Finally, last Sunday with kids and grandkids, abruptly remembered; jail house romance wrongly credited, near miss
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 1:07PM 
Folks, I feel very abrupt today. For many reasons which I will not delve into, save to note that this damn computer, which has served me so well these past three or four years, seems to be getting ready to fail and it is wasting a lot of my time. This post should have been completed an hour ago.
So I am going to be abrupt today.
Sunday, however, was a good day.
So I will return to Sunday, and will abruptly tell you how Jobe sat down and the waiter came...
Oh, hell... why should I tell you at all?
Look at the picture! You can see for yourself!
There were adults at the table, too. I was there, as well.
When you are little, you are as aware of the bottom of the table as you are the top.
Honk, honk!
At one point, Kalib got up and ran off to another table, being mischievous. He could have got away with it with his dad, but not his Auntie Mel. He had to come back and sit back down.
This is what you call, "sibling rivalry."
After we returned home, Melanie and Charlie tried to get comfortable on the couch. Kalib whipped them with a blanket.
So they got up and danced instead. Kalib played with the voice mail box on the phone. The first message was, "no new messages." So Kalib made it go, "no! no! no! no new. no! no! no new messages." Kind of like a disk dj.
Then he got into a message left awhile back that I have not bothered to erase.
A gruff but happy sounding voice comes on talking to me, Bill Hess, saying I will know right away who he is and he leaves a number and tells me to get back to him.
I did not know who he was and there was something about the familiarity of the message coming from a voice that I did not recognize at all that put me on a bit of an edge, so I never called back.
Then one day he called back and got me. Turns out, he had spent time in jail in Palmer with a Bill Hess who was not this Bill Hess and that Bill Hess had somehow introduced him to the woman who became his wife and when he saw that this Bill Hess lives in Wasilla he thought it must be the same Bill Hess and so he was just calling to let that Bill Hess who wasn't me know how great everything had worked out with his marriage and to thank that Bill Hess for bringing the two together.
Sorry, I said. Wrong Bill Hess. I haven't been in jail since I got out of Juarez in November of 1969, just in time to eat Thanksgiving dinner in a casino in Las Vegas.
I don't know why we even bother to keep this phone anymore. Everybody calls us on our cells phones. Except for people wanting money, and folks who think they did time with me.
Then Melanie danced with Kalib, who seemed to enjoy it.
Kalib takes a break.
Caleb watched the NFL playoffs.
Lisa talked to Bryce on the phone.
At 4:00 PM, a bunch of us went out to get coffee. Metro is closed on Sunday so we went to the place at the corner of Fishhook and Seldon. As we waited for our coffee, we saw an exchange being made. Money for pizza.
Now, there are two things notable about this picture. It is 4:00 PM and look how much light is in the sky! The long nights are in rapid retreat.
Also, the temperature stood at about -10 F (-23 C) but no real snow on the ground. Just ice and a hard crust.
Lisa and Jobe, back at the house.
After we returned home, Kalib laid his spatula upon the floor and ran circles around it.
As always happens, it was soon time for them all to go. Lisa and Kalib head out the door.
Melanie and Kalib walk to the car.
They backed out and then, with their headlights shining through their frozen exhaust, began the drive back to Anchorage, where they would drop Kalib and Jobe off with their parents.
"It sure is quiet in here," Margie noted, after they had been gone awhile.
I had not seen Chicago since Kalib and Jobe had arrived. Now that they had left, she came back out.
Quiet is how Chicago likes it.
And this one from India:
This is what it is like riding on the Indian highways. Constantly. While it is exhilarating to a certain degree and on the surface seems to carry a bit of romance, it is deadly. And once that deadliness catches up to you it is awful and that, more than all the other reasons combined, is why I feel so abrupt today.
Reader Comments (14)
great pictures today, can't get enough of the Boys
In case I forget to tell you, I read your blog almost every post, or catch up when I miss. Thank you, Bill, for sharing your wonderful perspective of life, in words and pictures. I was thinking of you the other day when I thought I had a chance to visit Barrow for the first time. Our bball team is going to the tourney on the 4th of Feb. But, I will stay home with Mom and listen on the radio broadcast. I will have to visit another day. I do have friends who live there, and I have never had the honor to see them at home. Mom & I are going to ANC this week to watch our boy play ball at the Dimond Tourney. It will be a David v. Goliath match-up, but always fun to watch.
Happy New Year to you and Margie. Keep up the good work.
What?!!!!
You just get yourself right back here and tell us the story about being jailed in Juarez in 1969 and getting out in time to have Thanksgiving dinner in Las Vegas.
Jeesh. Just like a photojournalist...if there isn't a picture, they just gloss right over the story.
Juarez 1969. Loved the family photos, but TELL ABOUT JUAREZ 1969!!!!
OMG! I love the photo of my boys smooching...Kalib says, "smooch" now too so its super cute. A framer :) My new screensaver!
as always you make ordinary life a sacred thing.
I"m totally interested in Juarez..
I may have heard of you! My dad was in jail in Juarez in '69, too. Is your name Bill Hess? (wink). Thank you for yet another great non-abrupt post when you were feeling so abrupt.
Love from California, Heidi
Once again, I have let myself fall away from responding to comments. But today, enough of you have told me to tell the Juarez story that I figure I had better jump back in.
So, Debby, Michelle, Rocksee, and Heidi:
I will tell the story... but not for awhile. Maybe after I start the magazine that I want to add to this blog but have yet to figure out where or how to find the time and support. Maybe it is a better story for the magazine than the blog. But maybe I will tell it in the blog.
It would be nice to go to Mexico first, though, and to roam around Juarez a bit, take some pictures and see if I can stay out of jail this time or not land in any other trouble, as Juarez has become an exceptionally dangerous city.
Also, I did take some pictures on that trip, including a few from inside "the Bastille." I have no idea where those pictures are or even if they have withstood the decades, but when I tell the story, it would be nice to include a few. Also, this little adventure was memorialized in photos and banner headlines in all of the many Juarez papers of the time and I saved some. Again, I do not know where they are or if they have held together, but I would like to find them first.
So the story will be told, but not just yet.
Heidi - is Bob your dad? Or Chuck? If so, my goodness - as they say, "what a small world!"
Twain - we cannot get enough of these boys, either.
Sylvia - Always good to hear from you and to see that your mom is doing well. I will root for your son and Cordova. It's been so long since I have been in Cordova!
Lavina - Always glad to make a screen saver for you.
Ruth - thank you. That is not really my intent, but then I guess that is what ordinary life is.
Sorry Bill - My dad's name was Tom. He ended up in jail over what he always called a trumped-up charge, involving two bodies having been found buried in the desert. In over nearly 40 years, he'd never say much else other than he had to set his own broken leg while there. He got out after a short stay, and led a successful life. But he ALWAYS cautioned about how dangerous a place Juarez was and is. As much as you'd love to go back and take photos, I really, really hope you consider your safety. Thank you for the response, and I'll look forward to your story one day!
Given my own experience, Heidi, the trumped-up part does not surprise me. It would have been great fun if you had proven to be Bob's daughter, but less so if you had been Chuck's.
I'm glad your dad got out with his freedom and got the chance to raise you.
Things could have worked out very differently for us than they did, and we could have been there a long, long, long time. We could have died there.
You found MY coffee shop! Mysti has coffee roasted and ground by the Coffee Roastery in Palmer. It's about the only coffee I can drink without heartburn.
Kalib is so much fun to watch! Hope I get to play with him sometime... I have heard tooo much of Brain Adam's 1969.. now its UR turn!!! :)
AkPonyGirl - They have good coffee! I have learned to shy away from most of the kiosks because the coffee can be good one day and horrible the next, but the Sunday cups that I have had at your coffee shop have all been good. I will still keep Metro as my main shop, though.
Suji - That is one of my greatest wishes. I will tell the 1969 story - in due time, when I can tell and illustrate it right. It is a good story.