;)
Please allow me to introduce Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak of Wainwright. I almost didn't make it over to see him on this, his birthday of origin, because I had first gone to the party which you will see on November 13 birthday #1. Thanks to these shingles, I got to feeling so weak, rotten, and drained over there that when the party ended, all I wanted to do was go home.
But a friend is a friend and family is family and this includes the family that adopts when you are in your 40's. So I decided to drop by, say "hi" to Jason and Iqaluk, give them my best wishes for the upcoming birth of their baby and then go home.
I called Jason, to see where I might find them. "We are here at ANMC with our son Larry," Jason answered in a tired but proud voice, "born this morning at 7:59 AM; seven pounds, 14.4 oz.; 20 inches."
So off I went to the Alaska Native Medical Center.
Jason Ahmaogak is the kind of guy who can go out on the flat tundra in whiteout conditions in the darkness of winter at 50 below, be just fine and never get lost. He can venture into the maze of broken, pressure ridge riddled ice and know where he is at all times. Even without GPS, he can boat out into the Chukchi in the fog and come home okay.
But Jason got lost in the hospital. He left Iqaluk and Larry - whether Larry was born yet or not I am not sure - to run an errand and then he could not find his way back. He wandered down this hall and that hall and all the halls just looked like halls.
Finally though, he made it back. That is good, because he has to teach this boy how to survive in the Arctic.
;)
Larry Aqlunaq - this name comes to him from his grandfather, Jason's dad, who passed away very recently. This means a great deal in the Iñupiat way of life.
;)
Notice the symbol on Jason's sweatshirt. I have a sweatshirt just like this. That symbol stands for Iceberg 14, the whaling crew that Jason's aapa, his grandfather, Benjamin Ahamaogak Sr, started up many decades ago. When Ben was still alive, I followed him and his crew to do a little photo essay and that was when they adopted me.
So today, I gave myself a new assignment: to follow Larry Aqlunaq off and on from now through the first whale hunt in which he takes on a role of high responsibility in the boat.
I recognize that I have given myself a huge challenge and to be quite honest, I realize that the odds are high that I will not be able to complete it. I will be a genuinely old man when that event happens. I might well be dead. I might be incapacitated.
But I just might make to that point, in decent health.
So that is my goal: to make it that point in decent health and follow Larry Aqlunaq into the boat, onto the sea, and to the bowhead whale that will come his way.
Because he is family - that's why.
;)
Iqaluk is a fine Eskimo dancer in the Iñupiaq style. Larry Aqlunaq's older sisters are fine dancers. Small though they still be, they bring down the house whenever they perform. I suspect Larry will also be a fine dancer. I must photograph him dancing as well.
;)
Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak.
Note: I decided to run November 13 birthday part 2 before Part 1, because my son Rex is very familiar to the people who know him and to regular readers, too.
Not very many people have seen Larry yet, so I am going to post this first. I may post Rex's birthday tonight or I may wait until tomorrow. To be quite honest, I don't feel up to it right now - but I might in a little while.
Two November 13 birthdays, part 1.