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.

Uncle Caleb and Nephew Kalib: dinner, and then goodbye

In both Apache and Navajo cultures, a child's uncle is a most important person in his life - a friend and teacher, in a way that is hard even for a father to be. And Kalib does have a most special relationship with his Apache Uncle, Caleb.

Last night, in the blog that I was too tired to make, I told you that after this morning, we would not see Kalib again for a week.

His Mom took pity on us and left Kalib with us today, provided that we would drive him into town this evening and turn him over to his parents, so that they could fly off to Jacob's business gathering Albuquerque, after which they will visit both their Apache and Navajo homelands in Arizona.

Caleb had driven to town earlier to get a haircut. When he learned that we were all going to get together in Anchorage for a Mexican dinner, he joined us, helped Kalib put his shoes back on and then lifted him out of the car. 

The air was chilly. Even though dinner would be inside where it would be warm, Caleb stopped to zip Kalib's jacket up.

Then Kalib and Caleb walked to the door of the restaurant together.

After they sat down, Kalib read the menu while Caleb ate chips. We were all quite surprised by this. Here, Kalib has not had one day of school, not one reading lesson, he hasn't even learned to talk yet.

And here he was, reading the menu!

Caleb then helped him remove his jacket.

Somehow, Kalib wound up in an empty chair at the empty booth across from us.

Caleb picked him up to bring him back to us.

After a good long wait, Kalib's parents arrived. Caleb steadied Kalib as Lavina got him situated beside her.

She then put quacomole on chip and handed it to her son. Kalib loves quacomole. 

Kalib discovered how to cement a corn chip to his face with quacomole.

After he pigged out on quacomole, Kalib's shirt was an avocado mess. Uncle Caleb helped his mom change him into another.

Somehow, Kalib soon wound up at another empty both. Caleb retrieved him and brought him back.

The dinner, by the way, was excellent. The best Mexican dinner I have had in Anchorage for a long time.

Mexican is my favorite food.

I had never eaten here before, but I will again. 

Vallarta's Mexican Restaurant, in the Value Village mini-mall, just off Northern Lights and Boniface. Damn good.

On the way out, Caleb photographed Kalib through the door.

Caleb looks at pictures of Kalib, as the toddler runs back to the restaurant.

Then it is goodbye time. Caleb turns Kalib over to Lavina as Jacob looks on.

Caleb then gave Kalib and his Mom a big hug. Then they were gone. As I write these words, they ought to be on a jet, headed south.

Wildlife photography from the car shot while backing out of our driveway; meeting the deadline for free money

I had to drive Margie to town today, so that she could get new x-rays, visit the doctor and see how her breaks are healing. So, when the time came, I gave Margie a boost into the back seat (she needs the whole thing right now), climbed behind the wheel and turned my head backwards to be certain that I would not run over anybody.

And there, grazing in my yard, was a cow moose. Yes, the very same one that we have met twice in just the last week. I rolled down my window and shot this frame, as I rolled past Gertrude.

I had to angle backwards to get onto the road and, as I did, it gave me a new angle, one that included her calf and the blue home of our next door neighbor, Joe.

Once in the road, I stopped, shifted from reverse to drive, took a shot with our house in the background, put my foot on the gas and drove off for Anchorage.

I dropped Margie off at the Alaska Native Medical Center and then headed toward the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Office.

I had filed for both of us online (Margie has a phobia for computers and the net). Mine went through just fine, with my electronic signature. For some reason, Margie's electronic signature did not make it and instead I got a signature page. She had to sign that and then we could mail it in or drop it off.

I tried to drop it off yesterday when I went in to see the doctor, but the office was closed in honor of Seward's Day - the day the United States "bought" Alaska from Russia, although Russia had never bought it from the original owners.

I parked a few blocks away and then walked over.

"Hell!" I thought as I approached, "look at that damn line of procrastinators." The line was not only out on the sidewalk, but wrapped half way around the block.

A tiny segment of the line.

Unfortunately, right after I shot this frame, my pocket camera battery died. I could have taken a better picture, I know, if I could have just had a few more frames to figure it out. In case you haven't figured it out, that is me in the reflection, standing in the road, looking up at the mirror glass.

I did not want to go the back of this line and since I had already filed, the very thought seemed unfair. So I went in. The guy at the door told me that, since Margie's application had already been sent in online, the deadline had been met. I could mail the signature page in, or bring it back tomorrow.

I don't want to go to Anchorage again tomorrow. I am tired of going to Anchorage.

So I guess we will just mail it. Unless I get nervous. Then I will drive it in, and see what I can find to eat in Anchorage.

There is a larger selection of food there than in the valley.

The dividend, btw, is expected to be about $1800.

Every recognized Alaskan gets it, just for living here. Some people misunderstand. They believe it to be an oil payment.

It is not. Alaska has invested a certain amount of its wealth, mostly from oil, in the Alaska Permanent Fund, so that when hard times come, Alaska will have money. In order to prevent the legislature from raiding these savings for pet projects, Permanent Fund money is invested in blue chip and half of each year's earnings are paid out to its citizens.

This gives everybody an interest in keeping the fund whole, out of the reach of pet projects.

Due to the current economic crisis, 2010 dividends are expected to plummet to almost nothing.

Margie is getting better. She got a smaller knee brace and signed up for physical therapy.

She still has the same wrist brace, which is identical to mine, except that mine includes a thumb support and her's does not.

Diane Benson takes her final bow as Tlingit civil rights heroine Elizabeth Peratrovich

There was a reason that I drove to Anchorage yesterday and got myself caught in falling ash - to see Diane Benson act in her final performance of the one woman play, "When My Spirit Raised It's Hands." Here, at the end of the play, she takes her final bow as Tlingit civil rights heroine Elizabeth Peratrovich.

Diane first put the play together over a decade ago to create a simple but effective device to teach Alaska schoolchildren something about how Alaska's Natives had to fight racism and prejudice to secure their rightful place in their own homeland.

Afterward, she explained that she feels it is time for a younger Native actress to step up and take the play over. "I don't want to be the grandmother forever playing a woman in her thirties," Diane explained.

In 1941, Elizabeth Peratrovich moved from the tiny Tlingit village of Klawock to Juneau with her husband Roy. There, she was surprised and deeply hurt to find signs, such as this one depicted outside "Mel's Diner," that banned Natives from certain establishments. These are the actual words that Elizabeth found herself confronted with - and such signs were common in Alaska cities, from Juneau to Fairbanks to Nome.

Elizabeth was the Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood and Roy the Grand President of the Alaska Native Brotherhood. They teamed up to lead the fight for civil rights for Alaska Natives in Juneau, the territorial capital.

The US entered World War II and a higher per-capita percentage of Alaska Natives and American Indians entered the military to fight the Axis then did any other racial group. 

To make a statement, Elizabeth the "No Native or Dogs" moved the sign from in front of the diner to the recruitment office.

Elizabeth and Roy allied themselves with Governor Ernest Gruening, who expressed revulsion when they showed him what kind of discrimination Alaska Natives had to face. Along with allies in the Territorial Legislature, they helped draft an anti-discrimination bill. The effort took years, but finally Alaska's Anti-Discrimination Act came before the legislature in February, 1945.

The Act passed in the House, but ran into stiff opposition in the Senate.

"Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites, with 5,000 years of recorded civilization?" mocked Juneau Senator Allen Shattuck.

Another Senator proclaimed that he should not be forced to sit in a theatre alongside an Eskimo, because the Eskimo smelled.

It was after that, in the moment depicted above, that the spirit of Elizabeth Peratrovich raised its hand. Her right to speak was honored. She stepped before the Senate.

Standing between the American and Alaska flags and the traditional clan blanket that Identified Elizabeth as a Lukaax.adi clan of the Raven moiety, Diane recites the speech that the ANS Grand Camp president delivered that day.

"I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentleman with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights. When my husband and I came to Juneau and sought a home in a nice neighborhood where our children could play happily with our neighbors' children, we found such a house and arranged to lease it. When the owners learned that we were Indians, they said 'no.' Would we be compelled to live in the slums?...

"There are three kinds of persons who practice discrimination. First, the politician who wants to maintain an inferior minority group so that he can always promise them something. Second, the Mr. and Mrs. Jones who aren't quite sure of their social position and who are nice to you on one occasion, and can't see you on others depending on who they are with. Third, the great superman who believes in the superiority of the white race..."

Shattuck challenged her. He asked if the act of passing the bill would actually end discrimination.

"Do your laws against larceny and even murder prevent those crimes? No law will eliminate crimes but at least you as legislators can assert to the world that you recognize the evil of the present situation and speak your intent to help us overcome discrimination."

Peratrovich finished to silence - and then loud applause. The Act passed, 11- 5: 19 years before the US Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964.

After the play, Diane sat down to take questions, but was interrupted by Tony Vita, who presented her with a plaque from Roy Peratrovich, Jr. Her emotion showed.

If you would like to read what Roy Jr. wrote, just click this picture.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth Peratrovich died before Alaska became a state in 1959. Diane came along too late to meet her, but as a youth she did get to know Roy. Diane had led a tough life, had been in many foster homes and had experienced abuse, both physical and sexual.

Roy firmly told her not to drop out, but to finish school and make something of her life. She agreed that she would.

Just as Elizabeth predicted, there were those who still discriminated against Natives, despite the act. As a girl, Diane once went into a restaurant in Ketchikan where a waiter refused to serve her.

Her father complained. The waiter was fired. That might not have happened, had no such act been in place. After the play, Diane stressed that racism is still strong in Alaska, and urged all present to continue to fight against it.

Diane is the mother of Latseen Benson, an Army veteran who lost his legs fighting in Iraq. As a past candidate for Congress and before that, for Governor, Benson has strongly stood for the rights of veterans.

In this, she also echoes Elizabeth Peratrovich, who, as ANS President, organized fundraisers and drives to help World War II soldiers of all races, including prisoners of war.

When her son went to war, Diane was helped through the turmoil of all that happened by her cat, Romeo. The story is right here, on the No Cats Allowed Kracker Cat Blog.

Today, part 2: We get ashed by Mt. Redoubt

Melanie, wearing her ash mask in the parking lot of the Arts building at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

When I left Wasilla for Anchorage, the sky was clean and pure, deep, blue, the mountains gleaming stark and white against it. I thought about taking some pictures, but I had already taken quite a few pictures today and I expected to take several more at the play.

I did not want to spend the time editing and processing the white mountains against the clean blue sky pictures, since that is not an uncommon scene around here.

Now, I wish I had taken those pictures, just to show the contrast. It happened so fast. 

As I neared Anchorage, the sky suddenly darkned, the air in front of me became hazy, fine dust - ash - swirled about cars as they drove through it.

Mt. Redoubt has been blowing off and on for days now. The ash has gone here and there, but has always missed us.

Now, all of sudden, it had hit us. 

Or at least Anchorage. I did not know if it had hit Wasilla.

The tower at Merrill Field. No planes were flying.

I wanted it to stop, all right. I hate to breathe this stuff. Imagine glass ground to the consistency of powdered sugar. That's what ash tends to be like. It hurts to breathe the stuff.

Flags near Merrill Field.

I did not want to drive the car through it, either. Ash is not good for cars. I hope my filters all did their job. Better replace them soon.

When I got back to Wasilla, it was even worse.

It was simply awful in Wasilla. In some zones, almost like a blizzard.

I had no choice but to breathe the stuff.

Jacob and Lavina reached the house at the same time I did. They had been out shopping. They reported that when they stepped out of Fred Meyer's, they got struck in the face by tiny rocks falling from the sky.

That must have been one hell of a boom.

If this keeps up, I am going to have to get some masks for Margie and me.