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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I take a blurry iPhone photo of Melanie and Charlie and see the impression of Mom; Little Miss Vaidehi: Eight studies

In midafternoon, I received a call from Charlie's cell phone, but after I answered, "Hello Charlie," I got this response:

"It's me, Melanie."

And indeed, it was. The two were just driving out of Anchorage with Charlie at the wheel, headed for Vagabond Blues in Palmer. Melanie asked if Margie and I wanted to come to Palmer and join them for coffee.

I said, "sure," but I could not get Margie to leave the house so I would have to go by myself.

I took a shower first, and then suddenly discovered that I was going to leave later than I intended.

I rushed out of the house and when I got to Vagabond, was shocked to discover that I had forgotten my camera.

This left me with only my iPhone, the lens of which is hopelessly smudged.

That was okay. I would go for the impressionistic effect.

Boy. When I look at Melanie in this blurred picture, the impression that I get is of my mom. Physically speaking, Mom really seeped through me into Melanie.

But Mom would have never joined any of us for coffee. The thought that we were even drinking coffee would have broken her heart.

As it happened, in the end, although she never saw me take a sip of coffee, her dedicated Mormon heart was thoroughly broken anyway and that broken heart took both her life and Dad's thereafter.

Afterward, Melanie rode with me back to Wasilla and Charlie joined us here. We ate Spam chunks for dinner, mixed with rice and veggies. It was pretty good.

Then Jim and Charlie hung out for awhile.

Chennai, India: Eight studies of Little Miss Vaidehi

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 1: With my lens cap

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 2: With her mom, Vidya

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 3: With her keyboard

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 4: She reaches for the ball

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 5: From the arms of her father, Vijay, she marvels at the girl in the mirror

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 6: With her Auntie Mel from Alaska

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 7: With her grandmother, Vasanthi

Little Miss Vaidehi, Study # 1: With her dad, Vijay

To anyone who would like to see a more contemporary version of Vaidehi on YouTube, as recorded by Vijay, here you can find her laughing or singing.

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Finally, last Sunday with kids and grandkids, abruptly remembered; jail house romance wrongly credited, near miss

Folks, I feel very abrupt today. For many reasons which I will not delve into, save to note that this damn computer, which has served me so well these past three or four years, seems to be getting ready to fail and it is wasting a lot of my time. This post should have been completed an hour ago.

So I am going to be abrupt today.

Sunday, however, was a good day. 

So I will return to Sunday, and will abruptly tell you how Jobe sat down and the waiter came...

Oh, hell... why should I tell you at all?

Look at the picture! You can see for yourself!

There were adults at the table, too. I was there, as well.

When you are little, you are as aware of the bottom of the table as you are the top.

Honk, honk!

At one point, Kalib got up and ran off to another table, being mischievous. He could have got away with it with his dad, but not his Auntie Mel. He had to come back and sit back down.

This is what you call, "sibling rivalry."

After we returned home, Melanie and Charlie tried to get comfortable on the couch. Kalib whipped them with a blanket.

So they got up and danced instead. Kalib played with the voice mail box on the phone. The first message was, "no new messages." So Kalib made it go, "no! no! no! no new. no! no! no new messages." Kind of like a disk dj. 

Then he got into a message left awhile back that I have not bothered to erase.

A gruff but happy sounding voice comes on talking to me, Bill Hess, saying I will know right away who he is and he leaves a number and tells me to get back to him.

I did not know who he was and there was something about the familiarity of the message coming from a voice that I did not recognize at all that put me on a bit of an edge, so I never called back.

Then one day he called back and got me. Turns out, he had spent time in jail in Palmer with a Bill Hess who was not this Bill Hess and that Bill Hess had somehow introduced him to the woman who became his wife and when he saw that this Bill Hess lives in Wasilla he thought it must be the same Bill Hess and so he was just calling to let that Bill Hess who wasn't me know how great everything had worked out with his marriage and to thank that Bill Hess for bringing the two together.

Sorry, I said. Wrong Bill Hess. I haven't been in jail since I got out of Juarez in November of 1969, just in time to eat Thanksgiving dinner in a casino in Las Vegas.

I don't know why we even bother to keep this phone anymore. Everybody calls us on our cells phones. Except for people wanting money, and folks who think they did time with me.

Then Melanie danced with Kalib, who seemed to enjoy it.

Kalib takes a break.

Caleb watched the NFL playoffs.

Lisa talked to Bryce on the phone.

At 4:00 PM, a bunch of us went out to get coffee. Metro is closed on Sunday so we went to the place at the corner of Fishhook and Seldon. As we waited for our coffee, we saw an exchange being made. Money for pizza. 

Now, there are two things notable about this picture. It is 4:00 PM and look how much light is in the sky! The long nights are in rapid retreat.

Also, the temperature stood at about -10 F (-23 C) but no real snow on the ground. Just ice and a hard crust.

Lisa and Jobe, back at the house.

After we returned home, Kalib laid his spatula upon the floor and ran circles around it. 

As always happens, it was soon time for them all to go. Lisa and Kalib head out the door.

Melanie and Kalib walk to the car.

They backed out and then, with their headlights shining through their frozen exhaust, began the drive back to Anchorage, where they would drop Kalib and Jobe off with their parents.

"It sure is quiet in here," Margie noted, after they had been gone awhile. 

I had not seen Chicago since Kalib and Jobe had arrived. Now that they had left, she came back out. 

Quiet is how Chicago likes it.

And this one from India:

This is what it is like riding on the Indian highways. Constantly. While it is exhilarating to a certain degree and on the surface seems to carry a bit of romance, it is deadly. And once that deadliness catches up to you it is awful and that, more than all the other reasons combined, is why I feel so abrupt today.

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Charlie: Two studies; bubbles in the Indian wind

Those who visited this blog yesterday know that I posted only the first image that I shot from a day that was spent with Kalib, Jobe, Lisa, Melanie, Charlie, Caleb and Margie. Since then, I have been debating with myself as to whether or not I should go ahead and post a series of photos from that day or just move on to other topics - as I do have many items backing up, including Junipurr's scary fight for life and a Metro Cafe event where I found myself warmly engulfed by a horde of beautiful women.

I decided to post and I have now spent at least an hour-and-a-half preparing the photos for that post, but I can't afford to spend anymore time at it.

So, I will save it all for tomorrow, except for these two academic studies of Charlie:

Charlie Study, #3982: Charlie sitting on a chair, caught by window light

Charlie Study, #67692: Charlie, caught by headlights, as he prepares to drive from Wasilla to Anchorage

But I must also include one from India:

After we passed the elephants, Anil and Melanie made bubbles in the wind.

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