After the game tears were shed

click to enlarge.

This is not the trophy that the Barrow Whalers football team had hoped to take home to Barrow. This is the State Runner-Up 2011-2012 trophy. They wanted to take home the State Championship trophy. I wanted them to, too. Badly.

Instead, Nikiski, a team that the Whalers had previously beaten, took that trophy home.

Still, the Whalers accomplished something that had never been accomplished before. They are the first Barrow Whaler Football team ever to go to state - and they won their division championship.

That's North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta, who presented the trophy to them, standing with them and he told them the same thing. On the left is assistant coach Brian Houston.

I took quite a few pictures at the game, but other than to grab this, I haven't looked at them yet. I suspect my very best picture(s) will not be of the action - although I hope I got a couple of decent ones there - but of the emotion and tears at the end.

If I should publish one or more pictures of these tears on the printed page, and I suspect I will, do not be embarassed, Whalers. The tears you shed today did not come from weakness. If you had been weak, you would not have fought on this field in the first place. If you had been weak, you would not have cared enough to have shed tears. These were tears brought on by strong desire, passion, hard effort, hard work and struggle.

As painful as they were, it is good that you could shed such tears.

And one day, those who follow you in future seasons will take that championship trophy home to Barrow.

I hope I am there to photograph it.

Branson, Metro Cafe's 38 pound hockey player, knows how to score and celebrate; cat and baby at the door

Not long before I headed off on one of my Arctic Slope trips last fall, I promised Carmen that I would take some pictures of Branson, her five-year old son, doing some hockey stuff. Well, you know what happens to time. His regular season ended and now he is attending a hocky camp at the Mernard Sports Center.

He had sessions schedule for Saturday and Sunday afternoons and then one more on Wednesday. I was pretty sure I would not be able to make the Sunday session, couldn't say about Wednesday and so I decided that I had better go Saturday. I arrived with a little more than one-half hour of the session left.

Here he is: Branson, the 38-pound, five-year old, hockey player.

Branson was, in fact, the smallest person on the ice. And he was competing against some older and bigger boys - six and seven year olds who have been playing for years.

But you can see - Branson was skating hard.

Branson and competitor go after puck.

Who will get it?

They are fighting hard, now.

Now they are in front of the goal, Branson on offense, his competitor on defense determined to stop him.

Branson belts the puck past the defender.

The defender knocks Branson to the ice, but it doesn't matter: the puck he slammed is shooting right between the feet of the goalie and into the net.

Branson skates away from his successful goal shot in celebration.

Pretty soon, he does it again... and then again after that. 

He raises his puck in victory, but now he is also searching the bleachers for a familiar face. Could it be Mom? Is she there? Will he find her? Did she notice?

She is there and he does find her and she did notice.

After the scrimmage ends an adult skates by. "Congratulations on your goal," he tells Branson.

Branson, the hockey player.

Branson with his friends, Colin and Caroline. They do not play hockey. They play soccer ("football" to all my relatives and friends in India and the rest of the world).

Carmen is pretty proud. 

After I returned home, I came here into my office and went to work. I had not been working long before I heard a knock on the door.

Puzzled, I got up and opened it. Who do you think I saw standing on the other side?

It was Jim, my good black cat. "C'mon on in, Jim!" I invited. He entered and soon walked across my keyboard as I was typing.

Then I heard another knock. Again I got up and opened the door.

This time it was Jobe, who had just driven his mother and older brother out from Anchorage.

Jobe came in. Jim decided it was time to leave, jumped off my keyboard and walked to the door.

And this from India:

Feral street dog at Ooty tea farm.

View images as slide show

A boy, a dog, a pizza, a cat and a wife on Super Bowl Sunday; Durga, in the form of a beautiful woman, slayer of the buffalo demon

Yes, all who have returned from yesterday, you guessed it: I ordered our Super Bowl Sunday meal from Fat Boyz Fatery Pizza. As Fat Boyz is only 1.5 miles from the house, I decided to walk over, place my order, then walk back home, get in the car, drive back, pick it up and bring it home.

That would be a three mile walk - not as much as I want or need, but better than no walk at all.

As I walked down Seldon towards Fat Boyz, I saw this boy and this dog walking in the opposite direction, coming towards me. I decided immediately that I would not take any pictures. I would give them a sociable nod hello and just keep going.

That's because, given all that I must do before I leave for Barrow tomorrow and given the fact that I knew that, in spite of myself, I would not get much done during the Super Bowl, I wanted to keep this blog post very short.

I figured that the pizza and Margie watching the Super Bowl would be all that I could deal with.

But when I reached the kid and the dog, the boy stopped me.

"I'm exhausted!" he exclaimed.

"How come?" I asked.

"Because I just got up!" he said.

So I figured that if he was up to it, I might as well take a picture for the blog.

"What's the dogs name?" I asked, as I shot the above.

"I'm not sure," he answered. "This dog has had lots of names. I think its Smokey now."

As to his own name, the boy said it was Unknown. I showed him my blog on my iPhone and he said he recognized the folks at Far Boyz. 

I then thanked him and was about to move on, but then Smokey playfully tipped Unknown onto his back.

Smokey and Unknown. BTW - Unkown assured me that Smokey does not bite. Unknown's mother insists that he wear the muzzle when he is out walking, just to be safe.

Unknown tries to get up but Smokey licks him in the face.

Unknown again tries to rise, but Smokey puts his weight on his shoulder.

So Smokey and Unknown take a break.

Then Unknown again tries to rise, but Smokey takes him back down.

Finally, Unknown manages to get up and they start walking down the street. "That Smokey's a good dog," I tell him.

"I don't know," Unknown answered. "He had his manlys cut off a few days ago."

Then Smokey tripped him up a bit.

I was reminded of a recurring dream that comes to me in one form or another. Somehow, I fall down. I keep trying to get up, but I keep tripping and falling again. Over and over.

"Who you for, Unknown?" I shouted after them.

"Green Bay!" he shouted back. "Of course I'm for Green Bay."

I did not see them on the return, so I assume they made it home safely.

Soon, I made it to Fat Boyz. My camera was too cold to use inside, where it would just fog and ice up.

No sooner had I walked in then I was informed that, just before me, someone had placed an order because they had read about Fat Boyz on this blog.

You know, when you are a blogger, you want to make a difference in this world. You labor hours and hours upon end, reaping far, far, less than minimum wage, just hoping to make a difference. Sometimes, you wonder if it is all futile, if you are laboring in vain, your images and words slipping into the deep abyss of cyberspace, making no difference whatsover.

And then you walk into Fat Boyz pizza and find out that someone has just placed an order because of your blog.

Suddenly, you know its all worthwhile.

Suddenly, you know you and your blog are making a difference in this world.

You feel new strength, new determination to carry on.

And carry on I will.

I will!

Damnit!

I will!

As I walked home, I saw this guy walking towards me. I could have stopped him to learn his story but I decided I had enough to deal with already.

And then this airplane flew overhead and I remembered how my life once was, how I hope it will yet become again. It will yet become again.

I was not created to remain always upon the ground.

As I drew closer to home, I saw Jared, out in his yard. Jared was not going to watch the game. He had other things to do that interested him more. Jared has a snow plow and anyone can hire him to come and plow their driveway or road.

Unfortunately, of all the winters that I have ever seen here, this has been the least snowiest of all.

We have a dearth of snow.

It is terrible.

But there's lots of February still ahead, March and April, too. March can often be the snowiest month of the year.

So there's hope for Jared, yet.

As every US reader already knows and maybe some of the rest of you, too, towards the end of the first quarter, the packers put a touch down on the board and then, 28 seconds later, Nick Collins intercepted a Steeler pass and scored six more.

Unkown would get to celebrate a Packers victory. We were for the Packers, too - mostly because Green Bay is a small town. I googled the population: just over 102,000 - less than half the population of Anchorage?

Can you imagine, if Anchorage had an NFL team?

But that's not the important part of this picture.

See how the Fat Boyz pizza is already half eaten.

Today's pizza was truly super.

"Oh, this is good!" Margie said upon taking her first bite.

She offered many more praises before the game ended.

At some point in the second quarter, Chicago joined us.

She had no interest in the game whatsover.

Maybe if it had been the Bears...

From India... Durga, Slayer of the buffalo Demon:

While walking through one of the ancient Hindu temples of Pattadakal, Melanie and I met this priest, who invited us to enter a tiny, dark, alcove in which sat this idol of Durga.

I asked my friend, Kavitha, who wants to come and hike with us in the Brooks Range this summer, before returning to India to take a long trek and bike ride at 17,000 feet in the Himalayas that will finish in Tibet, if she could help me with Durga's story.

This is what she wrote:

The mythological story goes thus –

Long, long ago, there was a demon king called Mahishasura <Mahisha is Sanskrit word for buffalo and Asura = demon>. This demon had the capability to change between human and buffalo at will. He terrorized the earthling, invaded heaven defeated the gods, and drove all the Devas <Gods> out of heaven.

The gods got into a meeting to strategies against the Asura. Since he was invincible to all men, they decided to create his nemesis in the form of a woman. The Devas combined all their Shakti <energy / power> to create a beautiful woman. They named her Durga.

According to legend, Durga created an army to fight against the forces of the Mahishasura. After nine days of fighting, Mahishasura's army was destroyed; she finally killed him on the tenth day of the waxing moon. Durga is therefore called Mahishasuramardin i(literally the slayer of the buffalo demon), the destroyer of Mahishasura.

This event of victory of good over evil is celebrated in various versions in India.  It is also said that the region where Mahishasura ruled is now called Mysore.

Thank you, Kavitha (Cawitha)!

View images as slide show

The Barrow Whalers travel 1,023 miles to Nikiski, where they lose badly in the first half, but fight back hard through the second

I met the Barrow Whalers at the Wal-Mart near the Dimond Center in Anchorage at about 8:30 PM. I had planned to meet them shortly after 6:00 PM, the time that their Era Aviation flight from Barrow had been scheduled to land at Ted Stevens International Airport, but that flight was over two hours late.

As the coaches bought a good supply of water and Gatorade for the next day's game, the Whalers ate Subway sandwiches on the hood of one of the three vans that had been rented to take them to Nikiski - over three hours away.

The Whalers hit the road a minute or two before I did. My electronic gas gauge showed that I only had 150 miles to go before empty, so I would have to stop and gas up. I wondered if I might possibly catch up to them before they reached Nikiski.

Unless they stopped somewhere, it seemed unlikely. Coach Voss told me that the plan was to drive straight through - as even that would not put them there until after midnight. Then they would need to haul their gear into the school, down through the hallways and up the stairs to the wrestling room and there establish their beds.

Their Nikiski hosts planned to bring breakfast to them at 8:00 AM. The game would be at 11:00.

When I pulled into the Girdwood Tesoro station, 50 miles out of Anchorage proper but still with the municipal boundaries, I found that they had stopped there, too.

They left even before I could turn on the unleaded regular pump. I spent at least ten minutes gassing up and buying a few goodies. Still, there were hills to climb ahead, I figured they would not be going that fast and thought I would catch them.

After I got going, I discovered much of the route to be covered with heavy fog. 

Traffic was light. I passed a total of four or five slow vehicles and no one passed me, but I did not catch the Whalers. As I neared Kenai, Sally Go Round the Roses came on to station 91.5. I had not heard this song at least for years and think more likely for decades.

Maybe two decades, possibly even three.

When I heard it, in my mind I instantly saw the streets, buildings, vegetation, houses, hill, bay and ocean of Eureka, California, as these things had looked in 1963, when I was 13 and the song popular.

I had always liked it, been enchanted by it - and this was as I heard it on my transistor radio of the time, and on our tiny AM car radio.

Now, it was being played in stereo on our modern, much superior radio and I was totally entranced. Mesmerized. I did not want it to end, but to play and play.

This morning, I downloaded it off iTunes. I have probably listened to it 20 times today, as well as other versions by Grace Slick and the Great Society,  Question Mark and the Mysterians and Pentangle and some other versions as well. I enjoyed them all - but none of the other three could compare to the original by the Jaynetts.

When I reached the Nikiski High School, I expected to find the vans there, but I did not. I found only a surprisingly large high school enshrouded in fog so thick that it could not be seen from across the parking lot.

About 20 minutes later, at approximately 12:30 AM, the vans rolled in. They had pulled over at a rest stop along the way but, given the density of the fog, I had not seen them.

I had felt so tired as I drove through Kenai that I briefly thought about abandoning my plan to stay with the team in the school and go for comfort in a hotel, but decided to stick to it. I brought an inflatable bed and pump that Jacob and Lavina had lent me. 

After I had picked these and things and Margie up at Jacob and Lavina's on Thursday, I drove to Melanie's house to drop off a table that she had found in Wasilla on Craigslist. Melanie, Rex and Charlie had removed the table from the car and one of them had set the pump down in the driveway, meaning to pick it up afterward, but nobody thought about it again until I drove over it while backing out the driveway.

It did not appear to be damaged, but when I tried to inflate the mattress the pump would not work. So I borrowed another, but there were players waiting behind me. I felt guilty, because they needed their sleep to prepare for the game, so I stopped inflating the mattress a bit before I should have.

The bed sagged in the middle. This impacted the quality of my sleep.

I got out of bed somewhere between 7:00 and 7:30 and found coaches Igou and Battle going over plays the whalers would use this day.

Coach Battle briefs the offense.

Just before it was time to go on the field, I found quarterback Eddie Benson adjusting the foam protection that Coach Houston had helped him place over the cast that protected his broken arm.

Football is a team sport, yet, before each game, a player must go alone into his own mind, into his own psyche and soul to prepare for the battle ahead.

The fog had begun to ease a bit, but was still heavy. The grass was wet and cold. Darius Samuelu prepared to don his helmet and join his teammates.

As the Whalers warmed up and stretched their muscles, Roger Ferguson passed in front of my camera.

Then, the older, more experienced, bigger, heavier, deeper Nikiski Bull Dogs broke through the fog and charged onto the field.

Team captains Lawrence Kaleak, Nathaniel Samuelu and Eddie Benson took the field for the coin toss. The Bulldogs won. They chose to receive.

One could look at images such as this along with the final score of 47 - 7 and conclude that the Bulldogs trounced the Whalers.

No doubt about it, the whalers took some hard blows - including one to the shoulder of Jacob Harris.

Yet, after falling behind 40-0 by the end of the first half, they listened when the coaches told them to look at the second half as a new game, reach into their souls for their inner strength and go out determined to fight and win that two quarter game.

They regrouped and hit hard.

Despite the bleak score, they did not give up and made many excellent plays, including this one when Benson hit James Snow with a fifteen yard pass. 

Snow snatched the pass...

...he turned...

...and charged forward for a gain of I don't know how much, as I have not seen the stats, but he did gain a first down.

Blood was drawn on the face of Ulu Tuai.

A bit later, a swath of skin was torn from his arm, just above the elbow. As coaches Battle and Houston patched him up, Tuai urged them to hurry, as he wanted to get back into the game.

Even before Houston could finish binding his wound, Uluakiaho wanted to get back on the field.

They were down by 40 points, but... hey! Do the Whalers look like a football team? They do to me.

The whalers got on the board when Jones hit Jhonel Moreno in the endzone for six. Jones then kicked the extra point. 

I am proud to say that although the Whalers did not win, they fought through every minute of the game and they tied the second half, 7-7. Victor Unutoa carries the ball.

Afterward, as they always do, they gathered for a prayer.

And they raised their helmets, just like they did last week, when they won.

As I walked from the field back to the school to gather my stuff together, I saw two dogs, riding through the parking lot in the back seat of car.

Soon, I was on the road and in Kenai I saw these two young women in a convertible that must have a permanent Alaska license plate by October 13.

These days, there is no way to know for sure, but I suspect that even before that date they will cease to drive with the top down.

That van in front of me? That's the final vehicle of the caravan of Whalers, driving back to Anchorage where they will overnight and leave early in the morning back to Barrow.

What a beautiful drive it was!

I should note that during the game, the emcee announced that the Barrow whalers had traveled 1028 miles as the crow flies to play this game.

Next week, they play Delta and I sorely want to go, but I have a commitment in Barrow and will not be able to.

They must win, because although I have concluded that I cannot finish this essay to the depth that I want this season and will have to find the way to continue it through the next year or two, I want to photograph them again this season.

If they win next week, they will go on to the playoffs, October 2 in Kenai. I talked to them. They do plan to win. I plan to be in Kenai.

I can't quite explain it, as I do not know any of these young men that well, but I find that there is something that I like about them.

I missed Adrian Panigeo - number 15. He was out on crutches - for the rest of the season. I have never seen a tougher high school player with any more heart than Panigeo, so I hope to photograph him some more in in the future as well.

View images as slide show

They will appear larger and look better

On my way home, I stop in Fairbanks to watch the Barrow Whalers play football; a man paints lines at MacDonald's

On my way home from the Arctic Slope, I stopped in Fairbanks to catch the Barrow Whalers football game against Monroe Catholic School. The date, September 11, kind of added a little impact to the traditional playing of the National Anthem that proceeds football games.

The Whalers won, 26-14. I have not yet had time to edit any of my photos from this trip and I have a huge edit to do, but I remembered seeing quarterback Eddie Benson blasting his way with a cast on his arm through the Monroe defense on the Whaler's final touchdown drive, so, for this blog, I went straight to that photo and this is it.

The touchdown came on the very next play, when Benson hit Trace Hudson with a 10 yard pass. Readers can find a more complete account in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, right here.

The end of the game came dangerously close to my departure time out of Fairbanks International Airport and I should have left maybe 10 minutes before I did, but I pushed my luck and stayed put just to capture this scene.

I then rushed to the airport, checked in before it was too late and then returned the rental to Budget. There was one woman ahead of me and it took the guy behind the desk about 15 minutes to serve her. Finally, with little time to spare, he handed her the keys to her rental car and she left.

I stepped to the counter, anxious to complete the transaction so that I could go through security and board my plane, but before he could help me, the phone rang.

It kind of felt like someone had cut in line ahead of me. The guy then spent several minutes with this person as I grew ever more anxious, as departure was now less than 20 minutes away.

After he took my keys, I headed for security and as I was finishing up, I heard the final boarding call for my flight. "All passengers must now board." I put my belt back on, cinched it, then slipped my feet half-way into my shoes, grabbed my stuff and ran toward the gate.

All passengers but me had boarded. There was one ticket scanner, sitting by the gate waiting for me.

I handed her my ticket. She scanned it. I boarded the plane. They shut the door behind me, fired up the engines, we were giving the pre-flight speech and then we left.

Margie picked me up at Ted Stevens International in Anchorage. I had not eaten since lunch, so we stopped at MacDonald's, nearing midnight. As we sat in the car eating our hamburgers and drinking our fruit smoothies (see... MacDonald's can too be healthy - FRUIT smoothies) this guy drove up and started to paint fresh parking lines.

Now, I will see if I can get a little rest and then try to make a small account of what was a big and interesting trip.

I might add that when I was on Cross Island, I heard no national or international news at all, very little when I was in Nuiqsut, but began to learn of what has been going on in my nation during my few hours in Barrow. Now I am home, awash in the flood of news. All I can say is - my country has been going nuts.

View images as slides

they will appear larger and look better