Margie and I take Kalib and Jobe for five days, part 2: We dine on Fourth Avenue hot dogs, where Kalib and I intimidate a security cop

As explained in the first post of this day, Lavina had left early yesterday morning to attend a work conference in Las Vegas, I had driven to town to pick up Kalib, Jobe and Margie to bring them back to Wasilla, and Melanie had showed up to drive Jacob to the airport so he could join Lavina at her conference, but Jacob had not yet returned home from work.

Soon, he did return. He kissed his boys goodbye and then he left with Melanie for the airport.

Anchorage's seemingly interminable, record-breaking streak of consecutive rainy days - 33, I believe - had finally come to an end. It was a wonderfully warm, sunny, and beautiful day - the perfect kind of day to go downtown and buy hotdogs from a Fourth Avenue street vendor.

Margie agreed. I wanted to leave immediately, but Kalib had gone down to the family room, where his parents had put up a tent for him with a tubular passage to the entrance.

So many people have given Kalib so many amazing gifts that I can't get over it.

I found him in the tent. We spent a little bit of time throwing little plastic balls back and forth through the passageway.

Then Kalib had to do a little bit of golfing.

He golfs in the style of the great masters.

Kalib - the golfer.

Finally, we headed for the car. Before he got in, Kalib found a pretty flower, plucked it and held in in his hand.

I strapped both of my grandsons into their car seats - Kalib facing forward, Jobe facing backward. Seeing them strapped in like this made me think about the ever-present dangers of the road. I would be driving with precious cargo. I might encounter another driver or two or three or more who might do something stupid, something to make one's blood boil.

If so, I would just have to ignore it and drive on as steadily and safely as possible.

Then we were downtown on Fourth Avenue, where we were fortunate to find a parking space just 30 yards or so from RA hotdogs. Margie and Jobe stayed in the car while Kalib and I got in line.

This uniformed gentleman got in line behind Kalib. Naturally, I wanted a picture with him standing behind Kalib and it would be best as a low-angle shot, but I did not feel like crouching and getting down on my knees. One neat thing about the pocket camera is that I can hold it quite a ways from my face and still see what it sees in the lcd.

So I held it down a bit below my waist, framed the scene and then just as I pushed the shutter, Kalib moved, halfway out of the frame. This was okay - I like the picture this way - but I still wanted to get a frame with the uniformed man standing behind Kalib with Kalib's face visible.

So I tried again and I sort of got it, but on a bright day when I am holding the pocket camera a ways from my face, I can see the relationships of the more prominent shapes to each other, but some of the little details disappear, such as light fixtures in the background.

And so I wound up taking this image, with the light fixture appearing to be a goofy hat atop his head, or perhaps a bizarre implant.

I had to try one more time.

I decided that the only way that I could be certain to get the image as I wanted was to drop down to one knee so that I would be looking directly into the LCD and could clearly see all the detail.

At the moment that I dropped down and raised the camara, however, the uniformed man stepped backwards, in the belief that he had just exited the frame.

"You're part of the scene," I protested, "you don't need to step out of the picture."

"I really shouldn't be in the picture," he said.

But he is.

A close look at the shield patch on his shoulder reveals that he is a private security guard - for whom I do not know - not a municipal policeman.

I ordered Kosher beef with onions and potato chips for Margie, Kosher beef plain for Kalib and Kosher Polish with onions and chips for me.

It doesn't really matter to me if a hot dog is Kosher or not, but the menu was exclusively Kosher.

Margie and Jobe joined us on a nearby bench. The food proved excellent, the conversation stimulating. Kalib held up a potato chip and mused with wonder as to how such a thing ever managed to be created in a universe so vast, diverse and ALMOST entirely empty of potatoes as ours is.

Kalib grew quite excited when a formation of military jets, presumably from Elmendorf AFB, came flying by. "Jehhh! Jehhh!" he shouted as he pointed at the jets. Actually, he is pointing a bit in front of them. The jets are very difficult to see in this tiny reproduction. If you look very closely at the somewhat larger version in the slide show, a bit over the roof to the right of Kalib's finger, you can barely make them out as tiny dots.

They show up a little better in the original, full-resolution image, but even there they are tiny.

After the jets had flown by and we had finished our hot dogs, we burped politely and then climbed into the car headed towards Wasilla and home. Along the way, I was surprised to see that one traffic officer had pulled over another. I wonder if he had been speeding?

I'll bet he felt a little silly when he asked his fellow, "could I see your license, please?" They have probably known each other for years, perhaps decades.

View images as slide show

(images appear bigger and look better)

In part 3, Kalib and Jobe will arrive at their grandparents home. They will grow sleepy. I may post it tonight or I may post it in the morning. I am kind of sleepy myself and I have other things I need to do.

The battle was fought and Liberty came out dancing; the Escape gets serviced, but I don't get a Pepsi; A crime scene - scenes of Spring

While our new Escape was undergoing it's 5000 mile free service - basically, an oil change - I wandered on foot a short distance down the road to take a picture of this kid who was dancing on the side of the highway in the hope of luring customers into Liberty Tax Service before the impending deadline, just eight days hence.

He is CJ and he has been dancing out there for about five hours a day since January. He has danced when the temperature was far below zero and now he was dancing on the warmest day so far this spring - the high temperature was close to 45, although when I first set out this morning it was 26.

CJ was friendly and polite, and tried to answer my questions, but he was also dedicated to his job and was determined to not let a single vehicle pass by without dancing, waving and smiling at the occupants.

In return, many people honked and shouted back greetings. This would cause him to dance even harder and smile bigger.

"Anyone ever shout anything mean at you?" I asked.

"Yeah," he answered, "but it doesn't bother me."

I then walked back to Kendall Ford. The car was still being serviced, so I took a seat in the waiting room, where I could see through this big window into the shop. I know things are tough for the car companies, but, from this vantage point, it did not show.

There were some vending machines in the room, so I decided to get a Pepsi to make my stay a little more pleasant. They did not have Pepsi. They only had Coke.

I don't like Coke.

Some say there is no difference. But they are wrong. There is a huge difference.

I don't like Coke.

When the work was done, Brad Tidwell, Kendall Service Consultant, came in to go over the paperwork and show me all that was done. He also showed me a survey form that he said Ford will send to me.

The first question will ask how satisfied I was, starting with, "Completely Satisfied," "Very Satisfied" on down through a total of five steps to enraged dissatisfaction.

He wondered how satisfied I was. I was satisfied, I said. He said that Ford only gives him and the service staff two grades regarding that question, "A" & "F". Completely satisfied is an "A", "Very Satisfied" is an "F."

He hoped I was completely satisfied.

I didn't feel any dissatisfaction. 

I reckon I'll check "completely." I don't want the poor guy to get an "F."

I sure wish I could have got a Pepsi, though.

Brad, I'll give you a pass on that one this time, but that might be something to think about by the time I come in for my 10,000 mile service. To completely satisfy this customer, you must get Pepsi. I want a Pepsi!

Especially on a hot day like today - and it's only going to get hotter.

As I drove away in my newly serviced car, undamaged by the ash fall, CJ waved at me and smiled. I wonder if he knew it was me?

Liberty Tax used to be in another location, down the hill, near Wasilla Lake. Down there, the dancers used to not only dance beside the highway but wave signs, too. Then, one day, I came by and they were not dancing by the highway. They were standing in the parking lot, looking forlorn.

And there they stayed, for days, for weeks... in the parking lot.

I talked to the owner, Chris Cork, who graduated from Wasilla High with Caleb. He told me that a competitor who had no dancers himself and did not like the Liberty dancers had raised hell and had come up with some kind of Wasilla law from somewhere that prohibited a business in the city from putting dancers carrying signs at the side of the road.

That state of affairs persisted for a couple of years and then, all of sudden, at this new location, the dancers again began to perform at the side of the road.

But without signs.

Chris got some attorneys of his own and they raised their own hell. Turned out, if they were going to bar the Liberty dancers from the side of the road, they must also bar all the other people who dance and wave from the highway's edge - like those who jumped up and down for both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin last fall, those who shout out for Christ and the Little League and hockey players who seek to entice motorists with dirty cars to their fundraiser washes.

So the Liberty Tax dancers are back, but without signs.

Yet, the political boosters, Christians, Little Leaguers and others do carry signs.

A bit further down the road, I passed a crime scene.

I wonder what crime was committed? I have seen nothing on the news. I have looked at the Mat-Su section of the continually-updated, online edition of the Anchorage Daily News.

No information. Still, when an entire parking lot is cordoned off and two theodolites put into action, whatever it was, someone is taking it pretty seriously.

I could have called the police station, or stopped and asked to interview somebody. But I don't have time for that.

One block away from the crime scene, a girl rode a bike around a corner. Look how the snow has melted in downtown Wasilla.

Later, I ventured out again, to get coffee for Margie and me. School had just let out. Kids were walking away from Wasilla Middle School, just like my kids used to do.

You can see that the snow is melting more slowly in our neighborhood then in downtown Wasilla - if there is such a thing as downtown Wasilla. There is a street called Main Street, but the name is basically a fiction. I don't care who says otherwise. Yes, there is some wisdom on this street with the fictitious name, but there's a lot of foolishness, too.

Looks like we are going to need to do some spring cleaning. I'm a bit vexed with that water heater that we just replaced. I don't know how to get rid of it. 

We will find a way.