Thanksgiving, 2008, Part 2: We gather together and eat

At first, it felt terribly strange. Margie and I are the parents, and now the grandparents, too, and as such the family celebration of Thanksgiving and Christmas has always been at our house in Wasilla - except, during those times, many years past, when we had been able to travel to Utah or Arizona to celebrate in the house of either Margie's mom or my late parents.

This year, Rex and Stephanie wanted to host the Thanksgiving feast and so invited all of us to join them. It was terribly quiet Wednesday night in our home. None of the kids, save for those who live here, had come out. Melanie and Lisa were not furiously making pies, Margie was not scurrying here and there, cooking and preparing, although she did make a big batch of dough for rolls.

I was not brining the turkey. I would not cook the turkey. I would not carve the turkey.

I always do these things.

Rolls would be our sole contribution.

It all felt very strange.

And then, as the weather had warmed up something frightful, we drove the 50 miles over what proved to be a very icy and slippery highway. Next, we found ourselves in the house of our son and daughter-in-law. and there he was, my youngest son, carving the turkey. It would prove to be a most excellent cooked and carved turkey.

I might could have carved it with a little more expertise, but not much.

It's a fact - we who are young suddenly discover that we are not young anymore, and must give way to those who are.

As Rex finished his carving job, baby Kalib scurried into the kitchen.

Latin jazz played on the stereo. Melanie scooped Kalib off the kitchen floor, brought him into the living room where we would dine, and, gently swaying, danced across the floor with him. 

As I grew up, I often observed my mother as she danced across the floor. How Melanie reminds me of her!

Lisa and boyfriend Bryce made the punch. Now they pour it in the picture they will use to transfer it to individual glass. Oh, my! This is good punch!

If it had alcohol in it, we would all have gotten drunk.

Now we would be hung over. That would not be fun.

Stephanie and her sister Olivia finish setting the table.

Rex blesses the food.

Melanie, Charlie, and Bryce. The food will soon be devoured.

Various dishes travel around the table.

Kalib does not wish to sit still, but must be carried around behind the table. He amuses everybody.

Margie had me print this picture of Rex and Stephanie giving their tiny sailboat its first float test. The picture is passed about the table. 

That first float test began the first entry that I ever made in this blog.

Rex shows us the model of the new, larger, sailboat that he is going to make. The first one was an 11 footer. This one will be 15. He says I can get in on it. Maybe we will sail to China, or Africa.

I would like to do that - in a bigger boat. A seventeen footer, maybe.

Sadly, one of our children was not able to attend. Caleb had to pull an allnight shift (as he always does) and so he stayed home to sleep. Not so long ago, Charlie found a "missed connections" message on Craigslist left by someone who described a person that could only be Caleb. 

Frank reads the post on Melanie's Ipod.

The poster sure did know a lot about Caleb's normal movements about Wasilla, yet claimed not to know how to make contact with this "olive-skinned" young man who she had once seen sitting in Ihop with "an older gentleman."

That would be me. I hate to be described as "an older gentleman."

The kids thought it strange that anyone would describe me as a gentleman, period.

Bryce and Lisa listen to Thanksgiving conversation.

Melanie and Charlie listen to Bryce as he tells a story about a heavy metal concert.

Dinner is over. Baby Kalib and his parents will be the first to leave. 

Rex and Stephanie did a good job - as did everybody, from Margie and her rolls to Melanie and her pumpkin chiffon pie.

The drive home will be harder then the drive in. Cars and trucks slipping and sliding all over the highway, in the dark. My belly not merely full, but stuffed.

But we will make it safely. Then we will cook another turkey, so that we have turkey leftovers to eat for the next week.

I have a blogger friend in Nigeria who goes by the handle, "Standtall." She has undertaken a project to publish an interview with another blogger every Thursday and on Thanksgiving, she thus honored me, as Grahamn Kracker, the handle I use for my cat blog. Standtall's interview with Grahamn Kracker.

Fairbanks, mid-afternoon, minus 18 F, the ice cream is cold

But the coffee is hot. And very soon in Fairbanks, when the temperature rises to minus 18, it will feel warm. A soft ice-cream cone will seem just right.

Reunion at IHOP as ravens fly outside - sled dog, utlralight and Charlie; Melanie tricks me out of my large Pepsi

It is kind of a Sunday tradition around here for me to take whomever of my children might be about to IHOP for breakfast. Today, that meant Caleb. Our waitress was Kimberly. She was friendly and chipper, and brought coffee and multiple-flavored creamers immediately, then took our order.

Kimberly turned then away from our table, saw some people standing right behind her and shrieked. They shrieked too. Then they all started hugging. Some of her family members had come up from Kodiak, and had surprised her. Above, she hugs her brother.

I am not certain if this is Kimberly's sister, sister-in-law, good friend, or what, because I had to let her work, and let them eat, so I did not ask many questions. I did give Kimberly the address to this blog, though, and she can add any information that see might like in "comments."

I then looked out the IHOP window and saw ravens flying, including this one, mysteriously trailed by flying saucers. Some might challenge me on this, note the uncanny resemblance the saucers bear to the lights in IHOP and argue that there must be a connection.

That's the trouble with this society - even when you have photographic proof, the skeptics stand ready to shoot you down.

Down towards Chugiak, I saw this flying object in the sky. Now, what do you skeptics have to say about this?

And here is a sled dog, a member of the team owned by Diane Benson, Tlingit poet, playwright, actress and former candidate for Alaska's lone seat in Congress, mother of the Iraq war veteran, Latseen Benson, who is making a life for himself despite the fact that he lost his legs in that country. If you are curious, you can find the story on my other blog, the one about cats, beginning right here.

This is Charlie, in the parking lot at Taco Bell. None of us had expected to meet here. In fact, I had been out and about and had planned to go back to my house for a few minutes - just long enough to fix myself a sandwich and then go pick Margie up from work. But when I stepped into the house, my nose was struck by an aroma most foul.

Muzzy had pooped on the floor. Muzzy is not the kind of dog who poops on floors, but when I saw the various piles he had left in an array spread before the back door, it was obvious that his tummy had gotten upset. I was wondering what to do about this when Caleb drove into the driveway, coming from wherever he had been, and then walked into the house.

I decided to let him deal with it, but I had no desire to make a sandwich as he was doing so, so I headed off for Taco Bell. Along the way, Melanie and Charlie pulled up beside me in Melanie's little car, then followed me to the parking lot.

"What are you doing here, Dad?" Melanie chided in her reprimanding tone. 

"I'm going to get lunch," I said, "and then go pick your mother up from work."

"Why are you just getting lunch now? It's too late! And I can't believe your going to Taco Bell!"

"I can't believe you grew up in my house and can't believe I am going to Taco Bell," I countered. "Get in, and you two can come with me and then we will go pick up your Mom and get coffee."

Soon, we were at the drive-through and when it came time to order drinks, Charlie said he didn't want one and Melanie asked for a small Pepsi. "And I'll have..." I began.

"A small Pepsi!" Melanie interrupted me, "order a small Pepsi!"

"...a large Pepsi."

"Dad! A large Pepsi? Why? I can't believe it!"

We got our food and drove to a place in the parking lot where no cars were and stopped there to eat it.

"Dad," Melanie said as I reached for the large Pepsi. "Charlie and I need to share one drink, so you take the small Pepsi and we will share the large."

Did she think I would fall for this?

"No," I said. "I want the large Pepsi." I reached for it, but suddenly felt bad for Charlie. He had insisted that I let him pay for it all and it would not be right for him to now only have half of a small Pepsi - even if it was his own fault for not ordering a drink to begin with.

So I drank the small Pepsi - which was not enough to wash down a quesadilla and a burrito - as they shared my large Pepsi. Then we went straight to Wal-Mart, picked Margie up and headed to the nearest coffee shop. Charlie tried to pay again, but I wouldn't let him. You could say that I put my foot down, and when I did, the car moved forward and we drove away, because the gas pedal was beneath my foot.

And this event happened, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

Some readers might get confused, and think that it happened in Amarillo, Texas, but it didn't. It happened here. In Wasilla.

We don't go to Texas to get coffee. Everything is too small down there. We feel enclosed, trapped; we scream for elbow room, whenever we are down in Texas.

That's the trouble with living in Alaska. Afterwards, no other place can stack up. Outside, it all falls short.

A hard working, lazy, day - take your pick

You could say that I put in a very lazy day, today, or you could say that I put in a reasonably hard working day. Depending on you define the day. If you define it from the time I got up, about 12:25 PM until now, 11:41 PM, then it was a lazy day. If you define the day as having begun at 12:01 AM, then it was a reasonably hard working day, as I was going hard on a project and kept at it until about 7:25 AM this morning, at which time I went to bed.

Once up, I could not bear to cook oatmeal. I just wanted to sit somewhere where people would wait on me, bring me hot eggs and ham and toast and coffee. Margie had the car at work. So I had Caleb drive me to Family Restaurant, and, indeed, I was waited on and it was very good.

The people in front of me were not eating breakfast, but lunch.

Afterwards, I walked home. Two and a half miles, maybe three; I must measure it. I was still feeling lazy, but when I saw this kid walking up between the signs with the mountains behind him, I found the energy to shoot.

"Hello," I said, just before we passed each other.

"Hello," he said, "how you doing?"

"Good," I answered. "How you doing?"

"Good," he said.

We were both good.

Good.

Breakfast at Family Restaurant

Breakfast at Family Restaurant - Wasilla, Alaska, November 13, 2008

I shot a series of pictures today that I intended to put in here tonight, along with some highly insightful comment, for what other kind of comment could I write?

But it is late and I am too exhausted to do it, so I am only going to put one picture in for now, the very first frame that I shot this day.

I took it at Family Restaurant, where Margie and I had gone to for breakfast. Thursday is the weekday that we try to have breakfast out.

We sat at a booth, but the couple above were at the counter, and a beam of sunlight had come through the window to fall upon them.

Whenever we go to Family, the gentleman at left is always there. 

Part of my idea when I started this blog was to not only do grab shots of various sights and people that my eyes fall upon while wandering around Wasilla, but to do actual stories. So far, I just cannot find the time, but when I do, I want to do a story on Family, on the energetic Russian immigrant woman who founded the place, people who work for her and her customers.

How do I ever find that kind of time? Yet, if I am to reach my goals with this blog, I must.

Stay tuned, and see if I do.

As an an afterthought, here is one more from breakfast at Family:

Jolene - Breakfast at Family: Wasilla, Alaska, November 13, 2008

Here is an invite for anyone who might happen to be in Anchorage December 2:

Shooting with just my left hand - the injured series

Press release, ASMP

November 13, 2008 Anchorage.  The award winning ASMP First Tuesday Slide/Lecture Series will feature the work of Wasilla photographer Bill Hess at 7 PM, Tuesday, December 2, 2008 in the auditorium of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.  Mr. Hess is an accomplished professional photographer who suffered a fall while on assignment in Barrow on June 12th.  While recuperating from a broken shoulder, Bill has been forced to photograph with only the use of his lone left hand.  Despite this set back, Mr. Hess has produced at least one photograph each day since the accident.  The stories of his struggles and the resulting imagery are the basis of Mr. Hess’s presentation.  Admission is free.

Bill Hess launched his career in 1976 when he took the publication of the Fort Apache Scout, the newspaper of Arizona’s White Mountain Apache Tribe.  As a one-man operation, Bill Hess did the photography, reporting, writing, layout, production, ad sales and even hand delivered the copies to subscribers.  

In 1980, Bill Hess wrote and photographed a three part article on the White Mountain Apache for the National Geographic Magazine.  It was, however, his dream to live in Alaska and in 1981 he and his wife sold most of what they owned, packed up their four children and hit the highway north.  Over the past 27 years Bill Hess has invested his time and talents in documenting Alaska’s Native communities.  His book, Gift of the Whale: The Inupiat Bowhead Hunt - A Sacred Tradition, was published by Sasquatch and his book, Celebration: Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Dancing on the Land, combining Hess’s photography with the writings of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian authors, was recently published by University of Washington Press.  Bill Hess is a recipient of a W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. (First Runner-up, 1999)