Charlie battles his way to the championship round, where he finds himself fighting beard-to-beard against fierce lady competitor

Yesterday, I received this invitation from Charlie via email:

Hello to all!
 
Tomorrow at U.A.A. there will be an event of the proportions that many may never be experienced again with regard to FACIAL HAIR . I will be competeing against some of the finest mountain men, bearded ladies, olde tyme moustaches, and mutton chops this side of the Chugach Mountains! The event is free to watch and will be taking place at the UAA cafeteria in the Campus Center Building and the start time is at 7:30 P.M. for the competetion. I will be there to sign autographs and take pictures with your small children earlier than that, but please keep your clothes on and keep the scissors at home. It is a modest commuter campus after all! 
 
I hope you all can join us for a really great time!
 
Take care,
 
Charlie

So Thursday night, I drove Margie into town and we went to observe Charlie compete in the beard contest. This is just how we found him, before his turn to take the stage.

Rex had come to observe, not to participate, but Charlie convinced him to enter. Charlie tried to convince me to enter, too, but I did not. Rex's friend Todd Davy Crocket showed up in his coonskin cap with his beard flowing and he entered, too.

Both Rex and Todd competed in the grizzly category. Contestants start out on the stage but are then invited to come down onto the floor where anyone who wants can step up to observe, stroke, and take pictures of their beards at will.

This lady, Sofia, who would enter the ladies beard competition, took a picture of herself with Rex and Todd.

As he was posing, Rex kept his eyes right on the camera.

A pair of hands compares the beards of Rex and Todd. Rex would survive the first round of elimination, but would not place among the top 3.

There were seven categories in all, including, to my great surprise, a category for ladies. The moment Alyx Shroy walked onto the stage, I knew she was going to win, and she did. 

Her beard is made from the hair of a friend who cut it off about a-year-and-a-half ago. Alyx cares for this beard as meticulously as if she had grown it herself and sometimes braids dreadlocks into it.

The last group to compete was Freestyle - Charlie's group. Anything could go in this group and anyone could compete, male or female.

I could see that the competition was tough, yet, when I looked at Charlie and his beard, I felt pretty confident that he could win.

If he did, it would mean Alyx would be one of the those he would have to face off in the championship round.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Charlie had not won anything yet. Soon, he had to submit to the beard-feelers in the crowd.

One of the beard feelers was Alyz, the lady winner. She closely examined the beard of the man who she might possibly have to compete with for the championship.

Sofia popped up to take a picture of herself with Charlie. 

Sure enough, Charlie won the blue ribbon for his division.

As the judges took a break, Charlie posed with some of the family members who had come to cheer him on.

Then Charlie stepped back onto the stage along with all the other winners that he would have to compete against for the championship.

One can never know for certain what judges might say, but I saw only person who struck me as having a chance to beat Charlie and that was Alyx.

This is terribly embarrassing for me. The mustachioed lady with her hand in the air above Charlie's head told me she reads this blog, and she will surely read this entry. She told me her name but I had left my iPhone in the car so I did not have it to write in but I memorized it and was certain I would remember it later.

Now I have forgotten it.*

I could not get away with this if I were writing this for the New York Times, but for this blog, I can get away with it. In this blog, I have no boss but me.

Anyway, in the picture, she is doing the crowd test. One by one, she raised her hand over all the contestants as the crowd cheered for their favorite. The judges would have the final say, but it might be kind of hard to go against the crowd.

When she held her hand over Charlie's head, the crowd went nuts. It was clearly the loudest and most enthusiastic cheering so far.

*Update: My boss told me that I could not let such a horrible omission stand, so I hired a stealthy detective at the rate of $21,232 an hour and sent him out into the world to find her name. He succeeded: The mustachioed lady is Sarena Hackenmiller. I hope my expensive, stealthy, detective spelled her name right.

But you know what? The crowd went nuts for the bearded lady, too. 

Yet, I am pleased to announce that Charlie won the championship round of the Winterfest Beard Contest and so got crowned. 

Charlie and his court - Alyz Shroy, first runner-up and Douglas Renfro, second.

Charlie gave Melanie credit for being his beard-stylist. He won two tickets to the Fur Rendezvous Miners and Trappers Ball. Guess who is going to go with him?

There, he will also compete in the Fur Rendez beard contest.

Before we all left, Margie had to handle Charlie's beard handles for herself.

I then dropped her off at Jacob and Lavina's, so that she could stay for a day or two and do some babysitting.

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Even on this birthday, Melanie remains trustworthy; cats are not wierd, they are normal

Those of us who were free gathered together to celebrate Melanie's birthday. I will not tell you what birthday it was, but I will note that when I was a young adult, we feared this birthday above all others. The belief among young people was that no matter how good a person was before they hit this birthday, once they reached it, the ways of the world would overtake them and they could not be trusted after that.

Hell.

Melanie can still be trusted.

Now I will move write along, writing very little, because I have already spent quite a bit of time editing, preparing and placing pictures and I do not have time to write much. So I won't. Because if I write words that I do not need to write, it will just eat up my time, so why should I write such words that waste time when I do not need to write them?

So I won't write much.

Just a little bit.

Not much at all.

Because it would waste time.

And I do not have time to waste.

So I will write very little today.

I will just show you the pictures.

And not worry about writing many words.

That would be a waste of time when all that you need to know is in the pictures.

Well, maybe are other things that should know, too - like how to do math, for example.

Math is a good skill for anyone to have.

Here is Lavina, making frybread.

Once must have some comprehension of math to make frybread.

Otherwise, one might make 100 frybreads, when one dozen would do.

Or use 6 teaspoons of salt when one would be just right.

Kalib entered carrying his spatula, but then laid it down. I picked it up. He did not quite know what to think about that.

Melanie prepares her Navajo/Apache taco.

The tacos were damn good.

The day before, Rex had submitted his entry for a grant to help him with a sculpture that he hopes to create and then display at Burning Man in Nevada this summer. Unfortunately, due to some computer shenanigans, much of his proposal did not get submitted. Only a piece of it.

Anyway, this is model of only a piece of what he hopes to create. In the real thing, this salmon skeleton will be five foot long and there will also be a whole salmon, concrete, five feet long and a number of other elements as well.

His sculpture will cover some significant space.

I hope he gets the damn grant. 

Melanie was presented with two birthday cakes, not one. I am not sure why. I did not ask. I know Charlie made one of the cakes. I'm not sure who made the other.

Lisa made the frosting.

We ate the cakes with vanilla ice cream and they were damn good.

Afterward, she opened gifts.

All of the gifts were damned good.

Charlie gave her a damned good book titled "Cats Are Wierd." Not withstanding the fact that it is a damned good book, I take exception to the title.

Cats are not weird. As you can see, Diamond is as normal as normal can be.

Bear Meach is not weird.

Melanie observes Bear Meach being normal as Rex and Margie wash dishes.

Kalib studies Poof. "This cat is not weird," he would have proclaimed, had the proper words come to him to thus proclaim.

Perhaps it is little boys, not cats, who are weird.

Jobe goes for Poof, who is not weird.

The Three Musketeers showed up: Carl, Charlie and Bryce. They did not bring their swords. I was disappointed. I wanted to borrow a sword to cut the cake.

As the party drew towards its wild conclusion, Kalib crawled up to see his mom.

Two of my children, paired off. Lisa came late to the party, because she is carrying such a heavy load between being a full time student and full time job, and taking on extra tasks to help pay for it all.

She must deal with stress.

And then, as always happens, the time came to say goodbye, see you later.

Always this time comes. 

What a fine thing it has been these past 30 years to have Melanie as my daughter.

An absolutely fine thing.

Oh, dear! I was not going to say, "30 years," but I did.

Even so, I trust her.

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We feast - the spatula, the leap, the dinosaur, a rolling baby, a short, dreamy, nap...

When Margie and I entered Jacob and Lavina's house for Thanksgiving dinner, we found Kalib with a spatula. The word is that he keeps this spatula with him almost all the time now. It has become his favorite toy.

After he climbed onto the arm of the couch, Kalib wanted to be certain that I was watching him.

When he knew for certain that he had my attention, Kalib leaped. Afterwards, he came running to me so that he could look at this picture on my camera's LCD monitor. It was the first time that he had done that.

I don't think it will be the last.

Jobe was there, too. Still in his mother's arms. As you can see, he has great admiration for his grandpa.

Jobe and Muzzy.

As I had never seen Kalib in the dinosaur outfit that he wore on Halloween, he modeled it just for me: Kalibsaurus.

Kalibsaurus runs into the kitchen, ready to devour all that he sees.

Suji - this one's for you.

Jobe, looking for his Aunt Suji, who is 9000 miles away.

Jobe has turned into a rolling baby. Instead of learning to crawl, he is learning to roll. I had to put my foot on him, just to keep him from rolling out of the house and all the way off to India to look for his Aunt Suji.

Gramma and Jobe.

The Ckaleibs.

Jake let's Bryce sample the turkey.

There were two tables - a higher one with stools and a lower one with chairs. It was too hard for Margie to sit on the stools, so she sat at the shorter table. I joined her there.

This is what it looked like, when I stood up and peeked over the top of the crowd. The fellow to the left is Carl, a friend of Rex's and that's Charlie's parents, Jim and Cyndy, next to him.

At first, I was a little disappointed that dinner was going to be at Jacob and Lavina's instead of our house. They planned it this way because I had intended to stay on the Slope for Thanksgiving, but after the tragedy I wanted only to come home.

As it turned out it was, perhaps, the most excellent Thanksgiving dinner that I have ever eaten - much better than Margie and I would have done. This because Jacob and Lavina are on their way to becoming master chefs. They love to watch shows like Iron Chef and other cooking extravaganzas, none of which interest me much.

But my goodness, what they have learned!

Who would have ever thought that you could cook cherries into dressing and come up with something so wonderful?

And it is not just what they see others do on the shows, but the creative thought process that it has helped to create in them. Before they began to prepare this meal, Jacob read up on the original Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims got together with the indigenous people who had saved their lives and they feasted as friends.

He read that they ate squash, cooked with nuts and berries. So he cooked squash with walnuts, almonds and berries... and... oh my... just ask Lisa... who is still raving over it...

Delicious beyond delicious!

Scrumptious. Exquisite. Tantalizing!

The turkeys were pretty darn good, too...

...as was the company.

We are very fortunate in this family in that we, including those who have joined in to become part of us, all enjoy being together.

I was thinking about various Thanksgiving and holiday TV dramas and sitcoms where people come in and engage in verbal combat and unpleasantness before coming to or failing to reach whatever resolutions are necessary, but it is not that way here.

We all live tumultuous lives in our own ways, but we like to be together.

We are not only family, we are all friends.

Even so, to be quite honest, I sometimes had problems staying with all the conversations throughout, because my mind and spirit was burdened with a huge hurt. After we ate, several of us went into the living room to converse, but my body felt so tired and weary and my eyelids grew so heavy that I could not keep them open.

So I closed them, and reclined on the reclining chair, picking up snippets of the conversation until it morphed into dream bits in my mind and then became a dream.

I have no idea how long I stayed this way, but at some point I dimly heard Charlie's dad speaking of an airplane, maybe a Super Cub, flying at 30 mph and landing on a dime. And then I was in my now broken airplane, the Running Dog, and I was sliding between the tops of spruce trees along the Yukon River toward a frozen slough, covered in untouched, pristine, snow... slipping ever so slowly downward, my power pulled back to the minimum, my prop spinning slowly, my skis soon to slide into the snow.

I could feel the air as my wings slipped through it at minimum speed.

And sitting in the back seat was Soundarya, seeing all this frozen, wintry, magic of Alaska for the first time.

This jolted me to full awake.

I opened my eyes and the above is what I saw.

Elsewhere, I found that the turkey had overcome Rex, who would be leaving for San Francisco to join Ama in just a few hours.

Now, he is with her and her family at Lake Tahoe, where I suspect the snow is probably 10 feet deep - maybe deeper.

Back in the dining room, I found people going at round two - desert. Pumpkin pie and cookies and a superb blueberry crunch that Cyndy had made. Little Jobe was pigging out on some fruit-flavored, dehydrated treats made just for babies.

They are quite tasty. So I had one. Maybe I had two. Perhaps three... it's possible that I even ate four, but I certainly didn't eat the whole thing and I never have.

This is a story that Jacob is spreading and it is simply not true.

If you hear Jacob say it. Don't believe it.

Perhaps I ate five, but certainly no more than that.

The evening ended with Kalib chasing Melanie around the little tent. Or maybe Melanie was chasing Kalib. I was never quite certain who was chasing who.

I was glad they were not tigers, though. If they had been tigers, they would have chased each other until they got hold of each other's tails and then they would both have turned into butter.

That's what tigers do.

About 9:00 PM, Margie and I set out for Wasilla.

The roads were icy and slick. Off to the sides, I could see many dark forms of vehicles that had slid off the road. This one, however, still had its lights on.

At one point, up ahead, across the divide in the oncoming lanes, I barely managed to pick out the outline of a trotting moose silhouetted in the brief flash of a headlight and I could see that we were on a collision course.

Even with the new anti-lock breaks, braking on slick ice is a very tricky thing, so I began to hit the breaks in firm but gentle pumps, always letting go just when it felt like the car was going to go into a spin. I stopped, just in time, as the moose passed through my headlights.

I think of that moose and how it looked in our headlights at the last instant, its eyes big and fearful and I wish that I had got a picture of it. There are times that one must keep both hands on the steering wheel and this was one of those times.

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Rex and Ama invite us to dinner, cats attend, hog camera

Rex and Ama invited us to dinner last night. Ama has been staying with Rex in his basement apartment at Melanie's, so they did the cooking upstairs at her place, where the eating would be done, too.

When we arrived, Diamond was waiting in the window, ready to take control of my camera.

Rex and Ama cooking - chip dinner, made with blue corn chips, green enchilada sauce, avocados, black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, a healthy dose of chili powder and oregano and some sort of meat substitute as Ama is basically vegetarian - although she did try some pickled maktak when she visited the house.

Bear Meach wants to eat, too.

Three cats gather around Charlie, knowing that he will feed them. First, they must allow him to give them, "high pets."

Charlie just got a haircut. As for his beard, he plans to take it to an international beard contest in Norway next May. He said that I should take my beard there, too, and enter it.

About the only category that I could qualify for would be "salt and pepper"... more and more salt, less pepper. Maybe by May, my beard will be all pepper - or perhaps snow. I could then enter it in the "snow drift" category - but not yet.

I do not yet qualify for that category.

Bear Meach turns his back upon us, but pays strict attention to what we are doing.

Charlie and Epizzles.

Rex.

Now, I feel kind of bad. I had meant to get some good pictures of Rex and Ama, but somehow I didn't. I think it is because most of the time I was out in the living room and she was in the kitchen and then when she was in the living room and we were all eating I was too busy eating to take pictures.

Afterward, I found myself feeling so fatigued and tired that I failed to follow through.

She got her job in Alaska, but doesn't start until December. In the meantime, she is going back to the Bay Area. 

When she returns, I will make up for this lapse.

BTW: Charlie thinks Rex should take his beard to the Norway competition, too.

Or maybe it was the fault of these cats. Sometimes, cats can be camera hogs. Diamond is a camera hog and has been since the first day that I met her - probably even before that.

I was wondering where Lisa was, because I had not seen her for a long time, what with her work, her studies, her trip to Oregon. I hadn't seen much of Melanie, either, who also went to Oregon, but Melanie was right there in front of me, so I knew she would be there.

Melanie called Lisa to make sure she and Bryce were coming.

Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe arrived. Kalib was thrilled to see Melanie.

Jobe was thrilled to see his grandpa - as you can clearly tell.

Finally, Lisa and Bryce arrived. Diamond greeted them at the door.

Lisa zapped Jobe with a red beam from her phaser.

Lisa, Lavina and Kalib.

We visited and talked about many important things. 

And then I had to go. I was just too tired to linger. Ama was worried that I should not drive, but Margie has hard time driving at night and I always come back when I am behind the wheel.

So we hugged all and left. 

This is what I mean about cats being camera hogs.

I should have photographed Rex and Ama, but Diamond forced me to photograph her instead.

Damn camera hog!

And you watch!

Next time I get together with people and these three cats, they will hog my camera again.

That's just how they are.

As for me, I still feel tired, fatigued, and exhausted.

I fear fatigue is perpetual now.

Exhaustion a way of life.

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The celebration my family threw for me; afterward, we took a walk in the dog park

After making a quick stop at Metro Cafe, I drove into Anchorage to Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe's house, as the family had invited me to come in so they could throw a birthday party for me. I arrived a little before 6:00 PM. I found only Margie and Jobe there.

Jobe was snug and happy in the Apache cradle board that his great aunt LeeAnn had made for him before he was born. Hanging on the wall behind is a picture that I took of Kalib, not long after he was born.

Soon, Lavina came walking home from work. She saw me in the window and waved.

Next, Lisa and Bryce arrived with two little boys who Lisa was babysitting for one of the doctors she works with. The older boy was named Jacob and he was frightened of Muzzy - he did not fear that Muzzy would bite him, but rather that he would slobber on him, or perhaps roll on him.

Margie removed Jobe from the cradle and put him on my lap. I told him a series of ridiculous little sentences. Everytime I did, he smiled and even laughed.

That was his birthday present to me.

Next, Charlie and Rex showed up. I felt kind of sad that Melanie would not be here. Regular readers will recall that she is in Donlin Creek, doing work for the engineering company that she works for and she is carrying a slug-loaded shotgun, just in case she is forced to shoot a bear.

She called just before I took this picture. She said she had seen some bears, but only from the helicopter that they had been flying around in. She had seen no bears from the ground and she was not really worried about bears at all, but it did worry her to have to carry the shotgun around.

She had experienced some ridiculously hot weather (yes, Alaska's Interior can get surprisingly hot in the summer - in the 90's. Fort Yukon, where I will be next week, has recorded 101 - and in the winter, -78).

I had hoped that Rex would bring his new girlfriend, but she had gone down to Seward with her parents to do some kayaking. Rex met her a few weeks back after she came out from the San Francisco Bay area to summer in Alaska. Now her parents are here visiting, too.

I am very glad that he has found her.

As for Caleb, he had stayed in Wasilla to sleep and then go to work his nightshift, but, as I noted yesterday, I had seen him in the morning and he had given me the rain fenders for my bike.

I would bring food home for him.

After Jacob and Kalib came home, Jacob went out to the back porch to barbecue our dinner on his and Lavina's new grill. 

Little Anthony and little Jacob - the two boys who Lisa was babysitting - watch a few minutes of Ice Age.

Jacob comes in from the porch with the grilled corn. I tell you - that corn was good! As was the bread, the steaks, the chops, the hot dogs and the salad.

I don't know how it happened, but one bad problem I find with all digital cameras, including the professional models, is that they can change settings all on their own, just because you are moving around. Somehow, my pocket camera had set itself to compensate for whatever exposure I was trying to make by two stops over. I did not discover this until after I took this picture.

I don't feel all that bad about it. The feeling that I wanted to catch is still there. 

What I don't like is the fact that I forgot to recharge the battery to my pocket camera. It was on reserve power when I arrived and I knew the battery would soon die. So I had to shoot sparingly, just to be certain I had a frame or two available for my cake.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Billy - daddy - grampy, happy birthday to you..."

And here is my cake - Margie baked it and made the frosting. Heavenly, it was just heavenly. Six candles - one for every ten years that I have so far lived.

I could have eaten six such cakes and I would still have wanted more.

Kalib helped me blow out the candles.

Then Kalib brought me the family gift - a hands-free set for my iPhone that will allow me to plug it into the car radio and play music stored in it. Rex gave me some top-of-the line, adjustable walking sticks that can convert into ski poles.

Next, most of us headed to the dog park. My camera battery died before we got there and I was very disappointed, because we went to a lake and I was amazed at how beautiful and still it was, right there in Anchorage. It looked like we were nowhere near the city.

Ducks swam in the lake and repeatedly came right up to the little boys.

Just as we were preparing to leave the lake and move on, a friend of mine happened along. She was taking pictures with her iPhone. I suddenly remembered that I could, too. Yet, even my iPhone battery was almost dead. Still, I would shoot while it lasted.

So the images from here to the end were all done on my iPhone.

"A bear!" Lavina exclaimed when she first spotted this teddy bear laying at the side of the trail.

"A bear? Where?" Jacob responded, then scanned the trees. Bears, grizzlies even, do come into this neighborhood and Muzzy once had a frigthening encounter.

Lavina figured that someone was lonesome for  this little teddy, so she suspended it in the fence in the hope that they would come back looking and would easily spot it.

As we walked, Kalib stopped every 40 or 50 feet to throw a rock into the creek.

In time, we reached the playground. My friend who had been taking iPhone pictures was there. This is she, Kelly Eningowuk of ICC Alaska, with her daughter Mina and dog Alexis. Kelly is the one who found the funds to take me to Greenland. Yes, I still intend to post more from that trip, but mostly I think I will save it for the publication we hope to make.

The thing about this dog park is that dogs are allowed to roam free here. They do not need to be on leashes. This seems like a recipe for big trouble to me, but I saw many dogs and not even one bad incident.

You can see Muzzy in the background.

What do you think he is going to do?

Muzzy charges in, shakes his mane, and throws slobber everywhere. That's what he was going to do. Right after I took this picture, my iPhone battery died.

So I could take no more pictures. This was okay, though. It was after 10:30 PM and I needed to drive back to Wasilla. So I went into the house, hugged everybody goodbye, including my precious wife, who still had two days of babysitting Jobe ahead of her.

Then I drove home alone, under an exquisitely beautiful sky surrounded by magnificent mountains, so strikingly beautiful in the radiant, late-night, northern light of summer.

I could not take a picture, but I did not care.

It was wonderful just to be driving home in the midst of such fantastic, magically-lit, beauty.

Many people wonder why I would ever even want to live in Alaska.

If they could only have seen it!

Even if I had been carrying my best camera and lenses with me, batteries fully charged, I could not have captured such beauty.

Such beauty is beyond the reach of any camera. A good photographer can hint at it, but that's all.

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