The Veterans and Apache cowboys who escorted Vincent Craig to his viewing

Early Thursday morning, Vincent Craig was driven by hearse to his home in Whiteriver, where many family and friends had gathered to follow the funeral procession to Fort Apache. I had driven down from Hon-Dah in my rental car, but the protocol was to keep the pallbearers together so when it came time to move out toward Fort Apache, I joined my brother-in-law, Emerson Craig and two others and rode with them. A police escort separated us from the hearse and there were many vehicles in that escort.

As we drew within what I estimate to be about one mile from the Fort Apache Mormon church house, I saw a group of cowboys sitting on horseback ahead in the distance. When the procession reached them, the cowboys fell in behind the hearse. Shortly afterward, an honor guard took their place in front of the hearse and we proceeded on at walking speed.

As we drew near to the chapel, I got out of Emerson's truck and hurried ahead, so that I could capture this moment of honor as Vincent's fellow veterans and these Apache cowboys escorted him to the chapel.

Afterward, we carried him inside for the visitation and viewing. Then, like a river that just kept flowing for seven hours straight, people came by the score, by the hundreds, by the thousands to file past his flag draped coffin to look in and pay honor and tribute to this Navajo-Marine-cowboy-policeman-artist-musician-humorist who now lay dressed in his white Mormon temple clothing, a green apron at the waist.

They then moved on to embrace and sometimes cry with his wife Mariddie, his sons Dustinn, Nephi and Shiloh and other family members. As they passed by a wall hung with many of his cartoons, they laughed, too.

I took many more pictures of course, most of which I have yet to download, let alone to look at. But it has been a long day, I am very tired and weary and must get an early start in the morning, to prepare for his funeral and burial.

So this is it for now.

Through the Metro window study - Carmen and Burt; Ron Mancil, horse and boys; deer and hunter/Aaron Fox story rescheduled for tomorrow

I have had to delay the Aaron Fox story for a day, as I find myself short of time to do it justice. Before I left on my recent trip to the East Coast, it was my general practice to create my blog posts late at night and then schedule them to appear at 4:00 AM.

I could not maintain this schedule as I traveled and so found myself making my posts in the morning, before I got into other things. I then decided I would continue to do so after I got home - I would put up my post in the morning, be all done with it no later than noon, and then I would have the remainder of the day, the evening, and the night to do all those other things I need to do.

This is, in fact, what I have done since I arrived home, but today I just couldn't pull it off. Now, I find it is already past noon. I must get a post up before the day grows any older, but it will take me at least a couple of hours to do the Aaron Fox story, so I am going to delay it until tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, here I am, yesterday afternoon, back to my usual, taking my 4:00 PM coffee break, which I began at the drive-through window to Metro Cafe. That's Carmen's brother-in-law, Burt, posing with her in:

Through the Window Metro Study, #6628.

Once again, I took the long way home from Metro and found Ron Mancil with a horse and two boys, up visiting from the Kenai Peninsula. The little boy is Roland. The bigger boy is... G.... G....

Damn! Why doesn't the rest of his name come to me?

I remember the "G," but nothing after that.

I woke up this morning broke. And I mean broke. No means to pay a single bill, not even my house payment, due in two days, or any extra taxes that may be due Uncle Sam the same day. No possibility of any income coming in for at least two weeks, maybe three. After I finish this blog, I am going to call the doctor and cancel the appointment that I have scheduled for tomorrow, because I can't pay for it.

Very soon, I will begin to receive a bunch of irritating phone calls demanding payment from me that I am currently unable to pay.

So I decided to go to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant and have breakfast. I do have a credit card, after all. Whenever I get down to my last few dollars, I go out to eat. I don't give a damn about wisdom and common sense.

I go out to eat.

After I sat down and placed my order, I noticed this kid sitting across from me, playing with his toy deer, his toy motorcycle and his toy truck. Sitting at the table in front of me was an old man and a young man. I did not eavesdrop on their conversation, but just after I noticed the toy deer, these words rose out of the whispery din of their spoken words, "...go deer hunting."

Strange coincidence, I thought.

The little boy was with his grandma. When they finished their breakfast, picked up their ticket and started to leave, I stopped them and showed them this picture. I told them about this blog and gave them the address. Then I asked for the boy's first name:

Hunter.

Hunter - have a good day. And when I get older and can no longer care for myself or Margie, please remember me, and bring me a slab of venison, or a hind-quarter of moose. I will share it with Margie, and perhaps a tiny piece with any nearby cat who might plead for it.

Margie, by the way, has gone to town to babysit Jobe.

Kalib bonks Mom and Grandma on the head; horses run to Ron; Margie and Jobe

As I leave for Boston, enroute to Nantucket, early Wednesday morning, I had told myself that I would put only one picture in this blog tonight, and write no more than two or three sentences.

But I did not know that Kalib and Jobe were going to drive out with their good mom so that they could see me before I left.

I was conducting a phone interview when Margie came in to tell me they were here and I had to shoo her off. I was talking through an almost invisible headset, so she did not know I was on the phone and kept talking to me even as the person I was interviewing was answering my questions and I was trying to type them down.

When I finished the interview, I came into the house and this is what I found: Kalib, about to bonk his grandma on the head as his mother fed his little brother.

Then he bonked his mom on the head. Thank goodness, he didn't try to bonk Royce.

Next, he bonked himself. He did not try to bonk me. I felt a little left out.

At 4:00 PM, I took Lavina and Kalib to Metro and then we sipped our drinks as we took the long way home and drove past the Mahoney Ranch horses. As you can see, the horses were on the run.

We drove down to the end of Sunrise, turned around and drove back and there we saw Ron Mancil, in the midst of the horses that he had just fed.

As I drove along this road, I thought how quickly I will be in a totally different kind of environment. I am always eager to travel and to see new places and meet new people, but at the same time I always hate to leave home, too.

Margie and Jobe.

At this time tomorrow, I hope to be sound asleep in Massachusetts. 

I'm such an insomniac that I can't guarantee it.

Or I might be working on this blog, posting pictures from my travels.

Now, I must finish packing and then go to bed.

Homely man with horses; two through the Window Metro Studies; I rush to Anchorage airport post office, then meet a man who wants whiskey

It is 1:38 AM and I am just now sitting down to do this blog. This is because I have been busy all day preparing the proposal that I mentioned yesterday. There were a few other little things that I had to attend to - emails to answer, pro-bono photo orders to postpone - that kind of thing. But basically, the day was given entirely to the proposal.

As for this image, it is a picture of a holdover from yesterday's take. That's me on the computer screen, in a photo that Ron Mancil took of me with my camera out by the horses. Some of you may have noticed that when I include a picture taken by someone else in this blog, I first take a picture of that picture, whether it be on an iPhone, computer screen, wedding invitation or whatever.

That's because this blog is an impression of how I see the world through my camera, even when I extend that camera out somewhere and point it at something - maybe me - without actually looking through the lens.

One thing that I notice when I see a picture of myself like this is that I am going downhill fast, growing more homely and ugly every day. My mind's eye never sees me this way. When it envisions me, my mind's eye still pictures a dashing young tall guy of about 37, not a short guy headed towards old age.

But look - here's proof. I am going the way of all mankind; womankind, too. Humankind. And catkind, as we have observed in Royce.

Horsekind, too - although none of these horses look old or homely to me.

Through the Window Metro Study, #9723

Well, I did break away from my computer at 4:00, so I could go to Metro and hear at least a little bit of news on my car radio. When I got there, some of the same good-looking kids that I photographed very recently were on the other side of the window, with a newcomer. I got his name but I had forgotten my iPhone so I didn't record it and I forgot it.

So, to make him feel better about it, I just won't name anybody.

Through the Window Metro Study #3

One of Carmen's friends was there - a lady that she used to work with at Northern Air Cargo. Carmen told me her name, too, and I was certain I would remember, but I forgot.

Oddly enough, whenever I have had my iPhone with me and have actually used to it record the names of people I have photographed, I have always remembered those names - even without opening up the iPhone.

If I forget the phone again, I suppose what I should do is cup my hand to my head, speak the names into it as if I were recording and then maybe I won't forget.

The proposal had to be postmarked before midnight and the only Post Office I know of in the state of Alaska that is open until midnight is the one by the airport. I left the house about 10:15. It takes a little over an hour to drive from here to that post office, but I had give myself a little extra time, just in case somebody hit a moose or something somewhere in front of me and caused traffic to slow down.

I arrived at the Post Office just past 11:20, congratulating myself on making it with time to spare. I had planned to put the package in a priority mail envelope and so had made no label at home, as I would just have to do it at the post office again, anyway.

So I got the priority envelope and then pulled out my packet to get the mailing address off the application materials.

Oh no! Even though I was certain it was, the address was not printed anywhere on the application materials. The logo was, but not the address.

Aha! This time, I had my iPhone with me!

I pulled it out, logged onto the net and quickly found the address.

I then got into the line, which was long and slow, as it always it as this post office just before midnight.

Oh, my goodness! Look at this!

I have grown even more homely and ugly than I was just yesterday, when Ron photographed me with the horses.

Just proves what I said under photo #1.

Joe took the package from me and let me watch as he gave it the March 1 postmark. Joe asked that I not photograph his face, but only his hands.

So that's what I did.

I didn't have enough gas to get home, so I stopped at the Holiday Station by Merrill Field. I noticed this guy sitting by this pile of firewood and I was pretty certain that before I left, he would ask me for money.

Sure enough, just as I was putting the hose back into the pump, he got up, walked over and made his request. He and his brother had just flown in from Hawaii to take in Fur Rendezvous, he said, but they didn't have enough money left to buy whiskey. They needed some whiskey so they could enjoy Fur Rendez. 

They weren't going to start on it tonight, he said, but were going to wait until tomorrow when the events started. Then they would start drinking the whiskey.

"I'm sorry," I told him, "I don't have any cash on me at all and my bank account is down to about $100," all of which was true.

"That's okay," he said. He then went and sat back down.

Then I remembered that when I bought my coffee from Carmen with a credit card, I had seen a quarter and a penny sitting in the slot by the gear shifter.

So I opened the car door, took out the quarter and the penny, walked over and gave it to the man.

"Well, at least you're honest about needing the money for whiskey," I said. "Here's 26 cents. That's all the cash I have."

"Yes," he said. "That's the honest truth. I'm not a panhandler and I'm not homeless. Me and my brother just came all the way from Hawaii to see Fur Rendezvous and we need whiskey."

"You're lucky its warm," I said. 

Regular readers might recall how, a few days ago, I mentioned that there was a mass of cold air sitting to the north of us even as a low pressure system of warm air was spinning toward us from Hawaii.

I had hoped the cold air would win the battle and, for a time, on Saturday, it looked like it might. Then the warm front spun in and took over. The temperature when I took this picture was about 30 degrees (-1 c).

"Yeah, I'm told it gets pretty cold here this time of year," Ilya said.

"It can," I said, "a lot colder than this."

Then we shook hands and parted company.

A bald fellow in the parking lot at Carr's; Ron, Milo and the Mahoney horses

I got up late today, never took a walk and, after I ate my oatmeal and read the Sunday paper - or at least those portions that I had not already read online from one source or another - basically spent the entire day sitting in front of my computer, working on a proposal that I must have done tomorrow. I am a long ways from being finished, so, once I finish this blog entry, I will go back to it.

The proposal is a long shot, but I've got to try anyway. I've found that funders have a very difficult time getting past the word, "blog," but the proposal involves this blog and it could make a big difference to it.

The only time that I stepped outside the house was at 4:00 PM. Margie needed to buy a few groceries at Carr's and so I suggested that I come along, sit in the car and listen to NPR while she shopped, and then afterward we could get coffee and go for a short drive.

So this picture represents the first stage of that process. Margie is in the store, shopping for a few groceries and I am sitting in the car, listening to the news and glancing into my rearview mirror.

I wonder what she was going into Carr's to purchase? Cat food, I suspect. And some Vitamin C.

Metro Cafe is closed on Sunday's, so we went through the drive-through at Mocha Moose, then went driving. As we passed by the Mahoney place, I saw the horses that are usually out in the field in this little enclosure. My friend, Ron Mancil, originally of the Arctic Slope, was with them, so I stopped to say hi.

It has been a long time since I rode a horse. Over 30 years. At that time, Margie and I were still living on the reservation and we decided we needed a horse. We heard of one for sale at a ranch immediately over the reservation line, a gray mare, and we were told that it was a very good and gentle horse.

So we drove over. 

Margie climbed on first and that damn good and gentle horse bucked her right off.

So I climbed on and the damn good and gentle horse bucked me off, too.

We decided not to buy it.

Mikey, a horse-shoeing housewife from southern Arizona and a frequent visitor to this blog, could surely have handled that mare, though.

This is Milo. I tried to make friends with him, but he wasn't interested.

Milo prefers the friendship of horses.

Not long after the horse-bucking incident, Margie's family gave me a horse that they had already named, "Billy." Trouble is, it lived in Carrizo Canyon and pretty much went about its business as it wanted and we lived in Whiteriver, 25 miles away.

Every now and then, we would drive through Carrizo Canyon and we might have gotten a glimpse of Billy once or twice, but that was it.

We moved to Alaska shortly after that. Every now and then, we would receive reports that Billy had been seen here or there during family outings up the Canyon, to do things like plant and harvest corn.

I even think Red Nose caught him a couple of times and rode him.

But basically, my horse Billy lived a free life on the reservation and did whatever he wanted.

I have some other horse stories to tell, including my best ones, but it would take more words and time than I am prepared to devote tonight.

So I will save them for another time.

Ron says horses are kind of like "smart moose."

Good thing they don't grow antlers. Someone would shoot them, for sure.

It reminds me of when I was a boy living in Montana, where cows were often referred to as "slow elk."

Local hunters were always gripping about out-of-state hunters who, folk-lore held, came into Montana and shot and even butchered copious numbers of "slow elk."

Milo vigorously rounds up the horses. A good horse dog is indispensable when you live on a ranch.

Just before we left, this black horse suddenly appeared and walked right up to me. I reached out and patted it on the head, then, fearing the horse would not stay long, lifted up my pocket camera and turned it back on, only to discover that it had been on all along. This meant that I had actually turned it off.

The pocket camera does not make transitions quickly. I had to wait for the lens to retract and the camera to shut off. Then, after I pushed the turn on button again, I had to wait for the lens to come back out and the camera to activate itself. By then, the horse felt it had learned whatever it was it needed to learn about me and so left as I quickly snapped this one, out of focus frame.

As you know, I love the pocket camera even better than my big professional cameras, but I tell you, it does cause me to miss a lot of pictures, just by being so damn slow.