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A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

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Wasilla

Wasilla is the place where I have lived for the past 29 years - sort of. The house in which my wife and I raised our family sits here, but I have made my rather odd career as a different sort of photojournalist by continually wandering off to other places to photograph people and gather information, which I have then put together in various publications that have served the Alaska Native Eskimo, Indian and Aleut communities.

Although I did not have a great of free time to devote to this rather strange community, named after a Tanaina Athabascan Indian chief who knew Wasilla in the way that I so impossibly long to, I have still documented it regularly over the past quarter-century plus. In the early days, my Wasilla photographs focused mostly upon my children and the events they participated in - baseball, football, figure skating, hockey, frog catching, fire cracker detonation, Fourth of July parade - that sort of thing. 

In 2002, I purchased my first digital camera and then, whenever I was home, I began to photograph Wasilla upon a daily basis, but not in a conventional way. These were grab shots - whatever caught my eye as I took my many long walks or drove through the town, shooting through the car window at people and scenes that appeared and disappeared before I could even focus and compose in the traditional photographic way.

Thus, the Wasilla portion of this blog will be devoted both to the images that I take as I wander about and those that I have taken in the past. Despite the odd, random, nature of the images, I believe they communicate something powerful about this town that I have never seen expressed anywhere else. 

Wasilla is a sprawling community that has been slapped down hodge-podge upon what was so recently wilderness of the most exquisite beauty. In its design, it is deliberately anti-zoned, anti-planned. In the building of Wasilla, the desire to make a buck has trumped aesthetics and all other considerations. This town, built in the midst of exquisite beauty, has largely become an unsightly, unattractive, mess of urban sprawl. Largely because of this, it often seems to me that Wasilla is a community with no sense of community, a town devoid of town soul.

Yet - Wasilla is my home and if I am lucky it will be until I grow old and die. Despite its horrific failings, it is still made of the stuff of any small city: people; moms and dads, grammas and grampas, teens, children, churches, bars, professionals, laborers, soldiers, missionaries, artists, athletes, geniuses, do-gooders, hoodlums, the wealthy, the homeless, the rational and logical, the slightly insane and the wholly insane - and, yes, as is now obvious to the whole world, politicians, too.

So perhaps, if one were to search hard enough, it might just be possible to find a sense of community here, and a town soul. So, using my skills as a photojournalist and a writer, I hope to do just that. If this place has a sense of community, I will find it. If there is a town soul to Wasilla, I will document it. I won't compete with the newspapers. Hell no! But as time and income allow, it will be fun to wander into the places where the folks described above gather, and then put what I find on this blog.

 

by 300...

Anywhere within a 300 mile radius of Wasilla. This encompasses perhaps the most wild, dramatic, gorgeous, beautiful section of land and sea to be found in any comparable space anywhere on Earth. I can never explore it all, but I will do the best that I can, and will here share what I find and experience with you.  

and then some...

Anywhere else in the world that I happen to get to, such as Point Lay, Alaska; Missoula, Montana; Serenki, Chukotka, Russia; or Bangalore, India. Perhaps even Lagos, Nigeria. I have both a desire and scheme to get me there. It is a long shot. We shall see if I succeed.

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Saturday
Nov192011

Margie in surgery right now; chilly this morning - we still might make it to Arizona

DateSaturday, November 19, 2011 at 2:30PM

Margie is undergoing surgery right now. As soon as I finish this post, I will head for the hospital so that I can say "hi" to her when she comes to. As it was explained to me, the reason for the two surgeries is that it is possible pieces of gall stone could have broken off the big one in her gall bladder then got stuck in various ducts that lead away from it. If the gall bladder were simply removed, those stones could stay behind and cause trouble.

This surgery involves no cutting into the body. A scope and stone removing tool is sent down through the mouth to search the bladder and the ducts.

This surgery is not supposed to be that hard on a person. Margie may be able to come tonight. Furthermore, depending on what is discovered and how it goes, the second surgery, the one to remove the bladder altogether, might be able to be postponed or dropped altogether and we might still be able to go to Arizona.

There is only chair in Margie's hospital room and Melanie will not sit in it if I am there. She insists that I do, so I do. She looks more comfortable lying next to her mom than I feel in the chair, anyway. 

Unless you are looking at this in the click and blow-up size, it may be hard to read, but the unlit sign on the back window of this car says, "see me about lighted car signs."

When I took the picture, the temperature on this part of Muldoon in East Anchorage, which gets much colder than at the airport which sits right by the inlet, where the official Anchorage temperatures are read, was -14.

When I got home, it was -15 (-26 C) in our driveway.

This morning, it was -26 (-32 C).

One might think that this portends a good, old-style, cold winter ahead, but experience tells me that we cannot count on it.

Sometimes it starts out this way and then one of those troughs sets up in the Pacific and then pulls one South Pacific storm after the other up from Hawaii and ruins everything.

I hope that doesn't happen this winter. We will see.

I like my winters cold.

Now I am off to the hospital, to see Margie and maybe bring her home.

 

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment4 Comments |
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Reader Comments (4)

Well, I hope that Margie's sitting right beside you reading our very good wishes. Get well soon. Both of ya's.

November 19, 2011 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

hope she makes it home...good luck

November 19, 2011 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

Hope all goes extremely well, and you make it to Arizona, Sending good thoughts and well wishes.

November 19, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterGrandma Nancy

I hope Margie was able to come home and that you are both resting.

November 19, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterKathryn

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