Wasilla: Skating with a dead salmon; New York City: Painted and unpainted faces at Coney Island

I had to pick Margie up from work at 4:00, so I left the house at 3:30, thinking that I would stop at Wasilla Lake and see if anything was happening there. Not too much. Maybe half-a-dozen people skating here and there on the lake and a few more walking about onshore.

The first ones to catch my eye were this father and son, David and Christopher Rogers. It was the first time in his life that two-year old Christopher had stepped onto the ice wearing skates. He was still trying to get used to them. I reasoned that the father was likely a hockey player, in the process of passing his sport on to his son.

So I asked David, "Do you play hockey?"

"No," he answered. 

They both have hockey sticks, but little Christopher has momentarily been separated from his.

David retrieves Christopher's hockey stick, and slides it back to him. He may not be a hockey player, but he and his wife have long loved the Anchorage Aces, and catch every game they can. As it happened, his wife went into labor during a playoff game. Ever since he became cognizant of the world around him, Dad says, Christopher has loved to watch hockey.

Now David was giving him his first chance to begin learning the talents he will need to one day play the game himself.

Now father and son skirmish for the puck. I hope somehow to halfway keep track of this kid, Christopher Rogers. I think we might see him doing battle in the rink one day.

I saw another father and son skating across the ice, so I went over to check them out and noticed they were skating straight toward a dead, spawned-out, salmon, frozen fast into the surface of the lake.

The boy skates toward the salmon.

Another boy comes skating toward the salmon.

The two boys collide, and one goes down almost atop the salmon.

Dad has helped little Christopher stand up in skating position. They glide slowly across the ice, Dad backwards, son forward. They do not know it, but they are headed toward the salmon, too.

After taking a fall, little Christopher gets up and is amazed to see the salmon. I did not have time to linger and discuss diet, but I suspect that Christopher knows the tasted of salmon. It wouldn't surprise me if he eats salmon often.

Another photographer, Bill Roth of the Anchorage Daily News, was also prowling the lake. He had been photographing a man skating farther out and then he came over to say hi, saw the salmon, and got artistic.

And I took a few pictures of the man out in the lake. The sun had now set on the surface of the lake, although it still shone on the mountains and the upper walls of Fred Meyer. I would have liked to have spoken with this skater, as I would have the other father and the two boys. But it was very nearly 4:00 PM and Margie was not going to be happy if I left her standing outside the work place. 

She would not complain. She is not like that. But she would not be happy, even though she would soon put it behind her.

(Remember, a "click" reveals a larger image.)

Margie was tired but happy when I pulled up in front of Wal-Mart and she climbed into the car. We stopped at the drive-through window of the Espresso Cafe, ordered some hot drinks, then wandered around a bit on our way home. A momma moose and her calf ran across the road in front of us.

Back to Coney Island: A young girl got her face painted

After the face painting, she admired herself in a cheap mirror.

And then I saw the homely face of a graying man who is quickly growing old, looking at me from that same mirror. Who could this hideous creature be, I wondered. And then I realized - it was me!

Yet, how could this be? I can assure you, my friends, that I do not look like this. There must be something wrong with that mirror. I am young, handsome - quite good-looking, debonaire. And I always will be. No gray in me. Maybe a little bit in my beard, but that doesn't count.

That mirror is very cheap.

Comments

[nina]

I really like the photo of the ice skater with the mountains lit with the setting sun and moon visible above.

You just can't trust those cheap mirrors!