Two postmen: one rescues me from mean, vicious, snarling, barking American Bull Dog (imagine it comparing paw notes with the pit) Metro study

On my walk, I see in the near distance - a dog!

An American Bull Dog.

Barking.

Growling.

Snarling.

Preparing to attack.

H'mmm... looks familiar... haven't we been through this before?

Like 79 times?

"I'm going to tear your head off, Picture Man!" the dog growls.

Suddenly, before she can attack, she turns, and runs, fleeing in terror, all decorum and modesty forgotten. Someone has come to my rescue. Who could it be?

"Are you okay?" I hear a voice behind me. I turn to my rescuer. It is this postman. 

"I'm fine," I say. "That's Tequilla. She doesn't mean any harm. She's just likes to put on a show."

The postman is greatly relieved.

And he is pleased to know he will be in my blog.

He will be remembered forever now.

Except for his name.

I didn't get his name.

So he will be remembered forever as, "Anonymous Postman Who Saved Legendary Wasilla Blogger From Bluff Attack by Sweatheart Barking Bull Dog Named Tequilla."

The Postman drives away and I walk on. Tequilla relaunches the attack, sneaking loudly up from behind.

She stops, pretending with satisfaction that she has done her job and has frightened me away.

Well, once again, our little town's most famous, self-proclaimed, pit bull has managed to dominate national news stories of the past few days. She should get together with this character. They could write notes upon their paws and then stage a barking and growling contest.

"Woof! Woof!" it would be written on the paw of the American Bull dog.

"Bark! Bark!" the Pit Bull's paw would read.

Later, at the usual time, I drive to Metro Cafe, where I come upon a second postman, John. He agrees to pose for, Through the Metro Cafe Window, Study #2.

Certainly, there have been many more images than one already completed in this amazing study, but every study must have a #2. This is my #2.

After we finish the shoot and John leaves, Carmen tells me that more and more postmen are taking their breaks at the Metro Cafe.

"They're really good people," she says. She is glad they have found her.

The school bus drivers, however, just drive right on by during their breaks. "They have a three hour break and they don't even stop," she laments.

C'mon, school bus drivers. Stop at Metro Cafe and get a coffee. 

You won't be sorry.

And you might wind up in one of my famous studies.

Then you, too, can be remembered forever.

Real Wasilla - not to be found in Rogue: Snowplow comes down the road, turns around and goes back up again; Kalib loses shoe on sub-zero drive; more

As I took my walk today, I saw a snowplow coming down the road.

It zipped right past me.

It reached the end of the road, then turned around and came right back again, it's second blade grinding loudly against the pavement it scraped.

It zipped right past me all over again - talk about deja vu!

Here is Kalib, at the Post Office. I see that he has removed one shoe. That's the thing to do when the temperature outside is -5 F (-21C).

On the way home, we passed a postal worker distributing mail. Kalib did not witness this great event.

He had fallen asleep - that's why. I picked him up, carried him into the house and gave him to Margie, who put him into bed for his afternoon nap. 

As soon as he hit the mattress, he was wide awake. (I received a complaint from down in the Navajo Nation today: each of my last two posts contained only one photo each of Kalib. This was highly inadequate, I was informed. POST MORE PICTURES OF KALIB!!! I was chastised. Well, today there is three. I suppose three won't be enough, though.)

At 4:00 PM, I took my coffee break and drove past these kids, playing in the snow.

And here I am, in the drive-through at Metro Cafe, where some important business was being conducted.

As should be clear to all readers, here in Wasilla, the excitement never ends.

You won't find anything like this in "Going Rogue," but you will find it right here, on this blog.

A memorial to a mother, fetus and teenage girl killed by a drunk driver is destroyed*

Today I found this little angel reaching out with a flower from the tumble of stones that remain of what very recently was a memorial to a mother and a baby who died in a car crash at this place.

I did not touch the angel, I did not move it. This is exactly how I found it.

This is what the memorial looked like on May 6, 2005. Until I pedaled my bike up to it today, I had never before stopped here. I had taken a few pictures as I zipped by in the car and from my bike as well, but I never stopped. 

Other than that two lives were lost, I have no knowledge of what happened here. I do not recall reading about it in the paper, seeing the story on TV or hearing it on the radio. Perhaps someone who reads this will know and will fill me in. (Three lives, it turns out. Update at bottom.)

All I know is that one day, well before I took this picture, the white cross appeared. I wondered why. A lady who is now dead and who I would often see in her yard and who seemed to know about everything that ever happened anywhere near this neighborhood told me that a young mother and her baby had been killed when she crashed her car here. She thought it was a single-car crash, that she had just gone off the end of Church Road, across Shrock and into the embankment.

This might be correct, it might not be. I did some googling today, but I could not find the answer.

Later, the brown cross, decorated with the engraved bear, appeared.

Throughout the years, the memorial always seemed to be well-cared for.

It was the work of an ever-loving and forever-pained heart.

Only a very different kind of heart could vandalize it.

I chose this photo because it was the only one that my search engine found when I typed in the word, "cross."

One day very recently, as I passed by, I noticed that the white cross had been split and knocked down. It looked to me to be the work of vandals. I do not know for certain. It is possible that another car lost control here and drove over the cross and damaged it.

Perhaps someone driving a four-wheeler off the side of the road too fast after dark did not see it and ran over it.

I do not know.

But it looked like the work of vandals.

I had intended to take a photograph of the damaged cross, but I never did.

And now both crosses are gone.

If you look closely at the upper-left hand corner of the rock pile, you can see the little angel, lying at the junction of three rocks and a leaf.

And if you look to the right, you can barely make out some wilted flowers, and some plastic flowers.

These are the plastic flowers.

Not far from the destroyed memorial, I rode my bike through a blanket of downed leaves as fast as I could without losing control while reaching as far forward with my pocket camera as my arm would extend so that I could photograph the action.

It was hard, but I did it. How about that, Charlie? (Explanation in Wednesday's comments).

Later in the afternoon, as I was returning home from my coffee break, I saw this lady checking the mail. As you can see, the leaves are just about all down now.

Last year, by this day, the snow had set in for the season.

I am still in cocoon mode, but I have gone maybe 15 minutes over my time limit.

I wanted to keep my title short, anyway.

*Update, 8:42 AM: I originally posted this under the title:

A memorial to a deceased mother and baby is destroyed

Mark Dent, editor of the Alaska Newsreader at the Anchorage Daily News, read the post and sent me this ADN clipping from October 9, 1999 - ten years ago today - with an account of the fatal accident:

By S.J. Komarnitsky

Daily News Mat-Su Bureau 

Day:   Saturday 

Page:   E1 

Print Run Date:   10/9/1999 

Dateline:   Palmer -- 

Text:   A Wasilla man with a history of alcohol abuse and driving

illegally was charged with two counts of murder Friday in connection

with an August accident in which a teenager and pregnant woman were

killed.

John F. Magee, 37, was arraigned in Superior Court in Palmer on two

counts of second-degree murder, one count of first-degree assault and

driving while intoxicated. He may also face additional charges in

connection with the death of the fetus, prosecutors said. The woman was

eight months pregnant.

According to court documents, Magee was drunk and apparently driving

with broken windshield wipers in the rain in the early morning hours of

Aug. 15 when he ran a stop sign and crashed into a Subaru driven by

Laura Boles, 20, of Wasilla, at the intersection of Shrock and Church

roads. Boles was headed west on Shrock when she was hit by Magee, who

was headed north on Church, troopers said.

TX: The impact shoved both cars more than 60 feet off the road.

Killed were Boles, the fetus she was carrying, and a passenger, Mary A.

Williquette, 16, of Wasilla. A third passenger in Boles' car - Jacob

Buswell, 18, also of Wasilla - suffered severe injuries. Magee was also

injured.

According to court documents, Magee told troopers he had been drinking

at the Wasilla Bar, and the last thing he remembered was seeing a

stoplight near the Safeway grocery store in Wasilla, several miles from

the accident scene.

He registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.138 three hours after the

crash, according to court documents.

Ira See, an acquaintance who told troopers he was at the bar with Magee,

said the car Magee was driving did not have working windshield wipers

because the wiring had burned out, according to the court papers.

And while troopers said Magee had a valid driver's license when the

collision occurred, that has rarely been the case in recent years.

Over the past decade, Magee has been convicted at least six times for

driving without a license or driving while his license was revoked or

suspended. He also has been convicted of assault, criminal mischief, and

misconduct involving a controlled substance.

In 1980, he was convicted of driving while intoxicated and in 1988, he

was convicted of reckless driving.

Thank you, Mark.