Jobe's stepping out party, part 2: The bearded, hairy, man appears and he is shorn

Not long after Margie and I had arrived to celebrate Jobe's first steps at his stepping out party, another vehicle pulled in. A stranger got out and started walking to the door. Inside, we were all very frightened because this stranger did not even ring the doorbell, he just opened the door and walked into the house.

Who could it be?

As the stranger reached the baby barrier at the top of the stairs, we could all see something oddly familiar in his appearance.

Was this man someone known to Ashley, Kalib and Jobe's little cousin who you will learn a bit more about in a future part?

No. Ashley was as puzzled by his appearance as we were.

The stranger moved to the couch. Jobe sure as hell did not recognize him.

"Who the hell are you?" Jobe asked. We were all very impressed and proud. Not only had Jobe just taken his first steps, he had uttered his first cuss word - and in the context of a fully formed sentence!

Jobe is pretty good at identifying people by the feel of their teeth. He reached out and placed his fingers inside the man's mouth so that he could get a good feel of the teeth.

"By hell!" Jobe shouted silently. "I recognize these teeth! It's Uncle Rex!"

By hell, it was. Rex - looking as we had not seen him look in a very long time. In fact, we had never seen him look quite this way, for he has changed a bit since last he was last clean shaven and his hair cut. Given his stubble, I thought perhaps he had already begun to regrow his beard.

"No," he said. "I shaved just two days ago. I don't want to shave every day, but I'm not growing it back."

Me - it's been close to three decades since I last shaved.

I found shaving to be a terrible and annoying waste of time.

It's snowing today, btw. Margie stayed in Anchorage to babysit Jobe and she says it is snowing pretty heavy there - a few inches so far. It is a light snow here. Maybe a quarter of an inch since breakfast.

This entire winter, we did not get a single really good snowstorm here. Just a few little ones.

I doubt that we will now, either. It would be fun, though, if we did - but not until after I go into town tonight to pick up Margie, among other things.

Here is Rex with his beard and long hair.

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Jobe's stepping out party, part 1: Jobe takes a very short walk

After getting thrown off-track Saturday, yesterday I was steaming toward the conclusion of the preliminary portion of a project that will probably take me another year or two to complete and I did not want to stop. I did not want to be interrupted for anything. It is critically important to me that I get this preliminary portion done. Once done, except to show it to maybe two or three people in search of advice, I will stick it aside for the next six months or so and then hopefully bear down into it next fall, when the light of day once again becomes but a small thing.

So I did not want to stop and drive to Anchorage.

But... I had received a text from Lavina telling me that Jobe had taken his first steps. They had not been big steps, they had been little steps - but they were steps. I was kind of hoping that his parents might bring him out and let him spend the weekend walking about our house - which is a very good house for babies to learn to walk in.

But they are leaving on a trip to Arizona in less than a week and they had too much to do.

Margie was going crazy with thwarted grandchild desire and I really wanted to see my little man walk.

So, at 6:00 PM, I forced myself to step away from my computer and off Margie and I drove, for Anchorage, to take part in an informal party to celebrate Jobe's first steps. All the family, except for Caleb, would be there.

Shortly after we entered the house, Margie snapped up her youngest grandson and I took a seat on the couch.

That could have been it right there. She could have just held him and held him and held him, because that's how Margie is when it comes to her grandsons.

But Jobe spotted me.

"Come and walk to Grandpa!" I said.

He wanted to do it. You can see it in his eyes. Not even Gramma's embrace could stop him now.

She sets him on the floor. I have to push Muzzy away with my foot, because Muzzy wants to be at the center of things and if he is, Jobe will not be able to walk. Muzzy will knock Jobe on his butt.

Jobe is fired up and ready to go.

"C'mon, Jobe!" I encourage. "Walk to me!"

Jobe begins to walk. "That's my little man! Walk to grandpa!" As you can see, he is doing so, but he is a little bit shaky and has to think about it a bit.

"I'm ready now, Grandpa!" his eyes tell me. "I'm coming Grandpa!"

He wobbles a little bit. His grandma quickly extends a hand. "No! No!" I say to Grandma. "You can't help him! He can do it!"

"Margie! He's got to walk to me on his own! He can do it."

Margie lets go but just barely. "That's my little man! Just a couple more steps!" I encourage.

He plunge-steps forward, goes into a dive that puts his hand in mine.

He makes it to grandpa!

Oh, happy day! When my Jobe walked! Just a tiny bit, but he walked. Oh, happy day!

Margie sits down beside me. Muzzy steps into the background, dejected, because Muzzy wanted all the attention to be focused on him.

Life can be real tough for a dog who must live with babies.

Now, here is the dilemma I face. I took lots of pictures at that party. This is only from a tiny segment, from the first few pictures that I shot after we entered the house. But if I try to include everything, I will be sitting here for a couple of hours yet and I don't have the time. Plus, when I get done, the post will be so full of pictures that they will blow the screens right off the monitors of my readers.

I figure Jobe's first walk with grandpa is big enough and important enough to make this post about that walk and nothing else. But I still want to present some of the other material, so I will make Jobe's stepping out party a multi-parter.

I don't know how many other parts there will be. Maybe tomorrow I will decide to wrap the remainder up in one post. Maybe I will break it down into three or four more posts - and don't forget, I still have a very fun series of Metro Cafe studies waiting in the queue that I MUST post.

And even though I have put Kivgiq on hold until after I do a Kivgiq Uiñiq, there is a series of a Mormon missionary who spontaneously broke into dance at Kivgiq, contrary to Mormon Missionary rules, I suspect, that is so good and hits so close to my personal history that I must show it, but there probably won't be space for it in Uiñiq. So I have decided to run it here, ahead of the Uiñiq, too.

So I've got lots of backlog stuff that I must yet get in here before I go traveling again - and I will go traveling again soon.

But anyway, I will complete this party.

Here are some potential titles for the remaining parts:

Kalib wields a big knife and cooks Cajun

Cowboy cousin Ashley rides a furry bronc

Clean cut, short-haired Rex

Aunts go wild at the celebration

Coming to and from the party: Cop stops galore!

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Woman pushes a baby past church

I did visit Larry again yesterday, and was there when his parents and other family and friends also came by. I do have a little series of pictures to post, but my time has been distracted today by many annoying little tasks that had to be done and now I have no time to make that post.

So, instead, just to put up something, I post this one picture that I took after I left the hospital and began the drive home. As you can see, it is of a woman pushing a baby in a stroller past a church. I will post the series of Larry, family and friends tomorrow.

As the past few days had been, it was very warm, with temperatures well into the 40's F.

But I had the radio on and they said the forecast was for 5 to seven inches of snow overnight.

I wonder if Anchorage got it?

Out here, we got perhaps less than two inches.

I noticed on the news last night that Anchorage's record low for the date was - 19 F, so out here in this neighborhood it would probably be a good ten degrees colder than that - as it would be in the colder parts of Anchorage.

But right now, such temperatures feel impossible. Despite the new snow, it feels like winter is over.

Yet, even in southcentral, one should never fullly trust such feelings this time of year.

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On my way to see Larry Aiken's miracle smile, I saw many other things

 

I had thought that I might wait a day or two or three to go back to town and see Larry. His pre-surgery prognosis was that afterward he would be in ICU for two weeks, would not be able to talk and for most of that time would not even be able to recognize the people who came to see him.

Then, close to 5:00 PM when I was pedaling my bicycle from Metro Cafe, where I shot a nice little series of studies that I will share with you later, my cell rang. I stopped my bike, pulled out my iPhone and the saw the name "Larry Aiken" on the screen.

I knew it could not be Larry and that it was probably his cousin, Percy. Sure enough, it was.

I was kind of scared.

Then Percy told me the surgery had gone extremely well, better than anyone had even dared to anticipate. Instead of moving Larry into ICU, the doctors sent put him on the Fourth Floor. Not only was he conscious and aware of his surroundings, but he could talk. Percy put Larry on. 

I was surprised at how strong his voice sounded.

I told them I would come in, somewhere between 8:00 and 9:00. Percy said that would be good, that Larry would be pretty groggy but would know I was there.

So I finished a couple of small tasks, took a shower, ate dinner and hit the road about 7:30.

There were mountains in front of me, but I could go around them, easy enough.

I saw a lady who I do not think was very happy.

I saw soldiers, marching across an overpass. I wondered if any or all of them had been to Iraq or Afghanistan, or if not, might yet go.

The odds seemed pretty high. Fort Richardson has sent many soldiers into battle.

Just before I left home, Margie had the news on and I was a little startled to see coverage on a book signing that was at that moment taking place at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. It was for the newly published Epicenter book, Eskimo Star - From the Tundra to Tinseltown: The Ray Mala Story, authored by Lael Morgan. 

Ray Mala was the first Native American international film star and first gained his fame in the film, Eskimo. Along with Igloo and Last of the Pagans, it is being featured in the Mala Film Festival at the Bear Tooth this evening.

When I entered the museum, I saw the star's son, Dr. Ted Mala, grandchildren Ted Jr. and Galena being photographed by Rob Stapleton. 

Dr. Mala practices both western and traditional Iñupiaq medicine and is director of the South Central Foundation, supplier of health care to Alaska Natives and American Indians in this part of Alaska.

Mala's wife, Emma, joined her family for a Rob Stapleton shot.

I took advantage of the situation and shot a family portrait myself.

Rob with Ted Jr. Rob is one of Alaska's more outstanding photographers and he is a friend. It would take a signficant amount of space for me to adequately relate all the ways he helped me and my family make it through our early struggling days in Alaska.

He is also a pilot and an aviation and ultralight aircraft enthusiast.

Lael Morgan signing copies of her book. Lael began her career as a journalist who came to Alaska by sailboat a few decades back and then roamed the entire state. She is the author of Art and Eskimo Power: - the life and Times of Howard Rock and Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, about the prostitutes who took care of the lonely and desperate men who roamed the north at that time.

Along with Kent Sturgis, she founded Seattle based Epicenter Press and, beginning with the best-seller Two Old Women by Gwich'in author Velma Wallis, they have had several good success stories.

I believe Epicenter was the first of the two dozen or so publishing houses that I tried to interest in the work that became my book, Gift of the Whale: the Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt, A Sacred Tradition. She took a good look at it, told me was very impressive but that if Epicenter published it, "we would be bombed by Greenpeace."

Still, it is not impossible that we could publish a book together in the future. I don't know what the odds of it happening are - ten percent, maybe?

I would have liked to have hung around and talked to Lael, Dr. Mala, Rob and others, but I was in hurry to get to ANMC and see Larry, so I headed for the door.

As I neared it, I came upon Vic Fischer, who was a State Senator when I first met him almost 30 years ago. Before that, he served in the Territorial Legislature and was a delegate to Alaska's constitutional convention. He has remained active in Alaska's political and cultural life and I am pleased to say that whenever I read an editorial that he has written, I tend to agree with him.

He has deflated some absurd nonsense and claptrap in this state, but the purveyors of it have gone on purveying nonsense and claptrap, anyway.

Just as I was about to go through the door and back to my car, I saw that Rob had just got done taking a picture of Elmer, the Yup'ik actor, Galena, and Ossie, Yup'ik musician, poet and actor. They looked altogether too beautiful for me to pass by without taking at least a snap myself, so I did.

Then I stepped through the door and saw a face I had not seen in at least ten years, maybe more: Tom Richards, Native journalist and activist who worked with Howard Rock at the Tundra Times before I showed up.

Can you feel the Alaska history that I passed by in just a few minutes time? One day, my friends, one day... I will figure out how to make this blog and my as yet-to-be created online magazine work and then the stories that I will track down...

I will never get them all. There are too many, and all the authors and photographers and bloggers and facebookers and whoever that are working in Alaska combined to tell stories of this place can never tell them all.

But I will tell a few of them.

A very few. But even that will be something.

Remember... Larry was expected to in ICU, suffering, so heavily sedated that he would not even recognize me if he saw me at all.

This is how I found him - smiling big, and talking in the strongest, deepest, voice that I have heard come out of him for a long time. The terrible pains that have kept him awake at night had eased off.

What happened was a miracle, he told me. And this why he believes that miracle happened: his physican, a woman from Phoenix whose name he could not recall but I will add in later, was not only skilled, but before she operated on him, she prayed, and asked for help. In Barrow, about 20 members of Barrow's Volunteer Search Rescue got together before his surgery, prayed, and sang, "Amazing Grace."

The night before, right after I left, a man came and prayed for him and when he raised his hand Larry says he felt a strong power. There were all the people who had sung for him the night before - and so many who had prayed.

Larry invited me to take this picture so that he could express his thanks to all those who have prayed for him and helped him in anyway. You are too numerous to name, but you know who you are.

Larry said many visitors had already come by. While I was there, he was visited by Harry Ahngasuk and his wife, Sarah Neakok-Ahngasuk of Barrow. That's his cousin, Percy, on the right. Percy has been with him the whole time.

For me, these past several months have been rough - very rough.

But when I visited Larry last night, I just felt joy. Pure joy. I felt so glad. So, very, very happy.

It was excellent to see his story take such a positive turn.

At about 10:30 PM, I left Larry and his guests, stopped to chat in the parking lot with a lady from Anaktuvuk Pass and then drove home. As I came down Lucille Street in Wasilla, I saw that the police K-9 unit was active. Someone was not having a very good time. I know nothing beyond that.

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On the night before his surgery, Larry Aiken joins in a singspiration at the Alaska Native hospital

As I write these words, my friend, Larry Aiken, Iñupiaq whaler and artist of Barrow, is undergoing a six to eight hour surgical procedure to remove a radiation and chemo-killed cancer tumor that extends from his throat through his esophagus into his stomach. The surgery is extremely complex and a specialist has come up from Phoenix, Arizona, to assist.

Last night, I drove into town to visit Larry and when I went in to see him, I left my camera in my car, thinking that we would just have a quiet visit, I would wish him my best, we might share a prayer and then I would go home and leave him to the surgeons.

Indeed, that is just how the first hour of our visit went. For the past couple of weeks, since the second scheduled surgery had to be postponed due to a throat infection, Larry has been staying at the Quyana House, which is attached to the Alaska Native Medical Center hospital. 

It is a short walk down the hall from there to the reception area and foyer of the hospital, where music was being performed. So we walked down to the foyer, to see who we might see and listen to all who would sing and perform. Paul Wilson, a well-known Iñupiaq gospel singer originally from Kotzebue but now living in Anchorage, was leading the singing.

Among the other singers was Ada Lynn Negovanna, originally of Wainwright, and her 15 year-old son, Tagalak Negovanna. So I went back to the car and retrieved my camera.

That's Paul in the background with the guitar, Ada to the left of Larry, Sarah, also of Barrow to his right and Tagalak sitting at the right.

As Paul sings and another patient or guest at the hospital raises his arms to feel the spirit, Larry explains his tumor and the surgery that he faces to Ada and Sarah.

After his surgery, Larry is expected to remain in intensive care for about two weeks. He will have a feeding tube down his throat and will not be able to speak. For most of that time, he told me, he will not be able to recognize any who might come to see him, due to the effects of the medications he must take to get through this.

Ada joins in the singing.

Tagalak, Larry, Ada and Sarah. Many songs were sung, such as Arigaa, Tell Me Why You Love, Jesus, How Great Thou Art and several others.

The spirit and feelings were strong in this room.

In the singing, one feels both joy and pain.

As all humans must, all present have known the horrific pain of deep loss, but in getting together to sing in this place where so many come both to heal and to die, they share it - among themselves, and with any stranger who might happen to wonder into the room.

And in the sharing, and reaching out to faith and belief in beyond, there is comfort to be found.

Along with Sarah, Larry lifts his right hand to feel the spirit.

As anyone would, he has felt a great deal of fear as this day has approached. He has gone many nights with little or no sleep.

"I am ready for my surgery now," he says, when the song ends.

On her Facebook page, Ada has posted a video of her and Paul singing.

Larry then returns to Quyana house, where another visitor, Leo Kaleak, who has hunted with Larry in the crew of George Adams, comes to visit him, and to share whaling stories.

Up in Barrow, the whalers are getting ready. They are cutting trail through ice that this year is very rough, with pressure ridges that I am told reach as high as 60 feet. The other night, Larry's captain called him to seek a little advice on stocking and organizing the camp.

The CD's that Larry holds were made by Ada and Tagalak. I have one of them, too. Later, I will see if I can add a song or two from that CD to this post. This is something that I have not yet done, but, hopefully, it will be easy to do.*

*Okay - I downloaded the CD into iTunes, but have so far been unable to find a way to upload a tune to here.

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