Pregnant spider walking; Lavina comes to pick up her babies as we wait for the new baby; Hannah Solomon, who lived for almost 103 years

On my morning walk, I came upon this pregnant spider -- VERY PREGNANT! I had the wrong lens to be photographing a spider, but, to quote once again from Donald Rumsfeld:

"As you know, you photograph a spider with the lens you have, not the lens you wish you had brought or might bring at a later time, when the spider is gone."

Lavina had planned to come out yesterday and then spend the night with us so that she could see her babies again, but she didn't. This was because she had been having contractions Friday - not true labor contractions, but getting ready for labor contractions. Then it intensified to the point where she told Jake that it was time for him to take her to the hospital.

So Jake got ready to go and then the pains went away.

Margie and I then made plans to drive the boys back home Saturday. Lavina called to cancel our plans. She and Jacob were going to come out and pick them up themselves.

The idea of her traveling an hour away from her hospital scared me a bit, but I guess she had been cooped up at home too long, and needed to get out.

In the meantime, Kalib took a nap.

Jobe and me on the back porch.

Kalib prunes some bushes as he waits for his mom to arrive.

She arrived in the early evening, with Jacob and Muzzy in tow. She saw Jobe first, so picked him up and just gazed at him. This bed-rest stuff has been pretty hard on Lavina, because she loves to be with her babies but over the past weeks we have had them here more than she and Jacob have had them there.

Kalib then wanted her attention and he got it.

Soon she had them both.

Soon, they were ready to go - and they were taking Margie with them, so she could help out. Margie is one hell of a grandma, I'll say that. Back when we young and making babies ourselves, I never thought of her as a grandma, but she is a grandma and quite an amazing one, I think.

Before they got into the car to drive away, Jacob and Lavina discovered they had to clean dog poop off their shoes.

I jokes! I jokes! I jokes!

They were just checking out the soles of their shoes.

I think their shoes were new, that's why.

They sure look new to me.

Sooner or later, though, they will step in dog poop.

It happens to us all. It happened to me just yesterday... in the marsh that has dried up and become a meadow.

Gross!

Then they were all in the car, ready to go.

And there they go, Jake and Margie waving at me. You can't see Margie's face because she has turned it to her grandchildren, telling them to wave goodbye to grandpa, but I couldn't see them, so I don't know if they waved or not.

Kalib probably did. I doubt that Jobe did.

He wouldn't have been being stuck up or ornery, he's just not quite into waving yet... but he's getting there.

As I left, I climbed onto my bike and pedalled off on short ride, about ten miles round trip. As I pedalled down Seldon, this airplane flew overhead.

You can hardly see the plane at this size. It would show up bigger in slide show view. A few seconds later, I took a shot that I like better, because I dropped the camera down just a bit and you can see headlights coming down the road with the plane above.

But the plane is too small in that frame to even bother posting here.

I mention this less for the readers' benefit than my own.

One day, I intend to include these words in the title of a book I have so far only dabbled at but hope to publish before I die:

I still look up

And I think the one with the car headlights in it might be good enough to include in that book.

So I write this to myself so that when I come back to this page and see this plane, I will know that there is another image that I must go take another look at.

Remembering: Hannah Solomon, 10/10/08 - 9/16/11

Hannah Solomon, Matriarch of the Gwich'in Nation, who passed away in Fairbanks late Friday afternoon - three weeks before her 103rd birthday. July, 2006.

Hannah Solomon dancing at her 100th birthday party.

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Happy birthday, Robert John Gordon!

This is Robert John Gordon and today is his seventh birthday. Happy birthday, Robert John Gordon! We share birthdays, you and I. Robert lives in the Brooks Range village of Anaktuvuk Pass, but I took this picture in Kaktovik, outside the community center, just a little before midnight on July 8, the day that I arrived in Kaktovik.

Here is Robert again, standing amidst loved ones at the graves of Thomas K. and Simon Gordon. The woman wearing the parka and standing behind Robert is Mayuin Gordon, wife of Thomas and adoptive mother of both Simon and Robert. She had been out on a hunting trip with her family on August 1 of 2008 when her husband slipped on a steep bank and fell into a deep pool of cold water that he could not get out of.

Twelve-year old Simon followed him into the inescapable water, and it is my understanding that he did so in an effort to rescue his father.

Kaktovik has a population of just under 300 people and when Mayuin returned driving the boat without her husband and son Simon, the entire village came to her and then went back to the scene to find and recover the bodies.

Thomas had been a leader in the village and I can tell you from my own experience with him that he was an exceptionally warm and kind man. He was beloved in the village and the people also had high hopes for Simon, as they watched him grow.

Their loss left the community in deep and lingering sadness. Thomas had been a guitar player, and loved to perform gospel music. So, last summer, both to honor Thomas and Simon and to bring healing to the community, the village held the first Thomas K. Gordon Memorial Gospel Jamboree. Yes, there was gospel singing, but also community games, played on the beach and at the community center; there was a feast, a bonfire, a talent show, snert tournament and an Arctic char fishing derby.

The healing extended beyond Thomas and Simon to all those who had lost loved ones and families.

People cried, but they also laughed.

Had I have known, I would have been there, but I knew this year and so came for the second jamboree.

It was a wonderful experience. Needless to say, I took lots and lots and lots of pictures and it had been my hope to do a decent summary on this blog. However, deadlines are weighing heavy upon me. In addition to the healthy communities Uiñiq that will include this story, I have another Uiñiq on Kivgiq that is JUST ABOUT press ready.

What I have discovered is that JUST ABOUT - layout all done, most of the photos adjusted, most of the text written - can still mean days, even a couple of weeks, of work ahead and once that is done I must go to Kotzebue to do a job that has nothing to do with Uiñiq. Sometime in August, I plan to visit Atqasuk and maybe Arctic Village and then, somehow, I must have this healthy communities Uiñiq press-ready by the first week of September.

So I think I will wait until after Uiñiq comes out to post this story. By then, I hope to have figured out how to make and present the electronic magazine that I want to create. If so, then I plan to go back and rework some of the Uiñiq stories for that. This way, the stories can be shared with people who will never see Uiñiq magazine. 

As for those who do see Uiñiq, I will be able to share more pictures that space will have prevented me from including in Uiñiq.

So that is my plan. 

There is no way to know what will actually happen until it happens.

That goes for tomorrow and the next day, too. 

The fence beyond the graveyard is a snow fence - built to catch the constant fall, winter and spring drift so as to lessen the amount of deep drifting within the village.

I should note that when I first met Thomas Gordon, in September of 1986, he was living in Mayuin's home village of Anaktuvuk Pass. Each September, the people of Anaktuvuk eagerly await the migration of caribou that pass through and by their village.

Before passing through, the caribou tend to gather in herds just to the north of the Brooks Range. By their own traditional law, no one is to disturb or shoot a caribou until the first group enters their valley and passes by the village. This is because a gunshot or disturbance might frighten the lead caribou and cause them to change routes. Once the leaders have passed through, the rest will follow, no matter how many shots are taken. In that year, the people had observed the caribou gather as normal, but they did not come to the village. They chose another another route to the west.

There had been sport hunters camped down where the caribou had gathered. They did know of local, native, traditional law nor did they care about it. When they saw the caribou, they did not wait for the leaders to pass by and enter the valley.

They shot.

So, without caribou, Thomas and his friend Harry went out to hunt moose, and I followed. We did not find any moose. It was frustrating, but Thomas never grew angry. He did not swear. He did not say anything bad about anybody - not even the sport hunters whose shots may have turned the caribou from the village.

He was sad, but his humor remained good.

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Memorial Day, 2011: the big water battle; flowers at roadside memorial; we feast

On the final night of Kalib and Jobe's final Memorial Day weekend visit with us, Jacob and Lavina came out to sleep at our house. On Memorial Day morning, we went to breakfast at Denali Family Restaurant. I fear that I am shifting my loyalties from the old Mat-Su Family Restaurant to Denali. It is the hash browns, that is why.

Hash browns have always been a gamble at Mat-Su. You just never know - they can come fried to a crisp, reduced to mush, or cooked just right. So far, they have been cooked just right at Denali every time - and it sure seems that they are fresh cut and not taken from a package. They are as good as any hash browns I have ever eaten, anywhere.

Denali Family Restaurant hash browns are superb!

Mat-Su Family has long been a place of morning refuge for me and I feel kind of bad about shifting over, but that's what excellent hash browns will do.

I will still go to Mat-Su, sometimes - if for no other reason than old times sake.

Later, in the early afternoon, Margie and Lavina went to the store to do some shopping. After awhile, I went out to see what the three boys were doing. Jimmy came with me. We found two of the three boys watching a butterfly pass overhead.

I am not certain what the other one was into.

Then Kalib turned on the faucet. He began to fling water around.

Soon, both boys were getting a bit wet and muddy. Jobe was most interested in the process.

Kalib got the idea that it might be fun to spash his brother, so he did.

After taking the blast of cold water, Jobe turned and momentarily fled.

In just seconds, he fully recovered, and began to laugh. He laughed so hard he blew the snot right out his nose.

Dad joined in the fight, allying himself with Jobe.

Oh, it was a battle insane!

Jobe was most amused.

Kalib checks his ammo as Jobe strategizes.

Jacob knew that he had to get the boys dried off and cleaned up before Mom and Grandma came home.

Jobe didn't stay clean very long.

As all this had been going on, Jim had found a patch of dirt to roll around in. Only his face remained undusted.

Jim then trotted off into the woods. I cannot let him go there alone, so I followed.

So did the other three.

Then the ladies came home. We guys mentioned nothing at all about the battle that had taken place. The ladies can find out when they read this blog. Jake will be in big trouble then.

The boys and their dad lay down to nap. I took off to ride my bike. I found a broken scooter on the Seldon Road bike trail, just lying there, abandoned.

I wondered what the story behind that was?

If I had the time, I would write a novel based on this mysterious scooter. It would be a best seller. I don't have the time. If you do, feel free to steal my idea - go ahead, write a novel based on this image.

When I reached the corner of Church and Schrock Roads, I was reminded that although Memorial Day was established at the end of the Civil War as a holiday to honor and mourn our military dead, it has also become a time that people take to honor all their dead, to bring flowers to graves and memorials.

This is not a grave, but is the place where where three people were killed in 1999 in a collision caused by a drunk driver - a woman, a teenaged girl and an unborn child. 

For years afterward, loved ones kept memorial crosses atop this pile of stones, but vandals repeatedly tore down the memorials until the loved ones gave up and settled for just the pile of stones.

On Memorial Day, someone had brought these wreathes and placed them here. 

Let us hope that respect and compassion can now replace ignorance and cruelty in the hearts of the vandals.

I stopped on the bridge over the Little Susistna River. These two came by as part of a carvan of four-wheelers.

I have crossed the bridge a number of times since I began biking again, but I had not gone down to the river itself. Today, I did - and symbolically put my front wheel in the water.

I do not know what this symbolizes, but it must symbolize something.

On the bank and in the shallows, people frolicked.

When I returned home, I found Margie and Lavina repairing the picnic table.

Inside, I found the boys napping. I then went off to buy some iced drinks and to fill the tank with expensive gas. When I returned, the boys had not moved at all.

Lavina began the cooking by roasting bread on the barbecue.

If one studies all the faces in this picture and then gives some thought to it... it is just incredible to think about, to ponder the history, the sorrows, the changes, distances covered, the links from then until now.

Lavina kept the grill going.

And then we ate - but Kalib was napping and Caleb was sleeping in prep for his night shift.

And then, somewhere between nine and ten PM, it came time to say goodbye.

Margie and I had enjoyed the rapidly enlarging little ones for three days, but now they were going.

Caleb missed everything. He slept through breakfast. He slept through the water battle. He slept through dinner. But he awoke in time to say goodbye.

And then off they went, the people in the car and Muzzy running alongside, all the way back to Anchorage.

Well, I exaggerate a little. Muzzy would only run to the stop sign, about 200 yards away. Then he would trade places with Jacob and drive the family home while Jacob ran alongside the car - all the way to Anchorage.

Don't worry. It's okay that the dog drove. Muzzy has a license.

I then found Margie in the back yard, cleaning up.

"It's too quiet now," she said.

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Master Sgt. John Kendall Dunlap, World War II Veteran, January 13, 1913 - August 14, 1960

I don't know anything about Master Sgt. John Kendall Dunlapp, except that he served in World War II, must have lived in California at some point but has lain in the Wasilla cemetery now for two-and-a-half months shy of 51 years.

I found his grave late yesterday afternoon after I pedaled my bike to the cemetery to see if I might find a picture appropriate for Memorial Day.

I googled his name, plus the rest of the information from his headstone, but could find nothing on him. I do not know where he served or what he did while he served. I do not know if he had a wife and children. I only know that he served in World War II, survived, came home, then lived for a decade-and-a-half before dying at a relatively young age and was then buried in Wasilla.

As for the flag, I believe it has been placed there by the cemetery itself, that such flags are placed upon the graves of all veterans.

Does anyone in Wasilla now remember Master Sgt. John Kendall Dunlap?

Somewhere, there must be people who remember him.

What was his story?

In remembrance of Soundarya, on her 33rd birthday...

While this post is dated April 12, the day that it now is here in Alaska, in India, it is now April 13 - the birthday of my late Muse and soul friend, who was Soundarya Ravichandran when I first met her and became Soundarya Anil Kumar on the day that I took this picture.

Muse - soul friend - beloved by all who knew her - remembered today, her 33rd birthday, and every day. Seen here with sister Sujitha (Suji), left, and her Aunt Vasanthi - early on the morning of the day that she would marry Anil Kumar, another beloved who we also continue to mourn. In the background is her cousin, Buddy.

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