A boy with a huge talent was buried in Barrow today

Actually, he was no longer a boy, but a young man - a husband and father - but in my memory he is a boy, out on the snow-blown tundra, making people laugh, because that is how I knew him. The boy that I speak of is Perry Nageak and that is him sitting closest to the camera, with the uncovered head. 

The month was May, the year, 1997, and he was out at spring goose camp with the family of his uncle, Roy Nageak, the man to the right. In between them is Roy's son, Ernest, then nine-years old. Ernest had just shot the two geese - his first ever. I managed to shoot a nice little sequence of pictures that told the story.

As for Perry, what I remember best about him is how quick-witted and funny he was. What a story-teller!

I thought maybe someday, I'd see him on TV, making people laugh the world over.

Here he is, telling a hunting story, late at night in the tent - probably about 1 or 2 AM. Remember, this is the Arctic, and by May the time of the midnight sun has arrived.

You can see how amused he kept all the other young people in camp - his cousins and siblings.

Although you cannot see them clearly in this picture, there are adults in the tent as well. They laugh, too.

Since I learned of his death the other day, I have been trying to recall the specific stories that he told, but after 12 years, they elude me. I only remember how funny they were.

But wait... one comes back, even as I sit here and type.

It takes place on a caribou hunt. A boy shoots a caribou. Maybe the boy was Perry; maybe it was a brother, or a cousin. The bullet does not strike the caribou directly, but instead slams into the base of its antlers. The antlers fall off and then the caribou drops dead onto the tundra.

"Oh no!" Perry explains the story from the point of view of the caribou. "My antlers! My antlers! My beautiful antlers! I just can't live without my antlers!"

To Ben, Bonnie and all those who loved Perry, my deepest condolences. And thank you for sharing your boy with me for that one beautiful, wonderful, experience, back in May of 1997.

My prayers are with you too, for whatever the prayers of a man of doubtful faith are worth.

Speaking of which... that brings me back to today. I had to drive to town, to drop the Kivgiq prints off at the North Slope Borough's liason office in Anchorage. Afterwards, I drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things that I needed.

I returned to the car, and as I took my seat, I saw these two young Mormon missionaries talking to this man. Maybe they were trying to convert him. Maybe he was a fellow Mormon, and they were just having a friendly discussion.

I started the car and this brought KSKA, the Anchorage Public Radio station, into my speakers. The first sentence that I heard come was this, "I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints..."

The show was talk of the nation and the topic was a scene from "Big Love," the HBO series about a polygamist family belonging to a sect that had broken away from the Mormon Church. The most recent segment featured a scene that depicted an endowment ceremony in a Mormon temple. 

The caller was hurt and offended - as were all the Mormon callers who phoned in. Mormons are instructed that, once they step outside of the temple, they must never talk about the ordinances that take place within - not even among themselves.

The other point of view was that to tell the story the artist wanted to tell, it was necessary.

I could not only understand both points of view, but could empathize and justify each.

If my mother was still alive, I knew how she would have reacted. With horror. With utter and absolute horror. She would have saw it as a sign that the prophesied future times of the return of the persecution that our Mormon ancestors had borne was coming right back at us, that it was right around the corner.

And just beyond that - Armageddon, the cleansing of the world and the Second Coming of Christ.

I apologize for getting a little carried away here. Except for funerals of loved ones, I have not been inside a Mormon chapel for 25 years, but when one grows up as I did, this kind of thing never leaves you.

I thought about stopping, about getting the missionaries to pose for me, but I did not wish to interrupt their conversation and so just shot this image through the open window as I drove slowly past them.

I picked Melanie up at her place of work and then drove her to Ichiban's for lunch. It was Lisa who chose Ichiban's. She met us there, as did Charlie. Melanie and Charlie are going to ride the ferry to Cordova this weekend, just for fun.

They asked me for suggestions about what to do.

I've hung around Cordova a bit, so I gave them a few.

They can go down to the fishing boat docks, and watch sea otters play; they can go up the hill to the ski run and ski. They can walk all around, and drive here and there; visit with eagles.

Lisa and me. Lisa had asked me for a picture of Juniper, her cat. So I made a print last night and gave it to her today. She was most pleased about the timing, as some of her coworkers had been deriding cats, describing them as worthless, questioning why she would ever have a cat in the first place.

The answer was right there, in the picture, but such coworkers are unlikely to see it, even when they look straight at it.

Some of us ordered sushi.

When I arrived back home in Wasilla, I found Margie and Lavina watching what at first looked like an teen-exploitation flick, as the scene on screen depicted four high school cheerleaders running amok in a sex-toy shop. 

"What's this?" I asked. 

"Texas Cheerleader Massacre," Lavina answered.

I figured they must really be bored. I flopped down on the couch to see when the carnage would begin, determined to stay but minutes and then come out here and work on something.

But Lavina got the title wrong. 

It was, "Texas Cheerleader Scandal."

There was no carnage - just a rather oddly compelling story about a cheerleading coach trying to discipline some wild girls who were messing up the squad and intimidating all the other adults.

I watched it to the very end.

As he always does, Jimmy, who is here with me now even as I type, joined me and stayed right with me.

An evening sunbeam came through the window.

Kalib found it.

I wonder if there was any school today?

Today as I walked through my personal nightmare, the subdivision called Serendipity, these two boys came zipping by. They turned onto a side road, then soon came zipping back.

If I had had my DSLR's, I could have followed the action, but I only took the pocket camera on my walk and it recycles too slow. So I missed the mishap, which happened immediately after I took the top picture. I did capture the aftermath. 

As you can see, they went around a corner and the sled broke where the rope was attached. The boy on the sled slid to the curb.

That's Tristan, 11, on the left, and Reed, 12, on the right. I wondered why they were out during school hours and thought about asking them, but I did not want to frighten them, so I did not.

It was the first walk that I have taken through Serendipity in a long time; I think the first time this year. It hurts me to walk in Serendipity, that's why. I knew it when it was wild, when no one called it Serendipity. I knew it when, on a day such as today, it would be just me back there, on my skis, with my late dog, Willow, or my even later dog, Scout.

I left Serendipity and headed back to the house. It was then that I discovered that someone was in the air, above me, manning the stick.

This hurts, too.

Kalib stayed with us, all day today, after being gone for several days in a row. He walked all about, as if walking was something that he had always been doing.

All day long, he was happy; happier then I have seen him since before we went to Washington DC and Margie got hurt and he went off to daycare.

All day long, Margie was happier than I have seen her, since she got hurt.

Kalib plays with Royce and Muzzy. There are two more images in this series, but I am saving them for Grahamn Kracker's No Cats Allowed Kracker Cat blog.

I had gone from my office into the bedroom to get my jacket so that I could go to a kiosk and get some coffee.

Margie came in. "There's a young person here to see you," she said.

"Who?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "He knocked on the door and then asked for you."

So I headed to the door expecting to see some kind of missionary or salesman but instead it was Mike. I had not seen Mike for years.

He was probably about 12 when I first met him. I was walking and he came pedaling by me on a bike. I took his picture. We became friends after that and he would often come by to watch my electric train buzz around my office.

He was a train enthusiast, and knew more about them then I did. Once, he needed a caboose, so I gave him mine.

He is 19 now and lives in Talkeetna. Something brought him to the neighborhood, so he stopped by to say hi.

He was curious about my train. Trouble is, after I broke my shoulder and got it replaced with titanium, I could not do the things necessary to keep that train running.

One day, I will make it run again.

Kalib studies a bubble.

Kalib reaches for bubbles. And who blows all these bubbles?

Why, its his Mom, Lavina. 

Kalib. These bubbles were blown last night, by the way.

Today, as I drank my coffee and ate a cinnamon roll, I drove by Iona, the place where people pray. I thought about Elvis Presley, and about the humble people that he sang about.

And this is from yesterday's coffee break. Church Road. People must pray here, too. Maybe that guy up there is praying, quietly, so no one will hear.

Curious. There are no churches on Church Road, but there are a bunch on Lucille Street.

I spot two Mormon missionaries as they walk through the snow

Late this afternoon, as I drove home from the coffee shop drinking my cup and carrying another for Margie, I saw some Mormon missionaries walking down the side of the road ahead of me. It was a very warm day, 30 degrees.

Even so, I felt sympathy for them and decided to offer them a ride.

"No, thank you," the tall one, Elder Bjorkman from Emmett, Idaho, told me. "We're working, visiting people who live around here." I told him that my family originated in Southern Idaho, and I mentioned Malad, where Mom was born. 

He said that he had a close relative who came from there. I think it was an uncle, but maybe it was his dad; my memory failed to hold the information. I spent a summer working on my aunt and uncle's cattle ranch, just outside of Malad.

I don't ever recall hearing the name, Bjorkman, which was the name of his relative.

The short one, Elder Moala, is from Tonga.

Different kind of climate there. Maybe he will wind up in Barrow before he returns home. There is a noteworthy Tongan community in Barrow.

I told Elder Moala just a tiny bit about my own history involving Mormon missionaries from Tonga, Samoa and Hawaii.

I drove on, sipping my coffee. I did not even think to look into my rearview mirror, until I had gone aways. This is what I saw when I did. They were growing smaller and smaller. Soon, they disappeared altogether from my sight.

And yet, they never disappear, altogether.

Never.

One day, I will explain.

Notwithstanding the good parts - and there were many - it is a painful history and all the conclusions that it has drawn to have been painful.

For now, it is enough to know that on this day, I spotted two Mormon missionaries, walking through a warm snow, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

A dog named Shadrach - the missionaries wanted him to protect them from the fire in the firey furnace, but Hobart wouldn't allow it

I now back up to January 28, when Margie and I were at my sister's house in Salt Lake City, where we had stopped to allow Margie to recover a bit before continuing on to Anchorage. The character with Mary Ann is Shadrach, her blue healer, border-collie friend.

Shadrach is crazy. Mary Ann loves him greatly.

I called him, "Hobart." Mary Ann did not like that, but Hobart did. He came right to me, tail wagging.

Mary Ann and Shadrack fight over a ball. Hobart wanted to get that ball, so that he could give it to me.

In the afternoon, I took Shadrach out for a little walk. We soon happened upon two Mormon missionaires, one named Meshach, the other, Abednego. I am not lying! I could never make such a thing up!

The missionaires were greatly relieved to see Shadrach. A really hot lady had threatened to throw them into a firey furnace if they ever knocked on her door again. They said it would be okay, if Shadrach was with them. With Shadrach, they could just walk around in that firey furnace and they wouldn't even suffer a blister.

So I told them that Shadrach was really Hobart. They got depressed and walked away. What good would it do, to get thrown into a firepit with Hobart? Whoever heard of Hobart, Meshach and Abednego walking around unburnt in a firey furnace?

Monday afternoon, I leave for Barrow. I just checked current weather there: temperature, -39; windchill, -63. The welcome will be warm and I look forward to Kivgiq, but I hate to leave Margie.

And what has happened to all my good Arctic gear, the clothing that used to keep me alive up there? It has all disappeared, or fallen apart.

I think a cat peed on my parka, and that is what caused it to fall apart.

Well, it was old and worn anyway.

But what do I do now?

As I chat with the roadscraper, a Jehovah's Witness missionary appears and offers me truth

I often see the roadscraper, clearing snow and ice as he drives our local streets. On yesterday's walk, I came upon him as he was enjoying a break. He opened up his door and started a friendly conversation.

His name is Ron Miller, and he is a friendly and conversational person, and I will not try to recount all that he told me. He has 102 miles of Matsu-Borough roads to scrape and over the past two-and-a-half days had put in 27 hours and still had most of this day left to go. He told me about what it takes to keep the scraper in good working order, and how, if a scraper gets careless, he can tear up a good stretch of pavement just like that.

Ron is a Vietnam veteran and served in both the Air Force and Army, in Intel. To this day, he says, few Americans know what really happened over there and have no idea of the tonnage of bombs that we dropped. He spoke of incredible numbers of bomb tonnage, packed into jets every day, dropped every day.

After we had chatted for awhile, a pickup with two men in it pulled up and stopped. This fellow introduced himself as Ryan and said he had something that I might be interested in: truth. He gave me this pamphlet that promised to introduce me to the truth. I asked him what religion he was and he said Jehovah's Witness. 

I put it in my pocket and planned to read it after I got home, so that I might share a bit of truth with anyone who reads this. But now I can't find it. It is lost. 

Truth and eternity remain a mystery to me.

I left Ron and Ryan behind and continued on my walk. Soon, I heard the sound of heavy steel scraping pavement. I turned around, it was Ron, making his way down his 102 mile route.