End Rd safely while praying I wasn’t doing too much damage to my car. A few days later, all was normal again as though nothing had happened. We were back at school, and the ash seemed to have disappeared.
The serenity of life in Homer didn’t last long before things got weird again. In April, I woke up on a Saturday morning to the sound of jets taking off from our tiny Homer, Alaska airport. “Jets, I thought. We never get jets this time of year.” But then, was it jets? Was I dreaming? “Thunder, it must be that,” I thought. “No can’t be, we don’t get thunder in Alaska in the winter, only in the summer.” I stayed in bed. Dawn was breaking, and it was light outside. It was my day off and I could be lazy.
Then the phone rattled and rang. I jumped out of bed to answer it. It was my good friend, Jerry. He lived between me and Mt. Redoubt.
“Linda, the volcano just erupted big time, and the cloud of ash is coming your way! Did you hear it?” Jerry said.
“That’s Redoubt. It caused lots of lighting and thunder and was incredible. Now it’s black outside at my place and the sulfur is creeping into our house through any cracks or crevices it can find. Turn off your furnace, and close your curtains. That will slow it down from getting in if your windows leak.”
I ran down stairs and opened one set of curtains while keeping the others tightly shut. “Jerry, the cloud hasn’t reached my house yet.” I said excitedly. “I can still see the glaciers and mountains across Kachemak Bay. Wow, the black cloud! Wow! Got to go Jerry! Thanks for the warning!”
I threw on some jeans and tucked my night gown in at the waist. Then I grabbed a jacket with a hood, my volcano mask, slipped on some tennis shoes and ran out to check the intake for my boiler. The nylon stocking was still secure from the last big eruption. No problems. Then I ran back inside, bolt locked all the doors and closed all the windows to seal them tightly.
“Okay, we are ready,” I said to my son, Erik. He was standing in his pajamas watching me run all around the house.
By that time, the ash was starting to come down and we lost our morning. It was dark outside and inside. Not grey, but black like night. Our morning was gone. Lights on the Homer Spit disappeared in the distance and I could barely see the snow in my yard. It was scary. Living in Alaska, we go through months of never seeing day light, except on weekends, and we live for our day light. We don’t take it for granted. I wondered if the ash would be so thick that our house would be buried. Could it be a deep deadly ash of feet in depth or just a thin coating? The feeling of panic was in my heart as I watched with trepidation out the window while listening for any sound of rocks hitting our roof. All was extremely quiet as the darkness deepened.
I called my sister in San Diego for comfort and told her about the blackness outside and how it was coming down on us. My voice quivered. As we spoke, the wind started to shift and the clouds slightly changed direction to the west. I was so grateful; I could see a pinprick of light to the east. Yes, there was the promise of a new day.
Two hours after the eruption, I could see streaks of high altitude ash clouds over head. The blackness had been replaced with a hazy grey color. It was like the heavy dirty smog I had seen in Bejing years before on one of my summer vacations. Our snow was dark grey with soot; in fact my porch was covered with about an inch of ash and my world was all grey except the green ever undulating ocean flowing in front of my house.
Once the light returned, I moved my young tomato plants from the grow lights off the kitchen counter and put them in front of the south windows so the dirty colored light could shine on them. Erik and I fixed breakfast knowing we wouldn’t be going anywhere that day. It was a good day to stay home and not drive our car outside. The ash would destroy the motor, automatic windows and anything it touched. When the smell of sulfur was gone, I went outside and carefully swept up the ash and put it in sealed containers for my garden and to study in my classroom.
In the end, I was so grateful the black clouds chose to dump most of its ash some where else. Fortunately, only 4000 people that lived in our area of Alaska were affected by the eruption. No one was hurt though many of us coughed for weeks as the ash continued to blow around in the air when vehicles or windy days stirred it up.
In 2010, the ash that had fallen the previous spring finally decomposed in my garden and I had the best crop ever of vegetables, blueberries, raspberries and apples. My car window to this day still screeches as it grinds ash when it goes up and down. None the less, we are still here in Homer, comfortably living by our fire breathing volcanoes and happily surviving.
"I haven't shaved my legs in weeks." "I've put on weight since I came to Alaska." "I don't want anyone to see me naked." "It's below zero outside!" "I don't know how!"
All the excuses in the world ran through my head as soon as I was invited to go for my first steam. Steaming is called maqi to the Yup'ik people in the villages of Southeast Alaska where I have called home since August. The steam house is made of two rooms, a cool down room and the steam room. You come into the cool down room to undress and get ready to steam. About three people at a time head into the steam room. You wet your hair, wet a washcloth, cover your face with the washcloth and then one person scoops a cup of water onto the stove. The water immediately turns to burning steam, and you sit and sweat. At the new teacher inservice I attended, the seasoned bush teachers warned us newbies about maqiing. They said that as a new member of the village, we would be invited and that we needed to go when we were invited. They warned us not to be shy, not to be nervous, etc.
Since that day in August I set my feet on the gravel runway of what they call Twin Hills Airport, and I use the word airport loosely, I have put myself out of my comfort zone too many times to count. Most of the time, I have looked forward to these new experiences and have seen how far I can push myself physically, mentally and emotionally. Clamming on the first day of school was a physical challenge when I had to maneuver myself through eighteen inches of mud to find clams, never stopping for fear of getting unmanageably stuck.
When that phone call came, I didn't think of the warnings and reassurances of the teachers at inservice or of all the successful new experiences I had completed since arriving in Alaska. Instead I thought of all the excuses in the world. My supportive husband, however, encouraged me to go anyways. He had already maqied with some of the men in the village, and he wanted me to have the experience. Two of my fellow teachers would be there to, so that made me feel a bit better as well. So after flip-flopping back and forth for about fifteen minutes, I finally layered up with all of my outdoor gear. Yes, I was heading to a 100+ degree steam, but it was -10 degrees outside! So, on went my Under Armor, Sorel boots, and seal and beaver skin hat.
My husband and I went outside, he started up the sno-go, and off we went. Driving through the freezing, snowy night, I was honestly so nervous that I was shaking. He dropped me off and promised to be back in an hour. I was on my own...no turning back! I walked around the house to find the maqi, opened the door, and entered the cool down room. Instantly, I was already sweating. My winter layers and nervousness combined with the warm cool down room, and this actually made me want to shed my clothes down to just a towel. When I finally had struggled out of my layers in the crowed, small room and was in just my towel, I was finally feeling calm and actually a bit excited. Then one of the Yup'ik ladies told me I better take out my earrings and rings or they would burn me when I steamed. That made my heart leap out of my chest again.
Despite my nerves, I headed into the steam room with just my two friends, a towel, and a washcloth. Under directions from the experienced ladies, we got our hair and washcloths wet, covered our faces with the washcloths, and readied ourselves for the heat. When the water hit the hot stove and transformed to steam, it was like nothing I have ever felt in my life. The air goes from being uncomfortably warm to a sizzling, unbreathable oven. I now know what popcorn feels like right before it explodes in my nightly snack. I couldn't breath and felt as if someone had dumped scalding water all over my body. 'Why does anyone do this?' I thought to myself. However, after about thirty seconds, the steam dissipated, and I could breath again. I had survived this time. I could do it again! We stayed in the steam room for about 10 minutes and headed into the cool down room for a break. After one more trip into the steam room, we shampooed our hair and bodies, dried off, and I reluctantly re-layered myself up to head back home.
Despite the now -15 degrees outside and wet hair, I didn't feel even chilly for a second as my husband took my friends and I home. I had overcome my fear of the maqi, my unshaved legs, and being undressed in front of anyone else.
As we shampooed, one of the friends I was with said it best, "How lucky are we to be here, doing this?" I am so lucky to be here in Alaska, not the Alaska you see in all the new television shows, but in the real Alaska, the Alaska that has been here since before it was part of the United States or even Russia.
Sotero: So, amigo what brings you here To the Kenai, Alaska's playground?
Rodrigo: Yes, why are you here in Soldotna, Alaska's river city?
Sotero: (evading) Oh, I dunno, thought I'd do some fishing, you know. And you?
Rodrigo: (also evading). The same, the same.
Both (gotcha). Where's your tackle box?!
Sotero: (the confession) Oh, Rodrigo, I'm in bad shape. Sarah Palin's Alaska show is tanking big time and my boss, Calvera, says I better come up with a new show idea quick or else I better get my resume together.
Rodrigo: Wait, Calvera? That’s my boss’s name too.
Sotero: Well, the media outlets are being consolidated more and more every year. As bloodthirsty as Calvera is, at least he’s no Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner. I still haven’t gotten over how he colorized Casablanca. I cried like a baby.
Rodrigo: Oh, Sotero, I know how you feel.
Sotero: You do? About the colorizing?
Rodrigo: No, you idiot, about having to come up with a new show. Since all the Deadliest Catch crabbers are getting rich on Discovery Channel money, they're all thinking about retiring. Calvera says if I can't think of another Alaska reality show idea and scout some locations this weekend I'll lose my job, too.
Sotero: What do you think of this idea?
Rodrigo: What idea?
Sotero: The 746th most dangerous job in the world is right here on the Kenai.
Rodrigo: It is?
Sotero: yep. And in Nikiski, too. This job would make a great reality show.
Rodrigo: Nikiski, huh? What is it? What's the job?
Sotero: Working .....at the clammery. I call the show "The Most Menacing Mollusk”. I’ve already gotten Jon Bon Jovi to write the theme song.
Rodrigo: Aren't clams bivalves ?
Sotero: What, do you want me to call my new hit show “The Most Boisterous Bivalve”?
Rodrigo: And how dangerous can this job possibly be?
Sotero: Oh, it's very dangerous. You could be attacked by pearl divers looking for pearls...
Rodrigo: Right.
Sotero: You could fall into a giant vat of clams and be made into clam chowder...
Rodrigo: Uh huh.
Sotero: And any one of these events would make for great reality TV.
Rodrigo: That is the dumbest idea I have ever heard.
Sotero: Dumber than "Mall Cop Midgets", live on Thursday nights?
Rodrigo: Actually, no. You're right. But how about this. The largest, most beautiful and productive sport fishing river in the world,
Sotero: I'm listening.
Rodrigo: Home of massive king salmon,
Sotero: yeah?
Rodrigo: dozens of sport fishing guides
Sotero: uh huh.
Rodrigo: a score of commercial fishermen
Sotero: get on with it!
Rodrigo: don't rush me. Picture this fishery: vibrant, alive, well managed, providing subsistence and spiritual solace for countless Alaskans. And then...
Sotero: yeah, yeah?
Rodrigo: the fish just ... disappeared.
Sotero: Oh, like if Pebble mine went in? Wait, wrong fishery.
Rodrigo: Shut up. Let me think. What a show that would make. Brave guides trying to make a living. Family businesses struggling to survive. Fish and game, baffled. Where in the world are the king salmon?
Sotero: But this is the best managed fishery in the world. There's plenty of fish coming up the river for people to catch.
Rodrigo (fiendishly): let's see what we can do about that....
Scene 2 Sam the Funeral director sits at a table on which a coffin rests. Henry, a traveling salesman, enters and peeks in the coffin.
Sam: Hey! I´ve been waitin´ for you.
Henry: Oh, you did a wonderful job.
Sam: I´m sorry, but there´ll be no funeral.
Henry: What?!
Sam: The grave´s dug, and the defunct is as ready as the embalmer can make him, but there´ll be no funeral.
Henry: Didn´t I pay you enough?
Sam: It´s not a question of money. For six dollars I’d plant anybody with a whoop and a holler.
Henry: Isn’t that a Toby Keith song?
Sam: That’s my flat fee, six dollars.
Henry: That’s just enough to buy you a double latte at Thanks a Latte.
Sam: You’re making an espresso joke this early in the show?
Henry: You’d prefer a price of gas joke?
Sam: But anyway, the funeral´s off.
Henry: Well, how d´ya like that?!
Sam: I want him buried. You want him buried. If he could talk, he´d second the motion.
Henry: That´s as unanimous as you can get.
Sam: Unless you’ve got a roomful of Wisconsin republicans wanting to bust the union.
Henry: This has to be buried. Soon. He´s not turning into a nosegay. In fact, this box is starting to smell like the cannery after a double shift.
Sam: I know. I would if l could, but there´s an element in town that objects.
Henry: Objects? To what?
Sam: They say he isn´t fit to be buried there.
Henry: What? In Boot Hill? There´s nothing there but murderers, cutthroats and barflies. Like the saloons in Juneau after a 90 day session. And if they ever felt exclusive, they´re past it now.
Sam: No, dummy, not Boot Hill, this is Soldotna, remember?
Henry: Oh, right. So what’s the problem with the cemetery?
Sam: Well--
(Just then, two cowboys ride up, leap off their horses and grab the coffin.)
Vin: We’ll take care of this!
Chris: Yes indeed!
Vin: Can I borrow that scatter-gun?
Sam: Uh, this is a fly rod, but you´re more than welcome.
Vin: Thanks. Ooo, 12 pound test. That should do for this job.
(A crowd starts to gather from various windows and doors to watch the spectacle as the cowboys start out for the cemetery.)
Sam: Hey! Wait a minute there. You two go sashayin’ down Binkley street like you own the place, no tellin’ what might happen. I’m tellin’ ya, the good folks of Soldotna don’t want that kind of thing in their cemetery. This coffin cost me $20. It´s the only one in the county. I´ll be darned if l let it be shot at.
A Bystander: I´ll pay for the damages. I wanna see this.
Another bystander: Me, too!
Vin: Never rode shotgun to a cemetery before.
Chris: Let her buck.
Vin: New in town?
Chris: Yeah. Saw that “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” on the TV and knew I wanted to be a part of this untamed wilderness. Wanted to get in on that PFD money, too.
Bystander 3: Where ya think yer goin’ with that coffin? Cheechakos!
(Vin lunges at him with his fly rod.)
Chris: Easy. Just wind.
Vin: We´ll get there.
Chris: It’s not gettin´ there that bothers me. It´s stayin´ there that I mind. Also, I think we made a wrong turn. Isn’t this graveyard supposed to be here overlooking the river?
Vin: (He spots a wealthy Soldotna with a dip net coming towards them.) Comin´ up behind us on the left.
Chris: I don´t think so.
Wealthy Soldotnan: Don’t even think about planting that thing here! This property is way too valuable to waste on something as inconsequential as a final resting place for the pioneers of this community! Get the hell outa here! (He wields his net.)
Vin: Oh yeah? I’ll show you, ya swell! (He rigs his reel for a deadly cast.)
Chris: Easy. Let him be. This ain’t even the graveyard. We got to go out some God-forsaken place called Funny River. They say the folks are a bit….different out there.
Vin: Oh, yeah? (With menace, wielding his fly rod) Well, I don’t care how different they are-we all bleed the same!
Chris: What’s that supposed to mean?
Vin: It just means that—oh, I dunno, I just thought it sounded tough. Let’s go.
Funny river pilot: Boys, why don´t you just turn around now - save yourselves a lot of trouble? Vin: The reception committee is forming.
Funny river golfer: Hold it.
Chris: Anything wrong?
Pilot: Turn that box around and head back to town. You’ll know you’re there when you see an inspirational message on the lumberyard sign.
Golfer: Oh, I love those! Like last week, it said "Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself." All: Ewww. Vin: We’re going to bury this departed soul here right now. What do you pretty boys gonna do about it?
Golfer: Look. We don’t have any problem with you boys comin’ out from town to see us. Why don’t we go play nine holes? I just snowplowed all the greens, put out a scare-raven, and shot a moose on the back nine with my pellet gun. Whaddya say?
Pilot: Or, I could take you two on a gorgeous flightseeing trip—I’d show you glaciers, and ice, and water, and more glaciers, and more ice, and snow, and more glaciers...
Chris: Why do you all give a damn whether we bury this here?
Vin: Isn’t this the gosh darn graveyard?
(The golfer and the pilot look at each other as a plane sound effect goes overhead.)
Pilot: (Holds the back of his hand to Vin’s forehead.) You boys drunk any water from any suspicious lookin’ creeks? This one must have the beaver fever.
Golfer: Ooh! I have it too! (Justin Beiber song, whatever that might be, starts playing.) I’ve seen the Justin Beiber experience nine times. In three-D! So that means I’ve seen it 3 times cubed, right?
All: Eww.
Pilot: Why would you think this airstrip is a good place for a cemetery? That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. Except for releasing a Justin Beiber Experience Directors’ cut.
Golfer: You’ve got a body in there?
Vin: Well, yeah.
Golfer: Are you sure?
Chris: Look, they said in town no one wanted this buried anywhere near their house or place of business. Being Bad-A cowboys, we said we’d right this wrong, fix this injustice, give this poor sap his final resting place.
Pilot: So you didn’t ask why they didn’t want this disposed of near any place of habitation?
Vin: No, we just saw injustice and felt compelled to be heroic. That’s—what we do.
Golfer: (He is taking the lid off the coffin.) I’ll tell you why nobody wanted this in town.
Chris and Vin: Hey!
Golfer: (Pulls Whappy, the stuffed, fabric salmon, out of the coffin.) Fish waste has to be double bagged.
Suddenly, Magnificent Seven theme blasts triumphantly. Black out.
Vin: Well, how were we to know we were cartin’ around a dang fish?
Chris: Where are you headed now?
Vin: I´m drifting south, more or less.
Chris: Why drifting? Don’t you have a river boat with a motor? Or are you one of these back to nature, don’t ruin nature’s majesty types?
Vin: No, I mean, drifting like the old west kind of drifting, like tumblin’ tumbleweeds kinda drifting. You?
Chris: Just driftin´.
Vin: So, like the boat kind, or the tumbleweed kind? Cause now we’ve got these two kinds of drifting established that we’re talkin’ about, and now I’m all confused—
(Chris gets up to leave.)
Vin: Oh, right, ok, well, see ya.
Chris: Say, what´s your name?
Vin: Make it Vin. What´s yours?
Chris: Chris.
(Just then, a Soldotnan local approaches the two.)
Juan: We think you are a man we can trust. (NEEDS A JOKE HERE>)
Chris: Thank you very much.
Juan: We wish you to help us.
Paco: There´s this man, Calvera.
Juan: A thief. A murderer. A media mogul behind such atrocities as “Bridalplasty”
Vin: What the hell is that?
Paco: A reality show where, and I’m not making this up, Brides compete in various “challenges” and the “winner” gets a free nose job.
Chris: We must stop this evil, evil man.
Paco: We haven’t even told you what he has to do with us, or Soldotna.
Chris: It doesn’t matter. I’m in.
Vin: Wait a minute. If you need protection, go to the federales. I mean, the state troopers.
Juan: We did. Twice. They are too busy to help us because they are all auditioning to be on Alaska State Troopers on the National Geographic Channel.
Vin: Fish and Game?
Juan: All working as consultants on Dirty Jobs on Discovery.
Vin: City police?
Paco: COPS: Soldotna Edition on Fox.
Vin: EPA?
Paco: NBC.
VIN: DMV?
Juan: CBS.
Chris: Hold it. There’s a reality show about the Department of Motor Vehicles?
Paco: Si, Senor. It’s called, “Please Take a Number, or I Got Pregnant While Waiting to Renew My Driver’s License”
Vin: (With menace)We’ll make this Calvera wish he never turned over to check if his alarm was turned on.
Chris: What’s that supposed to mean?
Vin: No good? Not threatening?
All: No.
Chris: So, tell us what you know about Calvera. What is he doing to you villagers here in Soldotna?
Paco: All of a sudden, there are no fish in the river.
Vin: What did they put Pebble mine in after all?
Chris: Wrong river.
Juan: We are pretty sure he and his men are illegally catching all the fish at the mouth of the river.
Vin: Oh, like a tourist who thinks he can dip net.
Juan: Yes. Except this tourist has a dip net that is 5 miles long.
Vin: Wow, those tourists are getting nervier every year.
Paco: He meant that metaphorically.
Chris: Get on with it.
Juan: Calvera’s men have planted a giant net under water at the mouth of the Kenai. It is catching all the fish before they can come up the river.
Paco: Then, under cover of darkness….
Vin: Not much of that in June…
Juan: Details, details
Paco: Calvera’s men pick the fish out of the nets, and ship them to fish farms down south where they are ground up and fed to King Salmon/Eel hybrids.
Chris: Frankenfish!
Vin: Is that what it’s called when Minnesota Senator and ex Saturday Night Live funnyman Al Franken goes out to wet a line?
Chris: No, that’s what they call these genetically altered fish which are supposed to grow faster, but it’s really just a disaster waiting to happen because--- Paco: Will you help us defeat Calvera and his men?
Chris: It’s going to take more than two cowboys to defeat an entire media organization.
Vin: Also, this show is called the Magnificent Seven.
Paco: Salmon.
Vin: Whatever. There’s supposed to be seven of us.
Juan: (Looking around.) This is kind of a small room….
Chris: Don’t worry about it. I´ll pass the word around that you´re looking for men. I’ll put in on my Facebook page.
Paco: It won´t be hard to find men here. Everyone wears a gun. After all, Alaska is a conceal carry state. And Don Young encourages everyone to exercise their 2nd amendment rights by packing heat to constitution rallies and Elementary School talent shows. Yes, everyone wears a gun.
Vin: Sure - same as they wear pants. That´s expected. (Paco and Juan exchange puzzled looks.)
Chris: But good men? That´s something else again.
Paco: How can you tell they are good?
Chris: There are ways. (Paco and Juan exit. There is a knock at the door.)
Vin: Who knocks to come into a saloon?
Chris: A polite barfly. Come in.
Chico: Word is out you´re looking for men.
Vin: Wow, that was fast.
Chico: I got a tweet on my GunslingersToday Twitterstream.
Chris: That´s right. Men who are good with that.(Points to the fishing pole in his hand.)
Chico: I´m good with it.
Chris: Fast?
Chico: Try me.
Chris: I aim to. Step in closer. Now, hold your hands like that. Now, clap. Faster. Now, like this. (He joins in with a children’s chant, Paddy cake style.) Now, as fast as you can. (The clapping gets faster and faster until Chico falls to the ground, defeated.)
Chico: I am very young and... and very proud.
Chris: The graveyards are full of boys who were very young and very proud.
Vin: Not in Soldotna, they’re not. They don’t even have a graveyard in this town.
(Britt snoozes leaning up against a wall. Two cowboys argue.)
Joe: I still say he can´t.
Skeet: And I tell you he can, Joe. 30 seconds. Cut, Smoke, Vac, Pack, Ship.
Joe: If he claims that, he´s a liar.
Skeet: Not so loud. He might hear you.
Joe: I don´t give a damn if he hears me or not.
Skeet: I got two months´ salary comin´. I’ll bet it all it ain´t so. I told you what he said, and I believe him.
Joe: Well, one of us is a fathead.
Skeet: You can get good odds on which.
Joe: Britt. Britt, wake up. I´m talkin´ to ya! Look at me! Skeet told me what you said. I say you´re wrong. What d´you say? What´s the matter? You afraid? Afraid to tell me I´m wrong?!
(At this, Britt leaps up, pulling a fillet knife from his belt. He wields it at Joe, who pulls an ulu from his belt. Both men circle each other for a moment. Then, abruptly, they start “cleaning fish”. After a minute, Britt holds up a perfectly vacuum sealed filet. Joe holds his up a moment later.)
Brit: Call it.
Joe: Well, you see, l won. Well, how about it? Well? Skeet, how about it?
Skeet: I don´t know. It was mighty close.
Joe: Close? What d´you mean, close? I demand a recount. I want to file an appeal! I’ll sue! I won! You tell ´em. I won, didn´t l?
Britt: (He is back to his previous spot.) You lost.
Joe: You´re a liar. I said you´re a liar! I said you´re a coward, a liar, and you took money from Native Corporations to sway the vote in the village in your favor! AND, your name’s hard to spell! Get up. Let´s do it for real. (He is threatening Britt with his Ulu.) I said, Get up! Call it!
Britt: I want nothin´ to do with this.
Joe: Call it! The Supreme Court said…
Skeet: Drop it, Joe. Forget it.
Joe: Get away from me. Call it. I call it voter fraud!
(Chris enters.)
Chris: Britt.
Britt: Chris.
Chris: Can I have a word with you?
Britt: Yup. (He gets up, starts to walk away with Chris.)
Skeet: But what about him? He’s making an awful ruckus.
Chris: Oh, Miller there? Just ignore him and eventually he’ll go away.
Britt: You need men to do a job in Kenai.
Chris: That´s right.
Britt: How long?
Chris: Two, three nights.
Britt: That ought to do it. How much does the job pay?
Chris: Enough to settle your tab at Hooligan’s.
Britt: I’m in. (They laugh, then do a sitcom style “Freeze-frame” as we)
Sotero: Ok, Senor Calvera, here it is. The theme song for “The Most Menacing Mollusc”, CLAM PARODY SONG
(A Bon Jovi style singer performs the song. Calvera is not amused.)
Calvera: It’s a good thing Rodrigo is on this situation. Thanks to his brilliant idea, we’re getting all kinds of great footage for our new show, All Spawned Out. Can we roll that footage, please?
(We see three vignettes in the kitchen windows. The first:)
A woman: I’m sorry Billy, there just isn’t any salmon to make your salmon salad sandwich today. I guess you’ll just have to gnaw on your pencil during math class to tide you over.
Billy: But, Ma, I’m sooo hungry. I wish it were standardized testing week. Then the school would HAVE to feed us!
(They embrace, sobbing.)
(The second: )
A guide: I’m sorry, Mr. Pennypacker. There just aren’t any fish. I think we’re going to have to shut down the Annual Kenai River Occurrence.
Mr. Pennypacker: But how can we lobby Juneau and Washington if we’re not catching record king salmon and drinking martinis in drift boats?
Guide: I don’t know sir…..
(They embrace, sobbing)
(The third: )
Fred Meyer manager: I don’t know what to say, Mr. Sweeney. It’s bad over at Fred Meyer, with no fish, there’s no tourists to buy fish bonkers and coolers and worms and flies and waders and beef jerky and…
Mr. Sweeney: Well, we’re the workin’ man’s store. I’ll just run a special on Carhartt’s. That’ll bring the roughnecks in.
Fred: and rods and reels and beer(he starts breaking down)oh, what are we gonna do?
(They embrace as he sobs.)
Calvera: Alright, that’s good. Stop the tape, gracias, Umberto. See what I mean, Sotero? This is reality TV gold! We’ll throw in some stock footage of bikini babes on the river and we’ll be on top of the Neilsens before you know it! And, I meant to tell you, we’re pulling funding from your clam show.
Sotero: But, but, it’s a great idea! What about the theme song!? (He motions to our singer, who enthusiastically sings a few more bars)
Calvera: No, no, no, you idiot. Clams don’t sell. Babes sell. Bawling, pathetic saps sell. Human tragedy sells. That’s what we’re going with.
Sotero: But, we made this tragedy.
Calvera: That’s right, amigo! Hahahahahaha! Now, go earn your keep by finding me some film of some hot young things in thong bikinis. Hahahahaha!
(At the saloon Chris, Vin, Britt and Chico sit around a table. Sotero enters, dejectedly. Chris, Vin and Chico grab for their guns.)
Sotero: (hands up) Easy, amigos. I come in peace.
Vin: You’ll leave in pieces!
(All look at him, shake heads sadly.)
Vin: What, no good? I liked that one!
Chris: We have no business with any man of Calvera’s.
Sotero: I am through with all that. I count, uno, dos, tres, quarto. I thought you were the Magnificent Seven.
Britt: Salmon.
Sotero: Whatever. So are you the fabulous four or what?
Chico: If you’re just going to criticize, you might as well move out. Vin: What do you want?
Sotero: Calvera pulled the plug on my clammery based reality show, The Most Menacing Mollusc.
Chris: Smart man. Sounds like a dumb idea.
Sotero: (Explodes.) Dumber than Extreme Dog Makeover?! Where poodles get their claws polished in prime time?!
Chris: Easy, now.
Sotero: I am through with all of it. I want to join you. Then at least you could be the Phenomenal Five.
Vin: I don’t like it.
Britt: Let’s hear him out.
Chico: Right. We are clueless anyway, we have no plan, no organization, no agreement, no sense!
Sotero: Sounds like the feds trying to avoid a government shutdown.
All groan.
Sotero: The Academy deciding to have 10 Best Picture nominees?
Less groaning, some thoughtful nodding.
Sotero: The state trying to get a gasline in?
A few chuckles.
Vin: Ok, let’s hear what you got.
Sotero: Calvera and his men are going to move the net further upriver so they can catch every single fish that tries to come up the river.
Chico: So? How does this knowledge help us?
Chris: Do you know when they are planning to do this?
Sotero: Yes. Tonight.
Chris: This is our chance to confront them, catch them in the act, and defeat them, once and for all!
Sotero: So, amigos, what do you say? The phenomenal five?
Chico: That just sounds swishy. Let’s hope two more join us soon.
(All lean over the table in a huddle to plan the attack.)
Chris: So, if we put two men on the east side of the river, and two on the west side…
Sotero: I got it! The Sexy Cinco!
Chico: Sounds like a strip joint in Tijuana.
Sotero: No, no, it would look great on t-shirts…Cinco de Sexy! I can see it now…
Vin: You can take the boy out of trash TV…..
(Abruptly, Bernardo O’Reilly stands up from another table and strides over. Lee joins him. )
Bernardo: All right, all right, I’ll do it.
Chris: Bernardo O’Reilly! My old friend! Join us, our cause is just, and our advesary evil.
Bernardo: I don’t care about all that, I just couldn’t have you all having such a stupid name. Cinco de Sexy my foot. Sounds like a derelict Chippendales Dance Troupe. Where’s your bow ties, ya sissies?
Vin: Who’s that with you?
Bernardo: This here’s Lee. He’s a bit of a southern pantywaist, but he can shoot straight.
Chris: Now we are be the Magnificent Seven!
Britt: Salmon.
Bernardo: Whatever.
The Magnificent Seven theme comes up triumphantly.
(Calvera and his men sneak into the room. They are about to move the net when)
Chris: You! Calvera! You and the vermin who follow you are about to be exterminated!
Vin: Now how come I can’t get away with a line like that?
Calvera: Who are you?
Chris: That doesn’t matter. What matters is the credits are about to roll on this little production. Now, pull that net, release the fish, and walk away.
Vin: (Whispers) Tell him, and nobody gets hurt.
Chris: And nobody gets…, you know.
Calvera: Well what’s the fun in that?! You know what they say—if it bleeds it leads!
Vin: Ooh, that’s a good one.
(Calvera draws his pistol and fires. A massive gun battle ensues with equal numbers of good guys and bad guys get shot, stabbed, zapped by ray guns and laid out by light sabers. Finally, the carnage is complete. Everyone lies motionless on the ground. The three little boys appear and as they are trying to get Bernardo’s fish bonker out of his cold dead hands, Bernardo sits up.)
Bernardo: Wait a second. This is a parody, right? About fishing? And there’s a fabulous art auction to follow? Nobody dies in a show like this. It puts the bidders in a bad mood, and they don’t want to spend as much money. Let’s try this again.
(Everyone gets up, puts their weapons away and trades them for fishing paraphernalia. We do the exact same battle, but no one dies. There are fish hook wounds, fish bonker bonks and water splashed in the bad guy’s face, but that’s it. Chris looms over Calvera, who lies sopping wet on the floor.)
Chris: All right, it looks like this one’s a keeper. Boys, pull that net. Call the food bank. There’s going to be one hell of a fish fry in Soldotna tonight.
Juan: You could stay, you know. They wouldn´t be sorry to have you stay.
Chris: They won´t be sorry to see us go, either.
Juan: Yes. The fighting is over. Your work is done.
Chris: For them, each season has its tasks.
Juan: If there were a season for gratitude, they´d show it more.
Vin: That sounds like something Spenard’s should have on their sign.
Chris: We didn´t get any more than we expected, old man.
Juan: I’m only 32.
Chris: Only the fishermen have won.
Juan: They remain for ever. They are like the river itself. You helped to rid them of Calvera, the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts.
Vin: Or a strong current helps rid them of sea lice.
Juan: yes. Something like that. You are like the current, flowing over the river and passing on.
Vin: Like the retired RVers in July.
Juan: Adiós.
Chris: Adiós.
Vin: See ya.
Chris: The old man was right.
Vin: He’s only 32.
Chris: Only the fishermen won. We lost. We always lose.
Vin: Yeah, I lost my best salmon fly.
Chris: I lost my fish bonker.
(Sotero enters.)
Sotero: Hola, amigos! Where will you go now that Calvera is defeated, the fish have come back to the river, and, thanks to increased tourism revenues, the borough can afford its $12 million dollar slab of concrete with a couple of con-exes on it?
Vin: What?
Chris: The Homer transfer station.
Vin: Oh.
Chris: We’re headed to Wasilla. We heard Sarah Palin is looking for bodyguards to protect her from disgruntled ex-staffers.
Sotero: That sounds rougher than taking on Calvera at his worst. Where is the rest of the gang?
Chris: They all went to be extras on Drew Barrymore’s latest film, Everybody Still Loves Whales.
Vin: What about you, Sotero? Where will you go now that you aren’t working for Discovery anymore?
Sotero: Oh, didn’t I tell you? James Cameron bought the rights to the Most Menacing Mollusk. He’s going to shoot it as an IMAX film in 3-D. There’s just one issue. He’s insisting on changing the name.
Chris: To what?
Sotero: Avaclam. Or Clamitar. One of the two, I can’t remember which one he decided on…
Chris: I would like to say, that I am honored to have been part of …the Magnificent Seven!
“Please, can we take some time off and go outside?” I pleaded with my husband. “It’s perfect weather, and we’ve been trapped in the school since we got here. Winter is coming quickly with its thirty below temperatures and darkness. Let’s go explore our new home,” I reasoned. “I want to, but I have so much work to do,” he replied. “Well, if you don’t go with me, I’ll have to go alone.” It was a harmless threat. I knew I wouldn’t go alone, and so did he. I’m scared of bears, and Nikolai is definitely grizzly country. There was a fresh hide in the village to prove it. For whatever reason, my fake threat worked. “Okay, but not too long. The kids were telling me about a trail called the Cat Trail. It starts at the end of the runway and swings around in a three-mile arc to the gazebo at Salmonberry Lake. It should take an hour or two to hike. How’s that sound?” Before he could change his mind and go back to the zillions of lessons he needed to plan for the coming week, I filled my nalgene and laced up my hiking boots. I grabbed my zip up fleece and proclaimed, “Ready!” He also grabbed his fleece, daypack, and a brand new gps. “What are you bringing that stuff for?” “I’ll carry your jacket and water bottle in my pack. I’m going to practice using the gps. I’ve never actually used it. We’ll see how it works.” We let the dog off her chain, and she jumped wildly around barking in excitement. It was about four in the afternoon on a cool, crisp October day. The sun was shining, there were no mosquitoes, and Denali was out in all its glory. Before coming to Nikolai, I had only seen Denali from the highway side. Now I was on the other side of the mountain, an amazing view that I never tired of. I felt so fortunate to be experiencing life in rural Alaska. It would be light until about nine, so there was plenty of time for a short hike. We headed down the dirt road and out the gravel runway. At the end, we dropped down into a flat, shallow lake area know as Reed Lake. The view was captivating, cattails along the edge, a beaver lodge right next to the trail, and two swans on the water. I had been longing to get outside and experience this since we arrived seven weeks ago, but the moment we set foot in our small k-12 school, we were overwhelmed with work. My spirit was craving the fresh air, the beauty of nature, and the breath-taking scenery. My husband must have felt the same way. We didn’t talk much; we were lost in our own thoughts. Our shepherd mix, Rosie, ran around exploring every tree, hole, and hummock, happy to be free.
The whole time we were walking, he was fooling around with the gps. Every once in awhile, he would make an announcement, “We’ve been hiking for thirty minutes,” or “We’re heading northwest,” or “Our elevation is now 200 feet.” I didn’t pay much attention to him; he was having fun with his new toy. We made it to the other side of the lake where the well-worn trail forked. One option continued around the lake, the other headed off to the left, the direction we knew we wanted to go. Without hesitation, we went left. There was some discussion about the distance traveled. The gps showed that we had gone three-fourths of a mile. “There is no way that is right,” I told him. “We’ve been walking for almost an hour. The minimum distance would be two miles, but it’s been so flat and easy that I’d have to say we’ve gone over three.” “But the gps says three-fourths. How could it be wrong?” he argued. “I don’t know. You must be reading something wrong. It can’t be right.” “It doesn’t seem like it could be,” he conceded, “but I don’t understand how it could be wrong.” “Well, it doesn’t matter. We know we’re on the right trail, and we’ll come out at the lake before too long. I predict less than an hour and we’ll be back home.” The trail left the lake and went through the scrubby pine landscape the interior is famous for. It was interspersed with small bogs we had to go around. The trail was well used, so there was no doubt in our mind that we were headed for the gazebo.
After almost an hour on this less scenic trail, we came to a grassy field. The trail ended. Just like that, it ended. “How could such a well worn trail just end?” We looked behind us and saw the trail clearly. In front of us there was no trail at all, just tall, dry grass blowing in the breeze. “How far does the gps say we’ve gone,” I inquired. “One and three-quarter miles,” was the answer. “What? How can that be? We’ve now been gone two hours! A snail could go a mile an hour. The gps has to be wrong!” “I don’t know how it could be, but it sure doesn’t seem like it could be right. It has shown that we are going in the right direction the whole time. From this point, the lake should be right over there,” he said pointing left. I nodded in agreement. “It has to be right over there. I know we’ve gone more than three miles. If we go left, we should bisect the lake easily.” So, with only that much discussion and in total agreement, we began to bushwhack. My husband and I both have enough outdoor experience to know better than to do what we were doing. I don’t know if it was being cooped up inside for so long or the absolute gorgeous day and the joy of being out in it that made us act irresponsibly, but instead of turning around and following the trail back, we decided it would be shorter to head out into completely unfamiliar wilderness, in October, with only light jackets, no map, no food, one nalgene of water, and a gps that neither of us had any confidence in. Always eager for adventure, I led the way. My more cautious husband followed, keeping his eye on the gps’ compass. It wasn’t hard to negotiate a path. The area was all scrub pine interspersed with patches of small birch and marshy bogs. The bogs were fairly pleasant to walk on, not too mushy, and you could more or less walk in a straight line. We had waterproof boots on so our feet stayed dry. We would walk through a small bog, cross over a treed area, and then hit another bog. We kept this up, expecting to run into the lake each time we left a wooded stretch. “Seems like we should have been there by now,” I said. “We have to run into the lake. There is no way that we could miss it. It’s too big,” Denis reassured. We came out of another stretch of woods and stood at the edge of a huge bog.
“Great! A long open stretch!” Enthusiastically, I set off across it. We had gone about halfway when I heard a yelp and a splash. I turned around and saw Denis holding onto what I had previously thought was the ground. “I fell through. My feet aren’t touching bottom!” “What?” I thought to myself, “There’s WATER under our feet?” I had no idea that our bogs were actually old lakes or river channels that had gradually been covered by vegetation. We were walking on something similar to a swimming pool cover! I immediately went from enjoying myself to panic. I did not want to go into the water! He was about twenty feet behind me. “Do you need any help?” I asked timidly, praying he would say no. I could see he was pulling himself out of the water. “No, I’m okay.” I watched him come out. He was wet to his armpits. When he was safely out, there was nothing to do but go on. We still had half the bog to cross. I sucked in my stomach and mentally pictured myself skinnier. “I’m light as a feather,” I repeated, intending to float across the bog rather than walk. Splash. I looked beside me and the dog was struggling to regain her foothold on land. Her hind legs had punched through. Now, my husband is heavier than I am, but I’m twice as heavy as the dog. Using my higher math skills, I realized that my chances of breaking through were very high. I do not know why, but the thought of going in the water frightened me. I know how to swim, but perhaps I was beginning to realize that our situation was graver than we had let on. I instinctively did not want to be wet. The dog got out, and I just took off running for the other side. When I got to firm ground, I sat down and looked at the giant undercover lake that was between me and the way back. There was no way I was going to cross it again. My husband caught up to me, still dripping, and we went on. Over the next rise, we came out on the shore of a lake. “Hallelujah! It’s our lake. Oh, I’m so relieved,” I heard myself saying. I did not realize how much anxiety I had been holding in until that moment. My husband, equally relieved, stood on the shore looking for the familiar gazebo. Very quickly the realization hit us. It wasn’t our lake. We were lost. I tried to think logically about this, but a map of Alaska kept popping into my mind. I could visualize where we were on the map. The next village was over 100 river miles away; then there was nothing for 300 miles in any direction. Nothing. Nobody knew where we were. Nobody even knew we were gone. I thought about my kids. I looked at my husband and said the words out loud, “We’re lost.” “I know,” he admitted. “So, what should we do?” “Well, I think it’s time we sat down and made a plan. It’s a dangerous time of year to be out. We need to use our heads and get ourselves out of this,” he said. “The village is so small. How will we ever find our way back to it?” It was about eight o’clock now. We had about an hour and a half of light left. “I do know this,” he said, “I’ve been tracking our progress on the gps, and I can ask it to take us in a straight line back to our starting point, which is our cabin. At least we know the right direction.” “It’s going to be dark soon.” “I know. I do not want to spend the night out. We don’t have proper gear or protection from wildlife.” I knew by “wildlife” he really meant bears.
We hiked on, keeping the compass pointed in the direction of our cabin as best as we could. Soon we were having a hard time seeing the smaller branches and roots in our path. Darkness was enveloping us. “We’re going to have to stop,” I said. “No. I do not want to spend the night out unprepared. We have to get back.” “It’s getting dangerous to walk. We can’t see. We could trip and twist an ankle or break something. Then we’d really be in trouble,” I argued. He reluctantly conceded, and we began to look for a place to wait out the night. While looking, we came upon the shore of another lake. It was too dark to see across it. The wind was blowing near the shore, so we went back up into the trees and made camp. We opened his backpack and took stock. We had no food or protection other than our light jackets, but we did have matches! He had a little waterproof container with about twenty matches in it and a small mag light. Although we were surrounded by wood, we had nothing to cut it with. So while he went in search of usable deadfall, I started the fire. My family is very proud of their fire starting skills. The ultimate achievement is to use only one match. My oldest daughter is a champion one-match fire starter, but I am not. I always thought the competition was kind of stupid. Who cares how many matches you use? Matches are cheap and we always had boxes of them! I regretted my flippant attitude and tried to visualize how she started a fire. I looked under the trees for the dry moss and tiny dead branches. I carefully built little piles of graduating sized wood to feed the fire with. I thought about Brian in Hatchet and the man in “To Build a Fire.” “Don’t be stupid,” I told myself. I was worried about having a limited number of matches. I realized that we might be outside for more than one day. I struck the first match. The wind blew it out. One down. I tried to place my body and hands in position to block the wind. Didn’t work. Two down. Sitting with my legs around the little fire pit and my body practically laying on it, I tried again. Success! My little fire grew, and Denis came back with some bigger wood. Once the fire was established, we talked. We both agreed that we had to get ourselves out of this. No one would miss us for another day and a half, and then they wouldn’t know where to begin looking for us. We were on the shore of a lake that was possibly ours. We decided that if it wasn’t our lake, we would have to go back the route we came. I didn’t want to go across the bog again, so we agreed to go around it. It was our only sure way home; we couldn’t just keep wandering around in the wilderness. Exhausted, I lay down on the ground next to the fire. At least my clothes were dry. My poor husband’s heavy jeans, shirt, jacket, and socks were wet, and it was in the 30’s. He kept a larger fire at first, trying to dry off, but it ate so much wood that he soon downsized it. It was a hard job to keep going in the dark woods with a little flashlight looking for downed wood. He would come back with an armful, sit for about thirty minutes warming up, and then go look for more. He did this all night long. He never complained, never panicked; he just did what needed to be done. I sat by the fire and watched, loving him for taking care of me. I admired his courage and the way he kept doing what needed to be done. “Stay by the fire and keep warm,” he told me.
“I can help,” I protested. “I know you can, but just rest. I’ll do it.” At some point, while he was off getting wood, I fell asleep. When I woke up it was just getting light. I couldn’t believe my almost fifty year-old body had slept so long on the ground! It was time to go see if it was our lake. We walked to the edge, straining our eyes in the half-light. Almost directly across the lake, we could see the white speck that was the gazebo. It was our lake. Relief flooded me. We just needed to walk around it, and we’d be home! We went back to our little campsite, gathered our few belongings, and put out the fire. It took us about forty-five minutes to get back to our cabin. We stepped inside our warm house, and it started to rain. After a long, hot shower and some food, we settled down with a cup of coffee to reflect on our misadventure. We knew we had been foolish, and were exceedingly thankful that we got out of it unharmed. Denis immediately went on rei.com and ordered some survival gear to carry in his backpack at all times. He never goes anywhere without his trusty ax with a saw in the handle! We didn’t tell anyone in the village about getting lost until about two weeks later. Not for any real reason or agreement with each other, but I think we were both still processing the experience. One day, I was teaching class and the subject turned to the wilderness. I confessed what had happened, and the students reacted the way I thought they would. They laughed. They could not wait to spread the news and in a matter of hours, the whole village knew the new teachers had gotten lost while trying to hike the Cat trail. The experience broke the ice with the village people. Now they had something to talk to us about and tease us about. For the next three years, if we were going anywhere, they would say, “Do you need someone to show you the way? When will you be back?” or “Don’t get lost now!” We’ll always be remembered as the teachers who got lost.
WOW!! That was a pain in the neck. I like the way it allows 4,096 characters!! I have no idea what that many characters looks like! I'm sorry my post is so ridiculously long! I had no idea it would work out like this. Oh well, happy reading!
Modern Conveniences Part 1 Husband Ron and I soared above the shimmering waters of Shelikof Straight at eight thousand feet on a flight back from the Mainland to Uganik Lake. The sky was a vast ocean of blue without a trace of white. What a great day it had been for flying and spotting fish! We landed on the lake at Uganik and taxied up to the cabin we had been calling home off and on all summer. This quaint little cabin is situated at the head of Uganik Lake. On one side it is surrounded by lush, green, rolling hills, but in sharp contrast on the other side rise steep, jagged mountains. Having been at the cabin for a week and half, I was ready for a trip into Kodiak which was planned for the next day. I was looking forward to this flight with great joy! I could smell the fresh scent of clean sheets and could feel the warmth of a comfortable bed accepting my tired aching body. My mind's image of what was to come was shear heaven after sleeping on a plywood bunk bed, taking sponge baths plus washing my hair with icy cold lake water. Modern conveniences are wonderful! The next morning the sound of rain pelting against the cabin by what seemed a gale force wind woke us. I ran to peer out the window to see just how bad the weather really was. I turned from the window and in a disappointed mumble whispered, “The trip to Kodiak is off,” as I shuffled back to bed. My disheartened body language along with the mumbling made Ron get up and take a look to see just how bad it really was. He retorted, “It can’t be that bad!” and ventured outside. He came back saying, “We can make it, but we need to get going before it gets any worse!” We were packed and in the airplane ready to taxi in fifteen minutes. As we took off I looked up at the gray, drizzly, overcast sky and thought to myself if a real bed and hot shower were worth it? We snaked out of Uganik Bay three hundred feet off the water in what I considered to be miserable weather. We were forced to fly the shoreline instead of taking the more direct route through the passes. Ten minutes into our flight we hit fog patches, and I again thought of my frivolous need to go to town. I had silently vowed to myself during take off not to interrupt Ron's concentration on flying by jabbing a finger in his back (I did this frequently when we were flying), nervously asking, "Can you see? Are we going to make it? Should we turn back?" Instead I grabbed the back of his seat in a death grip and kept watch for other aircraft. This was my job when we were out spotting for fish.
Modern Conveniences Part 2 Nearing Kodiak, Ron called the tower to let them know our location and destination. He did this three times with no answer from the tower when he realized the aircraft radio would receive but wouldn't transmit. The palms of my hands became sweaty, the knot that had formed in the pit of my stomach was like a vice grip. With each attempt at transmission it became tighter and bigger! I sat in the back seat stiff as a board trying to will the radio to work but it just wasn't to be. Looking out the window I saw a Supercub flying further out and going in the same direction. I was about to break my vow of not poking Ron in the back when he also saw the plane. He used the VHF radio to call the Supercub and explain our dilemma. The Supercub then radioed the tower and told them of both planes' locations and destinations. The tower had us stay with the Supercub and go in together. Just outside Manashka Bay the tower called and told us we had to hold for a special VFR clearance, as well as for some incoming and outgoing IFR traffic. I was not thrilled with the idea of circling in a small bay with another airplane and the fog closing in around us. I tightened my death grip on the back of Ron's seat; my knuckles by now are white from the hold and once again focused my thoughts on the frivolous reason for this trip: a real bed and hot shower for me. We circled the bay for thirty minutes when at long last the tower radioed and gave us clearance to land. My hands were completely numb by this time and the vice grip - like knot in my stomach was so tight I felt like I was going to throw up; could this have been only thirty minutes? The thirty minutes spent circling in this bay with the Supercub to me seemed like an eternity! We left the small bay following the Supercub and the shoreline on into Kodiak. Nearing the entrance to Kodiak Harbor we broke out of the fog and for the first time could actually see where we were going. Ron banked the plane to the right as we flew over the town on our approach to Lily Lake, lake for floatplanes. Touching down on the lake, I breathed a BIG sigh of relief and loosened my death-like grip. Ron taxied the plane over to the tie-down area for transient aircraft. I stepped off the floats onto the ground on very wobbly legs. I had been more scared than at any other time in my life! After tying the airplane down Ron turned to me with a look of amazement and said, "I can't believe you didn't jab me in the back; not once! Were you scared?" He never knew just how scared I really was. I truly enjoyed my hot shower and comfortable bed that night.
Joyce I am with you! I had to break mine apart in order to post. When I got that bright red bar with the message about 4,000 characters I had no idea what it meant or what to do. Took me a minute to figure out.
I’d like to tell you all about my life long love affair with reading. I can’t really tell you when it started because I don’t even remember a time when I couldn’t read. My mother tells me that when I was four she was reading the newspaper while I sat beside her. When I asked her what a word met she asked me where I had heard that word. I showed it to her in the newspaper that I had been reading over her shoulder. She said that until then she had no idea that I could even read! I can tell you that if I was able to read at that age then I had definitely spent many hours on my mother’s lap listening to her read stories to my siblings and me. I have a sister who is 15 months older than I and then another sibling about every two years until my youngest sister who is about 7 years younger than I am.
I vividly remember my younger siblings sitting with my mother and reading stories as she nursed the current infant and I am sure that before I remember I was the one listening to the same stories. By the time I was five or six I was no longer very interested in being read to, I much preferred to read to myself. My mom read aloud a chapter from a book every evening. Some of our favorites were Nancy Drew, The Bobsey Twins, and The Hardy Boys. After being caught sneaking the book and reading ahead, my mother had to hide the current book from me. To this day I really hate to be read to, the pace is just too slow to be enjoyable for me.
Probably the biggest source of frustration in my childhood was the lack of reading material. We grew up in Hope, Alaska during the 1960’s and early 1970’s when the school was rarely open because of lack of enrollment. For most of my school years up to 7th grade we were on the State Correspondence system. Every September big boxes would arrive with our textbooks and school materials, including a few reading books. The Juneau Library would also send us a box of books about every six weeks. There would be two or three books at the level of each of the children in our household so we would probably get about 15-20 books at a time. I can so clearly remember my delight when I saw that box and my eagerness to rip it open and see what they had sent. I also clearly remember running out of books in a week or so. I would start by reading the books that looked interesting then move on to whatever else they had sent right down to the picture books for my younger siblings. When I had finished all the books I would have to resort to reading them again but this was never very satisfying. I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven if I had ever seen the sort of public libraries that many other communities have.
Half way through 7th grade my family moved to the Chugiak/Eagle River area and then there were no limits on available reading material. This became a bit of a sore subject between my mother and I since I would rather read than do just about anything, especially household chores. Books at the table were banned , so dinner was a rush to finish quickly so I could get back to my book. My voracious appetite for reading also posed a problem in some of my junior high and high school classes as well. There was never any problem with me not doing the assigned reading, the problem was that I would have finished the book the first week it was assigned and then found it pretty tedious to discuss the book chapter by chapter, let alone keep my mouth shut and not give away what was happening in future chapters.
Part 2 As an adult my obsession with reading hasn’t dimmed at all. I am essentially a lazy reader and, when given a choice, will read strictly for pleasure. I’m not a particularly discerning reader, I’m more interested in the story and not so much the literary quality of the book. For me, the longer the book the better and I love book series, they make the story last so much longer! I must admit that I had to force myself to put the book down and have family dinner time with my own children when they were younger. I didn’t even try to force the issue when they got older, my husband was usually at work during dinner and it was pretty much standard for the boys to eat quickly and go back to whatever they were doing while the girls and I ate dinner with a book in our hands. My boys have grown to be selective readers, they enjoy reading but the book has to be just right; my girls are more avid readers much like myself.
Now that my kids are all grown and out of the house I can read to my heart’s content without all the guilt! I do find myself sometimes still sitting and reading long past time to start dinner but luckily my husband still works until late at night so I usually manage to tear myself away and fix something before he gets home. I can’t say that my lifelong addiction to reading has really been a great benefit to me but I am quite a repository of useless trivial information! I’ve definitely spent a lot of time over the years reading when I could have been doing something more productive but, hey, there are worse habits, right?
What are you most afraid of? I’m not talking about those adult, keep you up at night kinds of fears like death and how to pay the mortgage. I’m talking about the kind that make your skin crawl, those visceral fears that have stayed with you since childhood. For me, hands down, it has always been spiders.
My deep and abiding fear of these eight-legged little beasties began at the age of five. I grew up in Washington, and my grandfather would frequently take us on nature walks through the woods. One day we were in a beautiful meadow that sloped downhill into the forest. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and, being five, I was gleefully racing down the hill with my arms spread wide until I ran smack into an enormous spider’s web. Being covered from head to knees in thick, sticky, clinging webbing was bad. Looking down and seeing a huge, black spider stuck to the middle of my chest was much, much worse. I screamed and convulsed, my arms whipping wildly, desperate to escape both web and spider. I’m pretty sure my grandfather was terrified, thinking that I was in the throes of some horrible fit. For the rest of the walk I positioned myself directly behind his tall, wide body and made him carry and wave a large stick to make absolutely sure there was no possibility of another arachnid encounter.
I wish I could say that was the last time I saw a spider, although I will admit that as I grew up most encounters were not nearly so traumatic; however, they usually involved a vacuum cleaner with the long handled attachment on it. In my world, killing spiders goes like this:
1) get anyone else in the house to do it 2) if I am alone, get vacuum cleaner 3) attach longest wand 4) make sure I have shoes on (preferably high heels) 5) turn on vacuum 6) approach spider as surreptitiously as possible while wearing high heels and toting a vacuum 7) gather all possible nerve and suck spider up with vacuum wand 8) place large wad of toilet paper in end of wand 9) turn off vacuum 10) run
In light of this, I’d like to say that it was with some apprehension that I agreed to spend time camping in Mexico without even a Dustbuster to protect me. After graduating from college, my husband, Chris, and I decided to take an extended road trip, part of which included a month on the Baja Peninsula. Now there’s a place with spiders. One day we were driving along (it was one of the few days that was overcast and a bit cool) and we had a conversation that went like this— Chris: “Wow. There sure are a lot of pieces of rubber on the road. I wonder if there was an accident or if a semi blew a couple tires out?” Stacey: “I know. I wonder what happened? Wait a minute…are they moving? They are moving! What is that?” Chris: “*%@#! They’re tarantulas!” Needless to say, I road the rest of the day with my feet up on the dash, praying that this wasn’t the day our van broke down, leaving us adrift in a sea of large, hairy, poisonous spiders.
This event, although creepy, was not the worst of my Mexico spider experiences. That honor is reserved for what started out as a truly lovely day. Sun, shining; warm breeze, gently blowing; waves, crashing; my smile, beaming. We were in the town of Loreto, about halfway down the peninsula. Our campground rented out dune buggies, so we decided to take one out to the San Javier mission. The ride up the dirt road into the interior was fascinating. Being from the Pacific Northwest, desert landscapes mesmerize me and spark my imagination. The mission itself was stunning and strange, with graphic depictions of the crucifixion hanging from the walls and a silence that seemed otherworldly.
It was on the way back from the mission that we had an encounter with a spider so big that it defies description. It was blue, furry, and I swear it was as large as my outstretched hand. It came, scurrying much more quickly than any spider that size has a right to, up over the front of the dune buggy and onto the hood. I screamed. Chris slammed the brakes on, and before the car had come to a complete stop I was standing on the top of my seat back, pretty much beside myself. As the car stopped, the spider also stopped, pausing on the hood to evaluate its next move. Chris, always a man of action, jumped out and grabbed a sandal from off his foot, apparently thinking he could somehow kill this behemoth of a spider with his flip-flop. To his credit, he actually took a swipe at the monster, but all he succeeded in doing was knocking it off the hood. When it hit the ground it scurried under the dune buggy and disappeared. Some of you reading this might think that the spider disappearing was a good thing, so let me restate the facts. First, we were in a dune buggy. Dune buggies, just in case you were unaware, do not have any windows or a top. Second, the spider could climb up the dune buggy. That had already been proven. Third, we had about twenty more minutes of driving to do, and finally, we didn’t know where the spider had gone.
At this point I was almost in tears and ready to start walking back to Loreto rather than sitting back down and just waiting for that huge, blue, furry spider to launch itself over the passenger side door right into my lap. Chris talked me down enough to get me back into a somewhat seated position and we made it back to Loreto without incident, but I am surprised I did not actually jump out of my skin before we got there. Even thinking about it now, 12 years later, gives me the heebie-jeebies.
On a positive note, when we got back home, our puny little spiders weren’t so scary. I no longer need a vacuum to kill them, as long as they aren’t bigger than a quarter and aren’t above my head, and I can even co-exist with those that are smaller than a nickel. They are still my biggest creepy-crawly fear, but they have now been put into some perspective. It is probable, however, that I will never take a dune buggy into a Mexican desert again—at least not without a vacuum.
Voice of Experience: Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Part 1
It was truly "...a dark and stormy night." We were underway from our homeport, Juneau, Alaska en route Tacoma, Washington in MAJECK, our Catalina 400. We were bringing the boat to Puget Sound for the summer to spend time with two of our daughters and friends from California. We planned to moor near our daughter’s house in Tacoma and then fly to Grenada, where my wife’s principal was getting married. After the wedding, we were going to join them on a Caribbean Windjammer cruise. We had already broke one of the cardinal rules of cruising by being deadline-driven to make the flight. Lisa and I are both teachers, we couldn’t leave Juneau until the end of the school year. We had two weeks to make a 750 mile transit across what can be some extremely rough water.
In February we had ordered a bimini top from a canvas shop in Florida. The top was completed and shipped in plenty of time, but the trucking company “parked” it in Salt Lake City for nearly two weeks. Consequently, we left Juneau four days behind schedule. We lost a day in Petersburg, Alaska trying to sort out an overheating problem that turned out to be a bull kelp bulb lodged in the raw water intake. We lost two more days awaiting weather to cross Dixon Entrance into British Columbia. By this time, we knew that there were no delays left in the schedule.
We were in our third day in British Columbia and we were getting tired. We had anchored for about five hours the night before in Klewnuggit Bay, off the north end of Grenville Channel. We weighed anchor before 5:00 a.m. and slogged through chilly temperatures, headwinds, rain, and contrary current most of the day.
Northern British Columbia is even more remote than Southeast Alaska. There are few marinas or signs of human habitation. The water is deep and the channels we were navigating had few anchorages. It was late, cold, raining, with winds on the nose, and then the engine began coughing due to fuel starvation. We’d serviced the engine before departing Juneau and I knew that the fuel was clean. Now the engine was intermittently coughing and even dying. I checked the fuel filter and the bowl was clean. We hoped we could limp into Klemtu before the engine died.
We were cold, tired and stressed. Although the bimini top covered the cockpit, vinyl dodger windows wouldn’t be installed until Tacoma. Wind and rain roared right through the bimini. We’d been living in full foul weather gear since leaving Juneau.
We entered Klemtu's harbor at about 11:30 p.m. We didn’t have a large scale chart of the harbor, but our cruising guide had a sketch chartlet that at least showed us safe depths and layout.
The wind was blowing at about 20 knots across the mooring float. Unfortunately, the windward side of the float was full. We circled around and made an exploratory pass on the lee side. There was another sailboat on the end of the float, but there was room for us ahead of it. It would be a tricky approach because of the off the dock winds.
It was my turn to do the boat handling and Lisa's turn to tie us up. Lisa sat at the gangway with her legs dangling over the side,ready to jump onto the dock with the after spring line. It looked like we'd make the approach as I motored past the Westsail 32 at the end of the float. Then we cleared the Westsail’s wind shadow. The wind caught our bow and set it thirty degrees off the float. I tried hard right rudder and a shot ahead, but as the bow rounded up toward the float, the wind set us further away from the dock. There were nasty pilings with logs booms wrapped with chains and wire not far away. Maneuvering room was limited and distances foreshortened in the dark and driving rain.
Voice of Experience: A Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Part II
I circled away from the float and we discussed how we could make the approach. If only the Westsail wasn't at the end of the float, we could steer above the float and use the wind to set us while motoring ahead...I told Lisa that about the only way we could do the approach was to head directly into the wind and point the bow right at the float so Lisa could jump from the bow pulpit onto the dock. Lisa headed forward and I began the approach when she was ready. She called distances as we crept toward the dock. When we were about two feet off, she jumped--and slipped on the moss covered wooden rim on the concrete float. In the cockpit I heard a muffled “O-o-o-f-f” and a splash. She was in the water between a concrete float and a 25,000 pound boat. I was alone on a forty foot boat that we were having trouble mooring with two people.
"Lisa! Are you all right!?" "I'm okay. The water is c-o-l-l-d-d..."
She was hanging onto the edge of the float,wearing long johns, fleece, foul weather jacket and pants, and sea boots, but no life jacket. Mistake number two. I laid off and asked her if she could crawl up onto the dock. There wasn’t anything to grab onto. I had to keep away from the pilings and logs off to port and not crowd Lisa who was still in the water. She said that she thought she could work herself along the float and then make it to shore. The only problem was that she would have to cross the thirty feet of open water between the end of the float and the shoreline. I couldn’t get too close to shore for fear of running aground. Adding to the stress, our two dogs were in the cockpit, in need of a trip ashore, and they knew something was wrong. They clung to my side as I tried alternately to maneuver the boat, watch Lisa, and watch the hazards around us.
Lisa took a deep breath, told herself that she wasn’t going to die in a town we didn’t know in British Columbia, then swam haltingly to the shore. Although the rocks were slimy with sea weed, barnacles provided traction for her hands and feet. Once above the tide line, she went to the gangway and onto the dock.
I made another approach and tossed her the spring lines. We were tied up in less than three minutes. I jumped over to the float and we hugged each other in desperate relief. Lisa had held it all in until the crisis was over. Now she sobbed and told me how scared she had been.
She hurt her lower back in the fall. It would take months to recover. Our heating system wasn’t working, and she had to settle for a cold shower to wash off the salt water. Neither of us slept well that night, reliving those terrifying moments. The storm deepened the next day. We stayed in port to recover, knowing that we had no chance of making the flight to Grenada.
It shouldn’t have happened. I’m a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer. I’ve been fortunate to command two ships. I’ve navigated the length of both coasts. I’ve done offshore deliveries aboard several large sailing yachts and both of us delivered a Beneteau 40.7 from Long Beach to San Francisco several times. We bought MAJECK in San Diego and sailed her to Juneau, a nearly two thousand mile transit. We knew better.
I developed a policy during my second command of sending the ship’s small boat ahead with line handlers when we approached a mooring. That eliminated the hazard of a crew member jumping from the vessel to the dock.
Lisa and I tow a 12 foot Zodiac with an outboard when we cruise. We always shorten tow when we moor or anchor. Lisa could have taken the Zodiac to the float, tied it up, and then handled mooring lines. Safe, secure, efficient. We didn’t think of that.
I spent the end of my Coast Guard career overseeing search and rescue in Alaska. As we did search planning and rescue coordination, I was always struck by the poor decisions that people make when tired, cold, and when dealing with weather.
Voice of Experience: A Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Part III
Although we are sailors, screaming wind, moaning rigging, and a hobby horsing hull do affect judgement. It certainly affected ours that night.
The fuel problem plagued us off and on all the way to Puget Sound. We had replaced the engine two years before. The boat was twelve years old. I consulted the Yanmar dealer in Port Townsend, Washington who recommended changing out the fuel hoses. He said that over time they can become soft from the inside out and can then collapse due to the fuel pump’s suction. I replaced the hoses; problem was solved.
We’ve changed our procedures and don inflatable life jackets for mooring, anchoring, whenever the seas pipe up, and whenever one of us is topside alone. The person in the cockpit tethers to the cockpit jack line, as well.
Side Bar items:
What we did wrong: By attempting a 750 mile transit while trying to make a hard deadline, we put ourselves into the position of pushing the situation, thus taking unnecessary risks. We should have left the boat home and taken it south the following summer. We tried to do too much in too little time We both should have been wearing life jackets. Although the Inside Passage waters had no appreciable waves that night, we were cold, tired, and attempting a mooring without the added protection of a PFD was just plain dumb The dogs should have been left below. They were an added distraction at a time when I needed to focus all of my attention on Lisa’s situation and keeping the boat clear of hazards in the harbor Lisa didn’t think jumping was a good idea when I suggested it. We were so focussed on getting tied up that we didn’t consider other options, like the dingy that was immediately available, or backing to the float so that Lisa could simply step off the swim platform Entering a strange harbor at night is dicey. I had to do so many times while in the Coast Guard. That experience gives me wary confidence about doing so in our boat, but we do our homework by studying cruising guides, the Coast Pilot, tides and currents, and proceeding slowly. Whenever possible, we time arrivals for daylight However, sometimes there just isn’t a choice
What we did right: We kept our heads. Once Lisa was in the water, we both reacted to getting her to safety and the boat moored We consulted our cruising guide and Reed’s Nautical Almanac (Which sadly is no longer published for the West Coast of North America) before entering harbor We abandoned our attempt to make the flight to Grenada. Taking the deadline away reduced stress and allowed us to make decisions based on prudent judgement rather than expediency
Voice of Experience: A Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Explanatory Comments
The article above was written for Sail Magazine's Voice of Experience column. This is a monthly feature written by sailors who describe mistakes they made and what they learned from them. The purpose is to "pass the word" about lessons learned so that the larger sailing community can gain knowledge from the experiences of others and hopefully avoid similar situations on the their own boats.
Since the article is intended for a specific audience, and boating in general and sailing in particular, feature a unique lexicon, I've used some words that may not be familiar to non-sailors.
A bimini top is a canvas and metal tube frame that covers a sailboat's cockpit (where the crew sits and steers the boat). A dodger is the forward part of a bimini top. It features a windshield of glass or clear vinyl panels and a canvas top panel that extends three to six feet aft of the windshield. A dodger offers some protection from wind, rain, and spray. A sailboat can have a dodger without a bimini, and most boats do. We opted for a full length bimini top with an integrated windshield for maximum shelter.
The windward side is the side that the wind is coming from. In the article, the wind was blowing from the north to the south. The north side of the mooring float was facing the wind. The lee side is the side that the wind is blowing to. The south side of the float had wind blowing over it that pushed our boat away.
A jackline is a line, usually of nylon webbing, that is strung between two secure pieces of hardware and lies on the deck. We have inflatable lifejackets with integrated harnesses and six foot long tether lines that attach from the lifejacket harness rings to the jacklines. The purpose of the jackline is provide an attachment point so that a person can't be tossed (or fall) overboard. We also run jacklines from bow to stern on both sides of the boat. When one of us has to go forward, we attach our tether to the jackline before we leave the cockpit.
Author’s note: From 1987 to 1994 My husband and I traveled rural Alaska as a classic rock and roll band. This is a story from Sand Point, one of our many stops.
Halibut Dancing
“Bang! Bang! Bang,” at the front door. I think, “Why is someone pounding on the door at this hour?” As I got up and went to the door, it gradually came to me.
I began to seriously regret our accepting Dan the crab fisherman’s invitation the night before. He’d said, “Hey guys, I’ m off tomorrow. Wanna go halibut fishing with me?’ (Yes, this is what commercial fishermen do in between openings, they fish!) The night before, it had seemed like such a great idea. However, now, at 5:30 in the morning, (having gone to bed at 2), I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of our decision.
Regardless , driving me forward, always, is the desire to do, to go.
So we went.
It was an incredibly beautiful day in Sand Point; the sun was out, the sky almost clear, and the water was flat like a mirror. Birds circled overhead in the gentlest of breezes; the temperature was about 50.
We dragged ourselves out of the hotel and walked down with Dan to the cannery dock, where employees keep their skiffs and equipment in lockers and freezers.
Dan walked up to a particularly worn and aged boat and said, “Climb aboard!” It was a 12-foot wooden skiff, with a motor and rudder, benches to sit on, and a car battery. The battery was in the far aft section of the boat, and right next to it were a pair of wires with alligator clips on them. The other end of the wires was attached to what I recognized as a sump pump. Upon seeing this I began to have even more reservations about this excursion.
We loaded onto the boat and as we’re motoring out of the harbor, Dan says, “Oh, by the way, this boat tends to take on water, that’s what the battery’s for.” OK, I tell myself, leaky boat. Great. We’re now definitely out too far to swim back, so it appears we’re stuck. Dan continues, “ When the water gets too deep just attach those two leads to the battery and the pump will come on and get rid of the water.” OK, Now we’re far enough out to where I hardly know where the shore is and my survival is in question.
Ever have one of those days? I am a good person, I really try. I volunteer for everything, my family eats dinner together almost every night, we go to church and hardly ever run out of milk. Every morning I drag my worn out body out of bed at 4:45. Let the dog out, let the dog in and head to the gym. On my way I pull into my friend and co-worker’s driveway to pick her up. Together June and I bravely face the horror of putting on a swimsuit (not the cute kind with a little skirt either!) and march out to jump in the pool. Most mornings there is a lane we can share or some say, “Getting out” and we can get started with our workout. On this particular morning the pool was packed. Two or three people in each lane. Both of us being a little shy, we headed to the hot tub to work up our courage to join a lane. When we were thoroughly warmed up, we split up as to not overwhelm the other swimmers. June went down and got in a lane with two other swimmers. Just a good morning and off she splashed. I politely waited for the swimmers in my lane to come up for air and take a water break. In my sweetest voice I said, “Would you mind circle swimming so I can join you?” And my first B of the day said, “No!” I couldn’t believe it. She then goes on to tell me she gets up at 5:00 so she doesn’t have to circle swim. If that was the rule, I had her beat by 15 minutes! The poor guy sharing the lane, was like, “What’s circle swim?” He didn’t care, he just wanted to swim. I tried again, “The pools really full today, we all have to share.” “NO! I am not circle swimming.” I couldn’t believe it, that’s one of those times you wish you could come up with the one liner but no, not before my coffee. I wish I could have just jumped in and started swimming . With cheeks flaming, I walked down the deck to the far lane. The swimmers down there had heard the whole exchange and couldn’t believe it other. I got in and had one of my better workouts thanks to my temper. When she got out, I did too to go down to the now empty lane. As we passed I asked her, “Do you pay extra?” Again I was using my super polite, mom would be proud voice. She looked at me with a surprised, curious expression. “No, why would I?” I smiled at her and said, ”Oh, I thought that’s why you could take up a whole lane and not share.” I kept walking and dove in.
This is a first in a series of three...I hope to have the other two done some time this decade.
We motored about and Dan, because he was a local fisherman, knew exactly where the shelves were, which is where halibut hang out. There wasn’t another boat around. It was all incredibly peaceful, and awe inspiring. We dropped anchor, dropped our lines, and waited.
The gear on this boat was primitive and functional. The line was wrapped in giant restaurant mayonnaise tubs. The circle hooks tied at the end. We had a small length of dowel rod that we coiled the line on. We had to file the rust off the circle hooks before we tied them to the line. Bait was a salmon that Dan had caught on a small fishing rod he’d put out as we were leaving the dock. Actually, once we’d been out a while, I kind of developed a rhythm with the battery and all, and soon didn’t even give it a second thought.
It wasn’t more than 15 minutes, and I had a tug on my line. Halibut are kind of dead weight until they hit shallow water. Then this one fought. Dan helped me to not lose the fish and eventually it was lying in the back of the skiff. All 89 pounds of it.
The day was getting warmer and even more beautiful, and I only had to hook the battery up about every ten minutes. Things were good! So we continued fishing.
Again it was less then 15 minutes and “BAM!”. It’s a good thing we weren’t using rods, because this fish would have yanked one right down into the water. The fish struck my husband’s line like a freight train. I watched as my husband and Dan fought to get this fish up. When it got close to the surface it jumped out of the water like a salmon, and splashed so big it almost capsized our boat. Battery cables. Pump on.
Finally, they were able to bring the new member of our crew aboard. All 127 pounds of him.
It’s not even noon yet.
Later, after a bit of sight seeing, we turned for home. We cruised along, enjoying the moment, when all of a sudden Mr. Big, (as we had named the second halibut) decides to get up and dance. This is a 127 pound halibut, up on it’s tail and thrashing, in the back of an old, leaky, wooden boat. I must admit I began to hope for the existence of a higher power.
I was filming with our giant VCR at the time, but the camera immediately goes to looking straight down at the deck and stays there throughout all the chaos. You can hear us all shouting and the clanks and thunks of things being tossed around the boat. When the fish finally stopped dancing, Dan started looking for something to bludgeon the fish with. (this would be the short-sighted enthusiasm of a commercial fisherman on his day off having it’s effect.) All we had were the 6-inch long, 1-½ inch dowel rods we’d been winding the line on. We were valiantly hitting the fish in the head with them, certainly annoying the fish more than anything else, causing him to thrash around even more.
Fortuitously, another skiff came into the area, and saw the trouble we were having. We flagged them down and they came over. Thankfully, they had a gun.
With the fish finally, permanently, settled down, we continued on our way home. Once at the cannery dock, Dan showed us how to filet the halibut, and wrapped it up for us and stored it in his freezer/locker until we flew to our next town. We didn’t buy fish for over a year.
I learned a lot that day: Skill and perseverance, not equipment, make for a successful day of fishing. A beautiful day of fishing can change your perspective like nothing else. Just because a boat leaks, doesn’t mean you can’t fish from it. Dangerous and unsafe are relative terms.
And, there is nothing like a beautiful day of fishing in the Aleutians.
On a very cold, dry day in January of 2010 while on winter break from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, I sat in my parents basement surfing the internet for some resemblance of sanity and maybe a job after my upcoming graduation to take place in May of 2010. I was completely mesmerized by the almost mind-numbing affect of browsing the various websites that sported headings advertising the best results for teaching applications. Just for the fun of it and also to kind of freak out my parents I told them that I was planning on applying for a job in Alaska. Instead of the result I was hoping for my Mom just laughed and said, “Yeah, okay Nicole, whatever you want.” She said this in a very, brushing it off of her shoulder and sarcastic way. I just laughed and began the application just to see what it would be all about. After sitting through a few hours of questions and trying to come up with the best answers as well as proofreading along the way I had completed the majority of the Alaska Teacher Placement’s general application. All that was left was to attach my resume, cover letter and to wait. I all but forgot about the application, when a couple of days later I received an email for Southwest Region School District. The superintendent, Jack Foster, requested that I contact him regarding a job teacher elementary school in Bush Alaska. I just laughed and then I ran up the stairs from my parent’s basement and went to rub it into to my mom and dad that I had been asked to interview with the school district. My parents were pretty shocked at first, I think that they thought that I was only joking about applying and didn’t think that I was serious about Alaska. I won’t lie I was definitely joking when it all started and I ended up getting way deeper into the process than I had expected. After ignoring the first email for about a week and thinking that I was definitely not going to move to Alaska, I received a call on my cell phone. I didn’t recognize the area code let alone the phone number. I just thought, “this has to be the wrong number, I won’t answer and see if they leave a voice-mail.” Well my hopes were recognized shortly after that when I heard the familiar incessant-like ping of my phone making sure to remind me that I had a voicemail that I would need to check if I wanted to discontinue the annoying sound my phone would continue to make every 5 minutes. I soon stopped even pretending that I didn’t hear it and checked to see who had made the call. When I checked it was the superintendent, Jack Foster. Asking me to contact him about an interview. At this point my excitement could no longer be contained I told my parents, my sisters and my brother, whoever would listen that I had an interview with a school district in Alaska! I was probably to the point of being annoying since that was about the only thing I talked about for quite a while that day and for the remainder of the weekend.
I called to set up the interview with Mr. Foster later that day and decided that I would at least get to practice interviewing since I had never really had one before and this would be the first “teaching interview” I would be having. I decided that I would give it a shot if nothing else. I knew my chances were pretty slim of getting a job in Wisconsin so I thought what the heck I can try and see what happens. It was still early in the year for teaching positions to be open so I thought I would still have a few options once more school began posting their openings for the public to apply. After I set up the interview and began wondering about the questions they might ask. I was really beginning to worry about them and began to ask a lot of friends and family who had applied for teaching positions what I might want to expect. This only seemed to make it worse and as the weekend dragged on I just became more and more anxious for the impending interview on Monday evening. I had started my spring student teaching placement at that point and time and was equally excited to be returning to the Kindergarten students. It was very hard to focus throughout the day of teaching fifteen 5 and 6 year olds. The day seemed to drag on even more after lunch I was super excited and yet extremely nervous making for a very jittery 30 minute drive home. I remember cranking up my stereo in my car and thinking, “Your going to be okay, it’s just an interview. You can always get another one if you don’t do well, this is your first interview for a teaching job.” This was kind of representative of how crazy this was making me. After I arrived home, had dinner, or whatever I could pick at for a few minutes I got ready for my interview. With both of my parent wireless phones I prepared for the interview in the living room. I was concerned about the batteries dying during the interview and so I also had a back up phone plugged into the outlet nearby. I might have gone a little overboard thinking back at it but I have always believe you can never be too prepared. At just before 6:00pm on February 8th, 2010 I received the phone call that changed my whole world as far as I knew it. The phone rang and I almost sprang from my seat. I hurriedly told everyone to be quiet, in what I now hope was a somewhat polite manner, and I answered the phone. The interview was a very informal interview and I talked with the sight principal and the district superintendent. I was able to ask a lot of questions as well as have a very successful interview. Before I hung up the phone I had received an email with a copy of the contract they wanted me to sign. I was a little overwhelmed. Throughout the interview I had an audience on both sides of the phone, I felt like every question I answered was being judged not only by the interviewers but also by my parents and younger brother who were sitting in the room with me. My mom was by far the most interesting person every time she had a question she would writing it down on a piece of scratch paper and bring it over to me. She can be so funny sometimes and afterwards she and my dad had a lot of positive feedback for me. I was nice to hear that they were so proud of my accomplishments.
Part 3: The summer came way too soon, graduation from college, the end of my 2nd grade student teaching, and then time for another summer of babysitting and maintaining my sanity in a house bustling with activity. I don’t know how my parent do it both owning their own businesses and three adult children home from school and getting reading to move on to the next step in life, another just graduated from high school. It definitely makes an interesting time going back to sharing a bathroom with my siblings after being “on my own,” if I can call it that. I had a pretty laid back summer of hanging out with my sisters and brother, saying good-bye to friends from college and family made it a very bitter-sweet transition into “the Real World.” I remember thinking that I would never get there and when I finally did I was thinking, “take me back, take me back, I’m not ready for the next step!” Well, I mostly think that taking such a big step really made it hard to go back on my word and just take the easy way out. Subbing part time on and off for couple of years hoping to get a job in Wisconsin or nearby my family at least would have been too easy. Looking back there was no better way to begin teaching and the hard step of going out of my comfort zone and moving to a far-away place, Manokotak, Alaska.
As the summer went on I soon realized that I was really delaying the inevitable, moving was coming far quicker than I had dreamed. Two months really fly by over night if you let them. While I was packing and slowly moving my life into 6 small Rubbermaid totes I remember thinking how much stuff I had accumulated in 5 years of college, you never realize how much can fit into those small college rentals and dorms. I ended up donating a lot of stuff but when it came down to it I wasn’t even close to being ready to leave so much.
On July 28th, 2010 I wrote this short post on my blog about packing.
One Week and Counting:
Well... needless to say I am still packing boxes and shipping things. I was supposed to be done two weeks ago to make sure everything is there when I arrive at my school. I am the worlds biggest procrastinator when it comes to packing, as many of you have known for some time. So really no big surprise there.
I am starting to get nervous about the trip and wondering whether I will have everything I need when I get there. Since everything must be shipped in I have been trying to limit the amount I send, it is darn expensive to ship things up there, about a dollar a pound so I don't think I will be sending many decorative things with. Which is too bad because I will have a place of my own to decorate now. Everything and I mean everything must be shipped in and I haven't quite ordered food so I will have to get a move on that in the next couple of days if I plan on eating anything.
I will be in Alaska for about 2 weeks before I am even in my apartment or at my school. I have about a week and a half of inservices in Dillingham, Alaska prior to the last leg of my trip to Manokotak, where I will be residing for the rest of the school year. Lots of things to do and so little time. I will be teaching 4th and 5th grade in a town of about 300 people, very few cars/trucks ( about 6 total), and no roads out of town. The ONLY way to access the town is by air or water and during the winter, snowmobile.
I am looking forward to moving and meeting the rest of the staff and my students, I am also sad that I will be away from all of my family and friends. I am extending the invitation to all those who would like to make the trip to see me now so hopefully people will have the adventure seeking bug and make the trek! I will be updating this as often as I can and will be making sure to let everyone know of my adventures. I will also be sending out my address once I have set up a P.O. box and of course pictures will be coming and probably by the tons as is tradition with me. I have several memory cards for my camera ready to go! To all of you who I won't see before I leave, I will miss you all tons and take care!
I don't think anyone realizes how much stuff they accumulate in the matter of one’s life. I have always heard that people should move every couple of years just to get rid of extra odds and ends they may not need any longer. I move almost every 9 months and it has been more often than that lately. I have so much stuff I don't know what to do with it all! In my 23 years I didn't think people could have so much and not need it all! Goodwill here I come. I have already taken one trip this week I guess I will need to take another before I leave on Monday!!
I am still in the process of packing as can be imaged I have gotten much farther than I was last time I posted. I am not sure what all to bring and what I can live without. I am thinking MOST of the stuff I have packed and sent ahead will be enough to get me by until I can get to my apartment and get everything situated. Clothes, however, are a pain in the butt. I need to bring enough for about 2 weeks of inservices and I didn't really think I had that many outfits. Needless to say I have too many and I don't have time to ship them ahead because they won't get to my town until after I need them for school. A dilemma for sure. What's a girl to do? I am sure I will get this one figured out when I get to Anchorage if not sooner.
I don’t know if I ever fully finished packing up my stuff or cleaning out the large walk-in closet in my bedroom that I shared with my sister. I know that my mom and sister keep bombarding me with questions of when I am going to finish going through my things and take what I need and put it in storage or consolidate it into fewer containers and boxes. Maybe someday I will finish the process of packing things up. Until that day comes I will find a way to put off the inevitable.
Lake Merritt has the perfect perimeter for a walk-- a paved trail, lined with lights. In the time it would take for a thorough conversation on the phone with my mother, I’d make it around. I was living in Oakland, California, and the lake was just a block away, past the all-night taco truck, on the opposite side as the library. Every Saturday there was a Farmer’s Market, on the shiny side of the lake.
The cat-man agreed to take the boys back home with him to their mama for one last night, while Greg and I made the proper preparations. We had to get a litter box and cat food. I don’t remember how we paid for it. Perhaps we found enough change in the couch cushions for the cheap generic cat food. Perhaps we made it through the self-check aisle without anything detecting the twenty-pound bag of litter at my feet.
The next day, the punkrock farm boy rode up to our apartment on his bicycle with two stripy kitten heads poking out of a backpack in the basket on the handlebars. He said he was really happy that they had found us. Weeks later he called to check up on them, and I told him they were the about the very best thing that had ever happened to me. Soon, that boy moved away to New Orleans.
Greg being a keyboardist in a rock band, and both of us being huge fans of music, we named them Prince and Thriller.
The adventures of Prince and Thriller had only just begun.
One day I got home from work to discover that Prince was missing! We had two houseguests that summer, members of the band, and I was certain one of them had accidentally let Prince out. I searched everywhere. I frantically hung my head out of the screenless windows of our twelfth story apartment, praying he hadn’t slipped through the crack of the window we left open. I knocked on doors, I called, I cried myself to sleep. The next morning, exiting the elevator on my way to work, two janitors stood in the lobby. I excitedly asked them if they’d seen Prince. One man, who honestly seemed to be on the cognitively-impaired side, smiled and said yes! The story he told is a miracle that takes my breath away. He brought me upstairs to a vacant apartment, complete with a dish of catfood and a dish of water, that he had given Prince for the night, after the events of the day showed him that Prince was special. It turned out that Prince had left our apartment with Ray, the drummer of the band. Prince was chilling in the lobby when the janitor discovered him. “Hey there little dude, who are you?” I can imagine something like that was said. Prince was put outside in a fenced-in backyard of a vacant apartment. Prince soon scaled that fence and kicked it on the busy streets of Oakland for as long as his heart desired. Later that day, he found his way back to the apartment building and somehow managed to get back inside the lobby. Sure enough, the same janitor spotted him again. “Hey there little dude, you’re back!” That was when he knew that Prince needed indoor accommodations for the night.
Months later, after they were neutered and vaccinated (I had borrowed the company car to drive them, and our very good friend Josh Journey was visiting us from Minneapolis. He accompanied me to provide assistance, and Prince’s post-op drug-induced side affects made us laugh. Without Josh, I would have just worried…) it was time for me to leave Greg. Packed up and ready to go, with a beautiful new studio apartment on Nob Hill waiting for me and a great gay guy friend’s muscles, I was moving out. Greg’s bandmates were over, giving each other haircuts. I made one last plea to Greg: “Let me take both of the cats.” Greg’s staunch reply remained “No, I am keeping Thriller. Let’s not talk about it right now.”
The first couple of days, just Prince and me in San Francisco, were lovely but strange without Thriller. I knew what had to be done.
With the company car, the keys to the old apartment, and Greg’s permission to enter, I drove to Oakland for the speakers I had forgotten. I also brought the cat carrier. I called Greg to let him know my plans. He told me to wait. That he couldn’t talk about it then, because he was at happy hour with his coworkers. But I’d made up my mind. I knew it was the right thing to do. The brothers needed to be together, and not even Greg knew if his rockstar lifestyle could handle them. I texted him “I’m taking Thriller. Drink up.” He responded with seemingly silly remarks “Cat napper!” and the like, but I knew that what seemed silly now would not be so light-hearted in the morning. I drove across the Bay Bridge with Thriller in the carrier in the passenger’s seat, singing Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” I felt strong, empowered, justified.
Greg got over it. The threats subsided after I thanked him for putting them in writing (in the email I received the morning after). After only a week or so, Greg and I were friends again and he was invited over for dinner and to see the cats. We both knew if was for the best.
The adventures of Prince and Thriller continue, including the rode trip move back to Minneapolis in a mini van, along with the rode trip move to Juneau in a U-Haul. They went camping on that one! They make great travel companions, just sleeping and cuddling together in one large carrier.
Prince has been sick for about 7 months. The reason behind his sudden change remains a heart-breaking mystery. Thousands of dollars and three different veterinarians have not uncovered the cause of the brain damage . . .
For six years I have been blessed with the companionship of these two amazing animals. At about twenty pounds each, they are strong and ferocious miniature tigers- complete with beautiful brown and grey and black stripes, patches of white markings, and the “M” on their foreheads that I have been told stands for “Mary” and means they were touched by Jesus at his birth. Angels they are. Even when we lived in our large Minneapolis home, and they would play in the backyard with us, Thriller is rarely out of eye-shot of me. He seems to make it a point to see to it that I am ok. Like dogs, they come when they are called. Like yin-yangs, they play and cuddle with each other. Like clever little men, they introduce themselves to visitors and observe the work of handimen. Like best friends, they can get on my nerves, but like members of the family, they’ll have a place in my home for as long as their little paws walk this world.
Across Cook Inlet, Mt. Redoubt had been ominously rumbling for a month or two. Sure enough, the week of our wedding, she started spewing ash plumes 30,000 feet into the air. My dad and I drove the eighty miles to Soldotna to pick up our marriage license and a few other last-minute things the Wednesday before our wedding. We got within about 45 miles of home when we started to drive through the ash that turned the bright, sunny day a grim, gritty grey. My contacts began to itch and blur , dad drove the rest of the way. My bridesmaid and her boyfriend were driving down from Anchorage as well. We met them at the post office in Anchor Point where my dad rigged up a filter out of an old nylon taped over the air intake in our cars. My brother was due to fly in from Seattle, along with two of my aunts that day. They were canceled. It all took the bridezilla right out of me. There was literally nothing anyone could do about it. It was out of my hands. As we decorated for the reception on Friday, word came that an avalanche had closed the road from Anchorage to Homer. At that point it came as no surprise.
Flights from Fairbanks for my husband’s brothers, wives, and children were touch and go, but they made it in. My two aunts ended up spending a long weekend in Oregon with other family after giving up on day 3 of cancellations out of Seattle. My brother and his girlfriend made it to the second half of the reception. The bagpiper made it the morning of the ceremony, although I think she had to get a ride back to Anchorage because the small ash-free window she’d flown down in closed again Saturday night. Little did I know the lengths the florist went to for the heather. Her husband was in the hospital in Anchorage and she just decided to go ahead and pick up my flowers herself instead of counting on them being flown down that week, “just in case,” she said.
In the end it all worked out, apparently as weddings usually do. I can’t remember much of anything from the ceremony, except for our little nephew creeping up behind my husband to see if it was true what his dad and uncles told him about how “real men” wear kilts. The reception is a bit of a blur too, although I remember my brother’s arrival and the bagpipe duet that left the crowd speechless, and probably deaf. The dry cleaner got all the ash out of the hem of my dress, and it looks no worse for it. Getting up in front of a small-town worth of lifelong friends and family, then hosting a party where everyone could eat, drink, and be merry bonded us in a way I don’t think a different style of commitment would have. I watched a PBS special about India a few weeks before our wedding. There was a part about the elaborate arranged wedding ceremonies, full of colorful pomp and tradition that the narrator said actually has a psychological effect on the bride and groom, who have never seen each other before. To go through a very public ceremony, witnessed by their community and family, bonds the newlyweds and gives them a touchstone they can come back to as they go through their lives. I see the point of all the “stuff” too.
I once heard, "When one door closes, another one opens. And when that one closes, too, be open minded enough to look for a window." Well, there we were, climbing through a window, being as open-minded and faith-filled as a new couple could ever be.
My husband, Brandon, and I had been talking and hoping, wishing and praying for an opportunity to take together where we could experience a life outside of central Iowa, and ideally the Mid-west, to continue solidifying the foundation of our relationship, and ultimately tuck away some money for the family we'd hoped to have some day. Our search began with hopes for warmer weather, and if Brandon would have had his way, a short drive to the ballpark in Arlington. We focused our attention on metropolitan areas including Dallas/Fortworth, Phoenix, St. Louis and Kansas City. Because Brandon had an opportunity to work remotely, our move relied solely on my ability to find a full-time teaching job. This thought brought stress and pressure on me, not only because we wouldn’t go if I didn’t find a job, but because it’d mean I’d have to leave the middle/high school position that introduced me to the extended family I worked with on a daily basis.
Regardless of what we’d have to sacrifice, Brandon and I decided that our goal to have a family of our own some day would supersede any other goal we had in mind for right now. Eventually we’d have to be in a financial position we felt comfortable with to provide for little ones and that meant moving. As a result, I began updating my resume and all of my online applications in January, only to find that most schools weren't posting vacancies for the following school year until March or April. With generic interest making its way to my inbox on a weekly basis, Brandon and I started focusing less on a move for the current year at the time and more on a move for the following academic year. So you can imagine my surprise, when home with the flu on a Monday afternoon, I received a phone call from a superintendent in the Southwest region of Alaska.
My response to the phone call was mixed: a lot of laughter, a few sarcastic comments and a little curiosity. Reality set in and I was more nauseated by the idea of moving to the tundra than I was from the flu, especially after putting hours into researching districts south of Des Moines. Brandon and I laughed off the idea and skeptically researched this opportunity so we could guiltlessly rule it out. We searched for reasons not to go; but the more we read and talked to others about the opportunity, the more we found ourselves asking, “Why not? When would be a better time to do this? What do we have to risk? What do we have to gain?”
We answered these questions and ultimately decided as a young married couple, with no children, no mortgage and the ability to move with two stable incomes, we’d be able to take advantage of this opportunity with little calculated risk and an opportunity to impact our lives culturally, professionally and financially. We’d have to sacrifice seeing family and friends for an academic year, but we’d be able to come home over Christmas and from mid-May to August if things should work out for a contract the second year. Everything else we’d be sacrificing for this journey would consist of luxuries we’d come to rely on in the hustle and bustle of city-living. And if a village of 400 can survive without these luxuries, so could we, right?
As family and friends learned about the decision we had made, phone calls and emails went from trickling to full-on flooding my free time. Everyone wanted to know what in the hell would possess us to even consider Alaska, let alone sign the contract for the following school year. No matter how we put it, people thought we were crazy. Some people even went as far as to accuse us of being selfish and greedy, trying to guilt us out of moving three-thousand miles away. Luckily for us, we were dead set on going, knowing that the only reason anyone would have reservations about our leaving would be because they'd love and miss us too much to let us go.
By the second week of March, nearly everyone that was near and dear to us knew we were leaving, and plans for our big move were underway. By early April, my letter of resignation was submitted and our tax refund checks, cashed. We budgeted the remainder of our year, placing every spare dime we had into labeled envelopes for shipping, flights, car rental, hotel, food, rent and internet. By May, we had canceled our cell phone service, sold one of our cars and moved out of our own place and into our parents', knowing that we'd need every spare penny lying around to pay for the upcoming expenses. Our flights were booked, and anything we didn't absolutely need was sold, donated or distributed amongst family members to care for until our return.
By the beginning of June, I had created a book of information, including checklists for shipping, emergency contact numbers, banking information, passports, birth certificates and our marriage license. We were carrying our lives in a small portfolio, saving every receipt, and documenting every step we took to get ourselves safely to Alaska. We bundled up what was left of our lives in ten rubbermaid totes and six vacuum space-saver bags, and by our first anniversary, July 4th, 2010, had sent each one out to New Stuyahok, Alaska, hoping they'd be there to greet us when we arrived.
During the month of July, not only did we solidify our commitment to moving to Southwest Alaska, but my younger sister eventually accepted a position in the same district, forcing us to condense 7 months-worth of knowledge and preparation into, at most, two weeks to help her pack. July disappeared, and the closer we came to leaving, the more unprepared we felt in going, even though we knew we had never been more meticulous about the details of an upcoming event. In retrospect, I almost envy my sister for only having a few weeks to stew about moving, knowing that half of the things I spent most of my time worrying about didn't matter.
Just as we knew it would, our departure day crept up on us, making us feel like we still had so much to to and so many people to see before we left that afternoon. We spent the morning shipping off one more bin for Claire, shedding tears with our parents and every other person eves-dropping in our explanations to the postal-service worker, wondering what it was we were sending to Alaska, and why. My mom couldn't choke out a full sentence without thinking about her two youngest children, one-third of her offspring, being 3,000 miles away on "America's Last Frontier." "What if you get sick? Then where will you go? How far is the nearest hospital and how are you going to get there if a bear attacks you?" While my mother never asked them aloud that day, I'm almost certain they were what riddled her brain, as she'd asked them repeatedly throughout the summer. My sense of humor playing on her undying faith was the only way I could respond to her without crying myself, as I hugged her and said, "If I get eaten by a bear, it's what God has planned for me." After a chuckle shared by all, we managed to compose ourselves long enough for the ride to Chicago.
The flight out was more emotional than I had expected, especially considering that I was the one, out of everyone, that couldn't stop the uncontrollable sobs that wracked my body as we hugged one last time. I couldn't stand the look of desperation my parents gave us as we hit the departure gate, and for the first time since signing the contract, I felt like we'd made a terrible mistake. Brandon and I spent the next two hours awaiting a delayed flight, only giving me more of a reason to want to turn back.
After hours of waiting for the delayed flight, our three-leg trip was transferred into a direct flight with another airline at no expense to us. As much as I didn't want to recognize it at the time, it was a sign of the series of silver linings that would come from the sacrifices we had made. Since our move, Brandon and I have experienced our fair share of moments where we're reminded of everything we've sacrificed to be where we are. But for every difficult moment we've endured, we've grown closer as a couple and experienced as much good, if not more, to counteract the low points. I'm really glad we were open-minded enough to sneak out the window and experience the opportunities we have since then.
My most vivid memories from childhood comes from the preschool that I spent my three years in Yokohama, Japan. I remember the earthy red color from the building’s roof, the bulky taste of pebbles on the playground and the smell around the outhouse that was placed at the bottom of a hill, which was habituated by bamboo shrubs. Though it couldn't have been more than an hour each day on a clock, we felt like we were spending most of the day outside, playing hard getting dirty and occasionally bloody. In fact, maybe it was really all day. I have pictures that left me stronger impressions than the events themselves and they tell me even today how actively I was seeking adventures and new experiments. My first day of preschool picture exhibits a huge bandaid almost covering the entire scar on my chin. That afternoon, I held on a swing’s seat upside down and slid onto the ground upside down, just as an older boy was doing it right next to my swing. Another picture has three preschoolers soaked in muddy seawater at a beach. I was up to many things that I will never do as an adult.
Growing up in Asia, pre-school teachers recommended three year olds to bring chopsticks to accompany our home-packed lunch. The chopsticks we used were the plastic ones that were short enough for small hands. Our classroom floor was made with narrow wood boards and had occasional knotholes which was very inviting to little kids. While we were getting ready for lunch, I began to wonder, “what would happen if I put my chopstick in the hole?” I saw a boy doing it a few days before and he found the perfect knothole for his chopstick to go down. I had to try, so I would know for sure what would happen. The first hole I put my chopstick was smaller than the thick end of my chopstick, so it got stuck. I pulled it out of the hole and went off to another one. BINGO! This time the hole was just large enough for my chopstick’s diameter!! The size was so perfect that I could remember the slow-motion-film-like movement of the chopstick going through the hole and disappearing from the sight. I was happy to find the just right sized hole for my chopstick to go through until I realized “How am I going to eat lunch???” My experiment concluded with the fork a teacher lend me to eat my lunch (chopsticks can only work as a pair), explanation-like mumbling I had to tell to my mother when I got home, and the trouble I got into for having my mother purchase replacement chopsticks (and believe it or not. I did the experiment again just to make sure the results were consistent…). I wonder how many single chopsticks they must have found in the crawlspace when they renovated the classroom just about ten years ago. The preschool had actually been open for over 50 years. Even my uncle went there and had the same teacher, though she is now retired. I wonder what if kids dropped chopsticks back then when he was there.
When I think about all the experiments I did in preschool, which I still remember to this day, it reminds me of the importance of concrete sensorial hands-on experiments and trial-and-error lessons a child learns in youth. Those experiences make who they are and form their motivation for learning new things. They were fun and I, along with other peers, kept doing the same thing over and over, totally immersed in the sense of wonder. My memories bring me to remember that we need to include as many opportunities as we can, and even more, in our daily teaching for kids to use their senses and to be absorbed in their passion for learning. Our job as a teacher, then, is to show to the world that when we emphasize on the process of learning with higher-level thinking in any and all subject area, students achieve higher in creativity, sensitivity, 21st-century readiness, and even in the numbers on standardized tests.
Last summer, my sister-in-law, Marie, and niece, Michaela came for a visit. They live down in Sacramento and are urban Californians. They don’t camp or hike – they rent cabins and walk in a park. When I drove up to Anchorage to pick them up at the airport, I experienced an aspect of living in Alaska that I enjoy – I had big potty in the woods. It’s a little disgusting, some may say crass, but there is something so nice about living on the edge of wilderness. Of course, I had to tell them all about it. My niece, age 13, was horribly disgusted and told us in no uncertain terms that she would not have big potty in the woods. Of course, I was taking them camping!
I’ve had many occasions to talk to teens about big potty. A few years ago at school, our student population grew and we (grades 6-12) moved into a renovated home. It was great having a brand new to us building, but the septic was for a family of four. Our numbers were around 40 including students, teachers, aides, guests. The septic could not handle it. Finally, we had to tell students that if they had big potty and a lot to give, they had to give at home. This course of action was after months of all sorts of plumbing issues. We spent a school year with that situation, then the building owner put in a new septic. Whew, it was a challenging situation, but once the giving lessened the septic lasted long enough until it was replaced in the summer.
Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of village schools and semi-off the road system sites concerns not only septic, but water issues. Our current challenge is simply water supply. Somewhere in the village is a leak and for the past few days at school, we had no water. Which means no giving at school at all – big potty, little potty, any potty – the students had to go home and give. Many kids responded that they don’t have water at home, to which I reply – you’re all related and there aren’t 40 people at your house! The village, hopefully, will quickly solve this new issue.
Camping is such a pleasant alternative to school bathroom issues. When camping, I have a littler routine I like to follow when the need for big potty arises. First, I wait until the need is pressing. I don’t’ want to unnecessarily expose any skin to the bite of thousands of mosquitoes. Timing is critical though, because a hole has to be dug and a view found; waiting too long has its own perils. I like to have a view of water, a hillside behind for wind and weather protection; the area needs to be somewhat bare of tall grass or thick brush, but not too close to trees with roots that inhibit the quick digging of a hole. It must be far enough from camp for privacy, but not too far that it’s a hike. Preferably I have plenty of toilet paper, but if necessary a handful of nearby moss (with twigs and rough stuff removed) will work.
One memorable June camp, everything was just right – perfect spot, good timing, plenty of toilet paper. Squatting, I half-stood and reached behind me for the roll of TP and that’s when I looked into the eyes of the watching black bear. He was about 50 feet behind me and up a short rise. Feeling vulnerable and unsure what to do, I slowly stood straighter and that simple movement caused the bear to turn around and leave. On rather shaky legs I returned to camp with a story to share and I’ve wondered ever since what sort of story that bear told!
Of course, I had to tell my niece all of this while we drove to Homer from Anchorage. She was absolutely not impressed. Big potty in the woods was a topic for days, and then we went across Kachemak Bay and camped. Unfortunately the yurt we rented had an outhouse; Michaela was overjoyed. However, she did spend one day out kayaking and experienced little potty in the woods. I look forward to her next visit; I’ll make sure we camp without an outhouse! She’s got a crazy aunt in Alaska that strongly believes there is nothing like big potty in the woods.
For my personal narrative I focused on the genre of poetry...
POEM #1:
Sara Ann
Has dirty blond hair & silver eyes, is average height and creamy pale skin.
Anxiously energetic, furious flower-planer Eats breakfast on the go Relishes Alaskan summers Is a soon-to-be-mother Devoted teacher, younger sister Is wife to Alex, daughter to Roger & Eileen Loyal friend Voracious book lover and collector Novice sewer and knitter, wants to be a painter Quirky Alaskan Multiple pet owner Consumes anything chocolate, drinks peppermint tea Frequent dessert devourer Delicate hiker, crazy biker Is caring, will help anyone out Shy Japanese speaker, closet country music fan Loud car singer
POEM #2: (the stanza's I put it in didn't work out exactly because of the format of the post...)
I am From the Land of the Midnight Sun
I am from Lynden Drive, my home until 5 years old.
I am from 3711 Runestad Circle where almost twenty years has passed and swirl cones from McDonalds are a short walk away.
I am from the smell of freshly cut grass mixed with the faint scent of gasoline.
I am from the crabapple tree of bitter, sour apples that make my face cringe, the tree that moose eat apples from and my Mom yelled at them.
I am from trips to the city library in the summer, checking out as many books as I could carry in my two arms home.
I am from the Golden Rule - treat others as you would like to be treated.
I am from late-night games in the midnight sun: Hide-and-seek, Mother May I, Red Light/Green Light and What Time Is It Mr. Fox? running through the neighborhood, the bright white of evening lighting up the sky.
I am from family hikes along Turnagain arm, searching endlessly for the magical sighting of dall sheep and baby belugas in the inlet.
I am from handmade chocolate covered cherries, Eagle brand condensed milk and fondant.
I am from Grandma Geiger’s Crackerjack Cookies, cranberry bread, and Uncle Duane’s rendition of Surrito Burrito!
I am from sledding birthday parties of broken arms, frozen toes/fingers, and rosy red cheeks.
I am from the perfect sticky snow, used to make snowmen with coal eyes and carrot noses.
I am from orange Danish rolls from a can and Dad’s perfect pancakes, so light and fluffy they melt in your mouth like butter.
I am from Vacation Bible School craft projects, and pot roasts on Sundays.
I am from Winnie the Pooh, Strawberry Shortcake, the Care Bears and Rainbow Brite.
I am from a place where we were woken up late in the night, to see the aurora’s colors dancing in the night sky the algae green and periwinkle blues, and sometimes crimson reds.
I am from those memories, of a time that is not that long ago.
POEM #4: (again, formatting a little messed up so I tried to tweak a few lines...)
What’s in the experience of being pregnant?
What’s in the experience of being pregnant? In the beginning it was carrying around a secret for months and months, until it is safe to tell.
Telling in-laws they're going to be grandparents, by letting them know it’s time to stock up on diapers ad wipes. Jeans that have no zipper or waistband, shirts that make me look like I'm wearing a tent.
A changing body that keeps growing and growing loving and hating it at the same time. The first tears of joy I've ever experienced, rolling down my face because it's going to be a she.
The different stages of the growing belly: The "I hardly look pregnant" belly, the "Is she pregnant?!" belly, and the “Touch me! I'm pregnant!” belly.
Feeling the first little flutters first kicks and movements, a full stomach movement, learning to recognize hiccups!
Picturing what she will look like - her little hands, little feet, fingers and toes. Imagining how she’ll be and what she’ll be like, and which family members she will resemble.
But most of all, the sudden ability to focus on what's important - and what matters most.
“Get this shit off my bed.” Some of the last words my father says to me. He is pointing at the teddy bear that the nurse brought. It’s a small brown teddy bear wearing a T-shirt with the words “hug bear” on it. My father has just had surgery. He’s supposed to practice coughing while holding the bear tightly to his chest. It will help his ribs not to ache so much while he coughs. He’s supposed to cough so his lungs won’t fill up with fluid while he recovers from abdominal surgery. I take the bear. “This?” I say. He nods and turns away. I’m sure he doesn’t mean to be so angry. It’s probably the pain, or the medication for the pain. I place the bear next to the window. My brothers and sisters and I have all written our names and good wishes on the bear’s T-shirt. We have decorated his hospital room with balloons and cards and flowers. This is the third day after his surgery. They found cancer. A lot of it. So much that there is nothing they can do. The nurse (her name is Angel) says, “After he recovers from the surgery he can go home…” She doesn’t say go home to die, but I hear it. He is still turned away from me, and I wonder if he needs some rest. “Do you want me to go so you can sleep, Dad?” I ask. After a pause, “No.” So I stay. I look at the bear, and the little, mean part of me feels wounded that he didn’t appreciate it. As of late, he doesn’t even realize where he is, or why, half the time. Along with the cancer he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimers, He spends a lot of time watching TV, when he isn’t trying to get up and go home. We don’t talk that much, but during a soap opera recently he pointed at one of the characters and said, “That’s Rita. She’s a baddy,” and we both smiled. Growing up, I had a hard time relating to this man. My younger sister and I were the last of seven kids, and our parents were “old.” They were tired. We were not exactly the center of their lives. They may have attended a school play or music concert or two, while we were young, but mostly they stayed to themselves and so did we. Somewhere in my teens, I developed an attitude toward my dad. I rarely showed it to him outright, but inside a slow rage began to simmer and seethe. He was generally grumpy and critical, and I found it increasingly difficult to put up with his bad moods. I’m thirteen, and at the table one evening, he criticizes Mom’s dinner. “These potatoes are pretty hard, aren’t they?” I look at my sister, then at Mom. I speak up. “I think they’re delicious.” He ignores me. Mom frowns at me. It is obviously not my place to contradict. I’m fifteen, and Dad is home in the afternoon after school: “Don’t you girls have any pride in this house? Get down on the floor and pick up all this shit on the carpet. Why don’t you help your mother more often?” We get down and pick up shreds of paper and strings. Angry, I say, “Mom doesn’t ask us to,” but not very loud. I’m seventeen: “Mom, I went on the pill.” Silence. “Well, don’t tell your father. He puts you on a pedestal, you know.” I’m sitting at dinner with Mom and Dad. They have no money to send me to college. I’m going anyway, there are student loans. “Maybe if you didn’t buy so much beer you’d have a little money left over to put toward college,” I say.
Sometime during college, I’m home for Christmas, leaning on Dad’s shoulder on the couch. He slips something in my shirt pocket. I take it out. It’s a hundred dollar bill. I suddenly realize he is proud of me, and I start to cry. Later that evening, Dad and I share a few beers before dinner. When we run out, we decide to drive into town. It’s snowing hard, Christmas Eve, and the only place open is the Valley Hotel liquor store, so we go in and buy a sixer of Olympia and drink one apiece on the way home. He tells me I am smart, that I can be whatever I want to be. I could be an astronaut, even. I tell him I’d rather just be a Ninja, and we laugh and clink cans. Life happens to us, I marry, Mom and Dad move to Arizona for retirement, and they spend a few weeks of summer in Alaska. They stay in their motor home in the parking lot of the Anchorage Moose Club. I go to visit them one afternoon, and my mom looks tired. Dad doesn’t say much, he hugs me but seems confused. Mom chats about this and that. She mentions that my brother has given them a cell phone to use, and as if on cue, it rings. My dad gets up and lurches over to the table, grabs the phone and begins punching buttons. It continues to ring. He shakes it. He punches another button, raises it to his ear, and says “Hello!” too loudly. It continues to ring. He thrusts it at my mom, disgusted. She takes it and clicks the receiver but it is too late. They’ve already hung up. Dad folds his arms and looks out the window. I stay for lunch and then go back home, not knowing what to feel. I’m sitting by Dad’s hospital bed, and it’s me who’s holding the bear. I feel like I might cry, but instead I say, “Dad?” and wait. He takes a long time to roll over and face me. “What do you think about all this?” I ask. I don’t know what I expect from this man. A philosophical treatise? A hug? Finally he speaks. “Oh, it’ll never fly.” “What do you mean?” I ask, but I think I know. I switch on the TV and we watch “The Price is Right” for maybe the last time. Sometime later, he falls asleep, and I put the bear back on the bed.
We are sick of all of you... HAVACLAM? Tell us about it. Like EARL and MOTHER JONES? HAVACLAM? Is hat like " PEARL YOU LITTLE...." that blog? PEARLS- CASA DONASA- PASO DE VENCEDORAS ? ASWC...??? ASS - WASHINGTON- COLORADO? ARIZONA Senators are talking ACE? CONDOLEEZA RICE has been ID'D by more than 15,000 rappers and that says a lot about CHUMS.
Living by Volcanoes
ReplyDeleteBy Linda Thompson
Living in Homer, Alaska can be not only beautiful to behold but exciting to experience. We live near a neighborhood of volcanoes across Cook Inlet. Mt. St. Augustine had erupted in 2007 causing ash to be dropped across the bay and east of Homer. In January, 2009 we had a heart stopping 6.5 earth quake. Mt. Iliamna rattled and rolled and even gave us a lot of red on the webicorders (www.avo.alaska.edu) that week indicating earthquake activity. By February and March, it was the activity of Mt. Redoubt.
For two weeks, Redoubt shot ash to the sky north, closing down all our airports, limiting travel, and trapping thousands of travelers in Seattle and Anchorage. Many of our south central Alaska travelers had been landing 600 miles north of us in Fairbanks, renting cars, and driving south to get home. I had heard there was enough ash on the international airport in Anchorage (250 miles north of us) that they were thinking about bringing in truck loads of snow, just to plow up the ash so jets could once again land. A week later, they lowered the emergency notices on Redoubt from Red to Orange and we thought it was over. It had missed us and we were ash free in Homer.
The first time Redoubt went off with a wind in our direction, no one still believed it would come southeast after all the false calls of the recent past. I had to teach school all day and parents came to get their children early, only to rush home to safety and to get ready for the ash that destroys cars, furnaces, and anything electrical. Teachers stayed until the last of the children were gone and were told to immediately evacuate. We sealed our outside classroom doors with wide tape and put large plastic bags on the computers before leaving. Everything outside was covered with a thin layer of wet snow and ash.
Face masks were provided by the school district for everyone. The ash, a very fine face powder in consistency, stung our eyes and the air reeked of sulfur. The masked auto mechanics teacher hosed down our cars, so we could see to get home. We were told not to use our windshield wipers because the ash would cut the glass. I struggled to see through the grey mud as it got so thick on my five mile drive home. I had to turn on the wipers twice to thin it out as I inched down East End Rd safely while praying I wasn’t doing too much damage to my car. A few days later, all was normal again as though nothing had happened. We were back at school, and the ash seemed to have disappeared.
The serenity of life in Homer didn’t last long before things got weird again. In April, I woke up on a Saturday morning to the sound of jets taking off from our tiny Homer, Alaska airport. “Jets, I thought. We never get jets this time of year.” But then, was it jets? Was I dreaming? “Thunder, it must be that,” I thought. “No can’t be, we don’t get thunder in Alaska in the winter, only in the summer.” I stayed in bed. Dawn was breaking, and it was light outside. It was my day off and I could be lazy.
Then the phone rattled and rang. I jumped out of bed to answer it. It was my good friend, Jerry. He lived between me and Mt. Redoubt.
“Linda, the volcano just erupted big time, and the cloud of ash is coming your way! Did you hear it?” Jerry said.
I am going to enter it again. You can't see paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteLiving by Volcanoes
By Linda Thompson
Living in Homer, Alaska can be not only beautiful to behold but exciting to experience. We live near a neighborhood of volcanoes across Cook Inlet. Mt. St. Augustine had erupted in 2007 causing ash to be dropped across the bay and east of Homer. In January, 2009 we had a heart stopping 6.5 earth quake. Mt. Iliamna rattled and rolled and even gave us a lot of red on the webicorders (www.avo.alaska.edu) that week indicating earthquake activity. By February and March, it was the activity of Mt. Redoubt.
For two weeks, Redoubt shot ash to the sky north, closing down all our airports, limiting travel, and trapping thousands of travelers in Seattle and Anchorage. Many of our south central Alaska travelers had been landing 600 miles north of us in Fairbanks, renting cars, and driving south to get home. I had heard there was enough ash on the international airport in Anchorage (250 miles north of us) that they were thinking about bringing in truck loads of snow, just to plow up the ash so jets could once again land. A week later, they lowered the emergency notices on Redoubt from Red to Orange and we thought it was over. It had missed us and we were ash free in Homer.
The first time Redoubt went off with a wind in our direction, no one still believed it would come southeast after all the false calls of the recent past. I had to teach school all day and parents came to get their children early, only to rush home to safety and to get ready for the ash that destroys cars, furnaces, and anything electrical. Teachers stayed until the last of the children were gone and were told to immediately evacuate. We sealed our outside classroom doors with wide tape and put large plastic bags on the computers before leaving. Everything outside was covered with a thin layer of wet snow and ash.
Face masks were provided by the school district for everyone. The ash, a very fine face powder in consistency, stung our eyes and the air reeked of sulfur. The masked auto mechanics teacher hosed down our cars, so we could see to get home. We were told not to use our windshield wipers because the ash would cut the glass. I struggled to see through the grey mud as it got so thick on my five mile drive home. I had to turn on the wipers twice to thin it out as I inched down East End Rd safely while praying I wasn’t doing too much damage to my car. A few days later, all was normal again as though nothing had happened. We were back at school, and the ash seemed to have disappeared.
The serenity of life in Homer didn’t last long before things got weird again. In April, I woke up on a Saturday morning to the sound of jets taking off from our tiny Homer, Alaska airport. “Jets, I thought. We never get jets this time of year.” But then, was it jets? Was I dreaming? “Thunder, it must be that,” I thought. “No can’t be, we don’t get thunder in Alaska in the winter, only in the summer.” I stayed in bed. Dawn was breaking, and it was light outside. It was my day off and I could be lazy.
Then the phone rattled and rang. I jumped out of bed to answer it. It was my good friend, Jerry. He lived between me and Mt. Redoubt.
“Linda, the volcano just erupted big time, and the cloud of ash is coming your way! Did you hear it?” Jerry said.
Second part- Living by Volcanos
ReplyDelete“I heard jets flying right over my house.”
“That’s Redoubt. It caused lots of lighting and thunder and was incredible. Now it’s black outside at my place and the sulfur is creeping into our house through any cracks or crevices it can find. Turn off your furnace, and close your curtains. That will slow it down from getting in if your windows leak.”
I ran down stairs and opened one set of curtains while keeping the others tightly shut. “Jerry, the cloud hasn’t reached my house yet.” I said excitedly. “I can still see the glaciers and mountains across Kachemak Bay. Wow, the black cloud! Wow! Got to go Jerry! Thanks for the warning!”
I threw on some jeans and tucked my night gown in at the waist. Then I grabbed a jacket with a hood, my volcano mask, slipped on some tennis shoes and ran out to check the intake for my boiler. The nylon stocking was still secure from the last big eruption. No problems. Then I ran back inside, bolt locked all the doors and closed all the windows to seal them tightly.
“Okay, we are ready,” I said to my son, Erik. He was standing in his pajamas watching me run all around the house.
By that time, the ash was starting to come down and we lost our morning. It was dark outside and inside. Not grey, but black like night. Our morning was gone. Lights on the Homer Spit disappeared in the distance and I could barely see the snow in my yard. It was scary. Living in Alaska, we go through months of never seeing day light, except on weekends, and we live for our day light. We don’t take it for granted. I wondered if the ash would be so thick that our house would be buried. Could it be a deep deadly ash of feet in depth or just a thin coating? The feeling of panic was in my heart as I watched with trepidation out the window while listening for any sound of rocks hitting our roof. All was extremely quiet as the darkness deepened.
I called my sister in San Diego for comfort and told her about the blackness outside and how it was coming down on us. My voice quivered. As we spoke, the wind started to shift and the clouds slightly changed direction to the west. I was so grateful; I could see a pinprick of light to the east. Yes, there was the promise of a new day.
Two hours after the eruption, I could see streaks of high altitude ash clouds over head. The blackness had been replaced with a hazy grey color. It was like the heavy dirty smog I had seen in Bejing years before on one of my summer vacations. Our snow was dark grey with soot; in fact my porch was covered with about an inch of ash and my world was all grey except the green ever undulating ocean flowing in front of my house.
Once the light returned, I moved my young tomato plants from the grow lights off the kitchen counter and put them in front of the south windows so the dirty colored light could shine on them. Erik and I fixed breakfast knowing we wouldn’t be going anywhere that day. It was a good day to stay home and not drive our car outside. The ash would destroy the motor, automatic windows and anything it touched. When the smell of sulfur was gone, I went outside and carefully swept up the ash and put it in sealed containers for my garden and to study in my classroom.
In the end, I was so grateful the black clouds chose to dump most of its ash some where else. Fortunately, only 4000 people that lived in our area of Alaska were affected by the eruption. No one was hurt though many of us coughed for weeks as the ash continued to blow around in the air when vehicles or windy days stirred it up.
In 2010, the ash that had fallen the previous spring finally decomposed in my garden and I had the best crop ever of vegetables, blueberries, raspberries and apples. My car window to this day still screeches as it grinds ash when it goes up and down. None the less, we are still here in Homer, comfortably living by our fire breathing volcanoes and happily surviving.
All the Excuses in the World by Meghan Redmond
ReplyDelete"I haven't shaved my legs in weeks." "I've put on weight since I came to Alaska." "I don't want anyone to see me naked." "It's below zero outside!" "I don't know how!"
All the excuses in the world ran through my head as soon as I was invited to go for my first steam. Steaming is called maqi to the Yup'ik people in the villages of Southeast Alaska where I have called home since August. The steam house is made of two rooms, a cool down room and the steam room. You come into the cool down room to undress and get ready to steam. About three people at a time head into the steam room. You wet your hair, wet a washcloth, cover your face with the washcloth and then one person scoops a cup of water onto the stove. The water immediately turns to burning steam, and you sit and sweat. At the new teacher inservice I attended, the seasoned bush teachers warned us newbies about maqiing. They said that as a new member of the village, we would be invited and that we needed to go when we were invited. They warned us not to be shy, not to be nervous, etc.
Since that day in August I set my feet on the gravel runway of what they call Twin Hills Airport, and I use the word airport loosely, I have put myself out of my comfort zone too many times to count. Most of the time, I have looked forward to these new experiences and have seen how far I can push myself physically, mentally and emotionally. Clamming on the first day of school was a physical challenge when I had to maneuver myself through eighteen inches of mud to find clams, never stopping for fear of getting unmanageably stuck.
When that phone call came, I didn't think of the warnings and reassurances of the teachers at inservice or of all the successful new experiences I had completed since arriving in Alaska. Instead I thought of all the excuses in the world. My supportive husband, however, encouraged me to go anyways. He had already maqied with some of the men in the village, and he wanted me to have the experience. Two of my fellow teachers would be there to, so that made me feel a bit better as well. So after flip-flopping back and forth for about fifteen minutes, I finally layered up with all of my outdoor gear. Yes, I was heading to a 100+ degree steam, but it was -10 degrees outside! So, on went my Under Armor, Sorel boots, and seal and beaver skin hat.
My husband and I went outside, he started up the sno-go, and off we went. Driving through the freezing, snowy night, I was honestly so nervous that I was shaking. He dropped me off and promised to be back in an hour. I was on my own...no turning back! I walked around the house to find the maqi, opened the door, and entered the cool down room. Instantly, I was already sweating. My winter layers and nervousness combined with the warm cool down room, and this actually made me want to shed my clothes down to just a towel. When I finally had struggled out of my layers in the crowed, small room and was in just my towel, I was finally feeling calm and actually a bit excited. Then one of the Yup'ik ladies told me I better take out my earrings and rings or they would burn me when I steamed. That made my heart leap out of my chest again.
Despite my nerves, I headed into the steam room with just my two friends, a towel, and a washcloth. Under directions from the experienced ladies, we got our hair and washcloths wet, covered our faces with the washcloths, and readied ourselves for the heat. When the water hit the hot stove and transformed to steam, it was like nothing I have ever felt in my life. The air goes from being uncomfortably warm to a sizzling, unbreathable oven. I now know what popcorn feels like right before it explodes in my nightly snack. I couldn't breath and felt as if someone had dumped scalding water all over my body. 'Why does anyone do this?' I thought to myself. However, after about thirty seconds, the steam dissipated, and I could breath again. I had survived this time. I could do it again! We stayed in the steam room for about 10 minutes and headed into the cool down room for a break. After one more trip into the steam room, we shampooed our hair and bodies, dried off, and I reluctantly re-layered myself up to head back home.
ReplyDeleteDespite the now -15 degrees outside and wet hair, I didn't feel even chilly for a second as my husband took my friends and I home. I had overcome my fear of the maqi, my unshaved legs, and being undressed in front of anyone else.
As we shampooed, one of the friends I was with said it best, "How lucky are we to be here, doing this?" I am so lucky to be here in Alaska, not the Alaska you see in all the new television shows, but in the real Alaska, the Alaska that has been here since before it was part of the United States or even Russia.
The Magnificent Salmon
ReplyDeleteA Parody by Carla Jenness
Two tv show scouts, one from the Discovery Channel, one from the Learning Channel, sit at a table sharing a drink.
Rodrigo: Sotero!
Sotero: Rodrigo! Mi old amigo from the Discovery Channel!
Rodrigo: Mi hermano from the Learning Channel!
Sotero: What some ignoramuses now call the leering channel, eh,eh!
(They share a lascivious laugh.)
Rodrigo: why would they call it that? I mean, with shows like "I was a tweenage crack dealer" and "I didn't realize I set a nursing home on fire".
Sotero: Not to mention "toddlers, tiaras and trebuchets".
(It is building to a great glee...)
Rodrigo: or the Emmy award winning "I married my gerbil"...
Sotero: or, "Congressman by day, Craigslist porn star by night"...
Rodrigo: Wait, that one wasn't on your channel.
Sotero: Oh, right, that was on the news.
(They are saddened for a moment.)
Rodrigo: Right. New York's 26th Congressional district.
Both: We should have thought of it first.
Sotero: So, amigo what brings you here To the Kenai, Alaska's playground?
ReplyDeleteRodrigo: Yes, why are you here in Soldotna, Alaska's river city?
Sotero: (evading) Oh, I dunno, thought I'd do some fishing, you know. And you?
Rodrigo: (also evading). The same, the same.
Both (gotcha). Where's your tackle box?!
Sotero: (the confession) Oh, Rodrigo, I'm in bad shape. Sarah Palin's Alaska show is tanking big time and my boss, Calvera, says I better come up with a new show idea quick or else I better get my resume together.
Rodrigo: Wait, Calvera? That’s my boss’s name too.
Sotero: Well, the media outlets are being consolidated more and more every year. As bloodthirsty as Calvera is, at least he’s no Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner. I still haven’t gotten over how he colorized Casablanca. I cried like a baby.
Rodrigo: Oh, Sotero, I know how you feel.
Sotero: You do? About the colorizing?
Rodrigo: No, you idiot, about having to come up with a new show. Since all the Deadliest Catch crabbers are getting rich on Discovery Channel money, they're all thinking about retiring. Calvera says if I can't think of another Alaska reality show idea and scout some locations this weekend I'll lose my job, too.
Sotero: What do you think of this idea?
Rodrigo: What idea?
Sotero: The 746th most dangerous job in the world is right here on the Kenai.
Rodrigo: It is?
Sotero: yep. And in Nikiski, too. This job would make a great reality show.
Rodrigo: Nikiski, huh? What is it? What's the job?
Sotero: Working .....at the clammery. I call the show "The Most Menacing Mollusk”. I’ve already gotten Jon Bon Jovi to write the theme song.
Rodrigo: Aren't clams bivalves ?
Sotero: What, do you want me to call my new hit show “The Most Boisterous Bivalve”?
Rodrigo: And how dangerous can this job possibly be?
Sotero: Oh, it's very dangerous. You could be attacked by pearl divers looking for pearls...
Rodrigo: Right.
Sotero: You could fall into a giant vat of clams and be made into clam chowder...
Rodrigo: Uh huh.
Sotero: And any one of these events would make for great reality TV.
Rodrigo: That is the dumbest idea I have ever heard.
Sotero: Dumber than "Mall Cop Midgets", live on Thursday nights?
Rodrigo: Actually, no. You're right. But how about this. The largest, most beautiful and productive sport fishing river in the world,
Sotero: I'm listening.
Rodrigo: Home of massive king salmon,
Sotero: yeah?
Rodrigo: dozens of sport fishing guides
Sotero: uh huh.
Rodrigo: a score of commercial fishermen
Sotero: get on with it!
Rodrigo: don't rush me. Picture this fishery: vibrant, alive, well managed, providing subsistence and spiritual solace for countless Alaskans. And then...
Sotero: yeah, yeah?
Rodrigo: the fish just ... disappeared.
Sotero: Oh, like if Pebble mine went in? Wait, wrong fishery.
Rodrigo: Shut up. Let me think. What a show that would make. Brave guides trying to make a living. Family businesses struggling to survive. Fish and game, baffled. Where in the world are the king salmon?
Sotero: But this is the best managed fishery in the world. There's plenty of fish coming up the river for people to catch.
Rodrigo (fiendishly): let's see what we can do about that....
Blackout
Scene 2
ReplyDeleteSam the Funeral director sits at a table on which a coffin rests. Henry, a traveling salesman, enters and peeks in the coffin.
Sam: Hey! I´ve been waitin´ for you.
Henry: Oh, you did a wonderful job.
Sam: I´m sorry, but there´ll be no funeral.
Henry: What?!
Sam: The grave´s dug, and the defunct is as
ready as the embalmer can make him, but there´ll be no funeral.
Henry: Didn´t I pay you enough?
Sam: It´s not a question of money. For six dollars I’d
plant anybody with a whoop and a holler.
Henry: Isn’t that a Toby Keith song?
Sam: That’s my flat fee, six dollars.
Henry: That’s just enough to buy you a double latte at Thanks a Latte.
Sam: You’re making an espresso joke this early in the show?
Henry: You’d prefer a price of gas joke?
Sam: But anyway, the funeral´s off.
Henry: Well, how d´ya like that?!
Sam: I want him buried. You want him buried. If he could talk, he´d second the motion.
Henry: That´s as unanimous as you can get.
Sam: Unless you’ve got a roomful of Wisconsin republicans wanting to bust the union.
Henry: This has to be buried. Soon. He´s not turning into a nosegay. In fact, this box is starting to smell like the cannery after a double shift.
Sam: I know. I would if l could, but there´s an element in town that objects.
Henry: Objects? To what?
Sam: They say he isn´t fit to be buried there.
Henry: What? In Boot Hill? There´s nothing there but murderers,
cutthroats and barflies. Like the saloons in Juneau after a 90 day session. And if they ever felt exclusive, they´re past it now.
Sam: No, dummy, not Boot Hill, this is Soldotna, remember?
Henry: Oh, right. So what’s the problem with the cemetery?
Sam: Well--
(Just then, two cowboys ride up, leap off their horses and grab the coffin.)
Vin: We’ll take care of this!
Chris: Yes indeed!
Vin: Can I borrow that scatter-gun?
Sam: Uh, this is a fly rod, but you´re more than welcome.
Vin: Thanks. Ooo, 12 pound test. That should do for this job.
(A crowd starts to gather from various windows and doors to watch the spectacle as the cowboys start out for the cemetery.)
Sam: Hey! Wait a minute there. You two go sashayin’ down Binkley street like you own the place, no tellin’ what might happen. I’m tellin’ ya, the good folks of Soldotna don’t want that kind of thing in their cemetery. This coffin cost me $20. It´s the only one in the county. I´ll be darned if l let it be shot at.
A Bystander: I´ll pay for the damages. I wanna see this.
Another bystander: Me, too!
Vin: Never rode shotgun to a cemetery before.
Chris: Let her buck.
Vin: New in town?
Chris: Yeah. Saw that “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” on the TV and knew I wanted to be a part of this untamed wilderness. Wanted to get in on that PFD money, too.
Vin: Where are you from?
Chris: Dodge. You?
Vin: Tombstone.
Bystander 3: Where ya think yer goin’ with that coffin? Cheechakos!
ReplyDelete(Vin lunges at him with his fly rod.)
Chris: Easy. Just wind.
Vin: We´ll get there.
Chris: It’s not gettin´ there that bothers me. It´s stayin´ there that I mind. Also, I think we made a wrong turn. Isn’t this graveyard supposed to be here overlooking the river?
Vin: (He spots a wealthy Soldotna with a dip net coming towards them.) Comin´ up behind us on the left.
Chris: I don´t think so.
Wealthy Soldotnan: Don’t even think about planting that thing here! This property is way too valuable to waste on something as inconsequential as a final resting place for the pioneers of this community! Get the hell outa here! (He wields his net.)
Vin: Oh yeah? I’ll show you, ya swell! (He rigs his reel for a deadly cast.)
Chris: Easy. Let him be. This ain’t even the graveyard. We got to go out some God-forsaken place called Funny River. They say the folks are a bit….different out there.
Vin: Oh, yeah? (With menace, wielding his fly rod) Well, I don’t care how different they are-we all bleed the same!
Chris: What’s that supposed to mean?
Vin: It just means that—oh, I dunno, I just thought it sounded tough. Let’s go.
Funny river pilot: Boys, why don´t you just turn around now - save yourselves a lot of trouble?
Vin: The reception committee is forming.
Funny river golfer: Hold it.
Chris: Anything wrong?
Pilot: Turn that box around and head back to town. You’ll know you’re there when you see an inspirational message on the lumberyard sign.
Golfer: Oh, I love those! Like last week, it said "Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself."
All: Ewww.
Vin: We’re going to bury this departed soul here right now. What do you pretty boys gonna do about it?
Golfer: Look. We don’t have any problem with you boys comin’ out from town to see us. Why don’t we go play nine holes? I just snowplowed all the greens, put out a scare-raven, and shot a moose on the back nine with my pellet gun. Whaddya say?
Pilot: Or, I could take you two on a gorgeous flightseeing trip—I’d show you glaciers, and ice, and water, and more glaciers, and more ice, and snow, and more glaciers...
Chris: Why do you all give a damn whether we bury this here?
Vin: Isn’t this the gosh darn graveyard?
(The golfer and the pilot look at each other as a plane sound effect goes overhead.)
Pilot: (Holds the back of his hand to Vin’s forehead.) You boys drunk any water from any suspicious lookin’ creeks? This one must have the beaver fever.
Golfer: Ooh! I have it too! (Justin Beiber song, whatever that might be, starts playing.) I’ve seen the Justin Beiber experience nine times. In three-D! So that means I’ve seen it 3 times cubed, right?
All: Eww.
Pilot: Why would you think this airstrip is a good place for a cemetery? That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. Except for releasing a Justin Beiber Experience Directors’ cut.
Golfer: You’ve got a body in there?
Vin: Well, yeah.
Golfer: Are you sure?
Chris: Look, they said in town no one wanted this buried anywhere near their house or place of business. Being Bad-A cowboys, we said we’d right this wrong, fix this injustice, give this poor sap his final resting place.
Pilot: So you didn’t ask why they didn’t want this disposed of near any place of habitation?
Vin: No, we just saw injustice and felt compelled to be heroic. That’s—what we do.
Golfer: (He is taking the lid off the coffin.) I’ll tell you why nobody wanted this in town.
Chris and Vin: Hey!
Golfer: (Pulls Whappy, the stuffed, fabric salmon, out of the coffin.) Fish waste has to be double bagged.
Suddenly, Magnificent Seven theme blasts triumphantly. Black out.
Scene 3
ReplyDelete(Vin and Chris are sharing a beer at the saloon.)
Vin: Well, how were we to know we were cartin’ around a dang fish?
Chris: Where are you headed now?
Vin: I´m drifting south, more or less.
Chris: Why drifting? Don’t you have a river boat with a motor? Or are you one of these back to nature, don’t ruin nature’s majesty types?
Vin: No, I mean, drifting like the old west kind of drifting, like tumblin’ tumbleweeds kinda drifting. You?
Chris: Just driftin´.
Vin: So, like the boat kind, or the tumbleweed kind? Cause now we’ve got these two kinds of drifting established that we’re talkin’ about, and now I’m all confused—
(Chris gets up to leave.)
Vin: Oh, right, ok, well, see ya.
Chris: Say, what´s your name?
Vin: Make it Vin. What´s yours?
Chris: Chris.
(Just then, a Soldotnan local approaches the two.)
Juan: We think you are a man we can trust. (NEEDS A JOKE HERE>)
Chris: Thank you very much.
Juan: We wish you to help us.
Paco: There´s this man, Calvera.
Juan: A thief. A murderer. A media mogul behind such atrocities as “Bridalplasty”
Vin: What the hell is that?
Paco: A reality show where, and I’m not making this up, Brides compete in various “challenges” and the “winner” gets a free nose job.
Chris: We must stop this evil, evil man.
Paco: We haven’t even told you what he has to do with us, or Soldotna.
Chris: It doesn’t matter. I’m in.
Vin: Wait a minute. If you need protection, go to the federales. I mean, the state troopers.
Juan: We did. Twice. They are too busy to help us because they are all auditioning to be on Alaska State Troopers on the National Geographic Channel.
Vin: Fish and Game?
Juan: All working as consultants on Dirty Jobs on Discovery.
Vin: City police?
Paco: COPS: Soldotna Edition on Fox.
Vin: EPA?
Paco: NBC.
VIN: DMV?
Juan: CBS.
Chris: Hold it. There’s a reality show about the Department of Motor Vehicles?
Paco: Si, Senor. It’s called, “Please Take a Number, or I Got Pregnant While Waiting to Renew My Driver’s License”
Vin: (With menace)We’ll make this Calvera wish he never turned over to check if his alarm was turned on.
Chris: What’s that supposed to mean?
Vin: No good? Not threatening?
All: No.
Chris: So, tell us what you know about Calvera. What is he doing to you villagers here in Soldotna?
Paco: All of a sudden, there are no fish in the river.
Vin: What did they put Pebble mine in after all?
Chris: Wrong river.
Juan: We are pretty sure he and his men are illegally catching all the fish at the mouth of the river.
Vin: Oh, like a tourist who thinks he can dip net.
Juan: Yes. Except this tourist has a dip net that is 5 miles long.
Vin: Wow, those tourists are getting nervier every year.
Paco: He meant that metaphorically.
Chris: Get on with it.
Juan: Calvera’s men have planted a giant net under water at the mouth of the Kenai. It is catching all the fish before they can come up the river.
Paco: Then, under cover of darkness….
Vin: Not much of that in June…
Juan: Details, details
Paco: Calvera’s men pick the fish out of the nets, and ship them to fish farms down south where they are ground up and fed to King Salmon/Eel hybrids.
Chris: Frankenfish!
Vin: Is that what it’s called when Minnesota Senator and ex Saturday Night Live funnyman Al Franken goes out to wet a line?
Chris: No, that’s what they call these genetically altered fish which are supposed to grow faster, but it’s really just a disaster waiting to happen because---
Paco: Will you help us defeat Calvera and his men?
Chris: It’s going to take more than two cowboys to defeat an entire media organization.
Vin: Also, this show is called the Magnificent Seven.
Paco: Salmon.
Vin: Whatever. There’s supposed to be seven of us.
Juan: (Looking around.) This is kind of a small room….
Chris: Don’t worry about it. I´ll pass the word around
ReplyDeletethat you´re looking for men. I’ll put in on my Facebook page.
Paco: It won´t be hard to find men here. Everyone wears a gun. After all, Alaska is a conceal carry state. And Don Young encourages everyone to exercise their 2nd amendment rights by packing heat to constitution rallies and Elementary School talent shows. Yes, everyone wears a gun.
Vin: Sure - same as they wear pants. That´s expected. (Paco and Juan exchange puzzled looks.)
Chris: But good men?
That´s something else again.
Paco: How can you tell they are good?
Chris: There are ways. (Paco and Juan exit. There is a knock at the door.)
Vin: Who knocks to come into a saloon?
Chris: A polite barfly. Come in.
Chico: Word is out you´re looking for men.
Vin: Wow, that was fast.
Chico: I got a tweet on my GunslingersToday Twitterstream.
Chris: That´s right. Men who are good with that.(Points to the fishing pole in his hand.)
Chico: I´m good with it.
Chris: Fast?
Chico: Try me.
Chris: I aim to. Step in closer. Now, hold your hands like that. Now, clap.
Faster. Now, like this. (He joins in with a children’s chant, Paddy cake style.)
Now, as fast as you can. (The clapping gets faster and faster until Chico falls to the ground, defeated.)
Chico: I am very young and... and very proud.
Chris: The graveyards are full of boys who were very young and very proud.
Vin: Not in Soldotna, they’re not. They don’t even have a graveyard in this town.
Black out.
Scene 4
ReplyDelete(Britt snoozes leaning up against a wall. Two cowboys argue.)
Joe: I still say he can´t.
Skeet: And I tell you he can, Joe. 30 seconds. Cut, Smoke, Vac, Pack, Ship.
Joe: If he claims that, he´s a liar.
Skeet: Not so loud. He might hear you.
Joe: I don´t give a damn if he hears me or not.
Skeet: I got two months´ salary comin´. I’ll bet it all it ain´t so.
I told you what he said, and I believe him.
Joe: Well, one of us is a fathead.
Skeet: You can get good odds on which.
Joe: Britt. Britt, wake up. I´m talkin´ to ya! Look at me!
Skeet told me what you said. I say you´re wrong. What d´you say?
What´s the matter? You afraid? Afraid to tell me I´m wrong?!
(At this, Britt leaps up, pulling a fillet knife from his belt. He wields it at Joe, who pulls an ulu from his belt. Both men circle each other for a moment. Then, abruptly, they start “cleaning fish”. After a minute, Britt holds up a perfectly vacuum sealed filet. Joe holds his up a moment later.)
Brit: Call it.
Joe: Well, you see, l won. Well, how about it? Well? Skeet, how about it?
Skeet: I don´t know. It was mighty close.
Joe: Close? What d´you mean, close? I demand a recount. I want to file an appeal! I’ll sue! I won! You tell ´em. I won, didn´t l?
Britt: (He is back to his previous spot.) You lost.
Joe: You´re a liar.
I said you´re a liar!
I said you´re a coward, a liar, and you took money from Native Corporations to sway the vote in the village in your favor! AND, your name’s hard to spell!
Get up. Let´s do it for real. (He is threatening Britt with his Ulu.)
I said, Get up!
Call it!
Britt: I want nothin´ to do with this.
Joe: Call it! The Supreme Court said…
Skeet: Drop it, Joe. Forget it.
Joe: Get away from me.
Call it. I call it voter fraud!
(Chris enters.)
Chris: Britt.
Britt: Chris.
Chris: Can I have a word with you?
Britt: Yup. (He gets up, starts to walk away with Chris.)
Skeet: But what about him? He’s making an awful ruckus.
Chris: Oh, Miller there? Just ignore him and eventually he’ll go away.
Britt: You need men to do a job in Kenai.
Chris: That´s right.
Britt: How long?
Chris: Two, three nights.
Britt: That ought to do it. How much does the job pay?
Chris: Enough to settle your tab at Hooligan’s.
Britt: I’m in. (They laugh, then do a sitcom style “Freeze-frame” as we)
Blackout.
Scene 5
ReplyDelete(At Calvera’s office.)
Sotero: Ok, Senor Calvera, here it is. The theme song for “The Most Menacing Mollusc”, CLAM PARODY SONG
(A Bon Jovi style singer performs the song. Calvera is not amused.)
Calvera: It’s a good thing Rodrigo is on this situation. Thanks to his brilliant idea, we’re getting all kinds of great footage for our new show, All Spawned Out. Can we roll that footage, please?
(We see three vignettes in the kitchen windows. The first:)
A woman: I’m sorry Billy, there just isn’t any salmon to make your salmon salad sandwich today. I guess you’ll just have to gnaw on your pencil during math class to tide you over.
Billy: But, Ma, I’m sooo hungry. I wish it were standardized testing week. Then the school would HAVE to feed us!
(They embrace, sobbing.)
(The second: )
A guide: I’m sorry, Mr. Pennypacker. There just aren’t any fish. I think we’re going to have to shut down the Annual Kenai River Occurrence.
Mr. Pennypacker: But how can we lobby Juneau and Washington if we’re not catching record king salmon and drinking martinis in drift boats?
Guide: I don’t know sir…..
(They embrace, sobbing)
(The third: )
Fred Meyer manager: I don’t know what to say, Mr. Sweeney. It’s bad over at Fred Meyer, with no fish, there’s no tourists to buy fish bonkers and coolers and worms and flies and waders and beef jerky and…
Mr. Sweeney: Well, we’re the workin’ man’s store. I’ll just run a special on Carhartt’s. That’ll bring the roughnecks in.
Fred: and rods and reels and beer(he starts breaking down)oh, what are we gonna do?
(They embrace as he sobs.)
Calvera: Alright, that’s good. Stop the tape, gracias, Umberto. See what I mean, Sotero? This is reality TV gold! We’ll throw in some stock footage of bikini babes on the river and we’ll be on top of the Neilsens before you know it! And, I meant to tell you, we’re pulling funding from your clam show.
Sotero: But, but, it’s a great idea! What about the theme song!? (He motions to our singer, who enthusiastically sings a few more bars)
Calvera: No, no, no, you idiot. Clams don’t sell. Babes sell. Bawling, pathetic saps sell. Human tragedy sells. That’s what we’re going with.
Sotero: But, we made this tragedy.
Calvera: That’s right, amigo! Hahahahahaha! Now, go earn your keep by finding me some film of some hot young things in thong bikinis. Hahahahaha!
Blackout
Scene 6
ReplyDelete(At the saloon Chris, Vin, Britt and Chico sit around a table. Sotero enters, dejectedly. Chris, Vin and Chico grab for their guns.)
Sotero: (hands up) Easy, amigos. I come in peace.
Vin: You’ll leave in pieces!
(All look at him, shake heads sadly.)
Vin: What, no good? I liked that one!
Chris: We have no business with any man of Calvera’s.
Sotero: I am through with all that. I count, uno, dos, tres, quarto. I thought you were the Magnificent Seven.
Britt: Salmon.
Sotero: Whatever. So are you the fabulous four or what?
Chico: If you’re just going to criticize, you might as well move out.
Vin: What do you want?
Sotero: Calvera pulled the plug on my clammery based reality show, The Most Menacing Mollusc.
Chris: Smart man. Sounds like a dumb idea.
Sotero: (Explodes.) Dumber than Extreme Dog Makeover?! Where poodles get their claws polished in prime time?!
Chris: Easy, now.
Sotero: I am through with all of it. I want to join you. Then at least you could be the Phenomenal Five.
Vin: I don’t like it.
Britt: Let’s hear him out.
Chico: Right. We are clueless anyway, we have no plan, no organization, no agreement, no sense!
Sotero: Sounds like the feds trying to avoid a government shutdown.
All groan.
Sotero: The Academy deciding to have 10 Best Picture nominees?
Less groaning, some thoughtful nodding.
Sotero: The state trying to get a gasline in?
A few chuckles.
Vin: Ok, let’s hear what you got.
Sotero: Calvera and his men are going to move the net further upriver so they can catch every single fish that tries to come up the river.
Chico: So? How does this knowledge help us?
Chris: Do you know when they are planning to do this?
Sotero: Yes. Tonight.
Chris: This is our chance to confront them, catch them in the act, and defeat them, once and for all!
Sotero: So, amigos, what do you say? The phenomenal five?
Chico: That just sounds swishy. Let’s hope two more join us soon.
(All lean over the table in a huddle to plan the attack.)
Chris: So, if we put two men on the east side of the river, and two on the west side…
Sotero: I got it! The Sexy Cinco!
Chico: Sounds like a strip joint in Tijuana.
Sotero: No, no, it would look great on t-shirts…Cinco de Sexy! I can see it now…
Vin: You can take the boy out of trash TV…..
(Abruptly, Bernardo O’Reilly stands up from another table and strides over. Lee joins him. )
Bernardo: All right, all right, I’ll do it.
Chris: Bernardo O’Reilly! My old friend! Join us, our cause is just, and our advesary evil.
Bernardo: I don’t care about all that, I just couldn’t have you all having such a stupid name. Cinco de Sexy my foot. Sounds like a derelict Chippendales Dance Troupe. Where’s your bow ties, ya sissies?
Vin: Who’s that with you?
Bernardo: This here’s Lee. He’s a bit of a southern pantywaist, but he can shoot straight.
Chris: Now we are be the Magnificent Seven!
Britt: Salmon.
Bernardo: Whatever.
The Magnificent Seven theme comes up triumphantly.
Blackout.
Scene 7
ReplyDeleteAt the river, Bernardo is on watch. Three little boys sneak up behind him.
Bernardo: Get back! Go on!
What´s the matter?
Don´t you hear so good?
Get down. Now stay down!
Crazy kids! You might have been hurt.
Ernie: So might you.
Bernardo: It´s not the same thing. This is my work.
Richie: It´s our work, too.
Peter: Everyone tells us
´´Hide! Get back! Stay out of sight!´´
Ernie: But we´re not afraid.
Richie: He´s very brave. It´s the truth.
Ernie: So is he.
Peter: We all are - every boy in Soldotna.
Richie: And Kasilof.
Ernie: Even Sterling.
Peter: You know, the poor man’s Nikiski.
Ernie: We had a meeting and we drew straws and we got you.
Bernardo: You got me?
What d´you mean, you got me?
Richie: If you get killed, we avenge you.
Peter: And we see to it that there´s always
fresh flowers on your grave.
Bernardo: You realize I can’t be buried in Soldotna because there’s
All three boys: no graveyard, we know.
Ernie: But it’s the thought that counts.
Bernardo: (Sarcastic) That´s a mighty big comfort!
Richie: I told you he would appreciate that.
Bernardo: Don´t you kids be too disappointed if your plans don´t work out.
Peter: We won´t. lf you stay alive, we´ll be just as happy.
Ernie: Maybe even happier.
Richie: Maybe.
Peter: Can I have your fishing pole when you are dead?
Bernardo: Hush!
Ernie: Can you see them?
Bernardo: Yes. Calvera’s men are moving out. Can you text Chris and tell him it’s time to go?
Peter: Oh no! I have no service here!
Bernardo: You must have AT&T. Ernie, you try.
Ernie: I have full bars! Ok, here goes. (He texts.)
Scene 8
ReplyDelete(Calvera and his men sneak into the room. They are about to move the net when)
Chris: You! Calvera! You and the vermin who follow you are about to be exterminated!
Vin: Now how come I can’t get away with a line like that?
Calvera: Who are you?
Chris: That doesn’t matter. What matters is the credits are about to roll on this little production. Now, pull that net, release the fish, and walk away.
Vin: (Whispers) Tell him, and nobody gets hurt.
Chris: And nobody gets…, you know.
Calvera: Well what’s the fun in that?! You know what they say—if it bleeds it leads!
Vin: Ooh, that’s a good one.
(Calvera draws his pistol and fires. A massive gun battle ensues with equal numbers of good guys and bad guys get shot, stabbed, zapped by ray guns and laid out by light sabers. Finally, the carnage is complete. Everyone lies motionless on the ground. The three little boys appear and as they are trying to get Bernardo’s fish bonker out of his cold dead hands, Bernardo sits up.)
Bernardo: Wait a second. This is a parody, right? About fishing? And there’s a fabulous art auction to follow? Nobody dies in a show like this. It puts the bidders in a bad mood, and they don’t want to spend as much money. Let’s try this again.
(Everyone gets up, puts their weapons away and trades them for fishing paraphernalia. We do the exact same battle, but no one dies. There are fish hook wounds, fish bonker bonks and water splashed in the bad guy’s face, but that’s it. Chris looms over Calvera, who lies sopping wet on the floor.)
Chris: All right, it looks like this one’s a keeper. Boys, pull that net. Call the food bank. There’s going to be one hell of a fish fry in Soldotna tonight.
Blackout.
Scene 9
ReplyDeleteJuan: You could stay, you know.
They wouldn´t be sorry to have you stay.
Chris: They won´t be sorry to see us go, either.
Juan: Yes. The fighting is over.
Your work is done.
Chris: For them, each season has its tasks.
Juan: If there were a season for gratitude,
they´d show it more.
Vin: That sounds like something Spenard’s should have on their sign.
Chris: We didn´t get any more than we expected, old man.
Juan: I’m only 32.
Chris: Only the fishermen have won.
Juan: They remain for ever.
They are like the river itself.
You helped to rid them of Calvera,
the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts.
Vin: Or a strong current helps rid them of sea lice.
Juan: yes. Something like that. You are like the current, flowing over the river and passing on.
Vin: Like the retired RVers in July.
Juan: Adiós.
Chris: Adiós.
Vin: See ya.
Chris: The old man was right.
Vin: He’s only 32.
Chris: Only the fishermen won.
We lost. We always lose.
Vin: Yeah, I lost my best salmon fly.
Chris: I lost my fish bonker.
(Sotero enters.)
Sotero: Hola, amigos! Where will you go now that Calvera is defeated, the fish have come back to the river, and, thanks to increased tourism revenues, the borough can afford its $12 million dollar slab of concrete with a couple of con-exes on it?
Vin: What?
Chris: The Homer transfer station.
Vin: Oh.
Chris: We’re headed to Wasilla. We heard Sarah Palin is looking for bodyguards to protect her from disgruntled ex-staffers.
Sotero: That sounds rougher than taking on Calvera at his worst. Where is the rest of the gang?
Chris: They all went to be extras on Drew Barrymore’s latest film, Everybody Still Loves Whales.
Vin: What about you, Sotero? Where will you go now that you aren’t working for Discovery anymore?
Sotero: Oh, didn’t I tell you? James Cameron bought the rights to the Most Menacing Mollusk. He’s going to shoot it as an IMAX film in 3-D. There’s just one issue. He’s insisting on changing the name.
Chris: To what?
Sotero: Avaclam. Or Clamitar. One of the two, I can’t remember which one he decided on…
Chris: I would like to say, that I am honored to have been part of …the Magnificent Seven!
All: (from various doors and windows) Salmon!
We reprise the Clam song as
Black out.
The end.
The Hike
ReplyDeleteby Joyce Gardella
“Please, can we take some time off and go outside?” I pleaded with my husband. “It’s perfect weather, and we’ve been trapped in the school since we got here. Winter is coming quickly with its thirty below temperatures and darkness. Let’s go explore our new home,” I reasoned.
“I want to, but I have so much work to do,” he replied.
“Well, if you don’t go with me, I’ll have to go alone.” It was a harmless threat. I knew I wouldn’t go alone, and so did he. I’m scared of bears, and Nikolai is definitely grizzly country. There was a fresh hide in the village to prove it. For whatever reason, my fake threat worked.
“Okay, but not too long. The kids were telling me about a trail called the Cat Trail. It starts at the end of the runway and swings around in a three-mile arc to the gazebo at Salmonberry Lake. It should take an hour or two to hike. How’s that sound?”
Before he could change his mind and go back to the zillions of lessons he needed to plan for the coming week, I filled my nalgene and laced up my hiking boots. I grabbed my zip up fleece and proclaimed, “Ready!” He also grabbed his fleece, daypack, and a brand new gps. “What are you bringing that stuff for?”
“I’ll carry your jacket and water bottle in my pack. I’m going to practice using the gps. I’ve never actually used it. We’ll see how it works.” We let the dog off her chain, and she jumped wildly around barking in excitement.
It was about four in the afternoon on a cool, crisp October day. The sun was shining, there were no mosquitoes, and Denali was out in all its glory. Before coming to Nikolai, I had only seen Denali from the highway side. Now I was on the other side of the mountain, an amazing view that I never tired of. I felt so fortunate to be experiencing life in rural Alaska.
It would be light until about nine, so there was plenty of time for a short hike. We headed down the dirt road and out the gravel runway. At the end, we dropped down into a flat, shallow lake area know as Reed Lake. The view was captivating, cattails along the edge, a beaver lodge right next to the trail, and two swans on the water. I had been longing to get outside and experience this since we arrived seven weeks ago, but the moment we set foot in our small k-12 school, we were overwhelmed with work. My spirit was craving the fresh air, the beauty of nature, and the breath-taking scenery. My husband must have felt the same way. We didn’t talk much; we were lost in our own thoughts. Our shepherd mix, Rosie, ran around exploring every tree, hole, and hummock, happy to be free.
The whole time we were walking, he was fooling around with the gps. Every once in awhile, he would make an announcement, “We’ve been hiking for thirty minutes,” or “We’re heading northwest,” or “Our elevation is now 200 feet.” I didn’t pay much attention to him; he was having fun with his new toy. We made it to the other side of the lake where the well-worn trail forked. One option continued around the lake, the other headed off to the left, the direction we knew we wanted to go. Without hesitation, we went left. There was some discussion about the distance traveled. The gps showed that we had gone three-fourths of a mile. “There is no way that is right,” I told him. “We’ve been walking for almost an hour. The minimum distance would be two miles, but it’s been so flat and easy that I’d have to say we’ve gone over three.”
ReplyDelete“But the gps says three-fourths. How could it be wrong?” he argued.
“I don’t know. You must be reading something wrong. It can’t be right.”
“It doesn’t seem like it could be,” he conceded, “but I don’t understand how it could be wrong.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. We know we’re on the right trail, and we’ll come out at the lake before too long. I predict less than an hour and we’ll be back home.”
The trail left the lake and went through the scrubby pine landscape the interior is famous for. It was interspersed with small bogs we had to go around. The trail was well used, so there was no doubt in our mind that we were headed for the gazebo.
After almost an hour on this less scenic trail, we came to a grassy field. The trail ended. Just like that, it ended. “How could such a well worn trail just end?” We looked behind us and saw the trail clearly. In front of us there was no trail at all, just tall, dry grass blowing in the breeze. “How far does the gps say we’ve gone,” I inquired.
ReplyDelete“One and three-quarter miles,” was the answer.
“What? How can that be? We’ve now been gone two hours! A snail could go a mile an hour. The gps has to be wrong!”
“I don’t know how it could be, but it sure doesn’t seem like it could be right. It has shown that we are going in the right direction the whole time. From this point, the lake should be right over there,” he said pointing left.
I nodded in agreement. “It has to be right over there. I know we’ve gone more than three miles. If we go left, we should bisect the lake easily.” So, with only that much discussion and in total agreement, we began to bushwhack.
My husband and I both have enough outdoor experience to know better than to do what we were doing. I don’t know if it was being cooped up inside for so long or the absolute gorgeous day and the joy of being out in it that made us act irresponsibly, but instead of turning around and following the trail back, we decided it would be shorter to head out into completely unfamiliar wilderness, in October, with only light jackets, no map, no food, one nalgene of water, and a gps that neither of us had any confidence in.
Always eager for adventure, I led the way. My more cautious husband followed, keeping his eye on the gps’ compass. It wasn’t hard to negotiate a path. The area was all scrub pine interspersed with patches of small birch and marshy bogs. The bogs were fairly pleasant to walk on, not too mushy, and you could more or less walk in a straight line. We had waterproof boots on so our feet stayed dry. We would walk through a small bog, cross over a treed area, and then hit another bog. We kept this up, expecting to run into the lake each time we left a wooded stretch.
“Seems like we should have been there by now,” I said.
“We have to run into the lake. There is no way that we could miss it. It’s too big,” Denis reassured. We came out of another stretch of woods and stood at the edge of a huge bog.
“Great! A long open stretch!” Enthusiastically, I set off across it. We had gone about halfway when I heard a yelp and a splash. I turned around and saw Denis holding onto what I had previously thought was the ground.
ReplyDelete“I fell through. My feet aren’t touching bottom!”
“What?” I thought to myself, “There’s WATER under our feet?” I had no idea that our bogs were actually old lakes or river channels that had gradually been covered by vegetation. We were walking on something similar to a swimming pool cover! I immediately went from enjoying myself to panic. I did not want to go into the water! He was about twenty feet behind me. “Do you need any help?” I asked timidly, praying he would say no. I could see he was pulling himself out of the water.
“No, I’m okay.” I watched him come out. He was wet to his armpits. When he was safely out, there was nothing to do but go on. We still had half the bog to cross. I sucked in my stomach and mentally pictured myself skinnier. “I’m light as a feather,” I repeated, intending to float across the bog rather than walk. Splash. I looked beside me and the dog was struggling to regain her foothold on land. Her hind legs had punched through. Now, my husband is heavier than I am, but I’m twice as heavy as the dog. Using my higher math skills, I realized that my chances of breaking through were very high. I do not know why, but the thought of going in the water frightened me. I know how to swim, but perhaps I was beginning to realize that our situation was graver than we had let on. I instinctively did not want to be wet. The dog got out, and I just took off running for the other side. When I got to firm ground, I sat down and looked at the giant undercover lake that was between me and the way back. There was no way I was going to cross it again. My husband caught up to me, still dripping, and we went on.
Over the next rise, we came out on the shore of a lake. “Hallelujah! It’s our lake. Oh, I’m so relieved,” I heard myself saying. I did not realize how much anxiety I had been holding in until that moment. My husband, equally relieved, stood on the shore looking for the familiar gazebo. Very quickly the realization hit us. It wasn’t our lake. We were lost. I tried to think logically about this, but a map of Alaska kept popping into my mind. I could visualize where we were on the map. The next village was over 100 river miles away; then there was nothing for 300 miles in any direction. Nothing. Nobody knew where we were. Nobody even knew we were gone. I thought about my kids. I looked at my husband and said the words out loud, “We’re lost.”
“I know,” he admitted.
“So, what should we do?”
“Well, I think it’s time we sat down and made a plan. It’s a dangerous time of year to be out. We need to use our heads and get ourselves out of this,” he said.
“The village is so small. How will we ever find our way back to it?” It was about eight o’clock now. We had about an hour and a half of light left.
“I do know this,” he said, “I’ve been tracking our progress on the gps, and I can ask it to take us in a straight line back to our starting point, which is our cabin. At least we know the right direction.”
“It’s going to be dark soon.”
“I know. I do not want to spend the night out. We don’t have proper gear or protection from wildlife.” I knew by “wildlife” he really meant bears.
We hiked on, keeping the compass pointed in the direction of our cabin as best as we could. Soon we were having a hard time seeing the smaller branches and roots in our path. Darkness was enveloping us. “We’re going to have to stop,” I said.
ReplyDelete“No. I do not want to spend the night out unprepared. We have to get back.”
“It’s getting dangerous to walk. We can’t see. We could trip and twist an ankle or break something. Then we’d really be in trouble,” I argued. He reluctantly conceded, and we began to look for a place to wait out the night. While looking, we came upon the shore of another lake. It was too dark to see across it. The wind was blowing near the shore, so we went back up into the trees and made camp. We opened his backpack and took stock. We had no food or protection other than our light jackets, but we did have matches! He had a little waterproof container with about twenty matches in it and a small mag light.
Although we were surrounded by wood, we had nothing to cut it with. So while he went in search of usable deadfall, I started the fire. My family is very proud of their fire starting skills. The ultimate achievement is to use only one match. My oldest daughter is a champion one-match fire starter, but I am not. I always thought the competition was kind of stupid. Who cares how many matches you use? Matches are cheap and we always had boxes of them! I regretted my flippant attitude and tried to visualize how she started a fire. I looked under the trees for the dry moss and tiny dead branches. I carefully built little piles of graduating sized wood to feed the fire with. I thought about Brian in Hatchet and the man in “To Build a Fire.” “Don’t be stupid,” I told myself. I was worried about having a limited number of matches. I realized that we might be outside for more than one day.
I struck the first match. The wind blew it out. One down. I tried to place my body and hands in position to block the wind. Didn’t work. Two down. Sitting with my legs around the little fire pit and my body practically laying on it, I tried again. Success! My little fire grew, and Denis came back with some bigger wood. Once the fire was established, we talked.
We both agreed that we had to get ourselves out of this. No one would miss us for another day and a half, and then they wouldn’t know where to begin looking for us. We were on the shore of a lake that was possibly ours. We decided that if it wasn’t our lake, we would have to go back the route we came. I didn’t want to go across the bog again, so we agreed to go around it. It was our only sure way home; we couldn’t just keep wandering around in the wilderness. Exhausted, I lay down on the ground next to the fire. At least my clothes were dry. My poor husband’s heavy jeans, shirt, jacket, and socks were wet, and it was in the 30’s. He kept a larger fire at first, trying to dry off, but it ate so much wood that he soon downsized it. It was a hard job to keep going in the dark woods with a little flashlight looking for downed wood. He would come back with an armful, sit for about thirty minutes warming up, and then go look for more. He did this all night long. He never complained, never panicked; he just did what needed to be done. I sat by the fire and watched, loving him for taking care of me. I admired his courage and the way he kept doing what needed to be done. “Stay by the fire and keep warm,” he told me.
“I can help,” I protested.
ReplyDelete“I know you can, but just rest. I’ll do it.” At some point, while he was off getting wood, I fell asleep. When I woke up it was just getting light. I couldn’t believe my almost fifty year-old body had slept so long on the ground! It was time to go see if it was our lake.
We walked to the edge, straining our eyes in the half-light. Almost directly across the lake, we could see the white speck that was the gazebo. It was our lake. Relief flooded me. We just needed to walk around it, and we’d be home! We went back to our little campsite, gathered our few belongings, and put out the fire. It took us about forty-five minutes to get back to our cabin. We stepped inside our warm house, and it started to rain.
After a long, hot shower and some food, we settled down with a cup of coffee to reflect on our misadventure. We knew we had been foolish, and were exceedingly thankful that we got out of it unharmed. Denis immediately went on rei.com and ordered some survival gear to carry in his backpack at all times. He never goes anywhere without his trusty ax with a saw in the handle!
We didn’t tell anyone in the village about getting lost until about two weeks later. Not for any real reason or agreement with each other, but I think we were both still processing the experience. One day, I was teaching class and the subject turned to the wilderness. I confessed what had happened, and the students reacted the way I thought they would. They laughed. They could not wait to spread the news and in a matter of hours, the whole village knew the new teachers had gotten lost while trying to hike the Cat trail. The experience broke the ice with the village people. Now they had something to talk to us about and tease us about. For the next three years, if we were going anywhere, they would say, “Do you need someone to show you the way? When will you be back?” or “Don’t get lost now!” We’ll always be remembered as the teachers who got lost.
WOW!! That was a pain in the neck. I like the way it allows 4,096 characters!! I have no idea what that many characters looks like! I'm sorry my post is so ridiculously long! I had no idea it would work out like this. Oh well, happy reading!
ReplyDeleteModern Conveniences
ReplyDeletePart 1
Husband Ron and I soared above the shimmering waters of Shelikof Straight at eight thousand feet on a flight back from the Mainland to Uganik Lake. The sky was a vast ocean of blue without a trace of white. What a great day it had been for flying and spotting fish!
We landed on the lake at Uganik and taxied up to the cabin we had been calling home off and on all summer. This quaint little cabin is situated at the head of Uganik Lake. On one side it is surrounded by lush, green, rolling hills, but in sharp contrast on the other side rise steep, jagged mountains.
Having been at the cabin for a week and half, I was ready for a trip into Kodiak which was planned for the next day. I was looking forward to this flight with great joy! I could smell the fresh scent of clean sheets and could feel the warmth of a comfortable bed accepting my tired aching body. My mind's image of what was to come was shear heaven after sleeping on a plywood bunk bed, taking sponge baths plus washing my hair with icy cold lake water. Modern conveniences are wonderful!
The next morning the sound of rain pelting against the cabin by what seemed a gale force wind woke us. I ran to peer out the window to see just how bad the weather really was. I turned from the window and in a disappointed mumble whispered, “The trip to Kodiak is off,” as I shuffled back to bed. My disheartened body language along with the mumbling made Ron get up and take a look to see just how bad it really was.
He retorted, “It can’t be that bad!” and ventured outside. He came back saying, “We can make it, but we need to get going before it gets any worse!” We were packed and in the airplane ready to taxi in fifteen minutes. As we took off I looked up at the gray, drizzly, overcast sky and thought to myself if a real bed and hot shower were worth it?
We snaked out of Uganik Bay three hundred feet off the water in what I considered to be miserable weather. We were forced to fly the shoreline instead of taking the more direct route through the passes.
Ten minutes into our flight we hit fog patches, and I again thought of my frivolous need to go to town. I had silently vowed to myself during take off not to interrupt Ron's concentration on flying by jabbing a finger in his back (I did this frequently when we were flying), nervously asking, "Can you see? Are we going to make it? Should we turn back?" Instead I grabbed the back of his seat in a death grip and kept watch for other aircraft. This was my job when we were out spotting for fish.
Modern Conveniences
ReplyDeletePart 2
Nearing Kodiak, Ron called the tower to let them know our location and destination. He did this three times with no answer from the tower when he realized the aircraft radio would receive but wouldn't transmit. The palms of my hands became sweaty, the knot that had formed in the pit of my stomach was like a vice grip. With each attempt at transmission it became tighter and bigger! I sat in the back seat stiff as a board trying to will the radio to work but it just wasn't to be.
Looking out the window I saw a Supercub flying further out and going in the same direction. I was about to break my vow of not poking Ron in the back when he also saw the plane. He used the VHF radio to call the Supercub and explain our dilemma. The Supercub then radioed the tower and told them of both planes' locations and destinations. The tower had us stay with the Supercub and go in together.
Just outside Manashka Bay the tower called and told us we had to hold for a special VFR clearance, as well as for some incoming and outgoing IFR traffic. I was not thrilled with the idea of circling in a small bay with another airplane and the fog closing in around us.
I tightened my death grip on the back of Ron's seat; my knuckles by now are white from the hold and once again focused my thoughts on the frivolous reason for this trip: a real bed and hot shower for me. We circled the bay for thirty minutes when at long last the tower radioed and gave us clearance to land. My hands were completely numb by this time and the vice grip - like knot in my stomach was so tight I felt like I was going to throw up; could this have been only thirty minutes? The thirty minutes spent circling in this bay with the Supercub to me seemed like an eternity!
We left the small bay following the Supercub and the shoreline on into Kodiak. Nearing the entrance to Kodiak Harbor we broke out of the fog and for the first time could actually see where we were going. Ron banked the plane to the right as we flew over the town on our approach to Lily Lake, lake for floatplanes. Touching down on the lake, I breathed a BIG sigh of relief and loosened my death-like grip. Ron taxied the plane over to the tie-down area for transient aircraft.
I stepped off the floats onto the ground on very wobbly legs. I had been more scared than at any other time in my life! After tying the airplane down Ron turned to me with a look of amazement and said, "I can't believe you didn't jab me in the back; not once! Were you scared?" He never knew just how scared I really was. I truly enjoyed my hot shower and comfortable bed that night.
Joyce I am with you! I had to break mine apart in order to post. When I got that bright red bar with the message about 4,000 characters I had no idea what it meant or what to do. Took me a minute to figure out.
ReplyDeleteWriting class personal narrative
ReplyDeleteI’d like to tell you all about my life long love affair with reading. I can’t really tell you when it started because I don’t even remember a time when I couldn’t read. My mother tells me that when I was four she was reading the newspaper while I sat beside her. When I asked her what a word met she asked me where I had heard that word. I showed it to her in the newspaper that I had been reading over her shoulder. She said that until then she had no idea that I could even read! I can tell you that if I was able to read at that age then I had definitely spent many hours on my mother’s lap listening to her read stories to my siblings and me. I have a sister who is 15 months older than I and then another sibling about every two years until my youngest sister who is about 7 years younger than I am.
I vividly remember my younger siblings sitting with my mother and reading stories as she nursed the current infant and I am sure that before I remember I was the one listening to the same stories. By the time I was five or six I was no longer very interested in being read to, I much preferred to read to myself. My mom read aloud a chapter from a book every evening. Some of our favorites were Nancy Drew, The Bobsey Twins, and The Hardy Boys. After being caught sneaking the book and reading ahead, my mother had to hide the current book from me. To this day I really hate to be read to, the pace is just too slow to be enjoyable for me.
Probably the biggest source of frustration in my childhood was the lack of reading material. We grew up in Hope, Alaska during the 1960’s and early 1970’s when the school was rarely open because of lack of enrollment. For most of my school years up to 7th grade we were on the State Correspondence system. Every September big boxes would arrive with our textbooks and school materials, including a few reading books. The Juneau Library would also send us a box of books about every six weeks. There would be two or three books at the level of each of the children in our household so we would probably get about 15-20 books at a time. I can so clearly remember my delight when I saw that box and my eagerness to rip it open and see what they had sent. I also clearly remember running out of books in a week or so. I would start by reading the books that looked interesting then move on to whatever else they had sent right down to the picture books for my younger siblings. When I had finished all the books I would have to resort to reading them again but this was never very satisfying. I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven if I had ever seen the sort of public libraries that many other communities have.
Half way through 7th grade my family moved to the Chugiak/Eagle River area and then there were no limits on available reading material. This became a bit of a sore subject between my mother and I since I would rather read than do just about anything, especially household chores. Books at the table were banned , so dinner was a rush to finish quickly so I could get back to my book. My voracious appetite for reading also posed a problem in some of my junior high and high school classes as well. There was never any problem with me not doing the assigned reading, the problem was that I would have finished the book the first week it was assigned and then found it pretty tedious to discuss the book chapter by chapter, let alone keep my mouth shut and not give away what was happening in future chapters.
Continued. . .
Part 2
ReplyDeleteAs an adult my obsession with reading hasn’t dimmed at all. I am essentially a lazy reader and, when given a choice, will read strictly for pleasure. I’m not a particularly discerning reader, I’m more interested in the story and not so much the literary quality of the book. For me, the longer the book the better and I love book series, they make the story last so much longer! I must admit that I had to force myself to put the book down and have family dinner time with my own children when they were younger. I didn’t even try to force the issue when they got older, my husband was usually at work during dinner and it was pretty much standard for the boys to eat quickly and go back to whatever they were doing while the girls and I ate dinner with a book in our hands. My boys have grown to be selective readers, they enjoy reading but the book has to be just right; my girls are more avid readers much like myself.
Now that my kids are all grown and out of the house I can read to my heart’s content without all the guilt! I do find myself sometimes still sitting and reading long past time to start dinner but luckily my husband still works until late at night so I usually manage to tear myself away and fix something before he gets home. I can’t say that my lifelong addiction to reading has really been a great benefit to me but I am quite a repository of useless trivial information! I’ve definitely spent a lot of time over the years reading when I could have been doing something more productive but, hey, there are worse habits, right?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNo paragraphs the first time...let's try again:
ReplyDeleteWhat are you most afraid of? I’m not talking about those adult, keep you up at night kinds of fears like death and how to pay the mortgage. I’m talking about the kind that make your skin crawl, those visceral fears that have stayed with you since childhood. For me, hands down, it has always been spiders.
My deep and abiding fear of these eight-legged little beasties began at the age of five. I grew up in Washington, and my grandfather would frequently take us on nature walks through the woods. One day we were in a beautiful meadow that sloped downhill into the forest. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and, being five, I was gleefully racing down the hill with my arms spread wide until I ran smack into an enormous spider’s web. Being covered from head to knees in thick, sticky, clinging webbing was bad. Looking down and seeing a huge, black spider stuck to the middle of my chest was much, much worse. I screamed and convulsed, my arms whipping wildly, desperate to escape both web and spider. I’m pretty sure my grandfather was terrified, thinking that I was in the throes of some horrible fit. For the rest of the walk I positioned myself directly behind his tall, wide body and made him carry and wave a large stick to make absolutely sure there was no possibility of another arachnid encounter.
I wish I could say that was the last time I saw a spider, although I will admit that as I grew up most encounters were not nearly so traumatic; however, they usually involved a vacuum cleaner with the long handled attachment on it. In my world, killing spiders goes like this:
1) get anyone else in the house to do it
2) if I am alone, get vacuum cleaner
3) attach longest wand
4) make sure I have shoes on (preferably high heels)
5) turn on vacuum
6) approach spider as surreptitiously as possible while wearing high heels and toting a vacuum
7) gather all possible nerve and suck spider up with vacuum wand
8) place large wad of toilet paper in end of wand
9) turn off vacuum
10) run
Arachnophobia--Cont.
ReplyDeleteIn light of this, I’d like to say that it was with some apprehension that I agreed to spend time camping in Mexico without even a Dustbuster to protect me. After graduating from college, my husband, Chris, and I decided to take an extended road trip, part of which included a month on the Baja Peninsula. Now there’s a place with spiders. One day we were driving along (it was one of the few days that was overcast and a bit cool) and we had a conversation that went like this—
Chris: “Wow. There sure are a lot of pieces of rubber on the road. I wonder if there was an accident or if a semi blew a couple tires out?”
Stacey: “I know. I wonder what happened? Wait a minute…are they moving? They are moving! What is that?”
Chris: “*%@#! They’re tarantulas!”
Needless to say, I road the rest of the day with my feet up on the dash, praying that this wasn’t the day our van broke down, leaving us adrift in a sea of large, hairy, poisonous spiders.
This event, although creepy, was not the worst of my Mexico spider experiences. That honor is reserved for what started out as a truly lovely day. Sun, shining; warm breeze, gently blowing; waves, crashing; my smile, beaming. We were in the town of Loreto, about halfway down the peninsula. Our campground rented out dune buggies, so we decided to take one out to the San Javier mission. The ride up the dirt road into the interior was fascinating. Being from the Pacific Northwest, desert landscapes mesmerize me and spark my imagination. The mission itself was stunning and strange, with graphic depictions of the crucifixion hanging from the walls and a silence that seemed otherworldly.
It was on the way back from the mission that we had an encounter with a spider so big that it defies description. It was blue, furry, and I swear it was as large as my outstretched hand. It came, scurrying much more quickly than any spider that size has a right to, up over the front of the dune buggy and onto the hood. I screamed. Chris slammed the brakes on, and before the car had come to a complete stop I was standing on the top of my seat back, pretty much beside myself. As the car stopped, the spider also stopped, pausing on the hood to evaluate its next move. Chris, always a man of action, jumped out and grabbed a sandal from off his foot, apparently thinking he could somehow kill this behemoth of a spider with his flip-flop. To his credit, he actually took a swipe at the monster, but all he succeeded in doing was knocking it off the hood. When it hit the ground it scurried under the dune buggy and disappeared. Some of you reading this might think that the spider disappearing was a good thing, so let me restate the facts. First, we were in a dune buggy. Dune buggies, just in case you were unaware, do not have any windows or a top. Second, the spider could climb up the dune buggy. That had already been proven. Third, we had about twenty more minutes of driving to do, and finally, we didn’t know where the spider had gone.
At this point I was almost in tears and ready to start walking back to Loreto rather than sitting back down and just waiting for that huge, blue, furry spider to launch itself over the passenger side door right into my lap. Chris talked me down enough to get me back into a somewhat seated position and we made it back to Loreto without incident, but I am surprised I did not actually jump out of my skin before we got there. Even thinking about it now, 12 years later, gives me the heebie-jeebies.
On a positive note, when we got back home, our puny little spiders weren’t so scary. I no longer need a vacuum to kill them, as long as they aren’t bigger than a quarter and aren’t above my head, and I can even co-exist with those that are smaller than a nickel. They are still my biggest creepy-crawly fear, but they have now been put into some perspective. It is probable, however, that I will never take a dune buggy into a Mexican desert again—at least not without a vacuum.
Voice of Experience: Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Part 1
ReplyDeleteIt was truly "...a dark and stormy night." We were underway from our homeport, Juneau, Alaska en route Tacoma, Washington in MAJECK, our Catalina 400. We were bringing the boat to Puget Sound for the summer to spend time with two of our daughters and friends from California. We planned to moor near our daughter’s house in Tacoma and then fly to Grenada, where my wife’s principal was getting married. After the wedding, we were going to join them on a Caribbean Windjammer cruise. We had already broke one of the cardinal rules of cruising by being deadline-driven to make the flight. Lisa and I are both teachers, we couldn’t leave Juneau until the end of the school year. We had two weeks to make a 750 mile transit across what can be some extremely rough water.
In February we had ordered a bimini top from a canvas shop in Florida. The top was completed and shipped in plenty of time, but the trucking company “parked” it in Salt Lake City for nearly two weeks. Consequently, we left Juneau four days behind schedule. We lost a day in Petersburg, Alaska trying to sort out an overheating problem that turned out to be a bull kelp bulb lodged in the raw water intake. We lost two more days awaiting weather to cross Dixon Entrance into British Columbia. By this time, we knew that there were no delays left in the schedule.
We were in our third day in British Columbia and we were getting tired. We had anchored for about five hours the night before in Klewnuggit Bay, off the north end of Grenville Channel. We weighed anchor before 5:00 a.m. and slogged through chilly temperatures, headwinds, rain, and contrary current most of the day.
Northern British Columbia is even more remote than Southeast Alaska. There are few marinas or signs of human habitation. The water is deep and the channels we were navigating had few anchorages. It was late, cold, raining, with winds on the nose, and then the engine began coughing due to fuel starvation. We’d serviced the engine before departing Juneau and I knew that the fuel was clean. Now the engine was intermittently coughing and even dying. I checked the fuel filter and the bowl was clean. We hoped we could limp into Klemtu before the engine died.
We were cold, tired and stressed. Although the bimini top covered the cockpit, vinyl dodger windows wouldn’t be installed until Tacoma. Wind and rain roared right through the bimini. We’d been living in full foul weather gear since leaving Juneau.
We entered Klemtu's harbor at about 11:30 p.m. We didn’t have a large scale chart of the harbor, but our cruising guide had a sketch chartlet that at least showed us safe depths and layout.
The wind was blowing at about 20 knots across the mooring float. Unfortunately, the windward side of the float was full. We circled around and made an exploratory pass on the lee side. There was another sailboat on the end of the float, but there was room for us ahead of it. It would be a tricky approach because of the off the dock winds.
It was my turn to do the boat handling and Lisa's turn to tie us up. Lisa sat at the gangway with her legs dangling over the side,ready to jump onto the dock with the after spring line. It looked like we'd make the approach as I motored past the Westsail 32 at the end of the float. Then we cleared the Westsail’s wind shadow. The wind caught our bow and set it thirty degrees off the float. I tried hard right rudder and a shot ahead, but as the bow rounded up toward the float, the wind set us further away from the dock. There were nasty pilings with logs booms wrapped with chains and wire not far away. Maneuvering room was limited and distances foreshortened in the dark and driving rain.
Voice of Experience: A Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Part II
ReplyDeleteI circled away from the float and we discussed how we could make the approach. If only the Westsail wasn't at the end of the float, we could steer above the float and use the wind to set us while motoring ahead...I told Lisa that about the only way we could do the approach was to head directly into the wind and point the bow right at the float so Lisa could jump from the bow pulpit onto the dock. Lisa headed forward and I began the approach when she was ready. She called distances as we crept toward the dock. When we were about two feet off, she jumped--and slipped on the moss covered wooden rim on the concrete float. In the cockpit I heard a muffled “O-o-o-f-f” and a splash. She was in the water between a concrete float and a 25,000 pound boat. I was alone on a forty foot boat that we were having trouble mooring with two people.
"Lisa! Are you all right!?"
"I'm okay. The water is c-o-l-l-d-d..."
She was hanging onto the edge of the float,wearing long johns, fleece, foul weather jacket and pants, and sea boots, but no life jacket. Mistake number two. I laid off and asked her if she could crawl up onto the dock. There wasn’t anything to grab onto. I had to keep away from the pilings and logs off to port and not crowd Lisa who was still in the water. She said that she thought she could work herself along the float and then make it to shore. The only problem was that she would have to cross the thirty feet of open water between the end of the float and the shoreline. I couldn’t get too close to shore for fear of running aground. Adding to the stress, our two dogs were in the cockpit, in need of a trip ashore, and they knew something was wrong. They clung to my side as I tried alternately to maneuver the boat, watch Lisa, and watch the hazards around us.
Lisa took a deep breath, told herself that she wasn’t going to die in a town we didn’t know in British Columbia, then swam haltingly to the shore. Although the rocks were slimy with sea weed, barnacles provided traction for her hands and feet. Once above the tide line, she went to the gangway and onto the dock.
I made another approach and tossed her the spring lines. We were tied up in less than three minutes. I jumped over to the float and we hugged each other in desperate relief. Lisa had held it all in until the crisis was over. Now she sobbed and told me how scared she had been.
She hurt her lower back in the fall. It would take months to recover. Our heating system wasn’t working, and she had to settle for a cold shower to wash off the salt water. Neither of us slept well that night, reliving those terrifying moments. The storm deepened the next day. We stayed in port to recover, knowing that we had no chance of making the flight to Grenada.
It shouldn’t have happened. I’m a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer. I’ve been fortunate to command two ships. I’ve navigated the length of both coasts. I’ve done offshore deliveries aboard several large sailing yachts and both of us delivered a Beneteau 40.7 from Long Beach to San Francisco several times. We bought MAJECK in San Diego and sailed her to Juneau, a nearly two thousand mile transit. We knew better.
I developed a policy during my second command of sending the ship’s small boat ahead with line handlers when we approached a mooring. That eliminated the hazard of a crew member jumping from the vessel to the dock.
Lisa and I tow a 12 foot Zodiac with an outboard when we cruise. We always shorten tow when we moor or anchor. Lisa could have taken the Zodiac to the float, tied it up, and then handled mooring lines. Safe, secure, efficient. We didn’t think of that.
I spent the end of my Coast Guard career overseeing search and rescue in Alaska. As we did search planning and rescue coordination, I was always struck by the poor decisions that people make when tired, cold, and when dealing with weather.
Voice of Experience: A Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Part III
ReplyDeleteAlthough we are sailors, screaming wind, moaning rigging, and a hobby horsing hull do affect judgement. It certainly affected ours that night.
The fuel problem plagued us off and on all the way to Puget Sound. We had replaced the engine two years before. The boat was twelve years old. I consulted the Yanmar dealer in Port Townsend, Washington who recommended changing out the fuel hoses. He said that over time they can become soft from the inside out and can then collapse due to the fuel pump’s suction. I replaced the hoses; problem was solved.
We’ve changed our procedures and don inflatable life jackets for mooring, anchoring, whenever the seas pipe up, and whenever one of us is topside alone. The person in the cockpit tethers to the cockpit jack line, as well.
Side Bar items:
What we did wrong:
By attempting a 750 mile transit while trying to make a hard deadline, we put ourselves into the position of pushing the situation, thus taking unnecessary risks. We should have left the boat home and taken it south the following summer. We tried to do too much in too little time
We both should have been wearing life jackets. Although the Inside Passage waters had no appreciable waves that night, we were cold, tired, and attempting a mooring without the added protection of a PFD was just plain dumb
The dogs should have been left below. They were an added distraction at a time when I needed to focus all of my attention on Lisa’s situation and keeping the boat clear of hazards in the harbor
Lisa didn’t think jumping was a good idea when I suggested it. We were so focussed on getting tied up that we didn’t consider other options, like the dingy that was immediately available, or backing to the float so that Lisa could simply step off the swim platform
Entering a strange harbor at night is dicey. I had to do so many times while in the Coast Guard. That experience gives me wary confidence about doing so in our boat, but we do our homework by studying cruising guides, the Coast Pilot, tides and currents, and proceeding slowly. Whenever possible, we time arrivals for daylight However, sometimes there just isn’t a choice
What we did right:
We kept our heads. Once Lisa was in the water, we both reacted to getting her to safety and the boat moored
We consulted our cruising guide and Reed’s Nautical Almanac (Which sadly is no longer published for the West Coast of North America) before entering harbor
We abandoned our attempt to make the flight to Grenada. Taking the deadline away reduced stress and allowed us to make decisions based on prudent judgement rather than expediency
Voice of Experience: A Mooring Gone Horribly Wrong, Explanatory Comments
ReplyDeleteThe article above was written for Sail Magazine's Voice of Experience column. This is a monthly feature written by sailors who describe mistakes they made and what they learned from them. The purpose is to "pass the word" about lessons learned so that the larger sailing community can gain knowledge from the experiences of others and hopefully avoid similar situations on the their own boats.
Since the article is intended for a specific audience, and boating in general and sailing in particular, feature a unique lexicon, I've used some words that may not be familiar to non-sailors.
A bimini top is a canvas and metal tube frame that covers a sailboat's cockpit (where the crew sits and steers the boat). A dodger is the forward part of a bimini top. It features a windshield of glass or clear vinyl panels and a canvas top panel that extends three to six feet aft of the windshield. A dodger offers some protection from wind, rain, and spray. A sailboat can have a dodger without a bimini, and most boats do. We opted for a full length bimini top with an integrated windshield for maximum shelter.
The windward side is the side that the wind is coming from. In the article, the wind was blowing from the north to the south. The north side of the mooring float was facing the wind. The lee side is the side that the wind is blowing to. The south side of the float had wind blowing over it that pushed our boat away.
A jackline is a line, usually of nylon webbing, that is strung between two secure pieces of hardware and lies on the deck. We have inflatable lifejackets with integrated harnesses and six foot long tether lines that attach from the lifejacket harness rings to the jacklines. The purpose of the jackline is provide an attachment point so that a person can't be tossed (or fall) overboard. We also run jacklines from bow to stern on both sides of the boat. When one of us has to go forward, we attach our tether to the jackline before we leave the cockpit.
Here is my personal narrative
ReplyDeletePart one
Author’s note: From 1987 to 1994 My husband and I traveled rural Alaska as a classic rock and roll band. This is a story from Sand Point, one of our many stops.
Halibut Dancing
“Bang! Bang! Bang,” at the front door. I think, “Why is someone pounding on the door at this hour?” As I got up and went to the door, it gradually came to me.
I began to seriously regret our accepting Dan the crab fisherman’s invitation the night before. He’d said, “Hey guys, I’ m off tomorrow. Wanna go halibut fishing with me?’ (Yes, this is what commercial fishermen do in between openings, they fish!) The night before, it had seemed like such a great idea. However, now, at 5:30 in the morning, (having gone to bed at 2), I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of our decision.
Regardless , driving me forward, always, is the desire to do, to go.
So we went.
It was an incredibly beautiful day in Sand Point; the sun was out, the sky almost clear, and the water was flat like a mirror. Birds circled overhead in the gentlest of breezes; the temperature was about 50.
We dragged ourselves out of the hotel and walked down with Dan to the cannery dock, where employees keep their skiffs and equipment in lockers and freezers.
Dan walked up to a particularly worn and aged boat and said, “Climb aboard!” It was a 12-foot wooden skiff, with a motor and rudder, benches to sit on, and a car battery. The battery was in the far aft section of the boat, and right next to it were a pair of wires with alligator clips on them. The other end of the wires was attached to what I recognized as a sump pump. Upon seeing this I began to have even more reservations about this excursion.
We loaded onto the boat and as we’re motoring out of the harbor, Dan says, “Oh, by the way, this boat tends to take on water, that’s what the battery’s for.” OK, I tell myself, leaky boat. Great. We’re now definitely out too far to swim back, so it appears we’re stuck. Dan continues, “ When the water gets too deep just attach those two leads to the battery and the pump will come on and get rid of the water.” OK, Now we’re far enough out to where I hardly know where the shore is and my survival is in question.
Thus begins the Halibut Adventure.
Tic Tac Toe, Three Bs in a Row
ReplyDeleteEver have one of those days? I am a good person, I really try. I volunteer for everything, my family eats dinner together almost every night, we go to church and hardly ever run out of milk.
Every morning I drag my worn out body out of bed at 4:45. Let the dog out, let the dog in and head to the gym. On my way I pull into my friend and co-worker’s driveway to pick her up. Together June and I bravely face the horror of putting on a swimsuit (not the cute kind with a little skirt either!) and march out to jump in the pool. Most mornings there is a lane we can share or some say, “Getting out” and we can get started with our workout.
On this particular morning the pool was packed. Two or three people in each lane. Both of us being a little shy, we headed to the hot tub to work up our courage to join a lane. When we were thoroughly warmed up, we split up as to not overwhelm the other swimmers. June went down and got in a lane with two other swimmers. Just a good morning and off she splashed. I politely waited for the swimmers in my lane to come up for air and take a water break. In my sweetest voice I said, “Would you mind circle swimming so I can join you?” And my first B of the day said, “No!” I couldn’t believe it. She then goes on to tell me she gets up at 5:00 so she doesn’t have to circle swim. If that was the rule, I had her beat by 15 minutes! The poor guy sharing the lane, was like, “What’s circle swim?” He didn’t care, he just wanted to swim. I tried again, “The pools really full today, we all have to share.” “NO! I am not circle swimming.” I couldn’t believe it, that’s one of those times you wish you could come up with the one liner but no, not before my coffee. I wish I could have just jumped in and started swimming . With cheeks flaming, I walked down the deck to the far lane.
The swimmers down there had heard the whole exchange and couldn’t believe it other. I got in and had one of my better workouts thanks to my temper. When she got out, I did too to go down to the now empty lane. As we passed I asked her, “Do you pay extra?” Again I was using my super polite, mom would be proud voice. She looked at me with a surprised, curious expression. “No, why would I?” I smiled at her and said, ”Oh, I thought that’s why you could take up a whole lane and not share.” I kept walking and dove in.
This is a first in a series of three...I hope to have the other two done some time this decade.
Part two:
ReplyDeleteWe motored about and Dan, because he was a local fisherman, knew exactly where the shelves were, which is where halibut hang out. There wasn’t another boat around. It was all incredibly peaceful, and awe inspiring. We dropped anchor, dropped our lines, and waited.
The gear on this boat was primitive and functional. The line was wrapped in giant restaurant mayonnaise tubs. The circle hooks tied at the end. We had a small length of dowel rod that we coiled the line on. We had to file the rust off the circle hooks before we tied them to the line. Bait was a salmon that Dan had caught on a small fishing rod he’d put out as we were leaving the dock. Actually, once we’d been out a while, I kind of developed a rhythm with the battery and all, and soon didn’t even give it a second thought.
It wasn’t more than 15 minutes, and I had a tug on my line. Halibut are kind of dead weight until they hit shallow water. Then this one fought. Dan helped me to not lose the fish and eventually it was lying in the back of the skiff. All 89 pounds of it.
The day was getting warmer and even more beautiful, and I only had to hook the battery up about every ten minutes. Things were good! So we continued fishing.
Again it was less then 15 minutes and “BAM!”. It’s a good thing we weren’t using rods, because this fish would have yanked one right down into the water. The fish struck my husband’s line like a freight train. I watched as my husband and Dan fought to get this fish up. When it got close to the surface it jumped out of the water like a salmon, and splashed so big it almost capsized our boat. Battery cables. Pump on.
Finally, they were able to bring the new member of our crew aboard. All 127 pounds of him.
It’s not even noon yet.
Later, after a bit of sight seeing, we turned for home. We cruised along, enjoying the moment, when all of a sudden Mr. Big, (as we had named the second halibut) decides to get up and dance. This is a 127 pound halibut, up on it’s tail and thrashing, in the back of an old, leaky, wooden boat. I must admit I began to hope for the existence of a higher power.
I was filming with our giant VCR at the time, but the camera immediately goes to looking straight down at the deck and stays there throughout all the chaos. You can hear us all shouting and the clanks and thunks of things being tossed around the boat. When the fish finally stopped dancing, Dan started looking for something to bludgeon the fish with. (this would be the short-sighted enthusiasm of a commercial fisherman on his day off having it’s effect.) All we had were the 6-inch long, 1-½ inch dowel rods we’d been winding the line on. We were valiantly hitting the fish in the head with them, certainly annoying the fish more than anything else, causing him to thrash around even more.
Fortuitously, another skiff came into the area, and saw the trouble we were having. We flagged them down and they came over. Thankfully, they had a gun.
With the fish finally, permanently, settled down, we continued on our way home. Once at the cannery dock, Dan showed us how to filet the halibut, and wrapped it up for us and stored it in his freezer/locker until we flew to our next town. We didn’t buy fish for over a year.
I learned a lot that day:
Skill and perseverance, not equipment, make for a successful day of fishing.
A beautiful day of fishing can change your perspective like nothing else.
Just because a boat leaks, doesn’t mean you can’t fish from it.
Dangerous and unsafe are relative terms.
And, there is nothing like a beautiful day of fishing in the Aleutians.
Suzie Feuer
On a very cold, dry day in January of 2010 while on winter break from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, I sat in my parents basement surfing the internet for some resemblance of sanity and maybe a job after my upcoming graduation to take place in May of 2010. I was completely mesmerized by the almost mind-numbing affect of browsing the various websites that sported headings advertising the best results for teaching applications. Just for the fun of it and also to kind of freak out my parents I told them that I was planning on applying for a job in Alaska. Instead of the result I was hoping for my Mom just laughed and said, “Yeah, okay Nicole, whatever you want.” She said this in a very, brushing it off of her shoulder and sarcastic way. I just laughed and began the application just to see what it would be all about.
ReplyDeleteAfter sitting through a few hours of questions and trying to come up with the best answers as well as proofreading along the way I had completed the majority of the Alaska Teacher Placement’s general application. All that was left was to attach my resume, cover letter and to wait. I all but forgot about the application, when a couple of days later I received an email for Southwest Region School District. The superintendent, Jack Foster, requested that I contact him regarding a job teacher elementary school in Bush Alaska. I just laughed and then I ran up the stairs from my parent’s basement and went to rub it into to my mom and dad that I had been asked to interview with the school district. My parents were pretty shocked at first, I think that they thought that I was only joking about applying and didn’t think that I was serious about Alaska. I won’t lie I was definitely joking when it all started and I ended up getting way deeper into the process than I had expected.
After ignoring the first email for about a week and thinking that I was definitely not going to move to Alaska, I received a call on my cell phone. I didn’t recognize the area code let alone the phone number. I just thought, “this has to be the wrong number, I won’t answer and see if they leave a voice-mail.” Well my hopes were recognized shortly after that when I heard the familiar incessant-like ping of my phone making sure to remind me that I had a voicemail that I would need to check if I wanted to discontinue the annoying sound my phone would continue to make every 5 minutes. I soon stopped even pretending that I didn’t hear it and checked to see who had made the call. When I checked it was the superintendent, Jack Foster. Asking me to contact him about an interview. At this point my excitement could no longer be contained I told my parents, my sisters and my brother, whoever would listen that I had an interview with a school district in Alaska! I was probably to the point of being annoying since that was about the only thing I talked about for quite a while that day and for the remainder of the weekend.
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteI called to set up the interview with Mr. Foster later that day and decided that I would at least get to practice interviewing since I had never really had one before and this would be the first “teaching interview” I would be having. I decided that I would give it a shot if nothing else. I knew my chances were pretty slim of getting a job in Wisconsin so I thought what the heck I can try and see what happens. It was still early in the year for teaching positions to be open so I thought I would still have a few options once more school began posting their openings for the public to apply. After I set up the interview and began wondering about the questions they might ask. I was really beginning to worry about them and began to ask a lot of friends and family who had applied for teaching positions what I might want to expect. This only seemed to make it worse and as the weekend dragged on I just became more and more anxious for the impending interview on Monday evening. I had started my spring student teaching placement at that point and time and was equally excited to be returning to the Kindergarten students. It was very hard to focus throughout the day of teaching fifteen 5 and 6 year olds. The day seemed to drag on even more after lunch I was super excited and yet extremely nervous making for a very jittery 30 minute drive home. I remember cranking up my stereo in my car and thinking, “Your going to be okay, it’s just an interview. You can always get another one if you don’t do well, this is your first interview for a teaching job.” This was kind of representative of how crazy this was making me. After I arrived home, had dinner, or whatever I could pick at for a few minutes I got ready for my interview. With both of my parent wireless phones I prepared for the interview in the living room. I was concerned about the batteries dying during the interview and so I also had a back up phone plugged into the outlet nearby. I might have gone a little overboard thinking back at it but I have always believe you can never be too prepared.
At just before 6:00pm on February 8th, 2010 I received the phone call that changed my whole world as far as I knew it. The phone rang and I almost sprang from my seat. I hurriedly told everyone to be quiet, in what I now hope was a somewhat polite manner, and I answered the phone. The interview was a very informal interview and I talked with the sight principal and the district superintendent. I was able to ask a lot of questions as well as have a very successful interview. Before I hung up the phone I had received an email with a copy of the contract they wanted me to sign. I was a little overwhelmed. Throughout the interview I had an audience on both sides of the phone, I felt like every question I answered was being judged not only by the interviewers but also by my parents and younger brother who were sitting in the room with me. My mom was by far the most interesting person every time she had a question she would writing it down on a piece of scratch paper and bring it over to me. She can be so funny sometimes and afterwards she and my dad had a lot of positive feedback for me. I was nice to hear that they were so proud of my accomplishments.
Part 3:
ReplyDeleteThe summer came way too soon, graduation from college, the end of my 2nd grade student teaching, and then time for another summer of babysitting and maintaining my sanity in a house bustling with activity. I don’t know how my parent do it both owning their own businesses and three adult children home from school and getting reading to move on to the next step in life, another just graduated from high school. It definitely makes an interesting time going back to sharing a bathroom with my siblings after being “on my own,” if I can call it that. I had a pretty laid back summer of hanging out with my sisters and brother, saying good-bye to friends from college and family made it a very bitter-sweet transition into “the Real World.” I remember thinking that I would never get there and when I finally did I was thinking, “take me back, take me back, I’m not ready for the next step!” Well, I mostly think that taking such a big step really made it hard to go back on my word and just take the easy way out. Subbing part time on and off for couple of years hoping to get a job in Wisconsin or nearby my family at least would have been too easy. Looking back there was no better way to begin teaching and the hard step of going out of my comfort zone and moving to a far-away place, Manokotak, Alaska.
As the summer went on I soon realized that I was really delaying the inevitable, moving was coming far quicker than I had dreamed. Two months really fly by over night if you let them. While I was packing and slowly moving my life into 6 small Rubbermaid totes I remember thinking how much stuff I had accumulated in 5 years of college, you never realize how much can fit into those small college rentals and dorms. I ended up donating a lot of stuff but when it came down to it I wasn’t even close to being ready to leave so much.
On July 28th, 2010 I wrote this short post on my blog about packing.
One Week and Counting:
Well... needless to say I am still packing boxes and shipping things. I was supposed to be done two weeks ago to make sure everything is there when I arrive at my school. I am the worlds biggest procrastinator when it comes to packing, as many of you have known for some time. So really no big surprise there.
Part 4:
ReplyDeleteI am starting to get nervous about the trip and wondering whether I will have everything I need when I get there. Since everything must be shipped in I have been trying to limit the amount I send, it is darn expensive to ship things up there, about a dollar a pound so I don't think I will be sending many decorative things with. Which is too bad because I will have a place of my own to decorate now. Everything and I mean everything must be shipped in and I haven't quite ordered food so I will have to get a move on that in the next couple of days if I plan on eating anything.
I will be in Alaska for about 2 weeks before I am even in my apartment or at my school. I have about a week and a half of inservices in Dillingham, Alaska prior to the last leg of my trip to Manokotak, where I will be residing for the rest of the school year. Lots of things to do and so little time. I will be teaching 4th and 5th grade in a town of about 300 people, very few cars/trucks ( about 6 total), and no roads out of town. The ONLY way to access the town is by air or water and during the winter, snowmobile.
I am looking forward to moving and meeting the rest of the staff and my students, I am also sad that I will be away from all of my family and friends. I am extending the invitation to all those who would like to make the trip to see me now so hopefully people will have the adventure seeking bug and make the trek! I will be updating this as often as I can and will be making sure to let everyone know of my adventures. I will also be sending out my address once I have set up a P.O. box and of course pictures will be coming and probably by the tons as is tradition with me. I have several memory cards for my camera ready to go! To all of you who I won't see before I leave, I will miss you all tons and take care!
Part 5:
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone realizes how much stuff they accumulate in the matter of one’s life. I have always heard that people should move every couple of years just to get rid of extra odds and ends they may not need any longer. I move almost every 9 months and it has been more often than that lately. I have so much stuff I don't know what to do with it all! In my 23 years I didn't think people could have so much and not need it all! Goodwill here I come. I have already taken one trip this week I guess I will need to take another before I leave on Monday!!
I am still in the process of packing as can be imaged I have gotten much farther than I was last time I posted. I am not sure what all to bring and what I can live without. I am thinking MOST of the stuff I have packed and sent ahead will be enough to get me by until I can get to my apartment and get everything situated. Clothes, however, are a pain in the butt. I need to bring enough for about 2 weeks of inservices and I didn't really think I had that many outfits. Needless to say I have too many and I don't have time to ship them ahead because they won't get to my town until after I need them for school. A dilemma for sure. What's a girl to do? I am sure I will get this one figured out when I get to Anchorage if not sooner.
I don’t know if I ever fully finished packing up my stuff or cleaning out the large walk-in closet in my bedroom that I shared with my sister. I know that my mom and sister keep bombarding me with questions of when I am going to finish going through my things and take what I need and put it in storage or consolidate it into fewer containers and boxes. Maybe someday I will finish the process of packing things up. Until that day comes I will find a way to put off the inevitable.
Prince & Thriller on Tour
ReplyDeleteLake Merritt has the perfect perimeter for a walk-- a paved trail, lined with lights. In the time it would take for a thorough conversation on the phone with my mother, I’d make it around. I was living in Oakland, California, and the lake was just a block away, past the all-night taco truck, on the opposite side as the library. Every Saturday there was a Farmer’s Market, on the shiny side of the lake.
One Saturday morning, after an especially nasty fight with my soon-to-be ex fiancé, Greg, we decided to take a walk. Walking around the lake, without much more than a dollar to our names, I spontaneously steered us into the Farmer’s Market, seeking one orange. Across the expanse of produce-laden booths, an image of what I thought was a canvassing politician caught my eye. He was a young man, with worn overalls over his bare chest, with a sign above him that read “Kittens.” In my bemused state, I thought the sign was meant to lure constituents into his realm. But he was no politician, just a humble hippie with kittens to give away. Two tiny fluffy tabbies were all that were left inside the box at his feet. Their brothers and sisters had already found new homes. Without hesitation, I coddled and cooed. Standing there, thirsty, in the hot summer Saturday morning sunshine, with the commotion of the market to one side and the tranquil urban lake to the other side, I felt as sure as the sidewalk beneath me. The cats were coming home with me. Both of them. Greg’s habit was to disagree with my spontaneous convictions, but in that magic moment, for a reason I will never understand and will always trust to have been an act of God, he agreed that they were meant to be together, and that our loving arms were meant to be their new home.
The cat-man agreed to take the boys back home with him to their mama for one last night, while Greg and I made the proper preparations. We had to get a litter box and cat food. I don’t remember how we paid for it. Perhaps we found enough change in the couch cushions for the cheap generic cat food. Perhaps we made it through the self-check aisle without anything detecting the twenty-pound bag of litter at my feet.
The next day, the punkrock farm boy rode up to our apartment on his bicycle with two stripy kitten heads poking out of a backpack in the basket on the handlebars. He said he was really happy that they had found us. Weeks later he called to check up on them, and I told him they were the about the very best thing that had ever happened to me. Soon, that boy moved away to New Orleans.
Greg being a keyboardist in a rock band, and both of us being huge fans of music, we named them Prince and Thriller.
The adventures of Prince and Thriller had only just begun.
Prince and Thriller on Tour, part 2
ReplyDeleteOne day I got home from work to discover that Prince was missing! We had two houseguests that summer, members of the band, and I was certain one of them had accidentally let Prince out. I searched everywhere. I frantically hung my head out of the screenless windows of our twelfth story apartment, praying he hadn’t slipped through the crack of the window we left open. I knocked on doors, I called, I cried myself to sleep. The next morning, exiting the elevator on my way to work, two janitors stood in the lobby. I excitedly asked them if they’d seen Prince. One man, who honestly seemed to be on the cognitively-impaired side, smiled and said yes! The story he told is a miracle that takes my breath away. He brought me upstairs to a vacant apartment, complete with a dish of catfood and a dish of water, that he had given Prince for the night, after the events of the day showed him that Prince was special. It turned out that Prince had left our apartment with Ray, the drummer of the band. Prince was chilling in the lobby when the janitor discovered him. “Hey there little dude, who are you?” I can imagine something like that was said. Prince was put outside in a fenced-in backyard of a vacant apartment. Prince soon scaled that fence and kicked it on the busy streets of Oakland for as long as his heart desired. Later that day, he found his way back to the apartment building and somehow managed to get back inside the lobby. Sure enough, the same janitor spotted him again. “Hey there little dude, you’re back!” That was when he knew that Prince needed indoor accommodations for the night.
Months later, after they were neutered and vaccinated (I had borrowed the company car to drive them, and our very good friend Josh Journey was visiting us from Minneapolis. He accompanied me to provide assistance, and Prince’s post-op drug-induced side affects made us laugh. Without Josh, I would have just worried…) it was time for me to leave Greg. Packed up and ready to go, with a beautiful new studio apartment on Nob Hill waiting for me and a great gay guy friend’s muscles, I was moving out. Greg’s bandmates were over, giving each other haircuts. I made one last plea to Greg: “Let me take both of the cats.” Greg’s staunch reply remained “No, I am keeping Thriller. Let’s not talk about it right now.”
The first couple of days, just Prince and me in San Francisco, were lovely but strange without Thriller. I knew what had to be done.
With the company car, the keys to the old apartment, and Greg’s permission to enter, I drove to Oakland for the speakers I had forgotten. I also brought the cat carrier. I called Greg to let him know my plans. He told me to wait. That he couldn’t talk about it then, because he was at happy hour with his coworkers. But I’d made up my mind. I knew it was the right thing to do. The brothers needed to be together, and not even Greg knew if his rockstar lifestyle could handle them. I texted him “I’m taking Thriller. Drink up.” He responded with seemingly silly remarks “Cat napper!” and the like, but I knew that what seemed silly now would not be so light-hearted in the morning. I drove across the Bay Bridge with Thriller in the carrier in the passenger’s seat, singing Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” I felt strong, empowered, justified.
Greg got over it. The threats subsided after I thanked him for putting them in writing (in the email I received the morning after). After only a week or so, Greg and I were friends again and he was invited over for dinner and to see the cats. We both knew if was for the best.
Prince and Thriller on Tour, part 3
ReplyDeleteThe adventures of Prince and Thriller continue, including the rode trip move back to Minneapolis in a mini van, along with the rode trip move to Juneau in a U-Haul. They went camping on that one! They make great travel companions, just sleeping and cuddling together in one large carrier.
Prince has been sick for about 7 months. The reason behind his sudden change remains a heart-breaking mystery. Thousands of dollars and three different veterinarians have not uncovered the cause of the brain damage . . .
For six years I have been blessed with the companionship of these two amazing animals. At about twenty pounds each, they are strong and ferocious miniature tigers- complete with beautiful brown and grey and black stripes, patches of white markings, and the “M” on their foreheads that I have been told stands for “Mary” and means they were touched by Jesus at his birth. Angels they are. Even when we lived in our large Minneapolis home, and they would play in the backyard with us, Thriller is rarely out of eye-shot of me. He seems to make it a point to see to it that I am ok. Like dogs, they come when they are called. Like yin-yangs, they play and cuddle with each other. Like clever little men, they introduce themselves to visitors and observe the work of handimen. Like best friends, they can get on my nerves, but like members of the family, they’ll have a place in my home for as long as their little paws walk this world.
Of course it didn’t all start over margaritas, chips, and salsa at Don Jose’s Mexican Cantina; but in retrospect it feels like it did. My future mother-in-law, her sister, my sister, my mother all discussing wedding plans that I just couldn’t get excited about. My now-husband was, I think, a bit offended by my lack of girlish enthusiasm. He kept asking me, “What kind of a wedding did you want when you were little? What kind of wedding did you imagine?” I tried to tell him, when I was little I didn’t really think about it, and once I got through my twenties and was fairly convinced I’d probably never officially marry there didn’t seem any point to imagining a “dream” wedding. Being a fairly cynical person, the entire modern wedding industry seemed to have already sapped the life out of any personal touches I might come up with now. The whole thing was already cliché. It was all more than my Gen-X, grungy, anti-establishment mind could fathom. I mean, who cares about all the “stuff”? My mother-in-law for one.
ReplyDeleteMy sister pulled off a lovely, intimate, outdoorsy wedding. Wildflowers, ocean and mountain views, rustic log benches, a whole salmon encrusted with cucumber scales, a local band. We toyed with the idea of an outdoor skiing extravaganza, but we were looking at late March. It could have worked, or it could have been a muddy, slushy, rotten spring snow disaster. That left us sitting at Don Jose’s reminiscing about my sister’s harpist, whom no one could hear, but was very photogenic. I think I remember saying, “should have had bagpipes, everyone could have heard those.” “Ha Ha Ha,” we all laughed, “maybe that’s the answer. The guys could wear kilts, we could have bagpipes, and the official colors could be “plaid.” Suddenly, it seemed so much more fun. I’ve always loved the bagpipes, their screeching and wailing sends chills up my spine. My fiancé’s family identifies themselves as ethnically Scottish, mostly so they can justify drinking copious amounts of Scotch.
Perhaps it was not surprising then; my fiancé liked the idea too. He wasn’t intimidated by the kilt at all, and if he wasn’t neither of his two buddies in our wedding party were going to wimp out. Sure enough, a quick Internet search revealed several places that rented the whole Scottish outfit. I contacted the Crow Creek Pipe and Drum Band, and yes, Jenny would love to play at our wedding. Bagpipes were no problem. The florist told us that heather was in season in March, and we found some tartan ribbon to wrap all the corsages and bouquets with. The church was available on the date we wanted, and required very little decoration. A friend revealed she had worked for some high-powered wedding planner in another life, and would be happy to decorate the bar we planned on for the reception. The food was easy, feeding a crowd wasn’t unusual for either family. It was all coming together.
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ReplyDeleteOr was it? Perhaps I should have listened more carefully to all the stories about my fiancé’s brother’s wedding. It was supposed to be on September 12, 2001. Flights were canceled, the bride’s family almost didn’t make in from New Jersey. Even the rental tuxes couldn’t make it down from Anchorage. The groom and his attendants wore Carhartts, with flannel shirts and red suspenders. Surely, that was a once in a lifetime national disaster though. I didn’t seriously consider terrorism a threat. I should have thought a bit more about Mother Nature however. Especially considering the only real association we could find with our wedding date was the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake.
ReplyDeleteAcross Cook Inlet, Mt. Redoubt had been ominously rumbling for a month or two. Sure enough, the week of our wedding, she started spewing ash plumes 30,000 feet into the air. My dad and I drove the eighty miles to Soldotna to pick up our marriage license and a few other last-minute things the Wednesday before our wedding. We got within about 45 miles of home when we started to drive through the ash that turned the bright, sunny day a grim, gritty grey. My contacts began to itch and blur , dad drove the rest of the way. My bridesmaid and her boyfriend were driving down from Anchorage as well. We met them at the post office in Anchor Point where my dad rigged up a filter out of an old nylon taped over the air intake in our cars. My brother was due to fly in from Seattle, along with two of my aunts that day. They were canceled. It all took the bridezilla right out of me. There was literally nothing anyone could do about it. It was out of my hands. As we decorated for the reception on Friday, word came that an avalanche had closed the road from Anchorage to Homer. At that point it came as no surprise.
Flights from Fairbanks for my husband’s brothers, wives, and children were touch and go, but they made it in. My two aunts ended up spending a long weekend in Oregon with other family after giving up on day 3 of cancellations out of Seattle. My brother and his girlfriend made it to the second half of the reception. The bagpiper made it the morning of the ceremony, although I think she had to get a ride back to Anchorage because the small ash-free window she’d flown down in closed again Saturday night. Little did I know the lengths the florist went to for the heather. Her husband was in the hospital in Anchorage and she just decided to go ahead and pick up my flowers herself instead of counting on them being flown down that week, “just in case,” she said.
In the end it all worked out, apparently as weddings usually do. I can’t remember much of anything from the ceremony, except for our little nephew creeping up behind my husband to see if it was true what his dad and uncles told him about how “real men” wear kilts. The reception is a bit of a blur too, although I remember my brother’s arrival and the bagpipe duet that left the crowd speechless, and probably deaf. The dry cleaner got all the ash out of the hem of my dress, and it looks no worse for it. Getting up in front of a small-town worth of lifelong friends and family, then hosting a party where everyone could eat, drink, and be merry bonded us in a way I don’t think a different style of commitment would have. I watched a PBS special about India a few weeks before our wedding. There was a part about the elaborate arranged wedding ceremonies, full of colorful pomp and tradition that the narrator said actually has a psychological effect on the bride and groom, who have never seen each other before. To go through a very public ceremony, witnessed by their community and family, bonds the newlyweds and gives them a touchstone they can come back to as they go through their lives. I see the point of all the “stuff” too.
Open Windows
ReplyDeleteI once heard, "When one door closes, another one opens. And when that one closes, too, be open minded enough to look for a window." Well, there we were, climbing through a window, being as open-minded and faith-filled as a new couple could ever be.
My husband, Brandon, and I had been talking and hoping, wishing and praying for an opportunity to take together where we could experience a life outside of central Iowa, and ideally the Mid-west, to continue solidifying the foundation of our relationship, and ultimately tuck away some money for the family we'd hoped to have some day. Our search began with hopes for warmer weather, and if Brandon would have had his way, a short drive to the ballpark in Arlington. We focused our attention on metropolitan areas including Dallas/Fortworth, Phoenix, St. Louis and Kansas City. Because Brandon had an opportunity to work remotely, our move relied solely on my ability to find a full-time teaching job. This thought brought stress and pressure on me, not only because we wouldn’t go if I didn’t find a job, but because it’d mean I’d have to leave the middle/high school position that introduced me to the extended family I worked with on a daily basis.
Regardless of what we’d have to sacrifice, Brandon and I decided that our goal to have a family of our own some day would supersede any other goal we had in mind for right now. Eventually we’d have to be in a financial position we felt comfortable with to provide for little ones and that meant moving. As a result, I began updating my resume and all of my online applications in January, only to find that most schools weren't posting vacancies for the following school year until March or April. With generic interest making its way to my inbox on a weekly basis, Brandon and I started focusing less on a move for the current year at the time and more on a move for the following academic year. So you can imagine my surprise, when home with the flu on a Monday afternoon, I received a phone call from a superintendent in the Southwest region of Alaska.
Continued...
ReplyDeleteMy response to the phone call was mixed: a lot of laughter, a few sarcastic comments and a little curiosity. Reality set in and I was more nauseated by the idea of moving to the tundra than I was from the flu, especially after putting hours into researching districts south of Des Moines. Brandon and I laughed off the idea and skeptically researched this opportunity so we could guiltlessly rule it out. We searched for reasons not to go; but the more we read and talked to others about the opportunity, the more we found ourselves asking, “Why not? When would be a better time to do this? What do we have to risk? What do we have to gain?”
We answered these questions and ultimately decided as a young married couple, with no children, no mortgage and the ability to move with two stable incomes, we’d be able to take advantage of this opportunity with little calculated risk and an opportunity to impact our lives culturally, professionally and financially. We’d have to sacrifice seeing family and friends for an academic year, but we’d be able to come home over Christmas and from mid-May to August if things should work out for a contract the second year. Everything else we’d be sacrificing for this journey would consist of luxuries we’d come to rely on in the hustle and bustle of city-living. And if a village of 400 can survive without these luxuries, so could we, right?
As family and friends learned about the decision we had made, phone calls and emails went from trickling to full-on flooding my free time. Everyone wanted to know what in the hell would possess us to even consider Alaska, let alone sign the contract for the following school year. No matter how we put it, people thought we were crazy. Some people even went as far as to accuse us of being selfish and greedy, trying to guilt us out of moving three-thousand miles away. Luckily for us, we were dead set on going, knowing that the only reason anyone would have reservations about our leaving would be because they'd love and miss us too much to let us go.
By the second week of March, nearly everyone that was near and dear to us knew we were leaving, and plans for our big move were underway. By early April, my letter of resignation was submitted and our tax refund checks, cashed. We budgeted the remainder of our year, placing every spare dime we had into labeled envelopes for shipping, flights, car rental, hotel, food, rent and internet. By May, we had canceled our cell phone service, sold one of our cars and moved out of our own place and into our parents', knowing that we'd need every spare penny lying around to pay for the upcoming expenses. Our flights were booked, and anything we didn't absolutely need was sold, donated or distributed amongst family members to care for until our return.
Continued...
ReplyDeleteBy the beginning of June, I had created a book of information, including checklists for shipping, emergency contact numbers, banking information, passports, birth certificates and our marriage license. We were carrying our lives in a small portfolio, saving every receipt, and documenting every step we took to get ourselves safely to Alaska. We bundled up what was left of our lives in ten rubbermaid totes and six vacuum space-saver bags, and by our first anniversary, July 4th, 2010, had sent each one out to New Stuyahok, Alaska, hoping they'd be there to greet us when we arrived.
During the month of July, not only did we solidify our commitment to moving to Southwest Alaska, but my younger sister eventually accepted a position in the same district, forcing us to condense 7 months-worth of knowledge and preparation into, at most, two weeks to help her pack. July disappeared, and the closer we came to leaving, the more unprepared we felt in going, even though we knew we had never been more meticulous about the details of an upcoming event. In retrospect, I almost envy my sister for only having a few weeks to stew about moving, knowing that half of the things I spent most of my time worrying about didn't matter.
Just as we knew it would, our departure day crept up on us, making us feel like we still had so much to to and so many people to see before we left that afternoon. We spent the morning shipping off one more bin for Claire, shedding tears with our parents and every other person eves-dropping in our explanations to the postal-service worker, wondering what it was we were sending to Alaska, and why. My mom couldn't choke out a full sentence without thinking about her two youngest children, one-third of her offspring, being 3,000 miles away on "America's Last Frontier." "What if you get sick? Then where will you go? How far is the nearest hospital and how are you going to get there if a bear attacks you?" While my mother never asked them aloud that day, I'm almost certain they were what riddled her brain, as she'd asked them repeatedly throughout the summer. My sense of humor playing on her undying faith was the only way I could respond to her without crying myself, as I hugged her and said, "If I get eaten by a bear, it's what God has planned for me." After a chuckle shared by all, we managed to compose ourselves long enough for the ride to Chicago.
Final Addition...
ReplyDeleteThe flight out was more emotional than I had expected, especially considering that I was the one, out of everyone, that couldn't stop the uncontrollable sobs that wracked my body as we hugged one last time. I couldn't stand the look of desperation my parents gave us as we hit the departure gate, and for the first time since signing the contract, I felt like we'd made a terrible mistake. Brandon and I spent the next two hours awaiting a delayed flight, only giving me more of a reason to want to turn back.
After hours of waiting for the delayed flight, our three-leg trip was transferred into a direct flight with another airline at no expense to us. As much as I didn't want to recognize it at the time, it was a sign of the series of silver linings that would come from the sacrifices we had made. Since our move, Brandon and I have experienced our fair share of moments where we're reminded of everything we've sacrificed to be where we are. But for every difficult moment we've endured, we've grown closer as a couple and experienced as much good, if not more, to counteract the low points. I'm really glad we were open-minded enough to sneak out the window and experience the opportunities we have since then.
This is my personal narrative final copy:
ReplyDeleteMy most vivid memories from childhood comes from the preschool that I spent my three years in Yokohama, Japan. I remember the earthy red color from the building’s roof, the bulky taste of pebbles on the playground and the smell around the outhouse that was placed at the bottom of a hill, which was habituated by bamboo shrubs. Though it couldn't have been more than an hour each day on a clock, we felt like we were spending most of the day outside, playing hard getting dirty and occasionally bloody. In fact, maybe it was really all day. I have pictures that left me stronger impressions than the events themselves and they tell me even today how actively I was seeking adventures and new experiments. My first day of preschool picture exhibits a huge bandaid almost covering the entire scar on my chin. That afternoon, I held on a swing’s seat upside down and slid onto the ground upside down, just as an older boy was doing it right next to my swing. Another picture has three preschoolers soaked in muddy seawater at a beach. I was up to many things that I will never do as an adult.
Growing up in Asia, pre-school teachers recommended three year olds to bring chopsticks to accompany our home-packed lunch. The chopsticks we used were the plastic ones that were short enough for small hands. Our classroom floor was made with narrow wood boards and had occasional knotholes which was very inviting to little kids. While we were getting ready for lunch, I began to wonder, “what would happen if I put my chopstick in the hole?” I saw a boy doing it a few days before and he found the perfect knothole for his chopstick to go down. I had to try, so I would know for sure what would happen. The first hole I put my chopstick was smaller than the thick end of my chopstick, so it got stuck. I pulled it out of the hole and went off to another one. BINGO! This time the hole was just large enough for my chopstick’s diameter!! The size was so perfect that I could remember the slow-motion-film-like movement of the chopstick going through the hole and disappearing from the sight. I was happy to find the just right sized hole for my chopstick to go through until I realized “How am I going to eat lunch???” My experiment concluded with the fork a teacher lend me to eat my lunch (chopsticks can only work as a pair), explanation-like mumbling I had to tell to my mother when I got home, and the trouble I got into for having my mother purchase replacement chopsticks (and believe it or not. I did the experiment again just to make sure the results were consistent…). I wonder how many single chopsticks they must have found in the crawlspace when they renovated the classroom just about ten years ago. The preschool had actually been open for over 50 years. Even my uncle went there and had the same teacher, though she is now retired. I wonder what if kids dropped chopsticks back then when he was there.
When I think about all the experiments I did in preschool, which I still remember to this day, it reminds me of the importance of concrete sensorial hands-on experiments and trial-and-error lessons a child learns in youth. Those experiences make who they are and form their motivation for learning new things. They were fun and I, along with other peers, kept doing the same thing over and over, totally immersed in the sense of wonder. My memories bring me to remember that we need to include as many opportunities as we can, and even more, in our daily teaching for kids to use their senses and to be absorbed in their passion for learning. Our job as a teacher, then, is to show to the world that when we emphasize on the process of learning with higher-level thinking in any and all subject area, students achieve higher in creativity, sensitivity, 21st-century readiness, and even in the numbers on standardized tests.
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ReplyDeleteLast summer, my sister-in-law, Marie, and niece, Michaela came for a visit. They live down in Sacramento and are urban Californians. They don’t camp or hike – they rent cabins and walk in a park. When I drove up to Anchorage to pick them up at the airport, I experienced an aspect of living in Alaska that I enjoy – I had big potty in the woods. It’s a little disgusting, some may say crass, but there is something so nice about living on the edge of wilderness. Of course, I had to tell them all about it. My niece, age 13, was horribly disgusted and told us in no uncertain terms that she would not have big potty in the woods. Of course, I was taking them camping!
ReplyDeleteI’ve had many occasions to talk to teens about big potty. A few years ago at school, our student population grew and we (grades 6-12) moved into a renovated home. It was great having a brand new to us building, but the septic was for a family of four. Our numbers were around 40 including students, teachers, aides, guests. The septic could not handle it. Finally, we had to tell students that if they had big potty and a lot to give, they had to give at home. This course of action was after months of all sorts of plumbing issues. We spent a school year with that situation, then the building owner put in a new septic. Whew, it was a challenging situation, but once the giving lessened the septic lasted long enough until it was replaced in the summer.
Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of village schools and semi-off the road system sites concerns not only septic, but water issues. Our current challenge is simply water supply. Somewhere in the village is a leak and for the past few days at school, we had no water. Which means no giving at school at all – big potty, little potty, any potty – the students had to go home and give. Many kids responded that they don’t have water at home, to which I reply – you’re all related and there aren’t 40 people at your house! The village, hopefully, will quickly solve this new issue.
Camping is such a pleasant alternative to school bathroom issues. When camping, I have a littler routine I like to follow when the need for big potty arises. First, I wait until the need is pressing. I don’t’ want to unnecessarily expose any skin to the bite of thousands of mosquitoes. Timing is critical though, because a hole has to be dug and a view found; waiting too long has its own perils. I like to have a view of water, a hillside behind for wind and weather protection; the area needs to be somewhat bare of tall grass or thick brush, but not too close to trees with roots that inhibit the quick digging of a hole. It must be far enough from camp for privacy, but not too far that it’s a hike. Preferably I have plenty of toilet paper, but if necessary a handful of nearby moss (with twigs and rough stuff removed) will work.
One memorable June camp, everything was just right – perfect spot, good timing, plenty of toilet paper. Squatting, I half-stood and reached behind me for the roll of TP and that’s when I looked into the eyes of the watching black bear. He was about 50 feet behind me and up a short rise. Feeling vulnerable and unsure what to do, I slowly stood straighter and that simple movement caused the bear to turn around and leave. On rather shaky legs I returned to camp with a story to share and I’ve wondered ever since what sort of story that bear told!
Of course, I had to tell my niece all of this while we drove to Homer from Anchorage. She was absolutely not impressed. Big potty in the woods was a topic for days, and then we went across Kachemak Bay and camped. Unfortunately the yurt we rented had an outhouse; Michaela was overjoyed. However, she did spend one day out kayaking and experienced little potty in the woods. I look forward to her next visit; I’ll make sure we camp without an outhouse! She’s got a crazy aunt in Alaska that strongly believes there is nothing like big potty in the woods.
For my personal narrative I focused on the genre of poetry...
ReplyDeletePOEM #1:
Sara Ann
Has dirty blond hair & silver eyes,
is average height and creamy pale skin.
Anxiously energetic, furious flower-planer
Eats breakfast on the go
Relishes Alaskan summers
Is a soon-to-be-mother
Devoted teacher, younger sister
Is wife to Alex, daughter to Roger & Eileen
Loyal friend
Voracious book lover and collector
Novice sewer and knitter, wants to be a painter
Quirky Alaskan
Multiple pet owner
Consumes anything chocolate, drinks peppermint tea
Frequent dessert devourer
Delicate hiker, crazy biker
Is caring, will help anyone out
Shy Japanese speaker, closet country music fan
Loud car singer
But most of all,
is full of so much more.
POEM #2: (the stanza's I put it in didn't work out exactly because of the format of the post...)
ReplyDeleteI am From the Land of the Midnight Sun
I am from Lynden Drive,
my home until 5 years old.
I am from 3711 Runestad Circle where almost twenty years has passed
and swirl cones from McDonalds are a short walk away.
I am from the smell of freshly cut grass
mixed with the faint scent of gasoline.
I am from the crabapple tree of bitter, sour apples that make my face cringe,
the tree that moose eat apples from and my Mom yelled at them.
I am from trips to the city library in the summer,
checking out as many books as I could carry in my two arms home.
I am from the Golden Rule - treat others as you would like to be treated.
I am from late-night games in the midnight sun:
Hide-and-seek, Mother May I, Red Light/Green Light and What Time Is It Mr. Fox?
running through the neighborhood, the bright white of evening lighting up the sky.
I am from family hikes along Turnagain arm,
searching endlessly for the magical sighting of dall sheep and baby belugas in the inlet.
I am from handmade chocolate covered cherries,
Eagle brand condensed milk and fondant.
I am from Grandma Geiger’s Crackerjack Cookies,
cranberry bread, and Uncle Duane’s rendition of Surrito Burrito!
I am from sledding birthday parties
of broken arms, frozen toes/fingers, and rosy red cheeks.
I am from the perfect sticky snow,
used to make snowmen with coal eyes and carrot noses.
I am from orange Danish rolls from a can and Dad’s perfect pancakes,
so light and fluffy they melt in your mouth like butter.
I am from Vacation Bible School craft projects,
and pot roasts on Sundays.
I am from Winnie the Pooh,
Strawberry Shortcake, the Care Bears and Rainbow Brite.
I am from a place where we were woken up late in the night,
to see the aurora’s colors dancing in the night sky
the algae green and periwinkle blues, and sometimes crimson reds.
I am from those memories,
of a time that is not that long ago.
POEM #3:
ReplyDeleteIf I Were to See
If I were to see
all the relatives now gone,
I'd ask all the questions
I've had for so long.
I'd learn about your likes,
dislikes, and quirks,
and I'd ask you to teach me
what's behind all the smirks.
I'd make family trees
and learn what life was like back then,
like who taught you all that you know,
from handicrafts to learning how to end?
But for now I guess
I will have to make do,
with the few remaining stories
and memories I have of you.
Perhaps I can do better
in this small life of mine,
to preserve and document
treasured moments in time.
POEM #4: (again, formatting a little messed up so I tried to tweak a few lines...)
ReplyDeleteWhat’s in the experience of being pregnant?
What’s in the experience of being pregnant?
In the beginning it was carrying around a secret
for months and months,
until it is safe to tell.
Telling in-laws they're going to be grandparents,
by letting them know it’s time to stock up on diapers ad wipes.
Jeans that have no zipper or waistband,
shirts that make me look like I'm wearing a tent.
A changing body that keeps growing and growing
loving and hating it at the same time.
The first tears of joy I've ever experienced,
rolling down my face because it's going to be a she.
The different stages of the growing belly:
The "I hardly look pregnant" belly,
the "Is she pregnant?!" belly,
and the “Touch me! I'm pregnant!” belly.
Feeling the first little flutters
first kicks and movements,
a full stomach movement,
learning to recognize hiccups!
Picturing what she will look like -
her little hands, little feet, fingers and toes.
Imagining how she’ll be and what she’ll be like,
and which family members she will resemble.
But most of all,
the sudden ability
to focus on what's important -
and what matters most.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is about my dad:
ReplyDelete“Get this shit off my bed.”
Some of the last words my father says to me. He is pointing at the teddy bear that the nurse brought. It’s a small brown teddy bear wearing a T-shirt with the words “hug bear” on it. My father has just had surgery. He’s supposed to practice coughing while holding the bear tightly to his chest. It will help his ribs not to ache so much while he coughs. He’s supposed to cough so his lungs won’t fill up with fluid while he recovers from abdominal surgery.
I take the bear. “This?” I say. He nods and turns away. I’m sure he doesn’t mean to be so angry. It’s probably the pain, or the medication for the pain. I place the bear next to the window. My brothers and sisters and I have all written our names and good wishes on the bear’s T-shirt. We have decorated his hospital room with balloons and cards and flowers.
This is the third day after his surgery. They found cancer. A lot of it. So much that there is nothing they can do. The nurse (her name is Angel) says, “After he recovers from the surgery he can go home…” She doesn’t say go home to die, but I hear it.
He is still turned away from me, and I wonder if he needs some rest. “Do you want me to go so you can sleep, Dad?” I ask. After a pause, “No.” So I stay.
I look at the bear, and the little, mean part of me feels wounded that he didn’t appreciate it. As of late, he doesn’t even realize where he is, or why, half the time. Along with the cancer he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimers, He spends a lot of time watching TV, when he isn’t trying to get up and go home. We don’t talk that much, but during a soap opera recently he pointed at one of the characters and said, “That’s Rita. She’s a baddy,” and we both smiled.
Growing up, I had a hard time relating to this man. My younger sister and I were the last of seven kids, and our parents were “old.” They were tired. We were not exactly the center of their lives. They may have attended a school play or music concert or two, while we were young, but mostly they stayed to themselves and so did we.
Somewhere in my teens, I developed an attitude toward my dad. I rarely showed it to him outright, but inside a slow rage began to simmer and seethe. He was generally grumpy and critical, and I found it increasingly difficult to put up with his bad moods.
I’m thirteen, and at the table one evening, he criticizes Mom’s dinner. “These potatoes are pretty hard, aren’t they?” I look at my sister, then at Mom. I speak up. “I think they’re delicious.” He ignores me. Mom frowns at me. It is obviously not my place to contradict.
I’m fifteen, and Dad is home in the afternoon after school: “Don’t you girls have any pride in this house? Get down on the floor and pick up all this shit on the carpet. Why don’t you help your mother more often?” We get down and pick up shreds of paper and strings. Angry, I say, “Mom doesn’t ask us to,” but not very loud.
I’m seventeen: “Mom, I went on the pill.” Silence. “Well, don’t tell your father. He puts you on a pedestal, you know.”
I’m sitting at dinner with Mom and Dad. They have no money to send me to college. I’m going anyway, there are student loans. “Maybe if you didn’t buy so much beer you’d have a little money left over to put toward college,” I say.
Sometime during college, I’m home for Christmas, leaning on Dad’s shoulder on the couch. He slips something in my shirt pocket. I take it out. It’s a hundred dollar bill. I suddenly realize he is proud of me, and I start to cry. Later that evening, Dad and I share a few beers before dinner. When we run out, we decide to drive into town. It’s snowing hard, Christmas Eve, and the only place open is the Valley Hotel liquor store, so we go in and buy a sixer of Olympia and drink one apiece on the way home. He tells me I am smart, that I can be whatever I want to be. I could be an astronaut, even. I tell him I’d rather just be a Ninja, and we laugh and clink cans.
ReplyDeleteLife happens to us, I marry, Mom and Dad move to Arizona for retirement, and they spend a few weeks of summer in Alaska. They stay in their motor home in the parking lot of the Anchorage Moose Club. I go to visit them one afternoon, and my mom looks tired. Dad doesn’t say much, he hugs me but seems confused. Mom chats about this and that. She mentions that my brother has given them a cell phone to use, and as if on cue, it rings. My dad gets up and lurches over to the table, grabs the phone and begins punching buttons. It continues to ring. He shakes it. He punches another button, raises it to his ear, and says “Hello!” too loudly. It continues to ring. He thrusts it at my mom, disgusted. She takes it and clicks the receiver but it is too late. They’ve already hung up. Dad folds his arms and looks out the window. I stay for lunch and then go back home, not knowing what to feel.
I’m sitting by Dad’s hospital bed, and it’s me who’s holding the bear. I feel like I might cry, but instead I say, “Dad?” and wait. He takes a long time to roll over and face me. “What do you think about all this?” I ask. I don’t know what I expect from this man. A philosophical treatise? A hug? Finally he speaks.
“Oh, it’ll never fly.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, but I think I know. I switch on the TV and we watch “The Price is Right” for maybe the last time. Sometime later, he falls asleep, and I put the bear back on the bed.
We are sick of all of you...
ReplyDeleteHAVACLAM?
Tell us about it.
Like EARL and MOTHER JONES?
HAVACLAM?
Is hat like " PEARL YOU LITTLE...." that blog?
PEARLS- CASA DONASA- PASO DE VENCEDORAS ?
ASWC...???
ASS - WASHINGTON- COLORADO?
ARIZONA Senators are talking ACE?
CONDOLEEZA RICE has been ID'D by more than 15,000 rappers and that says a lot about CHUMS.