To get out and take a walk

Regular readers know that I am a person who likes to get out and do something outside every day, whether it is to ride my bike, walk, cross-country ski, canoe, or whatever. I have not canoed or cross-country skied since I shattered my shoulder and got an artificial one in June of 2008 and I have only ridden my bike twice since the snow settled in.

With a shoulder like this, I am just afraid to fall. Even so I had thought that this would be a good week to finally dig my skis back out and see what I could do with them.

But so far I haven't done it and right now I don't feel like I am going to.

I have not even been able to make myself take my usual walks. Up until yesterday, I had not taken a single walk since the one that I took in Barrow immediately after I learned of the death of Soundarya.

We have so few hours of daylight this time of year and the sun never does rise very high over the mountains, so after I returned from Barrow I thought that I would walk, bike ride or ski every day right at high noon, when the low sun is at its highest, to get the most out of it that I can.

But everyday, high noon has come and gone and I have been lethargic and have stayed inside.

Yesterday, I decided, I would finally go. It was time to pull myself out into the cold and go.

But high noon came, and high noon went and I did not leave this house.

Then, a little after 3:00 PM, I decided I had to break out and go.

Without even thinking about it, I put on a light jacket and stepped outside.

The sun had already set, but still, I was outside and the alpenglow was beautiful upon the Talkeetnas. It was time to walk.

One thing about Alaska that is different than in the mid and low latitudes is that even after the sun sets, twilight lingers for a long time. In India, when the sun goes down, it gets dark, just like that.

Here, the light lingers long past sunset.

Of course, compared to Barrow, our days right now in Wasilla are long and sunny, and a thought struck me about that.

As you know, I was in Barrow on November 18 when the sun rose and set at practically the same moment and then disappeared until late January. It was just a couple of days after that Anil died in the car crash that also took Nick Hill and then one more day before Sandy followed.

I think that perhaps for this season, I have no choice but to live anywhere but in the dim light of winter's dark day until the sun returns in late January.

It is after the sun rises again that the most bitterly cold weather sets in - but the spring always follows. The ice breaks open, the whales return and then soon it is summer.

This is what I have been telling myself.

I can't remember precisely when - more than a year ago, I am certain - but I came upon this dog at this same corner, Seldon and Tamar. The dog was right in the middle of traffic on very busy Seldon, not understanding, and drivers had to both dodge and hit their brakes to avoid striking it.

I did not think this dog's prospects to be very good - but here it is, still living in unleashed terror on the corner of Seldon and Tamar.

By the time I reached home, I was damn near frozen. I wondered what had gotten into me to take off with only a light jacket, no hat, no gloves. So I warmed the car up, climbed in and headed to Metro Cafe to get a hot cup.

I found Carmen, talking on the phone to Scot, who is going through the final stages of his radiation and chemo therapy and then it will just be a matter of waiting for a couple of months to learn if the treatment did the job it is supposed to do.

Scot was in his shop, where I had never been. Carmen handed me the phone, he told me how to get to the shop and so, after I had driven around long enough to finish my coffee and cinnamon roll and to hear some news, I stopped by.

Oh, my! I found Scot working on a once-scorched 1959 Corvette that he has been restoring for seven years... or was it nine...? I didn't take notes.

It is red and white and beautiful beyond belief. It filled me with love and longing just to look at it. I had left my camera in the car, but Scot said that was okay - he wants me to wait until he gets it done, until Carmen and Branson can ride in it, to photograph it.

So I will wait - but I will tell you right now, it is a thing of beauty.

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A cold wind blows and life just rolls along

As they say, no matter what happens, life just keeps rolling along. It's true. If you don't believe it, all you need to do is to glance into your rearview mirror. There you will see that people continue to smile, to laugh, and to drive big pickup trucks under the low high-noon sun of a chill, windy, day.

As for Margie and me, we need to eat and there was not much food in the refrigerator, or the cupboards, either. So we set out for the store, to do some grocery shopping. Yet, we were hungry right now, so we by-passed the grocery store and continued on toward Taco Bell, where we ate lightly - a bean burrito for Margie, an original crunchy taco for me, plus a small Pepsi and a Diet Pepsi for her.

Of all the fast food joints, Taco Bell is the best for eating lightly. Several years ago, I decided that I needed to lose 15 or 20 pounds and so I went on a diet that included lunch at Taco Bell, just about every day. Even when one loses weight, one must enjoy life.

It worked, too. In about three months, I met my goal.

Some of that weight has come back, but not all of it.

Once we had eaten, it was time to go to the grocery store. Along the way, while stopped for a red light, we saw some kids rolling along in a school bus. They looked trapped to me, prisoners of a system that they did not create but that seems to get us all. They did not look very happy - yet I see that one seems to be smiling a bit.

The driver doesn't look very happy, either.

I really don't like to shop at all - unless its for cameras, computers, airplanes, canoes, guns and things like that, that I can never afford to buy anyway. So I dropped Margie off at Carr's and then headed over to the Post Office to check the mail.

I parked by this car and went inside.

We got a credit card bill and an Aperture magazine. A day has now passed and I have yet to remove Aperture from its protective cover and even to glance at the cover.

In the past, I would tear these magazines open right away and, at first opportunity, spend an hour or two - sometimes more - just devouring the contents.

Not necessarily devouring the words - because they always manage to write a lot of nonsensical hyperbole in these photographic magazines as they try to explain just what it is or was that put the photographers featured on a different plane, but the photos.

Just the photos - some more than others.

Aperture has never featured any of my photos. That's mighty foolish of them, if you ask me.

Then I went back to Carr's to help Margie finish the shopping. Even so, we forgot to buy frozen raspberries.

I wanted some frozen raspberries.

After we bought the groceries, we returned home. I sat down to my computer to work and accomplished nothing - nothing at all. At the usual time, I headed off to Metro Cafe, to get my 4:00 o'clock cup and listen to NPR.

I pulled up to the window and did not even have to order because Carmen knew. I started to pull out my wallet, but she would not let me. Then she showed me this $5.00 bill and note from Shoshauna. Due to her changed schedule, I now only see Shoshauna on Saturday's, assuming that I can get to Metro before she leaves at 2:45.

Shoshauna was buying my coffee this day - and the next. too.

She reads this blog, too, you know. It was an act of kindness and care on her part.

Thank you, Shauna.

And keep writing.

Just keep writing.

One day, I will buy you a coffee - from one Wasilla writer to another.

I did give Carmen a pumpkin cookie after Thanksgiving.

On the way home, this young bull moose ran into the road in front of me. I saw it well ahead and so it was not a close call. Just another, typical, everyday moment, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska - where I find moments to thrill to the sight of what surrounds me, to smile and to laugh, despite the great sadness that blankets the land and all that it holds.

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Lisa Kelly, Ice Road Trucker and driver of India's most dangerous road, pulls up to Metro Cafe on horseback - followed by CNN

In answer to Saturday's quiz, I was hanging out at Metro Cafe on Friday when I heard someone shout, "horses are coming!"

I stepped out the door and this is what I saw - five women on horseback, coming down the bike trail. One of them, the second one from the left, looked like a truck driver. In fact, she looked like a truck driver who I had seen but a few nights before, on TV, facing terror on a narrow, windy, highway twisting through the Himalaya Mountains in India.

I seldom watch much TV, but this show caught my eye, because I have experienced the deadly madness of the Indian highway - although never in the Himalayas - and also because the truck driver was a beautiful, petite, young woman by the name of Lisa Kelly who lives right here in Wasilla, Alaska.

In fact, what I did not know at the time is that she lives right here, in my own neighborhood.

She gained her fame as one of Alaska's Ice Road Truckers, which has evolved to encompass the Deadliest Roads of all the world.

Now here Lisa was, riding her horse down the bike trail that passes by Metro Cafe.

Would she turn in?

Would she pull her horse right up to the drive through window and order hot chocolate for herself and a biscuit for her horse?

Lisa Kelly did pull in! And here she is, waiting in line at the drive-through with her friends and horses while Nola delivers an order to the customer ahead of her.

Sure enough, the horse ordered a biscuit. "Do we have any horse biscuits?" Nola shouted, "There's a horse at my window who has just ordered a biscuit!"*

Nola found a biscuit and served it to Sky, the horse.

"Damn good!" the horse neighed, after devouring the biscuit. "Now give me that one, too!"** Nola did. The horses behind would also all get their biscuits.

Camera and production people working on contract for CNN were following Lisa. I don't know when, but CNN plan to do a little story in which they follow Lisa as she takes them to her favorite places in Wasilla.

One of those favorite places is Metro Cafe. Another is Fat Boy's Pizza, which sits in the opposite direction from my house.

I bought a pizza there on the day Fat Boy's opened. If Fat Boy's is now one of the favorite places of the famous ice road trucker, Lisa Kelly, they must have figured out how to do it.

Sometime after I get back from my next trip to the Arctic Slope, I will go back and give them another try.

"Wasilla is MY city," she tells the camera people here, "and Metro Cafe is one of my favorite places!"

If one is going to sip on hot chocolate at Metro Cafe, it is more pleasant to sit and sip inside, rather than outside, in the saddle, on horse back.

Lisa... I will not tell you to stay safe out on those roads you drive. That is impossible and would defeat the whole purpose of your adventures. But please, always, do come safely home.

Outside, I had chatted briefly with photographer David A. Van Amber of Mankato, Minnesota. When I asked him who he was working for, he answered, "I'm hers," and nodded toward Linda Kelly.

I inquired a little further, and learned that this meant he was her photographer only, and that she is married.

Inside Metro, in what appeared to be an inside joke, he touched her on the shoulder and then they broke laughing.

Lisa autographs a baseball cap for David.

The cameraman depicts hard-working barista and writer in the making, Shoshana, making a smoothie.

When not out on the ice roads or the Himalayan highways, Lisa says she drops into Metro Cafe about three times a week. Hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls are her favorite.

She likes to come to Metro, she says, because, "sometimes you just want to go to a place where everybody knows your name."

When she said that, for some reason, I began to hear the theme song from Cheers in my head.

And it was a fact - every single person in Metro Cafe knew Lisa Kelly by name.

Lisa and Carmen.

Scott's dad is a truck driver and he drives Kenworth - the same kind of rig that Lisa drives. When he learned that she was a regular at Metro, he asked Scott to be sure to get a photo of Lisa with Carmen and him and send to him.

So, Scott's dad, this is for you.

My printer is broken and I am about to leave to the Far North for a couple of weeks or so, so it will be awhile before I can make a print.

Then I went back outside and to create one of my famous "Through the Metro window" studies with Lisa, Carmen, Scott, Nola and the crew that recorded her visit for CNN. I am afraid I did not get everybody's name, but the fellow at right is Russell J. Weston, of Weston Productions out of Anchorage, who contracted with CNN.

It had been decades since I had last seen him, but I first met him nearly 30 years ago when he was working as a photographer for the Anchorage Times and my family and I were living in two small tents, which we pitched here and there, trying to find a way to survive in Alaska.

There were three newspapers in Anchorage then and so whenever we would run out of money to buy gas for the Volkswagen Rabbit that had transported us from Arizona to Alaska, or food, I would stop in at the different papers.

If they had any extra assignments that staff had been unable to fill, I would take them and then they would pay me $25.00 per published shot.

That's how I met Russell, who is now an independent "An Emmy Award Winner" producer.

He gave his card and it says so right on it.

So here you have it:

Through the Metro Window Study, #3,444,899.23: With Lisa Kelly and CNN

And here is Scott.

Regular readers will recall the post when, after learning that he had cancer, Scott told me that in building Metro Cafe, he had created a stage for Carmen, that it was she who worked the magic that brought the stage and the plays that unfold therein to life.

On this day, another such play had unfolded on the stage that Scott had built for his beautiful and vivacious wife, Carmen.

So here is Scott, alongside the stage that he built.

As for Carmen, when I returned to the drive-through window at 4:00 PM for my regular, we talked a bit about the flurry of activity from earlier in the day.

"It will be very good for Metro Cafe," I assured her.

She remembered when Scott and she had opened the cafe, how much fun it had been and that now, what she wants, more than anything, more than publicity and success in business, is for Scott to get well.

That's it. She wants Scott to be well.

*Sometimes, when a quote cannot be precisely remembered, it must be made up. I am not saying that this is the case here, only that sometimes it happens.

**This is a definite, definite, quote, not made up at all. These are the very words that Sky the horse spoke.

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Finally, I get to see Shoshana again - the Chugach Mountains and the beauty that surrounds us here in Wasilla; kid on four-wheeler in the same place

There is a certain bond between Shoshana and me, and I had not seen her for a full week. I think the bond exists in part because she is a young writer with natural talent who stands right at the threshold of the possibilities before her and I am one with the larger part of my career behind me, but still going, still driving, with many things to do yet.

So, even though our entire contact in life takes place entirely through this window, or, occasionally, across the counter inside, on the average of three or four times a week, if I am not traveling, for total of maybe ten minutes a week, if that much, that is enough time for us to give each other encouragement and we do.

Plus, there are people whom you meet that you just connect with and for me, Shoshana is such a person.

BUT - Shoshana is on a new schedule. On the days that she does not go to school, she comes in early in the morning and she leaves somewhere around 1:30 or 2:00 PM - well before I come in to get my cup at 4:00 PM.

So I had not seen her all week, and I had missed her. "Shoshana misses seeing you!" Carmen* told me Friday. "Saturday she works until 2:45. Promise me that you will come before that, so she can see you."

It would throw my schedule off a bit, but schedules are one thing - friendships are another. And I wanted to see her. On Saturday, I pulled up to the Metro window at about 2:30. When she spotted me, Shoshana began to jump up and down, waving, shouting out in a glad voice and Carmen did, too. The customer in the background seemed very amused by it all.

We were happy to see each other. It felt good to be greeted like that.

See you next Saturday, Shoshana. Same time, same place.

And keep writing, talented young friend.

So I headed home, sipping the Americano that Shoshana had prepared for me, listening to Garrison Keillor, since it was too early for the news.

On the last leg of the drive, I came down Seldon, toward where the Chugach Mountains tumble off to the east.

My normal practice would just be to shoot a few frames through the window as I drove on, listening to the news. But the news was not on. So I stopped, got out of the car, put the 100-400 zoom on my camera and shot a few frames.

Over the past couple of years, I have often heard or read disparaging things about the little community in which I live. I have traveled Outside and have had many people cast judgment upon me, just because I live in Wasilla.

But... my friends... this is what living in Wasilla means to me.

Whatever absurdities may sometimes happen down in this valley, however mocking of the land much of the development might be, we are still surrounded by beauty here - 100 percent of the time. It is always there. Day and night. Beauty! It never goes away. We know it, we feel it.

And when you go beyond the beauty that your eye can see from here, guess what you find?

Alaska. More and more of Alaska, reaching out, stretching ever further beyond in all its wild magnificence. More often than not, it is very difficult to get to and get into, but every inch of it is beautiful to the most exquisite degree.

Even when we can't see it, we feel it.

So take that, Maureen Dowd!

I have been to your New York City and I love it, cherish it, find wonder and amazement in it and the pretzels there were once the best in the world, but you will never find anything like this in New York City.

No, no, no! Nothing at all!

It does not exist there.

But it exists here.

In Wasilla, Alaska.

I still needed to listen to the 4:00 o'clock news - All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, but I had already drunk my coffee.

"Well," Margie said, "we could go get some lunch and sit in the car and eat it and listen to the news."

So we did, I heard the news. For the most part, it was not good. I still enjoyed it.

On the way home, as we came down Seldon, right at the very place where I had taken the pictures of the Chugach, I saw this kid on this small-wheeled four-wheeler.

*As should be clear to all regular readers, I also share a bond with Carmen and when I do not find her at Metro, I miss seeing her, too.

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Margie votes; new barista at Metro; my daughters and Charlie join me to visit Ethan Berkowitz, Diane Benson and Scott McAdams; Larry Aiken

Thank you, Margie, for voting. Our candidates lost, all the way across the ballot. But damn, they were the right candidates to vote for and you stood strong for them. It was a pleasure to go to the ballot box with you.

Let's do it again next time.

We cast our ballots during our afternoon coffee break - which, naturally, took us to Metro Cafe. Carmen has a new barista there, by the name of Elizabeth.

Don't worry - Shoshana is still there. Carmen told me that Shoshana had been working hard since very early in the morning, serving all the voters who swung by. Her shift had ended before we got there.

Congratulations on your new job, Elizabeth.

For some reason, you appear a little angelic in this image.

Diane Benson had called me earlier in the day to invite us to what we all hoped would be the Berkowitz/Benson gubernatorial victory party. So come evening, I headed over to the Snow Goose, where I thought she had said the party was going to be held.

At the goose, I found Joe Miller signs and supporters everywhere, but not a one for Berkowitz and Benson. It seemed very odd to me that both campaigns would be celebrating in the same building, but as long as I was there, I asked a Snow Goose employee if by chance the Berkowitz party was also there.

He did not even know who Ethan Berkowitz was.

"You might look upstairs," he said. "Maybe he's up there."

I left, then went outside, pulled out my iPhone and began to see if I could track down the real location.

Soon, I got a text from Lisa. She, Melanie and Charlie were at the Snow Goose, surrounded by Miller people. So I went back and we got together.

We decided to walk down to Snow City Cafe, and see if maybe the party was there.

So here we are at Snow City and, as you can see, it is bustling. There is a party going on. It looks like the kind of party a candidate for governor would throw.

But where is Diane? Where is Ethan?

Here's Diane's son, Latseen, inside Snow City, standing and talking to Tony Vita, Diane's special friend and the man who has in so many ways served as father to him.

"Standing..."

How good it is to see Latseen standing, looking strong and fit.

For those who do not know, Latseen lost both legs to an IED in Iraq.

Here they are, Ethan, Diane and supporters, inside Snow City. For anyone who might not know, that's Ethan Berkowitz at left. The fellow on Diane's right is Jeff Silverman, the filmmaker and producer with whom she did the Elizabeth Peratrovich documentary, For the Rights of All - Ending Jim Crow in Alaska, about the Native struggle for civil rights in Alaska.

That's Nellie Moore to the left. Melanie and Lisa were very happy to meet and talk to her. Nellie is a well known and highly respected public radio journalist and commentator in Alaska, and played an instrumental roll in making National Native News a hit in Indian Country nationwide.

We decided to run over and pay a visit to the McAdams for Senate camp. When we arrived, I was surprised to see that the very first person to greet us was Angela Cox, who readers will recall from the Anaktuvuk Pass wedding of B-III Hopson and Rainey Higbee - Angela's sister.

Angela has been an active campaigner for McAdams and joined a group of other Native youth in making a video promoting his candidacy - and she has been taking an active role in many Native leadership activities, encompassing both tribes and corporations.

I think that she is someone who we will all hear from in the future.

Just a couple of months ago, Scott McAdams was a name that few people knew, even in Alaska. In recent weeks, his name, face and message have become known all across the nation. He has been sought out for interviews by all the major news and propaganda media and, unlike some who have tried to hide and avoid any media that might be all unfriendly, he had the guts to be interviewed even by the biggest and most potent propaganda machine that the world has ever seen - Fox News. 

Part of his message had always been that, "despite the odds, we will win this."

At this moment when he stepped before supporters who had gathered in the hope of hearing a victory speech, the numbers had become clear. He would not win this race.

Before speaking, he paused for a bit, but when he did speak, he did so with strength and eloquence.

He promised those gathered that, whatever the final numbers might be, what they had begun with his campaign would carry on into the future, that a new movement had been born and it is a force to be reckoned with in the future.

Supporters listen to Scott McAdams.

In turn, Melanie and Lisa congratulated McAdams for a campaign well run and let him know they would remain among his supporters. I had hoped to get a picture of the three together in a place with decent light, but there was almost no light in this spot.

Some may wonder why I do not put on a flash at such moments, but, when documenting things, my basic philosophy is that I document events as I see them. If the setting is dark, I am going to leave it dark in the picture. 

A flash casts deceptive light upon the scene.

The lady with the recorder in the background is Ellen Lockyer, reporter for Alaska Statewide News. It always gives me a good feeling to see her on the job, because I have been seeing her on the job, anywhere in the state, for nearly 30 years now.

She keeps going. It gives me that much more hope that I can keep going.

As things continued at the McAdams camp, I hurried back over to the Berkowitz/Benson party. Before I reached the door, I saw Berkowitz doing an interview with Channel 2 as Diane took a break to be with her family.

Shortly after my return, Berkowitz got up to publicly thank his campaign staff and to give a speech. By now, it was clear that his Republican opponent, Sean Parnell, would remain governor. Berkowitz also promised his supporters that the work they had put their heart and life into would continue, and that a better day for Alaska was coming, a day where people of great diversity would all be made welcome at all levels of government and society.

Here, after introducing and saying something positive about all of the campaign staff that stand in front of him, he singled out a man in the crowd.

He said that young man would become well-known in Alaska. I should have written his name down, because I have forgotten it.

I am not even quite certain which young man it was; I think it was the fellow in the green, but I could be wrong.

I was struck by the fact that these people had all come to know each other very well. They had worked hard toward an objective, but the vote had not gone their way.

This caused me to wonder about myself. I could have been out there, slugging away in one, two, or three campaigns, but, politically, despite my convictions, I stayed low key. I justified this by the fact that Margie and I have just been hit too hard these past couple of years. I can afford neither the time or money to get heavily involved in any campaign.

Plus, ultimately, despite my lapses, I see myself as a person, who, sooner or later, must become a conduit to place the images and thoughts of many people - left, right, middle, and scattered - out there.

I can't get too partisan.

And yet, I am partisan.

Diane followed Ethan and spoke to supporters. Emotion overtook her. She paused for just a little bit, then continued on.

After she spoke, Diane received a hug from Mara Kimmel, Ethan's wife.

Karlin Itchoak and Monica Garcia.

I then rushed off to see if I could find Charlie, Melanie and Lisa again. Along with the entire McAdams party, they had ventured to Election Central at the Egan Center. So I headed there, too.

Just ahead of me, I saw these young supporters of Joe Miller doing the same.

As I walked alongside the Egan Center towards the main entrance, I saw that a homeless man had found a quiet place inside, where he could escape the cold and sleep in the warmth.

I wondered what he does, on nights when the Egan is not being used as Election Central?

And how long would he get away with being here on this night? When the candidates and their parties left, would he have to go, too?

Or would someone have already booted him out by then?

I entered, and found an enthusiastic crowd cheering Scott McAdams, but I could not find Charlie, Melanie, and Lisa. So I just started photographing other people.

Suddenly, Melane and Charlie were in front of my camera, smiling, waving a sign and flag.

But where was Lisa?

There she is! When it comes to her politics, Lisa is passionate. She is gung-ho.

Scott McAdams, onstage, cheered on by Lisa, Charlie, Melanie and a host of others.

I could not stay long. My friend, Larry Aiken, had undergone cancer treatment on this day and I had told him I would stop by. I would give him and Mona a ride to the store, to pick up needed supplies. So I headed toward the door, looking for other candidates such as Lisa Murkowski, who appears to be headed for victory in the Senate race, and Joe Miller.

I didn't see either of them, but I did see this group of young Miller supporters. I shot three or four frames.

"That picture will probably be in the paper tomorrow," I heard one of them say to the others as I stepped away to exit through the door. I stopped. "No," I said. "I don't work for the paper." I was trying to think how I might tell them of this blog, but I could think of no quick and easy way to explain it. I need to get some cards made up.

"You'll probably sell the picture and make money," one of them said.

"If I do," I said, certain that I would not be selling the picture, "I'll share the money with you."

Okay, they laughed.

Does someone want to buy a copy of this picture from me? Or perhaps usage rights in a major publication? To hang on a museum wall?

If you do, you will complicate my life, because then I will have to track these kids down and share the money with them. Plus, it would set a bad precedent for me, to pay these kids for having been in my picture. It's hard enough to make a living, already.

So I don't think I will sell this picture to you even if you ask.

Well, if you offered a million, I probably would. That way, I could give the kids a token something and then I could fund this blog, probably for the rest of my life.

When I saw these kids last night, their enthusiasm, their spirit of fun, their commitment to a cause I soundly believe to be wrong and misguided, I found my feelings toward them to be kind. I felt a desire that they find success in life. I want their spirit and enthusiasm to ultimately be rewarded with good things - but not with Joe Miller in the Senate.

Then I drove over, picked Larry and Mona up at their hotel near the Alaska Native Medical Center and drove them to Carr's.

Afterward, I was too exhausted to do anything but drive home. Mona said she would get me a cup of coffee from the hotel. I was going to take a picture of her bringing the coffee back to me but, somehow, I zoned out and then found the coffee in my hand, Mona going back into the hotel.

Thank you, Mona.

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