Kalib at the Fair, Part 1: He visits the animals; we bump into Taktuk

We had to park far, far, away from the entrance. And there, in the makeshift grass parking lot, which I suspect was originally a hay field, Kalib got his first amusement ride.

As for me, I had a big debate this day - whether to bring my big pro digitial single-lens reflex camera and two or three lenses or my pocket camera. The argument for the pro camera was that it would give me a lot more versatility and I would get many more good pictures. I would be able to count on the camera to shoot the instant I pushed the shutter (you just never know with the pocket camera) and I could knock off a dozen frames or so all at once if I wanted to catch a sequence of events.

The technical quality of the images would be considerably better than those I could produce with the pocket camera.

The argument against the DSLR was that it would be big and heavy and bulky and when it was all over, I would have many more photos to edit and so it would have to spend more time doing so.

The pocket camera had one thing going for it. It would be light and easy to carry.

I chose the pocket camera, even though I knew it would cost me some pictures. And it did. It cost me plenty and it put limitations on those that I did get, but, oh well.

It made the fair experience more pleasant.

We had to stand in line for a very long time, but afterward Kalib saw some goats. I am not quite certain what he thought of them.

A goat sticks its head through the rails of its pen to get a better look at Kalib.

Kalib turned to his dad for protection against the frightening goat.

Donkeys are very special to Lavina. When she was a small girl on the Navajo Reservation, her grandmother had one and Lavina used to ride it.

It wasn't easy, because the donkey was stubborn. She would climb on and it would just sit there. Only a whip, repeatedly applied, could get that donkey to go.

She liked it anyway. "Donkeys are so cute," she explained.

When she saw this little tiny donkey, she was quite thrilled and took Kalib straight to it. He placed his hand upon it.

Kalib fed some tiny goats. I wonder who the goats will feed?

Kalib learned something about birds, big, birds, Thanksgiving turkey birds.

Kalib also learned about bees - busy, buzzing, honey- making bees. Sadly, the bees here have but one season of life, because they cannot make it through the winter and so they must be replaced each spring with new shipments from the Lower 48.

However, somebody had made a super-insulated, heated, big bee house where people can bring their hives, so they are going to experiment and see if they can get these Wasilla bees through the winter.

I hope they succeed.

Every year when we got to the fair, I see someone from the Arctic Slope. This year, it was Taktuk,  Roberta Ahmaogak of Wainwright, part of Iceberg 14 - the whaling crew and family that took me in and made Wainwright home to me - with her children. Roberta is studying at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. You can find Taktuk and daughter Kara dancing at February's Kivgiq in Barrow right here.

Next up in part 2: Kalib gets frightened by a horse, he zips down a slide and dines on nutritious fair food.

Margie's birthday party morphs into Jacob's congrats ceremony; a football flies through the house

Continuing on from the last post, the final car that had parked in our driveway had brought Natalie and her children from Anchorage. When Melanie, Charlie, Lisa and I returned from coffee, they were just finishing up their frybread and beans, so I guess Lavina had cooked more bread, yet.

We all signed a card of congratulations for Jacob, since he is now commissioned in the Commission Corps.

And what the hell - one day soon he and Lavina are going to move out and take Kalib with them. As I have stated before, that's why they moved in with us in the first place, so that they could save up some money for a house while they waited for the Commission Corps to accept Jacob and assign him somewhere.

Lavina was sure hoping it would be in Arizona, near her Navajo homeland.

Margie was kind of hoping that it would be, too, because then she thought maybe Kalib could induce me to move to Arizona and be closer to her Apache homeland.

But Jacob got Anchorage.

I don't ever want to move from Alaska. Not ever, ever, ever!

I would die inside.

That sounds selfish, doesn't it, when Margie wants to be closer to her homeland?

But even she doesn't want to be there in the summertime. Too hot. She would rather be here.

Only in winter does she want to be there. She is fed up with Alaska winters.

So maybe someday we can figure out how to broker a compromise.

I love Alaska winters, except for the warm ones. They say this is going to be an El Niño winter. They are the warm ones. I do not like El Niño winters

A lot of football happened today. First, 20th ranked BYU Courgars beat the third-ranked Oklahoma Sooners, 14-13, in a game that came right down to the wire.

I was glad, because I was cheering for BYU. I may be an agnostic coffee drinker who wrestles with the weight of my Mormon upbringing every damn day of my life, but it is still a fact that my direct ancestors include a man who hung out with Joseph Smith when he was held in jail and set out with Brigham Young to cross the Great Plains and BYU is still my alma mater.

Jacob's alma mater played today, too, the Arizona State Sun Devils, who crushed Idaho State 50-3. Natalie's stepson, Cooper, not only watches but gets filled with inspiration. 

Cooper dashes into the front room, ready to play football. As you can see, Kalib is wearing his Sun Devils jersey.

Jacob throws Cooper a pass. Jacob, by the way, made varsity starting quarterback when he was just a sophomore, but then he injured his knee and that was that.

Cooper fumbles the ball!

He's just starting out. The important thing is not that he dropped it, but rather that he stood right there, again and again, as the ball bounced off his chest or head, and was always eager, excited and ready for the next pass.

Royce wanders through in search of toe pets. He gets some.

Natalie and her daughter Tiana adjust each other's hair as Tony, Tiana's twin, sits on the other side.

I'm not at all certain how it happened so fast, but very soon everyone said their goodbyes. Kalib gets a goodbye hug from his Auntie Lisa.

Then Kalib watches as his Auntie Melanie climbs into the 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire with Charlie to begin the drive back to Anchorage. Note all the leaves that have already fallen from the trees. Note, too, how dark it is even though it is only 9:15 PM.

It was a beautiful, beautiful, warm, sunny day, but summer is over. Fall has begun. There won't be many more days like this. One maybe, two perhaps. Wouldn't it be something if we got three? Dare I bid for four? 

Oh, we'll get sun, radiating down brightly upon golden leaves.

But the air will feel crisp.

Wonderful in its own right.

And then Kalib watches as Lisa drives away.

It always comes to this. I don't care what it is. It always comes to this. Every time my kids come out, they soon leave. Kalib will soon leave and move elsewhere. Very soon, I will leave Margie to go back north and I will hate to say good-bye. I will miss her every day that I am gone. And when I again leave the north to come back here, I will be sad to leave the Iñupiat community behind. When I again return here, I will miss them and their harsh, hard, sprawling, deadly, life-giving country every day, just as I missed them today, just as I also missed Sandy and all my Indian family and their hot, steamy, crowded, teeming, naturally abundant, country today - even as I reveled in the celebration of being here in what, weather and companion wise, was probably the most pleasant place on earth.

And then one day, very soon, even if I beat the odds and live to be 100, it will all be over. I will be dust, drifting in the wind. I will become the flesh of other creatures, the fiber of plants and all those whom I love will exist no more, as so many already don't, except in the hearts that loved them, but even those hearts will die.

Some that it's better after you die, that you go to a better place.

But I like this earth, this hard, beautiful place that we dwell upon, as fragile yet rugged people, destructible mortals, more precious than any indestructible immortal could ever be, fearing and fighting death yet in the end always accepting.

Nothing will ever be better. Not heaven.

And nothing will ever be worse.

Not hell.

It's all right here, the best and the worst that has ever been or ever will be.

So brief.

So precious.

It is as though it always was and then as if it had never been.

It's late. I should go to bed.

I wax ridiculous.

One day, I will state it better.

We celebrate Margie's birthday and then wind up in the ditch

The knock on the wall caused me to leave my computer and go into the house for the party, but I was surprised to find that not everybody was present. The food was ready, but people were still here and there. 

Charlie and Melanie, for example, were out in the back yard. I was a little distressed to see Charlie sitting in that chair, because last week, I saw Muzzy lift his leg and pee on it.

It rained after that, so hopefully it was okay.

Kalib peeks out to check on Charlie, Melanie and me.

I go back in and close the screen door. Kalib wants back in.

It was an Apache-Navajo kind of meal, with frybread and beans. I made mine into a classic Navajo/Apache taco, with the beans, onions, salsa, quacamole, tomotoes, peppers, grated cheddar cheese and sour cream folded into the fry bread.

I meant to photograph it so that you could see, but I got so busy eating it that I forgot.

Lavina helps Kalib draw a little heart on his grandmother's birthday card. This is what I wrote: "September 5, 1949, was the best day of my life even though I was not yet conceived..." followed by some stuff about love.

There was one piece of frybread left, so I had Margie pose with it, just so you can see what it looks. After that, I ate half of it and Charlie ate the other half.

 I stepped out for a little bit and when I stepped back in, I was surprised to see Steffers sitting there, eating an Apache/Navajo taco. Lavina must have cooked some more frybread up, so I shot this picture. Steffers, who is Iñupiat, was on her way to a Rodney Atkins concert at the Fair, but she is competing with her sister for Kalib's love, so she stopped by to see him first - and to wish Margie a happy birthday as well as congratulate Jacob for being commissioned into the Commission Corp.

Margie prepares to blow out her candle. Not only is she actually older than one, there isn't even a "1" in her age. But there was only one candle in the house and it was "1."

Margie reads her card. She was pleased.

Margie opens a present from her kids, all of whom were here except for Rex and Stephanie. Rex works seven days a week, usually, and long hours, too. We sorely missed the two of them, but Margie was pleased with the gift.

Jacob hands her the first serving of cake and ice cream.

After we ate our cake and ice cream, some of us wanted coffee. It was evening, now, just after 7:00, but Charlie, Melanie, Lisa and I went out and bought some at Little Miller's on the Park's anyway. When we returned home, more guests had arrived and there was no empty space into the driveway. So I began to pull into the ditch.

"Dad!" Melanie scolded. "What are you doing? Don't drive into the ditch! Dad! Dad! Don't do it, Dad!"

But I did. We all got out. Everything was fine.

"That's so Wasilla!" Melanie said.

Charlie shows up for Margie's birthday driving a 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire, clad in the Party-Wear shirt Melanie bought him in India

Charlie had talked about this car before, but I was still very surprised to see it in the driveway. He had first spotted it at the home of a man who lived several blocks from him. It was white, then, just like when it came from the factory. 

Charlie knocked on the door, met the owner and asked him if he wanted to sell. The owner said that he had never thought about selling it, but after giving the matter some contemplation, said he would sell it for $1200. Charlie couldn't go for it.

A couple of weeks later, he made a cheesecake (Charlie makes excellent cheese cakes) and took it to the man. "How about $800?" he asked.

"No," the man said, "but the cheescake sure is good. Thanks!."

A bit more time lapsed and then Charlie got a call. "I'll take the $800."

The engine had not been started in how many years no one knew for certain, so Charlie washed the cylinders out with oil and then got it going without too much difficulty.

He and his dad then rebuilt the engine, he painted it as you see here and today drove Melanie out here.

Royce, the orange cat, was mighty impressed.

So I was I. It reminds me of an incident from my childhood...

Well, I hear knocking on my wall. That mean's its time to go into the house and celebrate Margie's birthday.

We gather together to make a health care reform statement to our Senators; dinner with Rex at Bombay

I had to deliver some photos to a client in Anchorage, so I decided to time it so that I could go straight from the drop off to the "Send Congress back to DC" event, held for those who pledge their support for health care reform to urge our Senators to vote for reform. As it happened, I hit a couple of traffic jams coming in and so had to go straight to the event, because they were going to shut the doors shortly after 6:00 PM and then no one would be allowed to enter.

Shortly after the meeting began, the host, Jonathan Teeters of Organizing for America, asked all those who had health insurance to raise their hands, then all those who had lousy insurance to raise their hands and finally, all those who had no insurance at all to do so.

This guy sitting next to me raised his hand when the "uninsured category" came up. It had been my intent to ask him a couple of questions afterward, but he got up and zipped out, just before the event ended.

He did a lot of shouting, though, all on cue, and in favor of health insurance reform.

This is Jonathan Teeters himself, holding a bundle representing the 5000 petitions received so far from Alaskans who want Congress to pass a good health care reform plan. That would include me, as I have previously made known.

The highlight of the event came at 7:00 o'clock when Senator Mark Begich made a planned surprise call from Indiana, where he had stopped with his son on their drive back to Washington, D.C. The surprise call was announced five minutes beforehand to give the crowd a chance to practice the response they would shout out for Begich to hear when asked a couple of different questions.

Before this happened, Begich chatted for awhile, telling folks how, as he and his daughter have been traveling, they stop here and there, to get breakfast or dinner, buy gasoline, wander around a park or something and just chat with people. He said that he does not tell them that he is a US Senator and the only Alaska politician most of them would recognize is Sarah Palin, so they don't even suspect.

Again and again, in these casual conversations, Begich said, the subject of health care comes up and people are frustrated. Some have lost jobs and with them their health care. Some are afraid to move to a new job and lose their health care. Some have health care, but get shafted by their insurance companies when the time comes. Some have no health care at all.

Anyway, when the time came, Sarah pointed to the script, and, minus a tiny sprinkling of silent nay-sayers, the crowd shouted out the very words that she points to here.

Senator Lisa Murkowski did not show, nor did she call in. So Jonathan's father videoed the crowd while they shouted out this message to her.

Here folks are, shouting out their message to Senator Murkowski. Mike is the guy in front and he has health insurance and had not been too politically active until the Bush versus Gore election was settled under suspicious circumstance in Florida.

That angered him, as he believes that Gore was cheated out of the victory that should have been his and America has paid a high price. Now, he wants his voice to be heard.

In some ways, it was kind of a funny moment for me. It is my training as a photojournalist that when you cover such events, you do not shout, cheer, clap, jeer or do any such thing. You shoot pictures, you gather notes and you do not display your own sentiments. You pretend that you have no sentiments.

But I had not come as a journalist. I had come as a regular citizen, frustrated and angered by a health care system that absolutely threatens to destroy him. Still, when the call came to shout out, I tried, but I could not shout. I squeaked. It just didn't feel right to shout. It goes against my grain. I'm not a shouter, anyway.

So there you go, I went to this event to make my voice heard by our Senators and then, when the time came, I didn't even make it heard. And I didn't cover the event as I would have if I had been in photojournalism mode. I just shot these few pictures pretty much from the place where I sat.

Still, I have at least made a tiny record of the event, a statement that it happened.

Afterwards, I delivered the photos to my client and got together with my youngest son, Rex, who I had not seen for awhile and took him to dinner at Bombay. I had hoped that my beautiful and intelligent daugther-in-law, Stephanie, could come, too, but she had to work. The waitress, a young Philipina woman who had been terrified to eat Indian food for the first few months that she worked here, saw me taking this picture and volunteered to take one of both of us together.

She did pretty good, too. So here we are, Rex and I together, in the photo taken by the waitress who finally conquered her fear and found Indian food to be quite delicious.

Rex and I had a good visit. 

And, as always, being in this environment took my mind right back to India, to Sandy, Murthy, Vasanthi and all the rest of the family there, to the Indian highway, the bandit monkeys, the elephants that bless people and those that at night appear suddenly at the side of the road in the headlights of your courageous and skilled taxi driver.

It is so sad. I have so many photo stories from India that no one has ever seen, not even me, save for when I took them, because I have had no time to do anything with them.

One day.