A loving Father's Day tribute: My Pepsi-drinking Mormon dad, Apache father-in-law, humble whale hunter adoptive dad, loving son dad

For once, I look at a picture and I am at a loss to write. I cannot sum my father up in a photo and a few words - it would take a book - just to sum him up. I hope to write that book, but I am very much aware that the years are closing in on me, just as they closed in on him, and the list of books that I have yet to complete is too long to be written in whatever time I have left and I am not putting much time into book-writing these days, anyway.

For now, let it be enough to say that this is the man who flew into flak in World War II to bomb the Nazis and their Fascist allies, this is the man who, by his gruff exterior, often scared me when I was small, but in whose presence I also found a comfort and strength the likes of which I have felt nowhere else. Even at my age, with him in the grave for three years now, I still miss that comfort and strength and long to feel it. Sometimes, I think I do feel it.

Being devout in her faith to the extreme, my mother taught us truth in terms of absolute black and whites, but Dad taught us to question everything. 

There are so many places I could go in telling you about my dad, but since I landed on this picture of him smuggling a Diet Pepsi into the house, I might as well tell you about my Dad and Pepsi.

Remember now, I grew up Mormon and my mother was devout, more so, I suspect, than even the even the very highest church leaders themselves, President and Prophet included. In the Mormon Church, there is a tenet called the Word of Wisdom, issued by Joseph Smith, that prohibits good Mormons from indulging not only in alcohol and tabacco, but also coffee and tea - but it does not name coffee and tea directly, but rather "hot drinks."

This has been basically defined to mean coffee and tea, but the vagueness of the statement has created arguments inside the Mormon community that I expect never to be resolved. Some Mormons insist that even hot chocolate is banned under the Word of Wisdom.

As do many Mormons, my late Mom believed the restriction covered all caffeinated beverages, Pepsi and Coke included. Dad loved his Pepsi.

When I was small, a soda pop of any kind was a rare and cherished treat, but every now and then he would buy me a pop as a reward for some accomplishment, usually athletic, like when I swam across the pool for the first time, or hit my first triple in a Little League baseball game. In the early days of my life, these rewards were always drinks like Root Beer, cheery or orange soda, maybe Seven-up.

Then one day, we were in a gas station and he bought me a Coke - but only because Pepsi was not available. I was not to tell my mother. Soon, I followed in his footsteps and began to drink Pepsi at every opportunity - much to the consternation of my mother.

She would say, "I don't want Pepsi in this house," but Dad would sneak it in, anyway.

He kept doing this even when they grew old and fell into ill-health. After she died, Rex, the senior of my oldest brothers, the twins, took up where she left off. Not for religious reasons, but because he believed Pepsi was killing my father.

He did all he could to keep Dad from drinking his Pepsi.

Dad drank it, anyway.

And at the very end, after Dad suffered his final stroke and by his living will precluded the kind of medical heroics that would have extended his life at any miserable cost, he could not eat or drink.

All we could do as we watched him slowly die was to wet a sponge with water or other liquid and bring it to his lips, wet them and then let him suck on the sponge.

Yes - it was a sponge dipped in Pepsi that seemed to give him the greatest relief. When brother Rex saw this happening, he could not altogether hide his dismay and made certain to give Dad some sponge-loads of his own health drinks, but, what the hell, Dad was dying anyway.

It was proper that he go out with the good taste of Pepsi on his tongue.

This is my dad, Rex J. Hess, Sr. He loved his Pepsi.

Readers have met my mother-in-law, Rose Roosevelt, and now you can meet my father-in-law, the late Randy Roosevelt. This is he, holding my little sister-in-law, Chy, who in turn caresses a stuffed goat that I had found on a shopping trip to Globe, Arizona and bought for Margie as a Christmas present in the winter that we were engaged.

That Christmas vacation was the first time that she took me home to the reservation to meet her family and she had been very apprehensive about it, in large part because of this man. She greatly feared how he would react to her bringing a white man home to introduce as her husband to be. Plus, Randy was known to have a temper that could become exacerbated when he drank and, to be quite honest, drinking was a problem for him.

But her fears proved to be groundless. Randy took to me immediately. He took me into his pickup truck and drove me here and there on the reservation and introduced me to many people, both drunk and sober. Everyone that he introduced me to expressed great admiration for him; all said that he was a good man and that if he approved of me to be his son-in-law, then I was okay by them and I would have a home here, on the White Mountain Apache reservation. 

When Christmas vacation came to an end, Randy drove Margie and I to Flagstaff, so that we could catch a bus back to Provo, Utah, where we were students at BYU. Rose and Chy came with him. I took this picture in Flagstaff, just before we boarded the bus.

A little less than two months later, he, Rose and several members of the family traveled to Provo for our wedding. They could not attend the wedding ceremony itself, because, as was expected of us, it took place inside the Provo Temple of the LDS Church and while the entire Roosevelt family was Mormon, only Mormons deemed worthy by their bishop or branch president can receive "a temple recommend" and then be allowed to enter the sacred building. 

And you cannot get a temple recommend if you are drinking alcohol, coffee or tea (Pepsi drinkers can get recommends and, along with my mother, my Dad was called on a home-based temple mission in his later years) so Randy, Rose, and family were not allowed to attend the ceremony.

They did come to the reception, held in the gymnasium of our local Mormon chapel, and I will never forget how proud and happy Randy was to stand alongside us to shake the hands of all those who came to wish us well.

After we married, we visited the reservation in the late summer of 1974, when Margie's belly was growing big with Jacob. Again, Randy took me all over and introduced me to many more people, for he seemed to know everyone on the reservation. Now that I had actually become his son-in-law, the feeling of welcome acceptance that his friends gave - many of whom had great distrust of and low regard towards white people in general - was even stronger.

When the visit ended, we again returned to Provo, this time in our little yellow Volkswagen Super Beattle, which the people of Carrizo had named, "Billy Bug." Two weeks later, we drove back again, along with Margie's sister, Janet, who had just enrolled as a freshman at BYU. We came for Randy's funeral. He had died in a head-on collision and so had the woman driving the other pickup truck. Both drivers had been drinking. The accident happened almost right in front of the house of Vincent and Mariddie Craig.

Who crossed the line? I don't know.

Randy died three months before the birth of Jacob, his first grandchild.

Less than a year-and-a-half later, we moved to the reservation and I took over the job of producing the tribal newspaper. Sometimes, in the early days as I wandered about the reservation, I would track down someone who I needed to talk with and/or photograph, a person who would see a white man coming with a camera, pen and notepad and would grow wary to the extreme.

Still, I would introduce myself.

"Say," aren't you Randy Roosevelt's son-in-law?" the person would then invariably ask. "Randy was my friend. He was a good man. You're okay, then."

That's how it would go.

I often think back to our wedding. It was a quiet, beautiful and special experience, yet when I think about it I truly do wish that we had not begun our life together with a temple wedding.

Randy, Rose and the whole Roosevelt family should have been present to witness our ceremony. It is not right that they were told they were not worthy to attend the wedding of their own daughter and sister.

I'm sorry, my good, faithful, Mormon friends and relatives, but it just isn't.

They were denied too many things because of a larger society that deemed them to be less worthy than they. They should not have been denied our wedding. I feel badly that I allowed it to happen this way.

If I write fewer words here than I did for my natural dad and my father-in-law, it is not because the late Ben Ahmaogak, Sr., my Iñupiaq dad, is any less deserving, but only because I did not intend to write so much as I did and I do not have the time to keep going on like this. 

Father's Day is half over here in Alaska, which means it is more than half over in the rest of the world and in some places, it is over altogether. Soon, my children will arrive for dinner.

Plus, I have this idea in my head that in the future will enable to tell the bigger story of how Ben took me into his Wainwright whaling crew, Iceberg 14, and beyond that, into his large, extended family, so I will save my longer writings about him for that time.

Certainly, I have more dramatic pictures of Ben than this one, but I chose it because of all the men that I ever met, he was at once one of the smartest, toughest, most skilled and daring, yet most humble and gentle.

I should say, too, that this is also true of Jonathan Aiken, Sr., Kunuk, who also took me into his crew and let me follow them for four years. They never referred to me as their adopted son, but our relationship was close and they feel like family to me as well, as does Elijah and Dorcas Rock and, to one degree or another, every hunting crew that I have followed. 

In this picture, Ben serves tea to the guests who have come to the Nalukatak, the whale feast, that he hosts with wife Kanaaq and family. As the whaling captain who caught the whale that came to his village and provided the sustenance for this feast and beyond, his status is as high as status can go. He was worked hard and long and no one could hold it against him if he were to just sit back now, relax, enjoy the feast, and let the young girls serve the tea.

But he doesn't do that. He walks through the crowd himself, serving tea to all who desire it.

He is a humble man, that's why.

I included Margie in my Mother's Day tribute, and so I guess I must include myself on Father's Day. I feel odd about this, because I am acutely aware of my great failings as a father and husband. I do not say this to be modest. It is just fact. 

Although I always hate to leave my family and home, I am a wanderer and probably spent close to half of the time that my children were growing up wandering away, to other places.

Nor was I much of a teacher. I started out trying to teach my children right and wrong as I had been taught, but the more I thought about things the less it all added up for me until finally I did not know what to teach them. So I basically taught them nothing, but left them to try to figure life out and learn things as their consciences saw fit.

They grew up, however, with an excellent mother and that was what I did right as a dad - I made her their mother. I believe that I did one other thing right as well. I loved my children and they always knew it. No matter what else I did or how often absent I was, they always knew that I loved them.

This is what I will say then about my children - they are all good people, each and every one. They live in various degrees of confusion, as do we all, whether we admit it or not, but they are fundamentally good people.

And if anyone says anything to the contrary about any one of them that person is wrong and speaks falsely.

It took him a long time to get there, and so far not one other child of mine has followed suit, but now my oldest son is a dad twice over.

Sometimes, he might a be tad over-indulgent but I have to say he is a much better dad to Kalib and Jobe than I ever was to him. He showers love and attention upon them and makes certain that they get to experience many things.

To all you dad's out there:

Happy Father's Day!

It's a hard challenge, but it's worth it.

What I saw as I wandered through last week's Wasilla Tea Party rally

I see that I have done it again. I have spent too much time writing too many words and so have created a document that few will likely read. I should cut at least two-thirds of those words out, but to make it short and concise would take even more time than it took to make it long and rambling and I can't take that time. Those who wish only to read my direct followup to yesterday's post could skip everything else and go directly to photos 6 and 8.

I pick up where I left off four posts ago, with the three vehicles of the four-wheeler caravan, their flags flying as their drivers race toward Wasilla's Tea Party rally. After spending the day in Anchorage, I was tired. I thought I might just skip the Tea Party altogether, except to shoot a frame or two of the smiling faces of those who would wave their signs at me as I drove by on my way home and then let it go at that. At heart, I am a peace-loving man who prefers to avoid confrontation.

Yet, when I saw these three charging so gallantly to the rescue, it looked so exciting that I decided that I should stop by - but not right away. First, I needed to go to the Post Office to check my mail. Then I wanted to drive back up to Machaus and check out the new iPad. I wanted to pick one up in my hands, manipulate it, see how it looks and functions.

Maybe one day I will be making iPad books, or customizing an iPad version of this blog.

And that's where I found the Liberty Tax Service mascot, on the corner by the little mini-mall that houses Machaus.

This was a very hard tax day for Margie and I.

Yet, according to news reports that I kept hearing and reading, on the whole, it was the lightest tax day most middle class Americans had experienced in years. This year, I heard it reported on the radio, Tax Freedom day had come after 99 work days, as opposed to the 104 of the recent past. Elsewhere, I saw it reported as 100 days this year, 104 in the past.

After I played with the iPad for a bit, I headed back toward the rally, and passed these people working together to get this Dodge rolling again. Elsewhere, substantial amounts of snow still lingered but here, in this cleared out, windswept area, it was all but gone.

I could have driven straight down the Parks Highway to the Tea Party rally, but instead I took my time and meandered down along the frontage side roads. As I did, I saw this man, pedaling his bicycle upon which he carried a sleeping bag, mattress and a few other possessions.

When I came to this corner, I was driving in the right lane. The sign told me to turn right and, by the laws that govern me, I had to. As I did, people waved signs and shouted, "Honk your horn! Honk your horn!" 

I did not honk - but I did wave politely and I did smile.

These are my neighbors, my fellow Wasillans. We can meet in the post office, the grocery store, at a restaurant or an athletic event and be friendly and talk and show each other respect. Indeed, I later saw the father of one of my oldest son's former American Legion baseball teammates. He carried a sign that I disagreed with, but that does not change the fact that in the past he and I have had many good and pleasant visits. In the years since, when we have happened upon each other, we have always engaged in friendly chat. We always ask about the other's children and grandchildren.

On just about every matter that brought, these, my fellow Wasillans, Alaskans, and Americans here, I disagree with them, both as to cause and solution. I see their facts as often erroneous, their blame misplaced. I can't help but wonder where they and their professed anger at government were during the reckless tenure of the Bush years that destroyed our national surplus and drove our nation 13 figures into debt. I wonder why they were silent about the impacts of the deregulation of the financial world that led to such a huge transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes into the pockets of the wealthy - and ultimately to the financial crisis that exploded upon us in 2008 - to no easy, quick, solution.

Yet, I feel it important that I respect my community members, that even when I disagree with them, I do not call them insulting names. I must not throw cheap, gratuitous insults at them. This has become the norm these days on talk radio, cable news and the blogosphere, in the public forum, where so many do it. Debate, drowned out and stifled by insult.

While they alone do not define it, those who gathered at the tea party by the hundreds, certainly totalling more than a thousand strong over the course, make up a significant part of the soul of Wasilla. if I am to meet my goal to find the soul of this community, then sooner or later I must sit down and speak with some among them, ask them why they believe as they do, listen to their stories and pass them along as they relate them to me.

This does not mean that I cannot express my own opinion or ask some uncomfortable questions. One question I would have for any member of the Conservatives Patriot Group, the sponsor of the Wasilla Tea Party rally, is to better explain this quote, prominently displayed on their web page:

"Evil cannot be wished away, it cannot be loved away, it cannot be talked away, it must be destroyed!!!!"

How do you define this evil that must be destroyed? How do you intend to destroy it?

As theirs' is a political organization dedicated to advocating a political point of view, one could reasonably suppose that by "evil," they do not necessarily describe the kind of things that many of us think to be evil, but rather political viewpoints that differ from their own.

Not only can a political viewpoint not be wished, loved, or talked away, it cannot be voted away. Under the US Constitution, political differences are settled at the voting booth - but the outcome never eliminates the differences. They continue, to be reargued and refought at the next election. The more liberal forces may win one election and then the conservatives the next, but sooner or later it will always tip back the other way.

So, if a differing political viewpoint is what you describe as "evil" and you cannot wish it away, you cannot love it away, you cannot talk it away, you cannot vote it away, then how do you seek to destroy it?

Or maybe I have misunderstood and you mean something entirely different than an opposing political viewpoint. I would like to hear an explanation.

Of course, it is always a little bit challenging to remain respectful and civil when right away after you get out of your car and walk into the crowd you come upon the smiling face of a man who is telling you that you have a mental disorder. I know it doesn't really mean anything. It is just rhetoric. Everyone does it. So what the hell. Let him wave his sign.

I wonder, though - why is he wearing Mickey Mouse boots? And why is his friend wearing Bunny Boots? Those boots are designed for 40 below and it was 40 above.

One could develop sweaty feet this way. It still gets pretty cold at night. Maybe they were out all night, setting up.

And you who wave that flag just remember that it is not a conservative flag, it is an American Flag. Yes, wave it with pride, but don't forget that we who see the political situation differently than you do also love that flag - no less than do you.

Never have I felt more proud than I did on that day when I saw that flag draped across my father's casket as he was carried to his grave by six of his fellow warriors. They were much younger than he and I knew that some had fought or soon would fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe one or more would themselves return in a flag-draped coffin.

I looked at those soldiers who carried my father and I felt love - pure love; strong, heart-piercing love. Tears streamed down my face and they were not all tears of grief. There was pride in those tears. Afterward, I thanked them, but I owed them so greatly that I knew my thank you to be vastly inadequate.

Remember after 9/11, how flags few from just about every home, be it occupied by conservative, liberal, middle of the road, unsure? 

And then there was that very chilly January 20 of last year, when I stood with my youngest daughter and wife in the midst of two million others on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Two million people, two million flags, all waving, people smiling, people cheering, tears of pride streaming down cheeks - white cheeks, black cheeks, brown cheeks, yellow cheeks, red cheeks; all the cheeks of a diverse America; an America that had become a place of greater equality and thus greater potential than had been the America that I grew up in.

And then, as we waited in the chill for the hour when the man who, under the provisions laid out by the US Constitution had been duly elected as President would be sworn in as Commander-in-Chief, images of Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger appeared on the many gigantic screens spread throughout the the mall. Chilled though they were, two million joined in the song, "this land is your land, this land is my land..." two million flags waved... Powerful! How proud we all were to be Americans. How proud I am to be an American. And how proud I am of the vote that I cast to make what happened that day on our National Mall possible.

Nothing that anyone could say or do or write upon a sign can ever take that pride away.

So wave your flag, but remember: it is not your flag alone - it is OUR flag. 

And when you shout, "Patriot," remember that a liberal can be every bit as much a Patriot as any conservative and a conservative can betray his country as quickly as can a liberal. Liberals also wear the uniform. Liberals also shed their blood for America. They die right alongside conservatives, as Americans.

"I was willing to fight, kill or die for this country and for the ideals that it represents and that has not changed. I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, it had no expiration on it. I remember taking that oath as a young soldier and it said that I would swear to defend the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic and I didn’t understand that domestic thing. Never in a million years did I realize that the domestic enemies would be our greatest threat and they would come from the highest levels of government in this country, from the highest positions. Today, for me, I have no eligible President in office, I have no qualified Commander-in Chief; that’s my personal opinion."

In my post yesterday, I paraphrased the above quote and expressed some thoughts about it, as I had found it not only deeply troubling, but intimidating. A conservative participant at the rally, whose opinion I respect and who I am certain speaks honestly, responded to tell me that she had been there, that she had applauded the speaker and had interpreted his meaning very differently than did I.

"Not once did I hear anyone preach violence as the answer to the problems we face today with the current government," she wrote. "In fact, the voices of many said don't turn to that, use your voices, your votes, stand up for what you believe in."

This struck me with a fear that perhaps I had misinterpreted his words - particularly as I had paraphrased his words from memory, rather than by quoting from a written or recorded verbatim account. Fortunately, I have found a 47 second clip from his speech that is comprised entirely of that part of his statement that I found so troubling. It is on the website of the Conservative Patriots Group, the sponsors of this year's Tea Party Rally, and I quote it above. You can find the clip here, identified as "Rick." It is the seventh of ten very short video clips to be found on that page. The internet is a fluid thing, so this could change.

I think it noteworthy that Rick spoke for probably five to seven minutes and it is these 47 seconds of his speech that, not only me, but his own organization chose to break out and highlight on their own website. As I stated yesterday, 95 percent of his words were ones that, in a different context, most Americans, be they Republican, Democrat or Independent, could go along with, although many would draw different conclusions from the good words that Rick spoke than he did.

Yet, it is the above statement that his own group chose to emphasize. This is what they chose to promote on their website. I will now break the statement down piece by piece and explain why I found it so offensive and still do. I am open to anyone countering here with a different interpretation.

"I was willing to fight, kill or die for this country and for the ideals that it represents and that has not changed..."

So far, very good. I honor Rick for his service to our nation...

"I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, it had no expiration on it. I remember taking that oath as a young soldier and it said that I would swear to defend the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic..."

Again, very good. Praiseworthy attitude...

"...and I didn’t understand that domestic thing. Never in a million years did I realize that the domestic enemies would be our greatest threat and they would come from the highest levels of government in this country, from the highest positions..." 

Frightening words. I begin to grow a little concerned...

"Today, for me, I have no eligible President in office, I have no qualified Commander-in Chief; that’s my personal opinion."

Now I am deeply troubled by Rick's words. I think of my youngest daughter and how serious she took the Constitution and her right to vote. I think how hard she campaigned for Obama and how, when he won the vote fair and square, nothing could stop her from going to Washington, DC, to be there for the swearing in. Were it not for her, Margie and I would not have been there.

Yet, Rick has expressly stated his readiness to "fight, kill, or die" to protect his country from a domestic enemy and he has defined that enemy as the President of the United States. He has stated his belief that the President is not eligible to be President and not qualified to be Commander-in-Chief.

If this does not insinuate a threat to future violence against the government of the United States, to a willingness to nullify by force the votes of myself, my wife and my daughter, then what does? And if that day were to come when he were to take these words to their ultimate implication, were he "to fight, kill, or die" to remove he who he has declared to be a domestic enemy, ineligible to be President and not qualified to be Commander-in-Chief, then who would he fight? Who would he kill?

Would it not be we, the American People, those of us who live right here in Wasilla and elsewhere, who, in a Constitutionally held election and under laws and rules that found candidate Obama to be eligible, voted him in as President? Not only would that fight be against us, it would be against many who voted with Rick against President Obama, people who deeply oppose our President and resent his policies, but who are loyal Americans with deep respect for the foundations that hold up the United States and would defend their country. 

While I hope and do not believe that it will ever come to this, should Rick or any others who share this sentiment ever act out the full implication of his stated words, he and they would then literally become the domestic enemy that he swore himself to defend against.

That's what his words say to me. They tell me that, while he was part of the laudable "get out the vote in 2010" message of the Tea Party rally, should that effort fail to achieve their desired goals, he has considered other, non-democratic options and found them acceptable.

Again, to those who see a more positive, non-threatening interpretation to his words, I invite you to express your viewpoint.

Look at that mountain, standing so beautiful above and indifferent to the fray. It is not on your side, it is not on my side. It doesn't give a damn about you or me or our squabbles. That mountain is Alaska, that mountain is America. It is the absolute, real America. When we are all gone and forgotten, it will still stand. Not forever - nothing of this earth does, but long beyond any memory of us.

Other speakers stated that the Heath Care Bill was Pearl Harbor to conservatives and that it would result in the deaths of more Americans than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined; that, compared to nature, humans pump one tenth of one percent of the total amount of the gas that climatologists blame for global warming into the atmosphere, so humans cannot possibly change the climate. 

My father fought the Nazis in World War II. Many times, he risked his life. A bullet from a Nazi machine gun once struck him in the forehead of his flight helmet, turned it 180 degrees backwards and knocked him unconscious. His captain thought he was dead and ordered a crew member to shove his body out of the way and take over his spot.

Many of the airmen that he flew with died fighting the Nazis.

Down on the ground, Americans and our World War II allies were killed by the hundreds of thousands in combat against the Nazis.

To use the word "Nazis" as it is used here cheapens the sacrifices they made to rid the world of this evil. To use the word in this way dishonors the tens of millions of innocent men, women and children murdered by the Nazis.

Why not use the word "Nazis" to describe... Nazis? No one else. Why not use the name, likeness and moustache of Hitler to describe just one man... Hitler?

It really lets both Hitler and the Nazis off far too easy to lay these obscene titles upon your fellow Americans because they disagree with you.

This also goes for Liberals who would use the word in the opposite direction.

It truly is a great country that we live in. May it long survive and stay that way.

I have already stated my feelings about this one, two photos above.

After a long, uncomfortable flight with another delay, I am back in Wasilla, with my wife and cats

Twenty-four hours and about $350 after I had been originally scheduled to board the first leg of my Delta Airlines flight home, I followed these guys onto a plane bound for Salt Lake City from New York's JFK airport.

We filed between the rows of those seated among the elite in first class, where serious business was being conducted, and then entered the cabin.

My first choice is always a window seat, then an aisle and I hate the middle, just like most everyone else does. The worst of all is a middle seat in an emergency exit row, because the seats do not recline and instead of a regular armrest that can be lifted up and down, the armrests are solid from the seat up. This creates the effect of being forced to sit in a rigid box.

I had originally successfully booked non-emergency row window seats all the way from New York to Anchorage but now, I had been assigned to a middle seat in an emergency exit row.

Worse yet, when I sat down, I discovered that there was a big, irritating, bump right in the middle of the seat. I would have to sit on that bump for five-and-a-half hours.

The situation worsened even more when I discovered that I been sat between two people, who, whenever they were awake, from the beginning of the flight to the end, continually and intentionally did all they could to try to push my elbows off the armrests altogether. I did not totally begrudge them, because it is just a plane fact that those three seats are just too squished together. There simply is not room for three adults to sit comfortably side by side in them - although I am usually reasonably comfortable in a window seat, because I can lean against the wall and away from the shared armrest. Yet, it was still incredible. I had been stuck in middle seats plenty of times, but I had never before experienced anything like this.

When my adjacent passengers would nap, they would relax into their most comfortable positions, which meant they would lean away from me toward the window or the aisle and their arms would follow them off the rest, no longer to push against me.

Even so, I managed to read most of what was left of the book, Into the Heart of the Sea, before we reached Salt Lake City, but it was the most uncomfortable ride I have ever had in a jet airplane. I am still sore from it.

Yet, compared to the travels of those who were part of the final voyage of the Whaleship Essex, I rode in comfort and luxury and traveled to my destination with amazing speed. I have nothing to complain about.

In Salt Lake, the flight back to Anchorage had already begun to board. I was hungry, so I bought a not-very-good ham sandwich and a bottle of water at a diner right across from the gate, then got in line.

Just as I was about to board, it was announced that the flight had suddenly been put on a weather hold, due to high winds and snow. Out the window, I could see that the snow had turned to rain and it did not look that bad, but apparently it was.

So, as I took note of a bar and grill just a short distance away where I could have got a hot meal, I sat down and ate my sandwich.

Then Lydia Olympic, who had been in the bar and grill watching basketball, sat down beside me. 

I first met Lydia many years ago when I followed her and several other Alaska Native tribal leaders on to a forum in Washington, DC, where they also did some lobbying among House Representatives and Senators.

Lydia is from the Lake Iliamna village of Igiugig in the Bristol Bay Region. Right now, she is living in Anchorage where she relocated in order to fight against the Pebble Mine, because of the harm she fears it could bring to the salmon and other wildlife resources of her home.

"Do you get back to Igiugig much?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "Every summer I go back to cut fish."

Finally, they let us board the plane where, once again, I was seated in an emergency exit row. This time, at least, I had an aisle seat and the middle was empty. I did not have to contend with battling elbows. We seated in the emergency rows all paid strict and rapt attention as the stewardess told us about our duties should the need arise to evacuate the airplane.

After the lecture, we sat on the tarmac for about two more hours as we waited for the plane to get de-iced.

It was strange to let my mind wander outside the plane and into the surrounding community. I let it wander to my sister Mary Ann's house, downtown. I had tried to call her right after we landed, but she did not pick up. It was a bit after 9, but some people go to bed early.

I let it wander to the house up in the Salt Lake suburb of Sandy, where Margie and I used to so dearly love to drop into during our early days of marriage. We visit my parents, eat and watch TV with them and sometimes at night, being as quiet as we could possibly be, make love as the old folks slept. Sometimes, we would drop baby Jacob off so we could go out and do things like go to movies or climb a nearby mountain.

I pictured that house now, with only my older brother Rex in it, he living in a state of declining health.

I pictured the place upon a hill at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, where lay my Mom and Dad and my brother Ron. Ron never wanted to be buried but cremated but in the end, his wish was overwhelmed by the force of the Mormon faith that he had journeyed away from long before and he got buried, anyway.

I thought of the later years when I would visit my Mom and Dad, and how hard those years became. I thought about Mom and Dad and Mary Ann and Rex had always hoped that, at some point, I would come to my senses, say my Alaska adventure had been good but was now over and that I might settle down nearby in that same valley to one day be buried on that hill with them.

I love Utah, but, damn, I couldn't live there. I just couldn't.

I lived in Utah for one year when I was a baby and for the five years total that I attended BYU.

That was enough. I can't live there anymore.

Sometimes, though, I awake from a dream. In it, I am in the basement of my parents' house where I am at last writing my books.

I am alone in that house. Nobody else lives there. Just me.

I really don't like that dream.

Then the flight was off - five more hours to sit in a box seat with a stiff, non-reclining back, having already sat in it for two on the ground - plus, of course, the New York to Salt Lake ordeal.

After about four of those hours had passed, I headed back to the restroom.

When I came out, I heard a female voice speak out of the near darkness of the cabin, in which all the main lights had been turned out: "Bill? Is that you?"

It was me, and Courtney was the young woman who asked. I first met Courtney when she showed up at the hospital emergency room after a Saturday Wasilla High football game, probably in 1992.

Caleb had been injured in that game and his memory temporarily knocked out of his head.

Courtney, a cheerleader, was right there at his side, hovering adoringly over him, smiling warmly upon him, caressing his hands in hers'.

They were an item for a long time after that, hanging out, going to the prom and such, but in time she went her own way. Now she was on the plane with her daughter, Abby, and a son who was sleeping in such a dark spot that I could not make him out. They had been living in Texas with her husband, who had just becoming qualified to fly a C-130.

Now she was going back to Wasilla. "I can't believe how much I have missed being home," she told me. "You don't realize how good it is until you go away."

"How old is Abby?" I asked Courtney. Abby answered for herself.

Margie picked me up at the airport and we arrived home in Wasilla about 4:15 AM - 25 hours after I had gotten up at the Comfort Inn that I had stayed in by JFK.

It was nearly five by the time we got to bed and I had hoped to sleep until 11:00 AM, ten at the earliest. But I began to wake up at 7:30, perhaps in part because Jim kept going back and forth from beneath the blankets to resting on top of me.

Everyone tells me that Jim has a hard time when I gone. He gets lonely and anxious and a bit desperate. When I come home, he will come to me with the most anxious expression. Then he will dash this way and that way out of sheer joy. Finally, he will settle down wherever I am at and will stick as close to me as possible.

As I have been working on this blog, he has alternated between resting upon my chest and shoulder to my lap.

Anyway, I gave up on sleep shortly after I took this picture at, as the clock says, 8:44 AM.

Pistol-Yero was sleeping there, too, but when I got up, it woke him up. I do not think he was ready to wake up.

Next I went out into the garage, where Royce and Chicago had already begun to dine on food put out the night before.

I then went outside to get the paper. 

According to our tradition, I next took Margie out to breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, just as I always do when I return home from a trip, whether I can afford to or not.

I ordered my hash browns to be cooked "very light." They came back cooked dark, hard and crispy on the outside, mush on the inside.

Oh, well. The ham and eggs were very tasty, the coffee just right, the multi-grain toast and jam quite excellent.

Overall, breakfast was a good and pleasant experience - as long as I did not think to much about what we now face.

Although I am back in Wasilla, I will return to New York and then Nantucket very shortly - at least in this blog. I will begin by showing readers how my search for a New York City pretzel turned out, and most definitely I will bring you along on the tour of Cloisters and the very northern tip of Manhattan that Chie Sakakibara took me on. I will tell you a bit about the unlikely story of how she, a girl in Japan who originally believed Native Americans to be Caucasian because that's how she saw them in the movies and Aaron Fox became bonded to the Iñupiat of the Arctic Slope and brought a treasure that had been lost back to them.

As to Nantucket, I am now completely fascinated with the place and want to learn all I can about it.

In honor of a veteran Dad who flew into hell... again... and again... and again... along with all other veterans and those who now serve

Dad is the man who lies in this flag-draped coffin. I will not say too much about him for now, except that he was a good father and that, thanks to him, and many more like him, most of them gone now, the evil dream of a man named Hitler died in flames and blood.

We buried Dad on June 2, 2007. He died on Memorial Day.

A short time earlier, at his Mormon chapel in Sandy, Utah. You can see that Melanie served as one of the pre-honor guard pallbearers. To her left stands my nephew-in-law, Vivek Iyer and to her right, my nephew-in-law, Steve Cook. My niece, Sarah Fox, daughter of my late brother, Ron, stands on the other side of the coffin.

Other family members can be seen in the background, including my brothers Mac and Rex and my nieces, Khena and Shaela.

A few days earlier, as he lay on his death bed. The important thing to understand about the picture that my sister, Mary Ann, shows to Dad before he goes is that it is not just any old, dramatic, war picture. It is a picture that I grew up with, because it was taken from his B-24 bomber and he knew the men in the plane that is breaking apart.

He knew also that it could just as easily have been his plane and at any moment might yet be. Each time he sandwiched himself into the navigator's hutch he knew this. Yet always he went. Fear did not stop him.

Dad did this kind of thing over and over during World War II, flying out of bases in North Africa and Europe. Once, he and his crew took off on a mission in a squadron of seven. Only their airplane reached the target and returned.

Another time, a German machine gun bullet ripped through the fuselage and struck his flight helmet right at his forehead. It spun the helmet around 180 degrees and knocked Dad unconscious. Believing him to be dead, his Captain ordered another crewman to shove him aside and take his place.

Mary Ann gives Dad a kiss.

Dad, as he looked on August 8, 2004.

I will post these images again one day. I once sent several stories that I wrote about Dad to Soundarya after she requested that I do so. Last summer, she told me that I should post them here and I will, when the time is right and I have the time.

I should also note that this is not one of the week's plus worth of posts that I put up on Thursday, November 5, because I was too ill to concentrate on my work and wanted to have several days of uninterrupted time to concentrate on my work as I recovered. I did not think of Veteran's Day at that time. 

The deaths of the 13 soldiers at Fort Hood and those that we continually hear about in Afghanistan and Iraq put Veteran's Day into my head.

Along with my Dad, I honor all these as well, along with those who now stand in harm's way.

CM*D33: Margie returns to the scene of her injury; Rex and his sailboat, Willow the dog, Alaska Dispatch and potential young citizen journalist

Margie had a therapy session scheduled at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage today, so I drove her in, dropped her off and then headed straight over to the Merrill Field offices of the Alaska Dispatch to chat with the editor, Tony Hopfinger. 

I then rushed back to pick her up, after which I took her to lunch at Cafe Europa and then to a movie at Century 16. During my stays at home, we used to go to a movie almost every single week, but it has been a long, long, long time since we have.

I did a search in this blog and the most recent movie I came up with was one we saw February 25 - and that was our first outing after she originally broke her left knee and right wrist on January 20.

We have been out since she broke her knee for the second time on July 26, but not to a movie - just here and there to get a bite to eat, a cup of coffee or an ice cream come.

I fell asleep in the movie about five times. Not because it was boring; it wasn't - it was fun: The Informant. There are some gaps in the story for me, but the thrust of it all came together.

The fact that I could fall asleep five times during what may have been my first movie outing in eight months kind of gives me a clue as to why I am having such a struggle completing my project.

Afterwards, we returned to the place where she fell on July 26 - which is now owned by our daughter Melanie. Her fall happened right after she stepped through the door to her left. Later, as we were leaving, I was going to take a picture of her atop that step. I got it framed and everything, but when I pushed the shutter, the battery died. I got no picture.

A couple of nights ago, I wrote about the dog that was given to me by the Norwegian Iditarod musher, Ketil Reitan. I told how I put her in the back seat of my airplane and flew her home from Kaktovik on the Arctic Coast at the top of ANWR - the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

I mentioned that she is now buried in our backyard, along with some other individuals dear to us who wore fur all the time.

In comments, a reader let me know that I had slipped up and had not named her.

Well, this is she, Willow. I took the picture in the spring of 2005, right after she found a chunk of bone that I believe to be moose. She was very pleased.

Rex felt real bad after her death, so I made this print for him.

By the way - seasoned readers are familiar with my lament about Serendipity, the subdivision that robbed me of the woods that I used to roam - and so often with Willow.

This picture was taken in those woods, which died right along with the dog.

And on the fridge were these pictures of Kalib, Rex and his Grandpa Hess, my late dad. Two years ago, right about now, my Muse, Soundarya, wanted to know about my dad and asked me write up some stories about him and email them to her in India. So I did.

This past summer, when I was in Barrow, she emailed and instructed me to put those stories on my blog. She felt that readers would enjoy them. I promised her that I would. Sooner or later, probably during our next trip to Utah and Arizona, I will, and I will introduce the whole family, mine and Margie's. Time and money permitting, I want to go to the Navajo Nation and introduce Lavina's as well.

The very first image that I posted on this blog was of the tiny sailboat that Rex had made. He is now making a bigger sailboat and this is it. There is a much larger story here, but I cannot get into it just now.

As you can see, this bout of unusually warm fall weather is continuing. It got well into the 50's today. It feels like we live someplace else, but we live here.

Meanwhile, I see more reports of snow at various places in the Lower 48. This is very embarrassing.

Now I will back up to earlier in the day. I mentioned that I stopped at the Alaska Dispatch to visit the editor. I completely forgot to take any pictures while I was there. I don't know why, I guess because we had a fast-paced conversation and when it was over, I had to race off to pick Margie up.

I forgot even though Alice Rogoff's big Cessna 206 on floats was sitting in the hangar, and it was the cleanest looking airplane I think that I have ever seen. It filled me with desire and want and still I forgot to take a picture.

Alice, by the way, is the very good woman who helped us out in Washington, DC, after Margie got hurt following the Obama Inaugural. She put us up in her very fine Bethesda guest house and told us to stay until Margie could travel. We did. I do not know how we would have coped without her.

She also bought into the Alaska Dispatch and that is why they have their offices in a hangar at Merrill Field.

Tony and I spent some time talking about how online journalism is changing everything. We talked about the emerging roll of citizen journalists, ordinary people with cameras and cellphones, documenting and reporting on life and getting it out to the world in a new way.

And then I took Margie to lunch and the first person that I saw when I stepped through the door of Cafe Europa was 17 month old Luca, looking very much like a citizen journalist.

His mother said that this was the first time that he had ever held a camera. He was still figuring it out. I told her that if he got something, she should email it to me and I would share it with you.

No promises.

We will see.

The kid's got his own mind. He will do what he will do.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month (obviously, now, more than a month. Perhaps forever, it feels like) Oh, hell! Let's face it - I did not keep myself within cocoon restraints. This does not qualify as a cocoon entry. But I will leave it as one, just the same. It was supposed to be.