As I had already made a post on Charlie grabbing the championship at the UAA Winterfest Beard Contest, I knew that I had to follow him into the big-time Anchorage Fur Rendezvous Fur Face competition at the beard contest that took place last night at the Miners and Trappers Ball. Tickets were pricey, so I got myself a press pass.
Miners and Trappers is a costume ball and this year's theme was "Highways in the Sky - A salute to Alaska Aviators." I stuck religiously to the theme and dressed as an Alaskan photographer/aviator who used to fly his little airplane all about Alaska and hopes to get another and do so again in the future.
The ball was held at the Egan Convention Center on Fifth Avenue, so I parked a few blocks away, hiked through the night and entered, looking for Charlie and Melanie, expecting to see tons of people dressed like Alaskan pilots.
Once inside, this was the first costumed person I came upon.
I suddenly knew that I had entered Wonderland.
I walked around looking for Melanie and Charlie, but I could not find them. Shortly, however, I came upon this rugged looking guy - Mr. Kenneth C. Feiber - who would not only be entering the Mr. Fur Face beard contest, but would be competing in the same category as Charlie - the Ptarmagan category, or freestyle.
At the UAA contest, as soon as I saw the competition charlie faced, I was quite certain he would walk away with it.
When I looked into this face, chill dread shook my body. I knew that on this night, here in Wonderland, Charlie was about to face a real battle.
In the restroom, I found Santa Claus, eying himself in the mirror, trying to look tough. Santa, however, would pose no threat to Charlie - at least in the first round - for Santa was entering as a Polar Bear and a Pole Cat and Charlie was neither.
During his round of competition, in answer to a judges question about how it was to have so many women run their fingers through his beard, Santa would answer that it felt normal. Women always run their fingers through Santa's beard.
He would not win first, however, but second.
I searched through all the hallways, the cloak room, the Fur Face room and every room but the ladies restroom and main ballroom, because I could see through the door that it was dark in there and I did not think that people who wanted their beards to be seen would disappear into the dark.
But, since I couldn't find them anywhere else or connect with my phone, I stepped briefly into the ballroom. It was early yet and only a few people had gathered.
I found this fellow on the stage, making music.
I did not find Charlie and Melanie.
And then... I found them! Charlie, the grand winner of the UAA beard contest and his magnificent stylist, my own daughter Melanie.
I could see right away that Charlie was dressed as the moon, his beard pummeled by meteors just as is the surface of the moon. I did not for one moment wonder if perhaps he was supposed to be a bearded baby wearing some kind of strangely designed bonnet, his beard curled by upchucked curdled breast milk.
I did not think this because a baby would never shoes such as this, the right of the pair that Charlie had on his feet, but a moon would wear such shoes.
Here is a better look at Charlie's moon, pocked by craters, and his beard, also pocked by craters.
Oh-oh - it wasn't long before Charlie encountered Fieber. It was tense - just like when Mohammed Ali faced Sonny Liston before going into the ring. They cursed and threatened each other, and insulted each other's mothers.
They did it all in a very jovial manner, smiling, as though the whole world of bearddom was filled with nothing but good will - but beneath the veneer of good humor, the boiling anger, rivalry and tension could be felt.
Karle came only to root for Charlie. He did not intend to enter. However, when he saw that only one other person had entered the black bear category, he signed up, figuring that at the very worst, he would take second place.
Well, he had a surprise coming to him. By the time he stepped in front of the judges, there had been three or four more new entrants.
Now he faced some real competition.
He would not get his second place award.
He would take first.
This left the rest us all shocked, dumbfounded, and awestruck.
Charlie had not intended to enter the Honey Bear category, but somehow found himself being labeled a Honey Bear, onstage with the other Honey Bears.
This is not a battle that he had prepared for.
He gave it his best, subjecting his craters to the exploratory touch of random, pink-haired females, but he did not even make it into the finals.
His friend, however, Todd Davy Crocket, who readers met at the UAA contest, did. And he won second place. This will probably seem most unfair to the first place winner that I have placed Todd's picture here but not his, but, you know, life is not always fair.
Plus, there were all kinds of categories, and all kinds of winners - short ones and tall ones and fat ones and skinny ones, the rude and the erudite, male and female, the debonaire and the debunked and I just cannot picture them all.
So I'm sticking pretty much to those I know, at least a little bit.
I was pretty certain Charlie would be devastated by that loss. In fact, he was - but he was stoic, pulled himself back together, put on the face of good humor, found out that he could still be a ptarmigan.
He resolved that there, he would rise to fight again.
I thought about the guy with the four circles curled into his beard.
Again, that bitter chill shook my body as I thought about the tooth-and-nail, hand-to-hand, beard-to-beard fight that still lay ahead for our good-hearted Charlie.
Well before the Ptarmigans, the Mountain Goats took the stage. I could not believe my eyes when I saw my own nephew, Thos Swallow from Salt Lake City, walk out onto the stage.
Oh, he used an assumed name and denied altogether that he was Thos, but a quick glance at the pictures that I took at Thos's wedding last October prove beyond any doubt that this is Thos.
How in the heck did he grow such a long, mountain-goat beard in less than five months?
And you know what?
He won! Thos won first place in the Mountain Goat division.
I was going to invite him over for dinner, perhaps even to spend the night and save a hotel bill, but he pretended not to know me, so I didn't.
;)
At the back of the room, a gang of beer-drinking nuns and priests called on me to repent. We spoke for a little while. I warned them that if they kept drinking that beer, they might accidently break their oaths of celibacy. They assured me that they would never do such a thing.
They still insisted that I must repent.
I told them I was not Catholic but grew up Mormon.
Their eyes went wide. "YOU REALLY NEED TO REPENT!" they demanded.
Finally, the Ptarmigans stepped before the judges - including Charlie and Kenneth C. Fieber. They both fought hard, standing there, as grimy fingers that had been who knows wherre pawed at their beards all over again.
For many of the categories that preceded them, it had taken the judges quite awhile to settle upon the winner, but in just minutes, the judges announced that they had already chosen the Ptarmigan winners.
First, they announced the second place winner - Kenneth C Fieber.
The emcee put the mic to Fieber's face and asked how he felt to have come in second.
Fieber said he didn't like it. "I should be first," he said.
Let me stress that I am serious. I am not joking. Fieber contended that he should have been first.
But they had announced that he was second.
It was a done deal.
The door was open to Charlie.
Charlie was beaming, waiting to be named first place.
But then a hand rose into the air from the judges table and began to wave frantically.
A message was relayed to the emcee.
She then informed the crowd that a horrible mistake had been made.
Her earlier annoucement was wrong.
Kenneth C. Feiber had not won second place, he had won first!
Charlie won second.
Despite the setback, Charlie continued to beam.
So the contest was over for Charlie. Charlie would not get to enter the final round to battle for the Mr. Fur Face Trophy.
I suppose that if I had been functioning as the serious photojournalist that I am, I would have hung tight to the very end and would have photographed the final Mr. Fur Face, sat him down for an interview and then published his life story, right here on this blog.
But I had left Margie at Jacob and Lavina's and I hoped to get back there in time to see Jobe and Kalib before they went to bed.
I would have rushed straight out, but there was a young woman who I had been keeping my eye out for all evening: Desiree Merculieff, this year's Miss Rondy Queen.
Desiree is Unangan, from the Pribilof Island village of St. George and now lives in Anchorage.
She is the daughter of Sally and Chris Merculief, who still live on the island and who treated Melanie kindly when she spent some time working on a road project there this past summer.
And now, just when it was time to go, Desiree appeared and offered her congratulations to Charlie and Todd for their second place wins.
Sadly, she can only wear her official Miss Rondy Queen regalia when her chaperones are with her.
Although she had never been in sight of my eyes in it, she had worn the regalia to the ball, but her chaperones had grown tired and left, so we found Desiree dressed in street clothes - but still beautiful.
Her parents, Chris and Sally, are in the background with Melanie.
So here she is, Miss Rondy Queen: Desiree Merculieff - the first Alaska Native to wear the crown in 22 years. Everywhere she went, her mother told me, the Native people that saw her - especially the elders - expressed their pride and Joy in the honor that she had earned.
Sometime, before her reign is over, perhaps I can be fortunate enough to catch and photograph Desiree dressed in her full regalia. She must get permission to do an interview, but maybe we can get that permission.
No promise.
I never know what will happen in the future.
But maybe.
I said "goodbye" and headed toward the door. Before I could reach it, I found my path blocked by The Five Amigos. I drew my Canon and shot my way through them.
I stepped from the Fur Face room into the hall and was startled to find the answer to Paul Simon's lingering question, "Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?" standing right before me.
Right here - Joe Dimaggio had come right here, to the Miners and Trappers Ball of the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous!
And he had ressurected Marilyn Monroe - more abundantly endowed than ever - and had brought her to the ball with him.
And me, I had the privileged of snapping the both of them as I walked by.
Think of it - Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe, together again, photographed by me in the year 2011! I ought to be able to get at least $10 million dollars for this photograph!
Then I will finally have the resource necessary to do this blog the way I want.
I will finally be able to buy another airplane.
But what if it wasn't Marilyn and Joe? What if it was just two Alaskans, dressed in costume?
Depressed, I stepped out of the Egan Center onto Fifth Avenue only to see this airplane, flying down the sidewalk.
I had my answer! I can build my own airplane - just like this guy did. It won't cost much to build such an airplane and it won't take very long, either.
I could do it in a day.
And then I could fly all over Alaska, just like I started out doing, before I crashed the Running Dog.
It was after 10:30 PM now. I was a bit worried that Kalib and Jobe might have gone to bed already.
But they had waited up, for me.
Jacob had given Kalib one of those green dog biscuits called "Greenies" and had told him to feed it to Muzzy. Instead, Kalib had taken a bite and was eating it himself.
Jobe, as always, was simply thrilled to see his grandpa.