As I enjoy a good breakfast at Family, two women die just down the road; I meet a friend of Cheech and Chong who witnessed the aftermath

Once again, I had to do it. I got up, the house was empty, the dishes were dirty, and I did not want to sit in the cold air that still permeated the house, there to eat oatmeal alone, so I got into the car and drove to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. Connie was again my waitress, so I showed her the Moment in Time picture on my iPhone as it appears in this blog, then she brought my ham and eggs-over-easy and I began to eat.

It was superb - from the hashbrowns cooked just right to the ham dipped in the runny egg yolk. A bit after 9:00 AM, I looked up from my food, saw this scene, thought it worth a click and shot it.

What I did not know, what none of us gathered there at Family Restaurant yet knew, was that just up the road, a silver Chrysler Pacifica had crossed the suicide turn lane all the way into oncoming traffic and had struck a Tahoe head-on. The woman who had been driving the Pacifica was already dead and the one driving the Tahoe soon would be.

Just as she and the other Family waitresses always do, Connie waited until I finished the main course and then she brought me my two slices of 12-grain toast, each cut in half. One at a time, I spread strawberry jam over the halves and then ate very slowly, stopping frequently to take a sip of coffee. I wanted to savor every bite, every sip, every moment of it.

Then, feeling pleasant and satisfied, I got up, paid my bill, climbed into my car, turned right on the Parks Highway and then came home via Church Road. I arrived with much to do, but feeling good.

I would have felt completely differently, had I turned left on the Parks Highway instead of right.

I had a rush of work to do and stayed with it solid and non-stop, taking no time for lunch, because, really, one does not need lunch after eating breakfast at Family until 4:00 PM, when I took a break and drove to Metro for my All Things Considered cup.

As I drove along, sipping, I passed this fellow driving his four-wheeler. Do you notice anything happening in those trees behind him? Something we haven't seen for awhile?

Shortly after that, as she does every afternoon, the KSKA announcer jumped in during a break in All Things Considered to drop in a kicker for the Alaska Public Radio Network's Alaska statewide news. Barrow hunters had landed the first two bowhead whales of the season, she said.

I shouted, and clapped my hands for joy!

Later in the evening, Maak in Wainwright dropped a comment into yesterday's post to tell me that her village had also landed its first whale.

It was a joyous day in the two northern-most communities of the United States of America.

I came upon a little dog, walking down the road. I passed by at about one-mile per hour, because I did not want to run over it.

I then returned to my computer, but by 7:30, my muscles were screaming for exercise. I got up and invited Shadow to go bike riding with me.

We had not gone far when we spotted a little fourwheeler putting down the road in front of us.

"Do you think we can pass her?" I asked Shadow.

Shadow didn't answer, because Shadow never speaks.

I passed her! I soon reached the end of Sarah's Way and turned left toward Seldon. Then I heard a small engine, whining loudly, gaining on me. "Well," I said to Shadow, "it sounds like she didn't like us smoking her and now she is going to show us."

The pitch was so high, I wondered if her engine might blow apart.

Then the vehicle passed me, but it was not the girl on the fourwheeler. It was a little tiny blue car. I don't know what make.

Shadow and I continued on. Half-an-hour later, I photographed Shadow as the two of us pedaled down Church Road. Then I spotted another man on a bike, coming in our direction. "When we draw near, I will photograph this guy," I told Shadow.

I readied my pocket camera, but, unfortunately, I forgot the lesson that I had learned at the Wasilla park on that day tht I flipped my bike and leaped over the handle bars in front of the shocked little kid. I held my camera in my right hand. This meant that I had only my left hand available to brake, should I need to. As we know, left-hand brake stops front wheel only - sudden stop means bike flips.

But this guy could see me coming and I could see him. No cars or trucks could be seen anywhere. It would be okay. I would not need to brake.

As the biker drew near, the camera zoom was its widest-angle setting. As I began to lift my lens toward him, the oncoming rider looked straight at me and with a mischievous chin and a somewhat maniacal glint in his eyes, issued a challenge: "Wanna play chicken?"

He stood up and pedaled hard, straight toward me.

For an instant, I was determined to get a shot that captured that grin on his face and the force in his body as he pedaled at me. If I had been in the same exact situation prior to June 12, 2008, I am quite certain that I would have succeeded.

But, as regular readers know, the risk that I took that day to get a truly insignificant photo that no one will ever care about put me inside a Lear Jet ambulance on a $37,000 + ride from Barrow to Providence Hospital in Anchorage, a ride that my insurance company, contrary to the promise they had verbally given me when I bought the policy 15 years earlier in anticipation that, given the way I lived, the day would inevitably come when I would one day need an air ambulance, refused to pay.

That's why I have this titanium shoulder and that's just one of the reasons why I hate the insurance industry.

That coupled with the fact that I had flipped my bike in front of the little boy when I had braked with my left hand, added to the fact that I suddenly believed that this guy coming at me truly might not chicken out nor veer away in the slightest degree, added to my painful knowledge that my titanium shoulder is a fragile thing, and my memory of spending the summer of 2008 mostly in bed and the long convalescence that continued for a good year-and-half caused me to chicken out.

I knew I had to brake with my left hand but I reckoned that I had just enough space to do it gently, and not flip the bike. Even as I applied the brake, I shot this image.

As you can see, the oncoming rider was, in fact, chickening out, veering to his right. He, too, was applying his brakes.

We came to a stop side by side. My rear wheel did lift up about six inches and, fearing that I might yet go down, he reached out to grab me - but I had it under control and was not going to go down.

Some of you may recall how, way back in March, I had become shaggy, in both hair and beard. I was scheduled to do my slide shows in Nantucket and New York and so had committed myself to good cut and trim before I left.

I ran out of time and decided to get the cut and trim in Nantucket. When that didn't happen, I decided that I would get it in New York.

I absolutely will get it done before I leave for Arizona in just ten days.

This is Dave, by the way.

We pedaled side-by-side for just a short distance.

Then we stopped to visit. Dave was animated in his conversation, smiling continually. He said that he had just pedaled his bike up a road that climbs up the Talkeetnas and it had sure been hard, but it was easy coming down.

He asked if I biked often and I said, "yeah."

I asked if he did and he said he pretty much had to, if he wanted to go anywhere. I asked if he enjoyed it. As he thought about his answer, a big, white, Chevy pickup that looked to be almost brand new came driving by. He looked at. "Well," he said. "I'd rather be driving that. You can imagine how I feel when I'm on my bike and something like that comes by. But, hey! I can go all the way downtown and back and I don't burn any gasoline, I don't put any pollution into the air."

I wanted to catch his smile, and the glint in his turquoise-green eyes and told him so. He struck this pose. The smile disappeared.

OK - look at these trees. Now do you notice something happening?

I had him try another pose, but I quickly realized that, as long as he knew a camera was pointing at him, his smile was not going to be there.

I then showed him the pictures. "I look terrible," he said. "You can see all my scars!" He pointed to the one that starts between his left eye and the upper part of his nose. "I got that one when someone kicked me in the head." He then began to point out other scars, and tell me the histories behind them.

"Man! I should have shaved. My hair looks so dark. My eyes look blue - but they're green!"

He then mentioned that earlier in the day, he had been pedaling alongside the Parks Highway on the other side of the police station when he came upon the aftermath of a horrible accident.

"That little silver car had shot across the dead man's lane right into the SUV!" he said. "I could see that the air bag on the passenger side had worked."

The victims had already been removed. He did not know that two people had died in that crash until I told him. He seemed a little shook.

"Men or women?" he asked.

I did not know. The news bulletin I had read online had identified the dead only as the drivers of each vehicle.

"I'll read about it in tomorrow's paper," he shook his head.

The conversation fell to more pleasant topics. His smile returned. He had just painted his bike silver, earlier in the day. He was proud of it. He asked if I smoked and if I had a light. I said no, and I didn't. He pulled out a paper and a bag and began to roll.

I wanted to catch his smile, so I took this shot without raising my camera. Afterwards I showed it to him. "Hey," he said. "I want to tell you about when I went to Mexico with Cheech and Chong. We tried to come back across the border in our van, but the border guards wouldn't let us cross." He said he and Cheech and Chong then backed up, traded the psychedelically-painted van for a more conservative vehicle, returned to the border and were allowed to cross back in. They drove on to El Cerrito, where he checked into a bed and slept hard and long.

"You know Cheech and Chong?" I gushed.

"Oh, yeah!" he answered.

"Famous guy!"

"I'm not famous," he said. "They're famous."

"But you hang out with famous people."

"That was a long time ago."

As to the contents of that plastic baggie, I know what you are thinking - but it actually looked and smelled like tabacco.

As they say, "that's my story and I'm sticking to it!"

Dave and I said, "see you around." I pedaled on home.

That was last evening. This is from this morning. Now, surely, you notice what is happening in those trees... they are turning green! The leaves are coming out!

The first year that we lived here, the leaves came out May 14, as they did for the next 15 years or so. Then they started to come out earlier and earlier and earlier.

This year, they came out May 3.

And here is the place where the two women were killed, as I saw it this morning. God be with them, and even more so with those loved ones they left behind.

With Margie gone, I eat breakfast at Family; the iPhone - a simple, quick, transaction suddenly turns complex and long

I awoke thinking that, with Margie gone, I might just as well go to breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant - perhaps I would go every day until the 17th, when I leave to join her in Arizona. So what if I can't afford it? What does it matter? Will I be any more broke when they shove me into the cremator's fire then I will if I don't?

I enjoy eating breakfast at Family. And it is a good place to see a good cross-section of Wasilla drift in and out. Should I ever find the time and resource to do this blog the way I want, I have this idea in my head where I will go to Family Restaurant a couple of times a week, pick out somebody, introduce myself and then do some kind of little feature on that person, both in and out of Family Restaurant.

But today I did not have the time nor was I up to such a thing. I just staggered in, groggily sat down and placed my order.

Breakfast is good at Family, but they do have a tendency to ruin the hash browns, to fry them to a hard crisp on the outside and turn them to mush on the inside.

A waitress taught me to order them "soft and light," and then they would cook them just right.

And when they do... oh, my, breakfast at Family is good!

So I ordered my hash browns, "soft and light."

She is a very good waitress and she treats me well. It is not her fault that the hashbrowns came back as mush encased in a hard shell. The omelette was delicious, but I had been looking forward to the hashbrowns and now I couldn't eat them. I tried to get a new order of hash browns done right, but the cooks were allegedly too busy.

So I had breakfast with no hash browns. I had been looking forward to those hashbrowns, soft and light, so it was a disappointment.

Even so, I still recommend Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. And if you order your hash browns "soft and light," there is about a 75 percent chance that you will actually get them that way; otherwise, maybe 10 percent - possibly 15.

And when the hash browns are soft and light, it is the best breakfast in town.

The excellent and charming waitresses are very good at keeping their customer's coffee hot.

After I finished breakfast, I returned to my car and found this dog sitting in the bed of truck parked next to it. The dog was old and looked sad, but maybe it wasn't. Some dogs just look sad.

Still, I had to stop, and visit with the dog for a minute or two.

As you can see, the dog enjoyed the stimulating conversation and perked right up. 

I started up my car, got into it and then noticed that the light was falling beautifully upon the lady in the manicure shop that sits alongside Family. You can see the reflection of my car at the left, but you can't see me. If I should find myself in this situation again, I will see if I can work myself into the picture. This time, I was just too far to the left.

Actually, I believe I'm in this one, but just barely. The reflection is so dark there that it is hard to tell for certain.

I went home after this and made an important phone call. No - not to Margie. I knew that she would be so tired after traveling all night that she might possibly be sleeping and if she was, I did not want to wake her up.

It was about health insurance. One of the great ironies that I have faced recently is that the same month that the US Senate passed health care reform is the same month that I lost my health insurance that I have paid such high premiums for these past 15 years - to the detriment of my health care, as they have covered almost nothing and if I had not been spending so much money on the premiums I would have had more to spend on health care.

Then, they recently raised the premiums 20 percent and in December I just could not cover it.

As worthless and expensive (priced in the Senate's "Cadillac" premium category, delivering "clunker" benefits)   as the policy is, I still feel very uncomfortable without it. So I called to find out how long I can push it before I lose the opportunity to reinstate it and if there was any way Mega Life and Health could make it more affordable.

As my insurance company has had such a negative impact on my health care, I have talked to their representatives a number of times, but an amazing thing happened today. I was connected with an intelligent, articulate, woman with both a knack for listening and explaining and the knowledge and patience to do both. She also seemed to care.

We talked for maybe two hours. While the problems are many, here is the basic one: to get a group rate, I bought this premium through the National Association of the Self Employed... oh hell, what reader is going to want to read through such an explanation? I've probably lost 75 percent of you already.

Briefly stated, almost all the members NASE that I joined with have moved on and now my group is very small - in fact, she couldn't assure me that my group includes anyone but me. My policy is not even offered anymore. Hence, my premiums are outrageous and my services minimal.

Plus the part that she didn't say - the heads of the company are not interested in my health, but only in their profits. When my health care gets in the way, they would just as soon raise my premiums to the point where I am forced to drop the coverage.

Worse yet, I have no alternatives - not yet.

About the best I can hope for is that somehow I last until I reach Medicare age, which is coming sooner than I wish, but perhaps not soon enough.

Thank you, Senator Joe Lieberman. I had a good chance and then your ego got in the way.

Jacob and Lavina gave me an iPhone for Christmas, in the form of two ATT gift cards. I have been eager to pick that phone up, but have been dreading the experience, too, because I was with Melanie when she picked hers up and it was a long and convoluted affair.

Since Christmas, I have been too busy to do it, plus, I had seen the ATT store after Christmas's past and it was wall-to-wall customers, most of them waiting and waiting.

So I waited until today, until after I finished talking with the insurance lady and then I headed over.

To my surprise, there was no line. I was served immediately.

I told the kid about my gift and handed my cards to him. He told me that my cards covered an 8 gig phone, but if I wanted I could add a little more and get a 16 or 32 gig phone. "How much more for the 16?" I asked.

"$100," he answered.

Logically, 8 gigs seems like more than enough for a phone, but my experience with anything having to do with computers is that no matter how much memory you get, sooner or later you find out it isn't enough. You can always plug in more harddrives to your computer, but not to your iPhone.

"The 8 gigs will do," I said. I did not want to pay $100 out of pocket today.

So he took the two gift cards, completed the transaction and zapped my phone number and data into the iPhone - just like that. The entire process took less than five minutes.

Then he handed one of the cards back to me. "You've got $48 left on that card," he said.

What? $48 left over? This meant that I would not have had to spend $100 out of pocket, but only $52.

"In that case," I said, "I'll go with the 16 gigs."

"Okay," he said.

 And from there it got complex and complicated. So much so that when I left the store close to one hour later, after spending time watching children play while my very good salesperson and his coworkers tried to troubleshoot the many problems that kept arising, I departed without an iPhone.

Not only that, but the data in my old phone had gotten messed up. The phone numbers that I had been dialing and receiving calls from all disappeared. My voicemail no longer functions.

I have to come back tomorrow, 24 hours after that he did the original transaction for the 8 gig phone. Then the money will be back in my gift cards and I can spend it again and leave with a properly functioning iPhone.

I hope.

The kid told me his name, so that I could put it in the blog and I memorized it.

But now I forget.

Sorry, kid.

My bad.

As long-time readers know, Royce has been growing old and thin. I have attributed the thinness to his age, but, during Christmas, Melanie and Lisa observed that he wolfed down bits of turkey like he was starving, whereas in the past he would gingerly sniff and sniff such offerings before eating them.

So they speculated that the reason that he was growing thin was because it was becoming painful for him to eat hard food.

After Christmas, I continued to feed him turkey until there was no turkey to feed and I also observed him when I put out the dry food. He seemed to eat it just fine.

"But maybe he can't eat as much," Melanie said. "Maybe it hurts too much. You should get him canned food.

Today, with Margie in Arizona, I did something that I hate to do. I went to the grocery store. While I was there, I not only bought soft, canned, food for Royce, I bought "Senior Blend."

As soon as I pulled a can out of the grocery bag - even before I began to open it - Royce trotted to me with a desperate look in his eye and began to meow loudly. Once I pulled the lid off, he went nuts.

So I put some in a bowl and then took Royce into the boys' old room, placed it before him and closed the door so that the other cats would not try to come and get it.

I didn't close the door tight enough. Chicago came in, nudged Royce out of the way and began to eat his food. He had eaten quite a bit by then, so I decided just to let Chicago eat and then I would give Royce more later.

Then Royce nudged Chicago away and returned to his meal.

What you need to understand about Chicago is that she is the meanest, toughest, cat in this house - not towards people, but towards other cats. There is a story behind this, but I am not going to take the space to write it, right now.

But Chicago did not fight for that food. She stepped back and watched as Royce ate.

I think maybe there are two reasons for this. Chicago loves Royce. She hates Pistol-Yero, despises Jim, absolutely could not stand Marty when she was here with Kalib, Jacob, Lavina and Muzzy, but she has always loved Royce. The two often sleep intertwined.

And I think that maybe she understood, somehow, that Royce needed that soft food more than she did.

Plus, maybe she saw the can and the words written on it, including "senior blend."

Next to Royce, she is the oldest cat here, but she still likes to think of herself as a pretty, young, kitty.

And she is pretty.

Three of my neighbors: Tim builds his shop casually, Patty fights off her cancer intently, Michael blows away the snow; umbilical cord discussed at IHOP; coffee-dogs-Kalib

This is my neighbor, Tim, the carpenter who lives kitty-corner across the street. Sometimes, people who in their professions do things for other people have a hard time getting around to doing the same things for themselves.

Some of you who have been with me for awhile have probably noticed that my walls are almost bare. Photos do not hang on them. True, there is one of Kalib when he was little more than a newborn wedged into a cabinet door in the kitchen and another of him crawling with Marty past Muzzy that hangs at the opening to the hallway.

Other than that, there are none at all and these two are only recent developments. Prior to Kalib's birth, in all the time that I have been married, not one photo has hung on my wall.

Not a single one.

Tim is doing a little better in this regard than I. He started work on the shop that you see going up behind him four years ago. There wasn't much visible sign of it until early this summer, when a foundation began to appear.

Now that it is cold and snowy, he built two opposing wall frames just last week. He says the entire shop will be done soon.

Regular readers have already met my neighbor Patty, who I sometimes refer to as "The Fit Lady" because she has always kept herself so busy and fit walking, skiing, biking, sailing and such.

Just last summer, she discovered she had a cancer that the doctor said was terminal - so terminal that it was pointless for him to treat her further. He sent her home to die and said it would happen in just months.

In fact, according to that doctor, she is supposed to be dead right now.

She's not - because after he told her she was finished, she told herself she was not.

As I have reported before, she took up holistic healing and found a doctor who would work with her and give her chemo as she set her mind and dietary intake towards healing.

That doctor now says Patty is a miracle woman. He has her come and talk to other patients who have "terminal" cancers.

She was just tested. The tumors in her colon have all disappeared. Her liver tumor is still there, but is a tenth of its former size.

There are many reasons for her success, she says, including just putting herself "in touch with the universe." She says that sounds corny and strange, but "it's true."

I am sorry that this picture looks so ratty, but I took it at about 4:00 o'clock and it was dark - considerably darker then it appears in this picture. There are cameras that handle this level of darkness pretty well, but not this G10 pocket camera.

They say its successor, the G11, is much improved with low light. When I can, I will get one.

The fact is, this time of year, even in the middle of the day, the light here is pretty dim. We plan to go to Arizona next month and when we first step into the sun down there, it will shock us.

And this is my neighbor, Michael, two houses down, who works in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, two weeks on, two weeks off. I most often see him when I'm riding a bike one way and he is riding the other, or when we meet on skis. He is often with his wife and his children were growing, they would often be with him, too.

Of course, I have not met him on skis for a long time, because after they built Serendipity, I could no longer step off my back porch, take off on my skis and go and go and go and go, because they put the damn subdivision in my way.

And I still have yet to take my first ski since I shattered my shoulder 18 months ago.

But Michael has been skiing - at Hatcher Pass. He says it is wonderful right now.

I told him I am going to try to go up there next week. He said we should go together.

I haven't done anything physical since I put down my bike to attend the AFN Convention and then it had a flat tire and before I could patch it the snow fell.

I don't think I could keep up with him.

"I think you could," he said.

That reminds me - Patty went skiing at Hatcher Pass last week, too.

Here is a bigger snowplow, coming down Lucille.

Here it is again.

This is one of the pictures from yesterday that I did not post because I had to go to bed. I took this picture from my car and when I saw his man, I had no idea what his sign said. I had to stop at a red light and that gave me some time to concentrate on the sign and try to read it, but I simply could not make it out.

I did make out the words, "Happy" and "birthday." So I figured it must be a Christmas message. The fact that he was dressed in red reinforced this idea. I figured maybe he was wishing Jesus a happy upcoming birthday.

But when I pulled the picture into my computer and was able to examine it, I saw that he was actually wishing happy birthday to the US Bill of Rights and that he had singled out the Second Amendment - the right to bear arms - for special good wishes.

To all others who might want to stand on street corners waving signs, let me suggest that you make your letters big and bold and even colorful, so that passers by do not mistake you for Santa Claus - especially if you are going to wear red during the holiday season.

This is also from yesterday, when I was at IHOP. I swear, I was not eavesdropping on these people's conversation, but all of a sudden, in a very animated and amplified voice, so loud that no one anywhere nearby could have missed it, the fellow on the other side of the table blurted out, "when the baby comes out, you just snip that umbilical chord."

Then, speaking just as loudly, the fellow at left said that he had heard that when you cut the umbilical cord -sploosh! - the stuff inside it just comes gushing out to squirt all over you and everything else.

At that moment, my waitress came to my table and laid my ham, eggs, and strawberry-banana pancakes in front of me.

On my walk, this dog ran out of a driveway and took off down the street. Pretty soon, this car pulled out of the same driveway, drove to the dog, stopped, and then the lady got out to catch the dog.

As I pulled up to the drive-through of Metro Cafe yesterday, I was listening to All Things Considered on the radio, where I heard what an important fellow Joe Lieberman is trying to be. He is saying that he is following his conscience. Another person contends that the real argument is how many hundreds of thousands of people will die from lack of good health insurance.

After Carmen opens the window, she tells the beautiful lady on the other side of the counter that I always take pictures of everything, that I even photographed the grand opening of Metro Cafe and that she can find it all on my blog.

Her name is Sherry and the kid wearing the hat is Greg.

Or is he Doug?

I'm pretty sure he's Greg.

If not - Doug, I apologize.

And if by chance he is neither Doug nor Greg, well, hell. I apologize twice.

Sherry and Carmen ham it up for the camera. Today, Carmen told me that Sherry comes in every morning at 7:30 AM. "Just like you come in every day right after 4:00," she added.

I wonder how it happened that Sherry and I came at the same time?

Tamar Street.

Yes, I took Muzzy on another walk.

 

When we got home, Muzzy flopped down in the driveway and began to pull the snow out from between his toes.

And here is Kalib and Margie with two stuffed Muzzies, this evening.

Now I might not see either of them for a few days. The new house is airing out pretty good, so Lavina and Kalib plan to stay in town tomorrow night and Margie is going to go with them. Caleb, of course, works all night.

Party time.

I will get out the cat nip and pop some corn. The cats and I will party like crazy.

Cocoon mode* - day 2: From Monument Valley to Wasilla, with love and longing; Margie hobbles into the grocery store; Obama stands as my warrior

Lavina received some pictures in the mail from her sister, Lori, showing her two children, Sage and Jayden, in Monument Valley, where Lavina's father originated. Lori, who is on top in a hard battle against cancer, now lives in St. George, Utah, but had returned with her family to her ancestral home for a visit.

Lavina wished that she could go down, too.

Actually, when I look at this picture, I kind of want to go wander around down there a bit, myself.

Margie got out of the car and went into Carr's to do some shopping. It was the first time that she had been in a store since she fell and broke her femur at the knee on July 26.

Tonight, we ate spaghetti.

Earlier, I took a break from work to join her to watch Obama deliver his health care address. Our President made me proud - and hopeful. He laid out his plan with force and clarity and called lies lies. I have made some of my complaints about my insurance company known here and I won't bother to again, but this is a battle that he fights for me.

*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.

We gather together to make a health care reform statement to our Senators; dinner with Rex at Bombay

I had to deliver some photos to a client in Anchorage, so I decided to time it so that I could go straight from the drop off to the "Send Congress back to DC" event, held for those who pledge their support for health care reform to urge our Senators to vote for reform. As it happened, I hit a couple of traffic jams coming in and so had to go straight to the event, because they were going to shut the doors shortly after 6:00 PM and then no one would be allowed to enter.

Shortly after the meeting began, the host, Jonathan Teeters of Organizing for America, asked all those who had health insurance to raise their hands, then all those who had lousy insurance to raise their hands and finally, all those who had no insurance at all to do so.

This guy sitting next to me raised his hand when the "uninsured category" came up. It had been my intent to ask him a couple of questions afterward, but he got up and zipped out, just before the event ended.

He did a lot of shouting, though, all on cue, and in favor of health insurance reform.

This is Jonathan Teeters himself, holding a bundle representing the 5000 petitions received so far from Alaskans who want Congress to pass a good health care reform plan. That would include me, as I have previously made known.

The highlight of the event came at 7:00 o'clock when Senator Mark Begich made a planned surprise call from Indiana, where he had stopped with his son on their drive back to Washington, D.C. The surprise call was announced five minutes beforehand to give the crowd a chance to practice the response they would shout out for Begich to hear when asked a couple of different questions.

Before this happened, Begich chatted for awhile, telling folks how, as he and his daughter have been traveling, they stop here and there, to get breakfast or dinner, buy gasoline, wander around a park or something and just chat with people. He said that he does not tell them that he is a US Senator and the only Alaska politician most of them would recognize is Sarah Palin, so they don't even suspect.

Again and again, in these casual conversations, Begich said, the subject of health care comes up and people are frustrated. Some have lost jobs and with them their health care. Some are afraid to move to a new job and lose their health care. Some have health care, but get shafted by their insurance companies when the time comes. Some have no health care at all.

Anyway, when the time came, Sarah pointed to the script, and, minus a tiny sprinkling of silent nay-sayers, the crowd shouted out the very words that she points to here.

Senator Lisa Murkowski did not show, nor did she call in. So Jonathan's father videoed the crowd while they shouted out this message to her.

Here folks are, shouting out their message to Senator Murkowski. Mike is the guy in front and he has health insurance and had not been too politically active until the Bush versus Gore election was settled under suspicious circumstance in Florida.

That angered him, as he believes that Gore was cheated out of the victory that should have been his and America has paid a high price. Now, he wants his voice to be heard.

In some ways, it was kind of a funny moment for me. It is my training as a photojournalist that when you cover such events, you do not shout, cheer, clap, jeer or do any such thing. You shoot pictures, you gather notes and you do not display your own sentiments. You pretend that you have no sentiments.

But I had not come as a journalist. I had come as a regular citizen, frustrated and angered by a health care system that absolutely threatens to destroy him. Still, when the call came to shout out, I tried, but I could not shout. I squeaked. It just didn't feel right to shout. It goes against my grain. I'm not a shouter, anyway.

So there you go, I went to this event to make my voice heard by our Senators and then, when the time came, I didn't even make it heard. And I didn't cover the event as I would have if I had been in photojournalism mode. I just shot these few pictures pretty much from the place where I sat.

Still, I have at least made a tiny record of the event, a statement that it happened.

Afterwards, I delivered the photos to my client and got together with my youngest son, Rex, who I had not seen for awhile and took him to dinner at Bombay. I had hoped that my beautiful and intelligent daugther-in-law, Stephanie, could come, too, but she had to work. The waitress, a young Philipina woman who had been terrified to eat Indian food for the first few months that she worked here, saw me taking this picture and volunteered to take one of both of us together.

She did pretty good, too. So here we are, Rex and I together, in the photo taken by the waitress who finally conquered her fear and found Indian food to be quite delicious.

Rex and I had a good visit. 

And, as always, being in this environment took my mind right back to India, to Sandy, Murthy, Vasanthi and all the rest of the family there, to the Indian highway, the bandit monkeys, the elephants that bless people and those that at night appear suddenly at the side of the road in the headlights of your courageous and skilled taxi driver.

It is so sad. I have so many photo stories from India that no one has ever seen, not even me, save for when I took them, because I have had no time to do anything with them.

One day.