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Photo for the season
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Photo for the season (in reply to estebanana)
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When we lived in Anchorage, Alaska 1949-1951 they piled the snow from the streets on the commercial baseball diamond. In those days the temperature went below freezing in mid-October and didn't thaw until the end of March. By the end of winter there would be 3 1/2 to 4 feet of snow on the level, big drifts against obstacles. The snow piled up pretty thickly at the ballpark.
In February they had the annual Fur Rendezvous. It was the town festival, harking back to the days when the trappers would come into town in mid-winter to sell a few furs and re-stock on provisions.
Dogsled races were a big feature of the Fur Rendezvous. They would start out downtown, head out into the country, then finish back downtown. For the start/finish line they would close off the main street downtown and truck in snow from the ballpark.
We lived across the street from the cemetery. Alaskan Natives would camp on an undeveloped part of the graveyard. They would make a huge iron kettle full of stew over a fire. You could see five-year old kids fish around in the chest high stewpot. They would come out with a big chunk of moose meat, stuff one end in their mouth, and casually slice off the excess with one swipe of a huge razor sharp knife, a centimeter or two in front of their nose.
I went across the street to talk to the people. After the first time I came back and said, "Mom, I need five dollars"
"Why?"
"To buy a pair of mittens."
"You already have mittens."
"At the military surplus store they have elbow length mittens made of wolf fur."
"So?"
"The Inuits are wearing them."
"Here's five dollars."
RNJ (in sunny Texas)
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 17 2015 21:44:49
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Photo for the season (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
Book Richard, you need to write a book. Not trying to carbon date you, but how old were you then? I'm guessing about 8 or 9? And did you get the wolf mittens ?
Yes. Best mittens I ever had.
The stories I tell on the web are from relatively sunny and pleasant periods. I have been in one of those for many years now.
But there were other times: the Army, the loss of my first real love, paramilitary experience in Central America. The resultant disillusion and anger led to a period of life as an outlaw during the 1960s. After that I went straight, fell in love, got married and had kids. After ten years or so the marriage began to go bad. We stayed together for far longer than we should have. I stayed in a bad job far longer than I should have.
After the divorce I set up my own business. Things have gone pretty well since then.
These days there is only one other person who knows the full outline. I have written about the death of my first love, Central America and being an outlaw, but at present, my feeling is that if those accounts ever see the light of day outside a small circle of close friends and a very small fraction of my large extended family, it will be after I am gone.
I was 11 when we went to Alaska in July, 1949. We drove from Oklahoma City, where we had lived while my father was overseas during WW II and on the Berlin Airlift. It took twelve days to get to Anchorage. We all enjoyed the adventure, including Bubba, who must have been one of the most well traveled Boston Terriers.
Alaska in those days was paradise for a kid my age. My best pal Ivan was born and raised there. We hiked all over the hinterlands of Anchorage. In a couple of hours walking we could be in a place where there was no sign any human had ever been there before us. Ivan'a dad worked for the Public Health Service studying mosquitoes, and for the Coast and Geodetic Survey doing geological mapping. When school was out Ivan and I hiked with him further afield for a week or two at a time.
There were no roads on the Kenai peninsula at the time. Plenty of virgin fishing and other wildlife, including the huge brown bears.
We came back via Military Sea Transport Service ship, first to Kodiak and to Adak out on the Aleutians, then across the gulf of Alaska. It was mainly a troop ship, but we had a stateroom just under the bridge with a nice view forward. We passed through a pretty good three day storm en route, nobody allowed on deck.
The departing Skipper of the Kodiak Naval Air Station and his wife came on board with a pair of Siamese cats. The cats stayed in the kennels on the fantail with the dogs. After the storm my job was to go check on Bubba, who had been without food or water for the duration of the storm. The cats were still seasick, lying on their sides and screaming. All the dogs had barked themselves completely voiceless, yelling at the cats.
When we got to Seattle we picked up a new car. Passing a grassy park, Dad stopped to let the dog out on the grass. He ran in circles for what seemed like minutes, then stopped and rolled in the grass over and over.
A couple of days later we drove onto the ferry that crossed the estuary of the Columbia River to Astoria, Oregon. We were still in the shed at the dock, but you could feel a slight motion to the vessel. The dog was in the back seat with my brother and me. He put his paws on the back of the front seat, and with his nose almost in Dad's ear, whimpered very, very softly: "Please Boss, not another boat!"
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 21 2015 18:44:44
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Photo for the season (in reply to timoteo)
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quote:
I've crossed the river there many times
Sounds like you know it well, Timoteo. I was in Astoria, Oregon once, in 2008 working a U.S. military command post exercise at Camp Rilea, just outside of Astoria. The thing that struck me was the number of sea lions along the estuary. You could hear them barking half the night! But they were interesting creatures and seemed playful.
I flew into Portland, picked up a rental car, and drove the 60 mile stretch along the Columbia River from Portland to Astoria. It is beautiful country. I was playing a CD of Ramblin' Jack Elliott singing Woody Guthrie songs, and it was fitting that one of the songs was "Grand Coulee Dam." I remember those charged lyrics yet.
"Well the world has seven wonders, the travelers always tell:
Some gardens and some towers, I guess you know them well.
But the greatest wonder is in Uncle Sam's fair land.
It's that King Columbia River and the big Grand Coulee Dam.
She heads up the Canadian Rockies where the rippling waters glide,
Comes a-rumbling down the canyon to meet that salty tide
Of the wide Pacific Ocean where the sun sets in the west,
And the big Grand Coulee country in the land I love the best."
That seemed to sum it up.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 22 2015 12:39:23
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