A duck swam into a moon beam - and other stunning stories from yesterday

I made a big mistake - I promised to bring this blog off hiatus on September 15, today, which is exactly what I am doing. But I should have set the date for September 20. That would have been much better for me.

But I didn't.

I set it for September 15, it is September 15, so here I am, early yesterday morning, where the lone waitress working at Denali Family Restaurant was pouring me a cup of coffee.

She did not want me to show her face, only her hand.

"I never like to have my face in a photograph," she explained.

I don't know why. She had a pretty face. She also knows how to sling two coffee pots at once.

Pretty impressive!

I would have gone to Abby's Home Cooking, which has become my favorite breakfast restaurant, but Abby's does not open until 8:00 AM and I was hungry and did not want to wait that long.

I asked for this table, just so I could sit there and look out at these mountains and watch this guy get out of his truck.

I saw myself, in shadow, sitting with an alien from another galaxy. So I shot a picture of the two of us. That alien really likes ketchup. He drank the whole bottle and then asked for more.

When I got home, I found Margie, Jobe and Kalib watching Chuggington Choo Choo. They had all been asleep when I left.

I had a huge amount of work ahead of me, but I couldn't bear to get into it without taking a walk. As I walked up Wards, a garbage truck passed me and then made a left turn.

I wondered if I would ever see that garbage truck again.

Next, a couple of young men appeared at the top of the hill, their feet on their skateboards, their skateboards on the road. It looked like they were going to roll, but then they picked up their skateboards and just stood there, looking down at me. They appeared not to know what to do next.

"Are you guys going to skate down the hill?" I shouted up to them.

"Yes," one of them shouted back.

"Good!" I shouted back. "That will make a good picture."

So they put their boards back down on the road and their feet back on the skateboards. Down they came.

And off into the distance they went.

When I reached the top of the hill, this gentleman came walking along, just as I did see the garbage truck again. It was Tony, Lola and Wolf. I can't remember which dog was Lola and which was Wolf.

Neither one of them looked a wolf to me.

They were good dogs, though, and I was proud to make their acquaintance.

When I got back to the house, I found Jobe and Kalib in the back yard, being boys.

Their new sibling could arrive any day now. The official due date is October 6, but that baby has already gotten into position, head down, ready to plunge into the world.

And the poor mother has strep throat.

That is why the boys are with us.

Kalib, the eldest of three.

A few hours later, I took my afternoon coffee break. I discovered that the dog, Booger, had been lost. Booger is the close friend of Lisa Kelly, the Ice Road Trucker. Her husband brought the poster.

I hope Booger is found.

The Ice Road Trucker needs her friend.

I then took a short drive to sip and enjoy my coffee. I drove past the Wasilla skateboard park just as a kid went almost horizontal on the ramp.

I was trying to write what will be the final story in what might be my final Uiñiq magazine, but I could not come up with the words to open it. So I took another short walk, saw this bunny rabbit, and pretty soon the lead came to me. 

After I got the lead, I came upon these three in the marsh that has dried out and become a meadow. It was Summer and her buddies, Sampson and Anonymous Dog. Summer has another name that she uses for Anonymous Dog, but I don't know what it is.

I then went into my house, wrote the lead and got to work on the story.

That final story would be very short, but it was taking me a long time to write it. At one point, I realized that I would never finish it if I did not eat a chocolate covered ice cream cone. So I climbed into the car and drove off to get one, but I got to day dreaming and passed right by Dairy Queen. I turned around by Wasilla Lake and noticed the moon. I stopped and took this picture.

Then I saw this duck swim into a moon beam.

"Hey Bill!" the duck quacked. "Is that you?"

"Yes, Fernanda," I quacked back. "It is me! It's been a long time!"

"It has... 1021 years."

It was true. Fernanda and I had not seen each other for over 1000 years.

"How's your report coming?" she asked.

I knew it. She had been sent to check up on me.

"I'm struggling with it," I answered. "But don't worry. You can tell the other ducks that I'll get it done."

I will, too, but in the meantime, I have a Uiñiq magazine to finish.

That final story is now written, but there is still a significant amount of work that must be completed before I go to press Monday.

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Four scenes from rolling coffee break: Michelle with Cali the calico kitty and the stone lion; Mormon graffiti car; fourwheeler, skateboarder

First, let me assure those interested that I still plan to post a few stories from my trip north - in fact, I spent more time working on doing so today than I could afford. I have a huge amount of material to digest and it will take some time. I might post a series from that trip Tuesday, but I might wait until Wednesday.

In the meantime... now that I am home here in Wasilla and Margie has gone back to Anchorage to babysit Jobe, I broke away from my computer at the usual time of 4:00 PM to venture out for my rolling coffee break, as All Things Considered played on NPR.

I saw many interesting things, but the most interesting was a lady painting a rock down on Sunrise Drive. A calico cat stood by to watch her work.

So I stopped, to see what was up. This is the lady, Michelle and the 13 year-old calico cat, Cali. As Michelle explained it to me, a fellow who lives here found this rock, dragged it home, looked at it from this side and saw the face of a lion. He asked Michelle if she would paint the lion's profile onto the stone and she agreed.

If one looks closely at the other side of the rock, currently bare, one can see an eagle.

So, after she finishes the lion, Michelle plans to paint an eagle portrait on the opposite side of the rock.

Michelle puts detail into the lion's eye.

Michelle steps back to take a look.

At the post office, I saw this car, heavy with inspirational graffiti. I wondered if the car belonged to a Mormon, as Gordon B. Hinckley was the President of the Church, considered a prophet by the faithful, from March of 1995 until his death on January 27, 2008.

Plus, many of the statements written on the car, including the Shakespeare quote, were ones I often heard my own mother speak as I grew up.

Mom would never have allowed anyone to graffiti up the car, though - no matter how inspirational the words.

As to the Shakespeare quote, it always sounded pretty righteous and noble, coming from Mom's lips as I grew up, so I was kind of surprised when one day I actually sat down, read Hamlet, and saw that in the story the words were spoken by one Polonius, a devious, self-serving, self-righteous, man of many bad works. Mom would not have approved of Polonius at all, had he appeared in her life as a real character.

Rearview of the inspirational, perhaps Mormon, car.

As I drove down Church Road, I passed this man traveling by four-wheeler.

As I headed up Shrock Road from the bridge that crosses the Little Susistna River, I saw this guy coming down the hill on his skateboard.

I used to travel by this method myself.

In my dreams, I sometimes still do.

PS: as you can see, the weather is incredible. Sunny and warm. - more like one would expect in California than Alaska. It was this way in Fairbanks and even in Nuiqsut, so far above the Arctic Circle.

I wonder how long it will last?

For however long, I should cast aside all responsibility and do nothing but play.

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How I took my R&R - part 2, the bike ride: I see a beautiful grandma with her granddaughter and dog and many more things; I make a softball throw straight out of my old nightmares

As mentioned in my first post of this gorgeous three-post day, I had a great need to get out under the open sky and do something physical, but I did not know what. My first choice was a long, long, long, bike ride, but I knew that I was not yet in shape for such a thing. 

If I had been younger, no big deal. I could go out and pedal and pedal and pedal all day long, even if it was the first time in a long time. I might be a bit sore the next day, but so what?

It would feel good in its way.

I thought of various options but, when it came down to it, I still wanted to ride my bike. So I contemplated having Margie drive me 25 miles or so away and then drop me off so that I could pedal back. In this way, I could at least cover some ground that I had not covered by bike in awhile and it would be a decent, though not a long, long, long, ride. And if I had her drop me off as far up as we could get on the still snow-blocked road that goes over Hatcher Pass, then the first long portion of that drive would be all downhill and would not strain me at all - although there was a chance that I would gain such great speed coming down the very steep grade that I would have an accident and kill myself.

In the end, though, I decided just to hop and my bike and go, no destination in mind, and see where I wound up. So as not to overdo it, I would try to limit myself to three hours and I would not push it.

If I wanted to stop and take a picture, I would stop and take a picture.

Maybe I would find myself passing by Dairy Queen. I could then stop and buy a small strawberry shake.

So I got on my bike and went. I had gone no more than a few hundred yards when I came upon these three, walking. 

They looked too beautiful to simply pass by, plus I recognized the woman as a waitress who had served Margie and I years back at La Fiesta Mexican restaurant.

So I stopped to chat just a little bit, and to take this picture.

"Your daughter is beautiful," I told her.

"Oh, she's my granddaughter," she answered. I had forgotten her name, so she told me and she gave me the names of her granddaughter and the dog, too.

Stupid me. I was certain I would remember, so I did not bother to speak them into my iPhone.

Now I have forgotten all of the names except for one.

The dog is Maui.

It is a little bit tricky to hop on bike with the plan of not planning where to go, other than to wherever your wheels roll to, because right away you start thinking of possible destinations to go to. The first one that I thought of was the bridge over the Little Susitna River, but I rejected it right away because that would only give me about a six or seven mile ride.

I wanted to go further than that.

I then decided that when I came to an intersection and got an urge to turn one way, I would turn the other, so as to make my destination all the more unpredictable.

But how does one do such a thing? As soon as you decide to turn one way, you have actually decided to turn the other, but then if you go ahead and decide to turn in the direction you had originally decided upon, you have still blown the whole plan.

So I began to pedal and ponder this situation. Then, before I came up with an answer, I found that, without even thinking about it, I had turned right on Lucille, headed in the direction of Metro Cafe.

I pedaled on, until I heard an airplane approaching. 

I stopped my bike, picked it out in the sky, waited until it passed over the first wire and then shot.

I then pedaled on toward Metro Cafe, thinking that maybe it was just the right kind of day to try one of their frappes.

Yet, when I reached Gail Street, it suddenly dawned on me that this was entirely too predictable, so I made a sudden right turn onto Gail, away from Metro Cafe.

I cannot quite tell you how it happened, but after I made a few more unpredictable turns, I found myself at Metro Cafe, ordering a frappe, served to me by Sashanna.

I then went out and sat down at one of the patio tables, so that I could photograph any kids who might pass by on bicycles. These two soon did.

Then Carmen took a five minute break, came out, sat down and visited me for ten minutes.

We talked about many things, including her childhood in Mexico, when she lived in a house with dirt floors in a tiny inland village. 

No telephone, no refrigerator. "We had to buy our food and eat it the same day," she recalled.

I thought about mentioning how Margie was born under the open Apache sky and lived her early years in a bear-grass thatched wickiup - the Apache version of a teepee - but decided to hold that information for another time. At this moment, the focus was upon little Carmen in Mexico and that was where it should stay.

I had resolved that I would not pedal by the park, but then I realized that I needed to make a restroom stop and they had one there, so I headed for the park.

As I pedaled by the skateboard area, I saw a kid come down one ramp and shoot toward another. I knew he would catch some air so I raised my pocket camera and shot this frame from the bike trail as I coasted by.

Just a little further down the bike trail that passes through the park, I saw these two boys pushing their bikes up this hill. I figured that they would then turn around, shoot down the hill as fast as they could and then commit some dare-devil act, but I did not hang around to see what.

I pedaled on to the restroom.

After that, I found myself drawing near to the Charlie Bumpus ball fields, named for the former mayor who, before he was buried at too young of an age in the Wasilla cemetery, built the Raven View subdivision, named a street within it for his daughter Sarah and then sold us our house on her street.

All three of my boys used to play American Legion Baseball at this field with the Wasilla Road Warriors. I decided to pull over and see if the current Road Warriors might be practicing or playing.

They weren't. But this baseball was lying in the parking lot. 

No baseball players were in sight on any field. I figured the ball must have fallen there when the parking lot was full, rolled under a car and so nobody found it.

There were some adult men doing batting practice at one of the softball fields adjacent to the baseball field.

I stopped to see if I could get a shot of Chris, whacking the ball.

Before I did, a pitch went a little wild and rolled to the backstop behind me.

I did what anyone would do and picked the ball up so I could toss it back. Then a horrible feeling hit me.

Have any of you out there ever had a bad dream, a nightmare, where you are trying to throw a baseball but you can't do it? You throw, but instead of flying the ball weakly leaves your hand and falls to the ground?

Remember how, last summer, for the first time after I broke my shoulder and got it replaced, I tried to toss an apple core and it just tumbled to the ground?

At that time, I resolved to build up my strength by tossing rocks every day until I could throw again.

I did for awhile, too. But now it has been a long while since I last tossed a rock.

The pitcher raised his glove as a signal for me to throw the ball to him.

"I broke my shoulder," I said, "I can't throw so good now." I then tried to throw the ball, but instead of going to the pitcher, it went to the left, hit the ground about ten feet away from me and then rolled a little ways away.

"Sorry," I said.

"It's okay," the pitcher said.

How the hell am I ever going to go surfing at Yakutak on July 14, my birthday, like I committed myself to doing?

Why the hell did I ever stand on that stupid rolling chair to take that worthless picture and then when I fell, why did I protect my camera instead of myself?

Dumbass!

After I got the picture, I pedaled away, carrying the baseball with me. Maybe I can't throw so good right now, but a baseball is just not something that a person such as me would ever leave behind in an empty parking lot.

A ways down the road, I dropped the baseball. I decided to see if I could stuff it into my pocket. It fit. So that is how I brought it home.

Next, I found myself going down the bike trail that follows Church Road. 

When I got to Seldon, I could have turned towards Sarah's Way, toward our house, but I didn't. I kept going. And soon I came upon these four.

Soon after that, I found myself on the bridge that crosses the Little Su. Despite my best anti-planning, I had wound up here anyway - but by a rather convoluted route, one that greatly increased the distance. My camera battery died right after I took this picture.

I headed home, but I took the long way to get here.

My journey lasted about three hours. When I stepped into the house through the front door, I saw Margie standing on the porch outside the back door.

So I went out to join her. Royce came through the door with me.

It was his first excursion outside since October.

So that was good to see.

I will leave this as the lead post probably until about noon on Mother's Day.

Then I will put up a special post - a Mother's Day tribute. 

So if you come here Mother's Day morning and see this, be sure to come back Mother's Day afternoon. 

And remember - it is four hours earlier in Alaska than on the East Coast.

I hop from a fishing boat in Prince William Sound to Family Restaurant; Sarah Palin finally pushes me over the edge (this is not a test, this is real)

This morning, at 5:38 AM, I sat inside inside the cabin of a fishing boat, a seiner, as it pulled out away from the dock and headed into the waters of Prince William Sound. Suddenly, a big truck came roaring into our path, so I pushed the button that would blast the horn and at the exact moment that I did the phone rang in our bedroom. It jarred me full awake.

At first, I thought that I would not answer it, because what kind of idiot calls you at 5:38 in the morning? But then, of course, there are all those calls that can come at any hour of the night, when someone that you love has been injured or died. As much as you never want to hear them, such calls need to be answered. 

Or it could be someone on the east coast who wanted a photograph from me and did not check to see what the time difference between there and here. I have had this happen a number of times.

But the phone did not ring again. And so I wondered if it had really rang at all, or if I had dreamed it. Margie never heard it. But then she sleeps more lightly than I do and was drugged up on pain killers.

I am quite certain that it rang.

I was now desperately tired and wide awake at the same time. I lay awake for a while, then rolled from my right to my left side. This was observed by Jimmy, the black cat. He rose then from the mattress, climbed atop me and settled down in the crook between my hip and shoulder.

He made my blanket feel wonderfully warm and so I thought that I could drift back to sleep. Just when I was about to, I heard Margie stirring and I knew she needed help, so I made poor Jimmy get down and I got up and helped her.

I then went back to bed. The windows were open just a enough that it had become very cool in the room. When I crawled back under the covers, I could not get warm.

"Jimmy!" I pled, "come back." He thought about it for about ten minutes and then he did.

Soon, I was once again wonderfully warm. I was getting close to drifting back to sleep when Jimmy heard a certain bird sing outside. He suddenly leaped off me and hopped onto the window sill to see if by chance he might get that bird.

Now, I was wide awake again. I got to thinking about Family Restaurant. I knew that I should not go there. I can't afford to go there every time I get the whim. And there is my acid reflux to think about. I need to eat oatmeal.

Yet, I did not want to lie in bed awake all morning and then get up and cook oatmeal. It was after seven now and it seemed foolish to lie in bed awake any longer. But the only way that getting up seemed tolerable was if I went to Family and ordered an omelette and had somebody wait on me. 

So that is what I did.

I bought Margie a burrito from Carl's Jr. brought it back to her and then headed out the door to take my morning walk. This dog was in the driveway and was very surprised to see me. It is the same dog that nearly killed the rabbit and that lives on the corner where the chicken crossed the road. 

We stared at each other for about one minute, as I waited, curious, to see what he would do. 

He got the hell out of there.

Somebody had moved the helmet from accident site up to just off the edge of the road. It seemed odd that nobody had picked it up yet, which made me wonder if whoever had been wearing it had been hurt badly enough that he had no need for a helmet and so no one had even thought about it.

I still wondered if it was a child or an adult. I picked up the helmet and put it on my head. It was tight, but I could push it on.

Could have been a kid with a big head, or an adult with a small one.

There were towering cumulus in the sky. 

Later, I found Margie in the process of paying our bills, playing with crossword puzzles. You can see how much better she looks. It has been almost two weeks now. They said she would be laid up for six - if she does not require surgery, which we won't know until Tuesday at the earliest.

Late in the afternoon, I took a coffee break. I passed by the Wasilla skateboard park - the best in the state.

Now... concerning Sarah Palin... I think she has finally pushed me over the edge with her Facebook statement against health care reform. She may not be aware of it, but in this distortion she has made a personal attack against my health care - as I tried to take responsibility and so bought a health insurance policy in good faith, only to discover, when my time of need came, that my health insurance, which I pay dearly for, is run by an organization that views my health care as an obstacle to their profits. 

I have spent considerable time in off-the-highway Alaska, where medical facilities are limited. Quite often, while I was out there, someone who had suffered an accident or had fallen critically ill had needed to be medivaced to Anchorage or Fairbanks by air ambulance. I knew that such an event could break me, so, about 15 years ago, when I spoke with the sales representative for the insurance that I hoped to get through the National Association of the Self Employed, the first question that I asked was, should I need it, will this policy cover the cost of an air ambulance?

The sales representative assured me that it would. I went for it. No other member of my Apache family was covered under the plan, as all were covered under treaty obligation by the US Indian Health Service.

At first, I thought that I had purchased a pretty good plan - until the time came that I actually needed it. Then I realized that the over $8000 I spend annually was not doing me much good. Very little was ever covered - and that includes medication, which was not covered at all.

I could have received much better care, and not postponed or ignored so much that needed to be done, had I have put that $8000 toward it, rather than to someone else's profit.

Still, I held onto the plan just in case I should ever experience the catastrophic event.

That came in June of last year, when I took my fall in Barrow and suffered my shattered shoulder. There is a good hospital in Barrow, but it was not equipped to deal with the injury that I had. So I was medivaced by air ambulance to Anchorage.

The bill for that air ambulance alone came to over $37,000. My insurance company turned it over to one of those sharp individuals to whom they pay high salaries just to find any clause that might enable them to get out of paying a claim. That person did his job well. They refused to pay. And that was only the beginning of the many ways my insurance company failed me after I took my fall.

So, yes - if a national health insurance option were to be established with client health rather than profit being the highest priority, I would drop my company in an instant and switch. And if enough of their clients did so that they went out of business... good. That would be exactly what they deserve.

No, Sarah Palin - Barack Obama's health care plan is not "absolutely evil" as you state on your Facebook page. And when you write, "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," you are making that all up.

Your language is not only inflammatory, but dishonest. There will be no "death panel" and I challenge you to show us the language that a rational, intelligent reading of could be interpreted to imply such a thing. Your baby will be treated with respect, compassion, and care under the Obama plan - and not only that, but so will the babies of many parents not so fortunate as you and Todd, parents who cannot afford the kind of health insurance that you enjoy.

Why do you, of all people, stand against such parents and their Down Syndrome babies?

I also believe that you know this, but have chosen your words to pander to paranoia and fear in order to put yourself alongside the Rush Limbaugh's of the world.

Sarah Palin - I used to love you. I really did. I did not vote for you, because I feared where you might come down on certain issues dear to me, such as Native self-governance and subsistence hunting and fishing rights. Yet, after you took office, got rid of that jet and did a few other good and showy things, I had a change of heart. I thought you might truly be that "breath of fresh air," the cliche that even more Democrats than Republicans were using to describe you. But then came John McCain - who I also once loved - and you showed us who you really are. 

When I started this blog, I vowed to keep myself out of the fray, to not join the media and blog circus that whipped up around you, because I had other purposes and did not want to be diverted from them. I have often found it a struggle to keep that vow, but when I read the cynical words that you wrote Friday on Facebook, I could not keep it any longer.

You must be spoken against and so I speak against you.

Meanwhile, back in Wasilla, skateboarders roll for Jesus

I went to the bank this afternoon to transfer money from the business account to the family account so that the mortgage check would not bounce. I was kind of horrified at how little money was then left in either account. As I drove away via the city park route, I suddenly became aware that there were an unusual number of kids rolling about in the skateboard bowl. I had only a second or two to react, but lifted my G10 pocket camera and shot a blind frame through the open passenger window as I passed. As I did, a man's voice, amplified by a loudspeaker, entered the car.

"Dear Jesus," the detached voice pled, then paused, "will you be my Lord?"

That was all I heard. I drove on. The camera had failed to focus.

Oh well. Life is a blur, anyway.

Next, I drove to a nearby kiosk and ordered an Americano for $1.50, plus tip. Afterward, as I headed toward home, I saw this kid carrying his skateboard away from the park.

I wondered what his role in the revival had been, or if he had gone there to skate and that was it.

Maybe there was free food, too.