Valiant though his effort be, Muzzy pees and pees and pees and pees, yet fails to reclaim Serendipity

Muzzy and I walked into Upper Serendipity (the developers call it, "Serendipity Hills) and Muzzy immediately marked the subdivision as his.

Muzzy continually checked for any challenges to his claim as we walked on through Serendipity.

Perhaps some dog has challenged him on that berm, but the leash is too short for him to reach and sniff it.

The Saint Bernard zeros in on a challenge.

Muzzy stakes his claim deeper in Serendipity.

He believes himself to be grabbing even more new territory.

He will soon claim this spot, too.

Of all the new homes in Serendipity, this is the most ostentatious - excuse me - I mean "grand." This is the most grand home in all of Serendipity. Muzzy must find just the right spot before he stakes his claim.

Muzzy finds the spot. He claims the property, along with all of Serendipity.

He zeros in on his next mark.

Soon, we will leave Serendipity. He reinforces his claim with a final mark.

Muzzy is proud and happy. He believes that he has claimed all of Serendipity. He does not realize that human law does not recognize "Deed by Pee." He does not realize that, the moment someone called these former woods Serendipity, they were lost to us forever.

As we near home and walk back down Sarah's Way (the name was quite innocent back when we moved in) we spot Tiffany driving the oppposite way. She had been at the house to visit Caleb. She stops and pets Muzzy, who still believes himself to be the owner of Serendipity.

He is most definitely The King of Pee.

The country that Willow knew, before it was called, "Serendipity"

In this blog I have often lamented about the construction of the destruction of the life that I had known here before they tore down my woods and put up the subdivision called Serendipity. I have also noted how easy it was to take the dog on a walk back then, as I could let her run free while I walked, contemplated, and played with words. By pure chance, this image of Willow running through the woods now gone and called Serendipity, just popped up in my computer.

And this one was nearby. So there you go. Now, I will shift to my latest walk with Muzzy, right through Serendipity.

Two skating partners from years past, photographed in different places

This is Alyssa, who used to figure skate with Lisa and Melanie, and even partnered up with Lisa when the two skated in plumpy raisin outfits. Once, she traveled with Lisa, Melanie and Margie to Seattle to skate, and stayed with them in a hotel. She popped up at Cafe Darte' a few days ago, but I did not recognize her.

Today, she asked me if I was related to Lisa and Melanie. Now I know who she is.

We always knew that these little girls would grow up, we just didn't realize it.

And here is Lisa, Alyssa's raisin skating partner. I recognize her, of course. I went in to town to attend an evening of Iñupiat poetry reading, but had dinner with her at Beartooth before going over.

I have more from today to blog - or yesterday, I should say, since it is now 1:00 AM - but it is too late so I will make just this short note and then go to bed.

Perhaps I will blog more about today tomorrow.

Sarah's Way turns sloppy and mucky but I face up to it; memories of the Lone Ranger; a DC-3 flies above me; yesterday's crime scene marked a shooting incident

This is what I faced this morning when I stepped out of my house and onto Sarah's Way to begin my walk. As sloppy and messy as it looked, I did not let it stop me. I walked right through it.

Seldon was dry when I reached it. I had not walked far before a pink truck came from behind. In all my decades here, this is the first pink truck that I have ever seen on Seldon.

On the other hand, I have seen this orange truck many times. I've never seen it move, though.

As you can see, we here in Wasilla are in constant touch with all the world. Some people think that we are all hillbillies, but they are wrong. Not that there is anything wrong with being a hillbilly. I think I could enjoy being a hillbilly, if I did not love Alaska so much.

As I have explained before, there are no hillbillies in Alaska, but rather, Mountain Billies.

I was pleased to see a Douglas DC 3 fly by overhead. I just wished that I were in it, in the left-hand seat, doing barrel rolls and figure eights. Maybe this very airplane helped us win World War II.

At three in the afternoon, Margie and I ventured over to Well's Fargo Financial Services to talk finance with this man, Chris. Alongside the desk where he sits is a huge photograph of a stagecoach and I liked it, even though it was canned. 

It reminded me of my own stint with the Lone Ranger. I wanted to take a photo, there in Chris's office, with the stagecoach mural in the background. But photography inside the bank is prohibited, since someone who is both exceptionally bright and in a position to lay down mandates and rules believes that a bad guy might look at such a photograph of a man sitting at a desk in front of a photo of a stagecoach and suddenly figure out how to rob that bank.

So I had to photograph Chris outside with the calendar as a stand-in for the mural.

As any American of my generation knows (and even Chris, who is of a different generation, knew), the Lone Ranger, with help from Tonto, did, in fact, break up many stagecoach robberies.

As for my stint with the masked man, it happened when I was very small and lived in Pendleton, Oregon. At that time, the Pendleton Roundup billed itself as the biggest rodeo in the world and when I was four or five, we learned that the Lone Ranger was coming to town to participate and that he would ride a stagecoach in the parade.

Then came the disturbing news, relayed to me by my big brothers, who could read the newspaper. According to news accounts, my brothers told me, when the Lone Ranger got off the plane, no one was there to greet him. Later, someone found him crying at the airport, because his feelings had been hurt.

I refused to believe this, because the Lone Ranger I admired would never cry. No. You could shoot him in the shoulder, and still he would not cry. He would get up, punch and fight and shoot the gun that you had shot him with right out of your hand.

Yet, even my Dad claimed to have read such an article.

It pained me to think that Dad would lie like that. I wished that I could read the paper for myself. I would prove them all wrong.

Come parade day, the Lone Ranger did ride through town on a stagecoach.

Guess who got to climb up on that stage coach, sit beside him, and ride a tiny ways with him, before being replaced by another little kid?

Yes. Me.

It was thrilling. And it was terrifying. To a tiny boy, it was a long way down from that stagecoat seat to the road. I feared that I would fall and shatter my shoulder - or at least my skull. So I sat beside the Lone Ranger and bawled. Part of the time. But then I got brave and smiled. Until it was time to get down. Then I bawled again.

"You're just a damn bawl-baby," my brothers told me later.

And later in life, when I was in college, I not only got to meet Tonto, but to photograph him. Jay Silverheels, the actor who played Tonto, came to BYU with Chief Dan George and I met them both, talked to them both and photographed them both.

I wonder where those photos are?

After we finished at the bank, we went across the street and joined these two ravens in the Taco Bell Drive through.

As to yesterday's crime scene, it turns out that was a shooting there. Fortunately, nobody got hit. You would be hard put to find anyone in Alaska who favors gun control, and I certainly do not. Guns are too important to life here; too many people depend on guns to live, and the idea of taking them away is irrational and stupid.

But what do you do about people like the man who shot up Tailgaters yesterday? It could have turned out much worse. Or how about all the mass murders lately, elsewhere in the US? At least two carried out by men who, in part, justified their actions through their irrational - yes, Glenn Beck, IRRATIONAL - fear that President Barack Obama was going to take their guns away.

The question is a vexing one. That man, and those who committed these murders, should not have guns. But don't even think about taking my gun away.

Oh, wait! I sold most of my guns during times when I needed money more than guns, and then lost my last rifle - a very fine lever-action 30-30 - after I crashed my plane and someone stole it from the fuselage before I did my recovery.

But I still have my shotgun. You can't take it.

And I will get another rifle. Maybe this fall. One with a fast bullet - maybe a .270. Or perhaps one to replace that good, old, reliable, powerful, hard-hitting 30-06 that I loved.

Don't even try to stop me. 

The battle was fought and Liberty came out dancing; the Escape gets serviced, but I don't get a Pepsi; A crime scene - scenes of Spring

While our new Escape was undergoing it's 5000 mile free service - basically, an oil change - I wandered on foot a short distance down the road to take a picture of this kid who was dancing on the side of the highway in the hope of luring customers into Liberty Tax Service before the impending deadline, just eight days hence.

He is CJ and he has been dancing out there for about five hours a day since January. He has danced when the temperature was far below zero and now he was dancing on the warmest day so far this spring - the high temperature was close to 45, although when I first set out this morning it was 26.

CJ was friendly and polite, and tried to answer my questions, but he was also dedicated to his job and was determined to not let a single vehicle pass by without dancing, waving and smiling at the occupants.

In return, many people honked and shouted back greetings. This would cause him to dance even harder and smile bigger.

"Anyone ever shout anything mean at you?" I asked.

"Yeah," he answered, "but it doesn't bother me."

I then walked back to Kendall Ford. The car was still being serviced, so I took a seat in the waiting room, where I could see through this big window into the shop. I know things are tough for the car companies, but, from this vantage point, it did not show.

There were some vending machines in the room, so I decided to get a Pepsi to make my stay a little more pleasant. They did not have Pepsi. They only had Coke.

I don't like Coke.

Some say there is no difference. But they are wrong. There is a huge difference.

I don't like Coke.

When the work was done, Brad Tidwell, Kendall Service Consultant, came in to go over the paperwork and show me all that was done. He also showed me a survey form that he said Ford will send to me.

The first question will ask how satisfied I was, starting with, "Completely Satisfied," "Very Satisfied" on down through a total of five steps to enraged dissatisfaction.

He wondered how satisfied I was. I was satisfied, I said. He said that Ford only gives him and the service staff two grades regarding that question, "A" & "F". Completely satisfied is an "A", "Very Satisfied" is an "F."

He hoped I was completely satisfied.

I didn't feel any dissatisfaction. 

I reckon I'll check "completely." I don't want the poor guy to get an "F."

I sure wish I could have got a Pepsi, though.

Brad, I'll give you a pass on that one this time, but that might be something to think about by the time I come in for my 10,000 mile service. To completely satisfy this customer, you must get Pepsi. I want a Pepsi!

Especially on a hot day like today - and it's only going to get hotter.

As I drove away in my newly serviced car, undamaged by the ash fall, CJ waved at me and smiled. I wonder if he knew it was me?

Liberty Tax used to be in another location, down the hill, near Wasilla Lake. Down there, the dancers used to not only dance beside the highway but wave signs, too. Then, one day, I came by and they were not dancing by the highway. They were standing in the parking lot, looking forlorn.

And there they stayed, for days, for weeks... in the parking lot.

I talked to the owner, Chris Cork, who graduated from Wasilla High with Caleb. He told me that a competitor who had no dancers himself and did not like the Liberty dancers had raised hell and had come up with some kind of Wasilla law from somewhere that prohibited a business in the city from putting dancers carrying signs at the side of the road.

That state of affairs persisted for a couple of years and then, all of sudden, at this new location, the dancers again began to perform at the side of the road.

But without signs.

Chris got some attorneys of his own and they raised their own hell. Turned out, if they were going to bar the Liberty dancers from the side of the road, they must also bar all the other people who dance and wave from the highway's edge - like those who jumped up and down for both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin last fall, those who shout out for Christ and the Little League and hockey players who seek to entice motorists with dirty cars to their fundraiser washes.

So the Liberty Tax dancers are back, but without signs.

Yet, the political boosters, Christians, Little Leaguers and others do carry signs.

A bit further down the road, I passed a crime scene.

I wonder what crime was committed? I have seen nothing on the news. I have looked at the Mat-Su section of the continually-updated, online edition of the Anchorage Daily News.

No information. Still, when an entire parking lot is cordoned off and two theodolites put into action, whatever it was, someone is taking it pretty seriously.

I could have called the police station, or stopped and asked to interview somebody. But I don't have time for that.

One block away from the crime scene, a girl rode a bike around a corner. Look how the snow has melted in downtown Wasilla.

Later, I ventured out again, to get coffee for Margie and me. School had just let out. Kids were walking away from Wasilla Middle School, just like my kids used to do.

You can see that the snow is melting more slowly in our neighborhood then in downtown Wasilla - if there is such a thing as downtown Wasilla. There is a street called Main Street, but the name is basically a fiction. I don't care who says otherwise. Yes, there is some wisdom on this street with the fictitious name, but there's a lot of foolishness, too.

Looks like we are going to need to do some spring cleaning. I'm a bit vexed with that water heater that we just replaced. I don't know how to get rid of it. 

We will find a way.