Coming to an End...

Andrew and my time in Hoonah is quickly coming to an end. In just fifteen days, we will finish our six-and-half months in Alaska and board our one-way flight to Oregon. It seems that all arrivals and departures are bitter sweet, and this departure is the same. It will be most difficult for me to leave Steve behind as he finishes out the school year. It is my great hope that the time will pass quickly. I will, once again, begin counting the days…this time until May 23rd when Steve flies home.

Relishing our time together was the theme for our Spring Vacation. We played games, watched movies, finished and started the next book in the Harry Potter series. We conducted a science experiment, had church on the beach, made going away cards for friends and sailed on a ferry to Juneau. Andrew had friends over, invited us to build lego creations and started warming up his pitching arm by throwing snowballs at a knot in a wooden board. It was a relaxing week and a treat for all of us to have this time to enjoy as a family.

Our Alaskan "Cruise"

A one time change in the ferry schedule gave us the opportunity to take a day “cruise” to Juneau.

The Alaska Marine Highway winter schedule brings a ferry to Hoonah twice a week. It docks here on Friday and doesn’t return to Hoonah until Tuesday. This schedule never provided us an opportunity to ride the ferry without committing to an expensive three or four night stay in Juneau. Yet for Spring Break, there was an addition in service that gave us a one-time chance to float to and from Juneau in one day.

I was ecstatic. I felt like Steve was taking me on a mini-cruise. It was a perfect get-away to cure my island fever.

For $116.00 including a discount, we were booked on the “Taku;” a large, “quick” moving ship that offered a fully stocked mess hall, theater, play area, video games, private cabins, writing room, gift shop and a comfortable observation room located at the front of the ship. We chose our seats from the rows of cushioned chairs all facing the expansive windows. The view was amazing.

The slow passing mountain ranges, changing clouds, and small islands thick with trees were so beautiful, but to look at them through thick windows seemed sacrilegious.
My cushy blue chair quickly turned into a hot seat. When my eyes caught the sun creating magical shadows on a snowy peak or the way the clouds wrapped around the base of an island or when I spotted a lone house on the edge of the rocks, I would turn to Steve, give him a kiss on the cheek, smile and say, “I’ll be right back.” Up and down, back and forth, in and out I went. I should say, “…we went.” Andrew, overcome with seven-year-old boy fidgets, finger-snaps and bottom wiggles, welcomed my frequent comings and goings. At one point he just had to run “it” out on the helicopter tarmac; pretending to be superman fighting the enemy wind.

My camera and I were itching to possess and memorize the beauty around us. I couldn’t push the shudder button fast enough. Unfortunately, my photo card only had 21 pictures left, a nightmare when on your first Alaskan “cruise.” (I had ordered a new photo card from Costco weeks ago but the joys of livin’ rural keeps me at the mercy of the postal service.) As I took in every angle from the bow, the stern and the upper deck, I had to choose my shots carefully. I found myself constantly reviewing my photos, editing and then getting ready for my next moment. And there were so many moments!



Steve, a bit under the weathder and being slightly worn to the novelty of an Alaskan ferry ride stayed inside most of the time. He brought a good book and spent his three hours receiving many kisses on the cheek, drinking Theraflu and reading about democracy. He did oblige me, early on in the journey, by going outside for our family “postcard” shot. Ta da!
We left at 12:45 pm and arrived at the Auke Bay Ferry Terminal in Juneau at 3:15 pm.
We took a 15 mile cab ride into Historic Old Town Juneau, an expense of $35 (no busses available!). The fickle spring weather gave us sun at the terminal and snow in city. We dashed from the cab to a local eatery called the Hanger. It gave a wonderful view of the water and the colorful sea planes docked in the harbor. After a delicious dinner, I was dying to visit the bookstore. Steve led the way. As we entered the tiny shelf-crammed store, we split like bees collecting sweet pollen from our favorite flowers; Steve to fiction, Andrew to children’s and I to biography and history. We enjoyed browsing and fingering the new spines and faces; letting our minds wander to the thrills and sorrows that lie lettered between the hard covers.

We quickly dashed into a tech shop to buy a photo card for my camera. Fully loaded, we were off once again. On the main drag, we went into a shop brimming with Alaskan treasures. From floor to ceiling, masks covered the walls, decorated wooden oars propped up against animal hides and walrus tusks sat on tusk-tip next to framed beetles with Latin names. There were cabinets filled with ivory and antler carvings of whales and eagles, buckets overflowing with pastel-colored stones, shelves lined with beaded moccasins and painted miniature totem poles, placed haphazardly around the store were hand painted ceremonial drums. The prices were exorbitant; a twelve inch totem pole was $400 and the drum that Steve is circumspectly holding in this picture carries a price tag of $749. Andrew did manage, though, to buy two magnetic balls for a buck.

We visited a small student art gallery and then moved on to Baronoff Hotel for tea and dessert. Steve and I relaxed in the lounge chairs and watched Andrew devour a piece of strawberry cheese cake. Can you believe they were out of “Baked Alaska?”

It was 7 pm and we had two hours before Taku headed back to Hoonah. Our touristing prospects were few. Ninety percent of the stores in Juneau are only open during summer season. The ten percent that stays open all year close at 5:30pm. We decided to head to the Juneau Library. It was lovely. This was the view from our sitting area, and Andrew had a large children’s section all to himself.



We knew the trip back home would be uneventful and planned to use the time to get some sleep. Andrew and I were in and out of rest, camping out on the floor in between one row of chairs in the earlier mentioned observation room. Steve returned to reading, this time by flashlight, and tried sleeping sitting up for the last hour of our “cruise.” We docked in Hoonah at 12:30 am. To our benefit, Major Loni, Andrew’s Boy Scout leader, was on board and graciously offered us a ride home. As I walked from the ship to her car, the crisp night air roused my sleepy senses; just enough to pause for a moment and thank the maker of the bright shining stars above for our day on board the Taku.

Tale of Two Wolves

An old Native American is teaching his grandson about life.

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy."It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Native simply replied, "The one I feed."

That's so Raven

If by numbers only, Ravens dominate both the sky and land in Hoonah. So numerous are these large black birds and so connected to this area that Alaskan Natives, from time immemorial, have named one of two of their "moieties" after them.

Scavengers by nature, they are often seen picking through trash bins and garbage cans of our little village. Special care has to be taken to secure the lids. Sometimes people use logs or axes to hold the tops down. Even still, I have watched ravens knock the wood or heavy tools to the ground and then use their large beaks to pry the lids open. Once they get to the contents, others join them and the result is a mess; trash is strewn all over the ground. We have also seen eight or nine of them surround a bald eagle, never challenging him, but forcing the great bird to protect his kill while he eats. From our picture window, we have noticed pairs of ravens chasing intruders for miles and engage in aerial fighting to protect their territory.

Ravens are very vocal creatures. According to a study done by Ornithologists Boreman and Heinrich in 1999, ravens have fifteen to thirty-three categories of vocalizations; alarm calls, comfort sounds, chase calls and calls designed for claiming territories. Their voices can be heard throughout the day, from one end of Hoonah to the other: screaming, bawking, kawing, coo-cooing and warbling. There are no city sounds to compete with brash character of the raven, and the stately eagles remain refined in their contribution to the air waves.

Ravens are so much a part of our daily lives that we decided to do a science experiment on their eating patterns.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
One morning before school Andrew put his uneaten buttered toast out in the drive way and in seconds a raven swooped down and pick up the food. Then next morning he placed and unbuttered, untoasted piece of bread outside and a raven didn’t come for about a half-an-hour. One afternoon, on the way to the park Andrew threw his apple in a snow covered field and immediately a raven flew down and carried it away.
This made Andrew wonder why they came quickly for buttered toast and apples and not for plain bread.

QUESTION
What item/food will the Ravens pick up/investigate most quickly; salami, buttered toast, plain bread, hard boiled egg in shell, apple or a plain red box?

HYPOTHESIS
Andrew predicted the Ravens will come most quickly for the salami, because they will smell it.

MATERIALS
One piece of round salami, one piece of buttered toast, once piece of plain bread, hard boiled egg in the shell, half eaten Fugi apple, and a red “Better Cheddar” cracker box*
Graph Paper, Timer , Pencil and Assistant (mom)

*We wanted to try a non-food item as a olfactory control element

PROCEDURES
For six days one piece of food/item will be placed in the driveway at different times* by the assistant. The researcher starts the timer the moment the food hits the ground and stops the timer when the Raven picks it up the food. The weather and temperature is recorded each day at the time of the experiment.

*We used different times as to not train the Ravens to come at the same time everyday.

RESULTS

Monday, 11:30 am
Light snow, 34 degrees
1 piece of Salami
Raven picked up salami in 42 seconds

Tuesday, 10:00 am
Overcast, cloudy, 34 degrees
1 piece of buttered toast
Raven picked up toast in 18 minutes

Wednesday, 12:30 pm
Light Snow, 36 degrees
1 piece of plain bread
Raven didn’t come
After 10 minutes added one piece of pepperoni and one piece of salami,
Raven didn’t come
Andrew went outside and ripped up the salami
Raven came in 5 minutes 56 seconds

Thursday, 3:00 pm
Heavy snow, 32 degrees
1 red “Better Cheddar” cracker box
Ravens didn’t come
Snow started to cover the box
After 16 minutes assistant placed a piece of salami on the box
Ravens didn’t come
We retrieved our box and untouched salami

Friday, 5:15 pm
Mainly Sunny, 37 degrees
1 hard boiled egg in shell
Before Andrew placed the egg he waved it around, tried to get Ravens attention, did a little dance in the driveway and then left it on some black rock so the birds could see it.
Ravens didn’t come
After 16 minutes Andrew brought the egg in and used red food coloring to dye it light red
Ravens didn’t come
We left egg there
An hour later a Raven swooped over, stopped on the snow five feet above the egg but didn’t pick it up
We left the egg there overnight
Around noon a Raven picked up the egg

Saturday, 6:00 pm
Unknown
1 half-eaten Fugi apple
Unknown

CONCLUSION
While common Ravens perceive their environment through vision, some chemical cues, tactile, and auditory stimuli, we could not find a pattern in how they choose their food. Perhaps the Raven had to see us place the food in the spot, or would spy it from the air come to investigate. A Raven picking up the food didn’t seem to be affected by weather, color of item, or smell of item.

They did come one time very quickly for the salami but the other days when the salami was added the results were not quick or consistent.

Andrew enjoyed seeing the birds close up and finding out the results.(Mom enjoyed seeing Andrew do a raven dance in the driveway.)

NEXT TIME
Next time Andrew wants to try the experiment for a two-week period with a greater amount and variety of food.

Happy Spring!

Spring Break has officially started!

To commemorate the the change of season, the sun came out and stayed out all day. Steve, Andrew and I spent most of our waking hours outside enjoying the warmth. Our first destination was the “beach.” We have yet to share this stretch of shore with anybody during one of our visits; a treat that could only occur when living in a sparsely populated area. It is at these times, alone with God's amazing beauty, that I feel most deeply, it is a blessing to be so isolated. It is peaceful, quiet and place where the world slows down. We enjoyed our time together with sea-smelling snowball fights, skipped rocks, sauntered alongside the water, collected smooth glass pieces and took in some of my favorite sights.

When I leisurely walk along the shoreline, I find myself gazing down at the multicolored rocks. Each stone wants to be held, to tell a story of its life under pressure. Some are smooth, opaque pink, others are black with deep white veins crisscrossing their bodies, others alternate textures and colors in half inch layers; all bound together by some fantastic occurrence. None are the same, yet all are akin to each other. They are arranged beautifully in an organized chaos. I wonder if there will be a time when they will be made whole again, reunited.

I am also in awe of the bounty of intact shells scattered along the beach. Growing up visiting the Oregon coast, I was lucky if I found one unbroken sand dollar or shell. But here there are no raucous waves to crush the porcelain to pieces. Here the pristine waters gently lap over the shells, giving them nothing more than a loving nudge toward the trees. Hundreds of these gutted shells sit atop the rocks, robbed of their insides by some hungry otter or seagull; some torn in half, some couples still clinging to each other by a ridged muscle. I can’t help but carry the bound duo for a few steps, stealing Andrew’s attention with a mock castanet performance.

The driftwood, too, has a playful intrigue that I find alluring. Their swirled misshapen faces; characters dressed up with moss accents, fish net and seaweed accessories. Here I can see a bird’s peering eye from the decomposing wood. There also are a multitude of barnacles on pier posts, rocks and rusting metal; somehow they seem precious. Tiny, little hermits, tucked snugly asleep until the high tide awakens them. The mountains; I could look at the same mountains everyday and never grow tired of staring. Today the clouds had lifted and all the grand snowy tops were fully visible.

In snow-covered Alaska, signs of Spring's arrival are hard to find. But when I looked and listened closely, I noticed some subtle clues of Mother Nature's plan to shed her winter clothes. The seaweed was in bloom. The once crispy dark green edges had transformed into plump, shiny green, air-filled blossoms; sticky to the touch. Back at home, as we spent the afternoon playing in our “super sledding trench” and relaxing in the sun, I could hear sweet new voices in the trees surrounding us. The delicate twitter of tiny sparrows chirped through the air; usually dominated by heavy calls of the ravens and eagles. With the warmth of the sun, the music of the birds and the whispering of the hemlock branches, it was a perfect setting for welcoming in the season. For us our first day of Spring was a day of repose, reflection and regeneration.

Party Time!

One evening, Andrew sat at the kitchen table and admired a shiny, new Alaska state coin. He had just received it in the mail from a friend of ours who lives in Oregon. He stopped for a moment and his math wheels started turning. He looked at Steve…looked at the coin…looked at Steve again and then said with astonishment, “Steve has been alive longer than Alaska has been a state!”

Yup! Alaska joined the state of the union in 1959. Our sweet Steve was already ten years old!

March 15, 2009 Steve turned 60, and from dawn until dusk we celebrated. We began the day by serving Steve breakfast in bed, giving him our homemade cards and gift of a bonified Hoonah tourist T-shirt. With breakfast over, he lounged his way downstairs to be greeted by colorful birthday posters all over the walls designed by Andrew. I added some age appropriate quotes…

“I’m at the age that my back goes out more than I do.” Phyllis Dillar

“Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened!”
Cora Harvey Armstrong

“Getting old ain’t for sissies.” – Betty Davis

“Time may be a great healer but it’s a lousy beautician” – Unknown

“Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative” – Maurice Chevalier

“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act” – Truman Capote

“The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age.” – Lucille Ball

Steve loves to cook, so we spent the rest of the day preparing the main dish and dessert for our twenty guests that were coming for dinner. He reveled in perfecting gourmet lasagna with a homemade sauce that he started simmering the day before; Italian sausage, stewed tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, spices. He made layer upon layer of delicious cheeeesy, saussy delight. He even made me a small veggie lasagna. Andrew and I were covering the dessert end of things. We really wanted to make him a yummy birthday cake from scratch. It would be our first attempt at such a venture, so we proceeded with caution. It was German Chocolate cake recipe I found on epicurious.com. It had a four fork rating. I read all the reviews (three times), took notes and had Steve’s assurance, as he rattled off standard cake ingredients, that it would impossible to mess up. “It’s just flour, butter and sugar….”

As my mother would say, “famous last words.” I was doubling the recipe, using metal round cake tins (instead of 9x13 glass) and had a mixing bowl so full of batter that my hand mixer couldn’t touch the bottom of the bowl. The store didn’t sell “German Sweet Bakers Chocolate, so Andrew and I chunked together our own concoction of Hersey’s milk chocolate, Semi-sweet Baker’s chocolate and a Steve’s favorite Swiss Dark chocolate candy bar. It melted beautifully into a rich sauce that was added as the base flavor of the batter. The store didn’t sell full-fledged butter milk, so with a sigh I conceded to low fat. Not that such a slight subtraction of fat would matter when the recipe called for eight sticks of butter! I cooked the frosting too fast and it never quite got hard enough, even after I placed it in the freezer. In the end the cake was sticking so badly to the pans we had to cut it out of the metal tins, the middles had fallen and the coconut - pecan frosting was oozing and dripping all over the side of the cake…not a pretty site BUT….the good thing was it was delicious…really, really yummy. Steve is still eating birthday cake (when I doubled the recipe I ended up yielding 3 full two layer cakes) and he says it gets better with each day. (much like he does actually!)

The party was so much fun…everyone brought food….veggie platters, salads, freshly baked bread and wine. A couple brought their guitar and sang a couple funny songs and Andrew performed some piano pieces. The stand up comedian came out in him when he announced two of his numbers. He prefaced his Halloween song by saying, “Turning 60 can be scary, so I thought a Halloween song would be good.” And then he said, “Some folks may say Steve is over the hill, but we think he is just ‘Coming around the mountain!’”

Here are some pictures of our friends...

Dinner was delightful. Everyone raved about the lasagna. Conversation was great, two cakes were devoured, and it seemed that everyone had a good time, especially our birthday boy. Here’s to another great year!

Hoonah Zoo

Before Tuesday I had never seen an Alaskan bear. Today I can say I have seen one…well kinda-sorta.

During a nice visit with Tina, the K-2 teacher on maternity leave, her husband Chris, and holding her sweet 28 day-old baby boy, Evan Ezekiel, we started talking photography. Chris has seen me carrying my camera everywhere I go and like me, he is always seeking great moments to capture on “film.” He has a few advantages, a really cool camera, a vehicle, three years learning the terrain, and patterns of the animals and an adventurous spirit. I shared that I would join him anytime he goes out bear watching or to look for whales. Later that afternoon he took me up on it. He invited us all to a local bear hang out…the dump!

Steve had a meeting, so Andrew and I threw on our snow gear and jumped in Chris’ Jeep. Off we went up a snowy, tree-lined road about five miles out of town. It was a serene, beautiful ride that ironically serves no other destination points other than the dump. When we arrived, the entire area was covered by five feet of untouched snow, making it the most beautiful landfill I’ve ever seen. The view was breathtaking, with miles and miles of mountain peaks, trees and open sky…and snuggled into the side of the mountain was our bear.

Chicagof Island has the largest brown Grizzly bear population in the world, approximately 3 per square mile. With spring unofficially here, the bears are awake and hungry. Chris has seen hundreds of bears during his stay in Hoonah and knows the dump is a sure-bet opportunity to catch a glimpse of our furry friends. “Dump Bears” wait for the people to come and unload their rubbish into the incinerator. The bears have torn an entry through the chain-link fencing to get to the food. Chris mocked throwing some food in the incinerator to entice the bear to come a little closer. Our bear didn’t move and chose to stay lodged in his snow bed.

It is similar to seeing a bear at a zoo, although as Andrew mentioned, “…with no fences to hold him back.” While we waited to see if another bear would show up, we enjoyed the view and heard stories of Chris’s many bear encounters. With no more bear activity we decide to go home. Andrew and I were excited to see our first Alaska bear but are eagerly waiting for Chris’s next call to go bear watching.

The little black dot to the right of Andrew's head is the bear :)

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Was Yoda Irish?

When surfing the recipes pages of epicuirous.com, I came a across a drink that I knew Andrew would love. He and his friend Kay Lani did a taste test at Steve’s birthday. The drink is called “Yoda Soda.” My Star Wars obsessed son jumped at the chance to try this fizzy concoction and simply gleamed at the chance to drink soda at home. They both loved it. Kay Lani’s mom is Andrew teacher and wanted to serve it to her class on St. Patrick’s Day. I came into the classroom to help scoop, stir and pour, hoping to give all the kiddos a bit of Jedi wisdom along with the luck of the Irish.


Recipe:
¼ cup lime juice
2 TBs sugar
6 oz 7-up
1 scoop of lime sherbet

The actual recipe calls for “sparking water” instead of 7-up, but that was nowhere to be found in Hoonah…so I just cut way back on the 2 TBs of sugar to balance out the taste.

Mrs. Bidiman purchased rainbow sherbet so they kind of lost their green “Yoda” characteristic…but the flavor was still great and the kids loved it. Being the great teacher she is, she is having them write a review of what they thought of the “Yoda Soda” and will soon post it on epicurious.com. Will they give it four forks up?

Look! I found me a leprechaun!

"Blonde Indian" Author Visits Hoonah

A month ago I finished reading "Blonde Indian," a memoir that was “Book-of-the-Month” for the Hoonah Book Club. It was an interesting read for me. I had a love/hate relationship with this piece. The structure was confusing and some stylistic choices and poetic license were bothersome. The redeeming factors of the book for me were the detailed descriptions of the Alaskan landscape, parts of the history and her personal journey.

Hoonah’s English teacher invited the author, Earnestine Hayes, over to work with her students for a week. Wednesday evening, I and other Book Club members sat with the Earnestine to discuss her memoir.

The first questions pertained to the process of publishing her book, if she had an agent and how much money she makes being a published author. Finding a publisher was difficult. She felt she was lucky when University Press of Arizona decided to publish her manuscript. One problem she found with University Press is that because they don’t publish with the sole purpose to make money, they don’t set up book signings or market the book. Yet on the bright side, twenty years from now her book will still be on their reading list, where as with other publishers it may have been long forgotten.

From the time they signed a contract to the publishing date totaled three years, which she said is quick in the publishing world. After the initial publishing in 2006, her book went on to win some awards. It was at this point she began to look for an agent. Thirty letters were sent to agents. She received one reply and after a brief conversation no further contact was made. Ms. Hayes even sent her book to Oprah, twice. No reply there either. She gave up on Oprah and signing with an agent and instead focused her efforts on her teaching job at the University of Alaska Southeast.

The first year the book came out she made $1500.00, the second year less than $500 and this year, she laughs, she may have to pay them. She makes seventy cents per $16.99 book. She had no input on the design of the cover. The small inset picture is her, but the harbor is a photo from Cordova, Alaska and the mountains in the background are a composite created by a graphic artist.

She began writing during her time in San Francisco staying at the St. Anthony’s Women’s Shelter in 1985. She still has the rough brown paper towel that she took from the bathroom and began to scribble down descriptions of the women she was living with.
She preaches to her students that they should keep a journal and write everyday, but she doesn’t follow her own advice and never journals. There was only one time when she felt a voice of a character speaking to her. One morning she woke up and as clear as the sunshine, Old Tom was telling his story and she grabbed a pad of paper and pen to write it down as fast as she could. She feels that stories have spirits and authors are just vehicles to allow those spirits to live on. Many parts of her book she doesn’t feel she made up, but rather were given to her to pass on.

The book has five different sections that were “braided” together: “bear and salmon,” “lady in the woods,” Indian history, archetypical characters named Old Tom and Young Tom, “land” and her personal story. The content of the book was a conglomeration of assignments composed during her undergraduate and master’s degree studies and literally “squashed” together for her graduate “book length” graduate thesis. I learned that one assignment was even a theater piece. Although the book went through several revisions and workshops, this could be why the structure of the memoir was so frustrating to me…she jumped all over the place and repeated words and ideas that didn’t seem stylistically appropriate. It just felt odd.

Before the evening ended, Earnestine gave an insight to what she feels about the state of the Indian population today. She referenced a story from the Chookanedi people, which were thought to have been the first clan to settle in this area. It is of a time long ago when a great glacier moved and forced the Chookanedi people to evacuate and relocate to Juneau, Hoonah territory. In the tale a grandmother chooses to stay behind as sacrifice to the glacier so that future generations may live in prosperity. (These stories are highly protected and are not to be retold in their entirety without permission from Indian elders. The complete story as to why the glacier moved and forced Chookanedi people to relocate is in her book.) Earnestine believes that what has happen to the Indian people is cultural trauma. With all the characteristics of clinical individual trauma: depression, alcohol abuse, inability to work, and denial, but on scale that has affected the entire culture. Ms. Hayes thinks that like the grandmother of thousands of years ago the first generations of Indians are baring the brunt of the “great white glacier” or the invasion of Euro-Causation influence in their world. They have suffered through their language being taken away, severe alcoholism, family split up and children sent to boarding schools, religious persecution and near annihilation of their rituals and customs. Ernestine believes that with each generation Native American Indians are getting stronger and are able to adapt even better then their forefathers. She believes that these past generations are heroes who paid with their lives so that their children could thrive in a new land.

Best Eagle Shot Yet...

Icy Straight Point lives up to its name

With the exception of Sunday, it has been cold and snowy all week. The temperatures dipped down to 12 degrees and rarely touched the average of 32. We gained another two feet of snow alone on Thursday morning. By the afternoon the flakes gave way to hard rain making the snow difficult to shovel. The men driving the snowplows busily traveled up and down the streets removing the snow from the “main thoroughfare," curbs and people’s drive ways. Andrew and I cleared a path through the wet snow from our doorway to the street; shoveling, playing and having snowball fight as we went.

The water in the Straight was unusually choppy due to the wind. It was the first time I had seen snow settling on top of the water where the boats are docked. The birds; both raven and eagle were undercover, yet their voices still filled the air. I could hear the eagle screeching from the tall pines behind our house. When the snow piles up the roofs can only bear so much weight. I am still am not accustomed to the unexpected “boom” that shakes the walls each time large amounts of snow slide from our roof to the ground below. At Steve’s school windows break every year because of the sudden rooftop snow slides.

The cold wind, snow and grey sky convinced me to be the spectator to the elements this week and stay indoors. I used the time inside to start packing for our return to Oregon. By the time this posts, Andrew and I will have less than a month left in Hoonah, our departure is set for April 13th. Steve will return to Oregon at the end of May, after Hoonah’s high school graduation.

I also occupied my time planning Steve’s 60th birthday party, which is Sunday. Andrew’s school week was back to normal. A couple highlights for him was that he taught his class how to divide fractions and read Harry Potter to me! (from book one to book five, I have been reading it to him) Steve was busy with board meetings, interviews for new staff, budget committee meetings, a preliminary gathering of those interested in starting a radio station at the school… and trying to avoid sitting down with me for our “birthday interview.”

Sledding in the Sun-Kissed Trenches

As long as the sun still visits Hoonah every now and then, I keep the faith that God has not entirely forgotten this little town. Sunday the grey skies cleared and light warmed our faces and lured us outside to play.

It was a glorious day, quickly leaving the teens and hovering in the mid thirties until sundown. Steve persuaded Andrew to go outside with the idea of digging a trench for sledding down the hill behind our house. They “worked” for hours. When I arrived on the scene the trench was about 30 yards long and Andrew whizzed by me sliding to a stop in our driveway. His face was flushed and he whooped and hollered at the great ride. Steve had shed his coat and down vest and was intent in shoveling the trench farther up the hill,“just a few more feet should do it.” Fifty yards up the hill and the sledding trench was complete. Andrew and I took turns going down. Steve watched and refined the track, trying to work out some of the engineering flaws after each run. Especially the turn that led to my topsy-turvy crash and one side of my face being covered in ice-burn scratches. Once snow was packed down enough to hold Steve’s weight, he took his turn flying down the hill. We sat in the warm sun. We shared a snack. We played in the snow. God gave a gift to enjoy before grey skies and snow returned.

Celebrating 60 years!

I am married to the coolest guy. The fact that Steve found me in this crazy mixed-up world is miraculous and I thank God for him everyday. March 15th is Steve’s 60th birthday, a day for which I am most grateful.

From my recent on-line writing class, I found I really enjoyed writing profiles on people. Since last weekend, I have been trying to get Steve to sit down with me so I could write a profile about him turning 60. I had no idea what a difficult task it would be to persuade him to give me an “interview.”

The first day he used a sweet smile to joke his way around the subject. The second day he pulled out the work face and listed off the important things he had to do. I know his time is valuable so I thought I’d be helpful and typed up some questions for him to peruse. This only made it worse. After lots of begging and bribes of chocolate he conceded. The problem then was we couldn’t find a good time to squeeze it in during lunch breaks or between legitimate evening meetings. Even on Thursday night, when he had no where to hide and nothing to do he evaded my nudges to sit down with me. He intently got on-line and said he was looking for math games for Drew (boy, is he good), when he finally digressed to clicking on an internet pop-up to find his high school classmates in Japan, I had to put my foot down.

Steve’s communication style is unlike anybody I have ever interviewed. He was light hearted and funny, yet chose his words carefully when giving the serious reply. I had to wait through long bouts of silence before he spoke. His answers where brief, honest and give a glimpse into his dazzling heart. In my eyes turning 60 years old is significant event and reflecting on life’s lessons and insights are a beautiful thing…sharing it is even better. As to not muddle the message and to stay true to Steve’s style, I have chosen a Q and A format.

What are some highlights of your life?
Travel, being in the room when Noelle was born, my marriage to Tricia…and the bike trip around the Western United States. (It took him three months and he traveled through Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Idaho.)

What makes you laugh?
My brother Grant.

What are the top 5 books people should read?
Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Johnathan Liviston Seagull, The Bible, ...my book still unwritten and published…but it's coming, Night, Portrait of a Lady, all books by Lee Child, Mein Kampf (in German), Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Everything by Dr. Suess…in fact everyone in Hoonah should read the Bitter Butter Battle.Wait, those aren’t even my favorites.

What things couldn’t you live without?
Food and Water
(…before Steve answered this question Andrew whispered in my ear, “I hope he says you, Mom.”)

What is your most treasured possession?
My soul.

Words of Wisdom for your daughter Noelle.
Never give up on the dream.

Words of wisdom for your step-son Andrew
Andrew has so much potential…Andrew as you reach out to embrace all the incredible things you are going to do – do not loose your grip on humility.

Words of wisdom to Tricia
(joking about my strained math skills) There is a parent math skills website….
Hmmmm that I should be so presumptuous as to give you words of wisdom. (I prodded him a bit) You are no good to others unless you are being good to yourself.

Words of wisdom for parents
Children do what you do, not what you say…forever. Be who you want your children to be.

What do you know at 60 that you wish you would have known at 30?
Everything that I know now that I didn’t know then (he gives me a big smile….) OK…I'm serious here (as per Andreas)…Everything is more significant that I thought it was. I really wish I would have known that.

What would surprise people to learn about you?
That I am really a nice guy.

What makes you cry?

Sad movies. Bad movies. Onions when I chop them…when I poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick…

I can see you’re not going to get too emotional…(trying another route) what makes you angry? Not being able to talk about what makes me cry. (he smiles again and I kick him) OK…(taking some time)…when people make false assumptions…not about me, but in general…that makes me very angry.

What does love mean to you?
Responsibility.

How do you want to live out the rest of your life and how has that changed over the years?

It hasn’t changed. My life has never been anything other than my desire to live in a fun, meaningful, significant, contributing and exciting way. That takes into account adventure, experience, traveling and learning new things all the time.

Do you believe in God. Talk about your faith.
Yes, I believe in God. I think about faith differently then most. My faiths resides in the acknowledgment of what I know, instinct…and human instinct evolves. My faith comes from what I have tried, failed at, relied upon. My faith is my optimism wielded to attempt to navigate life.

Are you happy?
Is anybody really happy? That is an unfair question. I can’t be “happy” with the rest of the world in the condition it is in.

Lets take a few steps back then…what is happiness to you?
Happiness is a concept. Until things change a great deal I don’t think it is achievable. Happiness has to incorporate the bigger picture. It is not fair to say, “I’m happy” independent of the grander scheme of things. A person could be colloquially “happy,” but I can’t define it like that. I am not trying to be morose, but I think it is important for me to consider my happiness relative to the most unhappy person on the planet.

What do you hope for the future?
I hope that at some given point, between now and the time I am dead, I can finally communicate the concepts of change that will make a difference in the world, that those communications will not fall on deaf ears. I'm hoping those truths will then manifest to overcome the trivial defects of humanity. We will all take part in creating an environment, a world of “brotherhood,” a place viable for all children…where the dream becomes reality.

What do you know for sure?
That I love you. (He does not toss these words around frivolously…it caught me unawares and it quickly became a teary moment for me.)

What stories do you want your grandchildren to remember you by?
Well, Andrew can tell his kids about the time he barely beat me in the marathon we ran together… when Drew is 27 and I was 80. Noelle…and Andrew; I hope they remember that I tried to help. I tried…I really did.

Thanks Steve for doing this interview with me. You are a very special man and I am fortunate to know you. Thanks for your love and I hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Cheese Biscuit Drama

Part of my Hoonah "growing experience" has been thoroughly embracing the daily ritual of cooking. Displaced and with too much free time, I no longer have any excuses to let restaurants serve me or to feign ignorance and dish up only cut up veggies and hummus. But don’t think for a minute that I don’t take every opportunity to play the sympathy card to my dispassionate audience of a family. Often is the subtle plea to shower me with pity and praise as I slave away, woebegone at stove, sink, drainboard and opened refrigerator.

One evening I was feeling a slightly overlooked and lonely as I stood at the kitchen counter. Andrew and Steve were both lost in their literary worlds of bliss. I measured and grated, I cracked and eyeballed the many ingredients. I was a vision of domestication, outfitted in two pairs of long johns, wool socks, a turtleneck and a fleece zip-up. Atop, I was makeupless, my hair was in a fancy quaff and my rapidly fluttering eyelashes were behind my oh so sheik designer glasses.

I was attempting a new gourmet cheese biscuit recipe (to me anything is gourmet that I don’t dump out of a box)…the fact that no one was sharing in my trials, or simply giving me any attention for my trouble was really annoying me. So in between stirs, I thought I’d really show them just how hard was trying to bake. I used a little help from my props and spontaneous vocal coughing.(the coughing was not planned but was resultant of inhaling too much flour up my nose)

Alas, to my dismay, no pity was given but I did make Steve laugh and Andrew momentarily peek up from behind his book, wearing a drop-mouth expression. After we all laughed, I tried to get the flour out of my nose. Steve turned the camera on and caught me in my best light. Ahhhh, another proud moment on my road to maturity, captured forever via digitalas.