Bad news and good hash browns at breakfast; cruising down Wasilla's snow-blown roads with Steve Heimel; Royce, Melanie and coffee

I just about stayed home to eat oatmeal for breakfast, but then I would have had dishes to wash. Plus, it was a Sunday, I had slept in and it just didn't feel right to stay home. So off I went, not knowing if I was headed to Family or IHOP.

I wound up at Mat-Su Family Restaurant, where diners were reading about the police officer in Anchorage who was ambushed in his patrol car Saturday and shot five times. He survived, perhaps because he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. According to the Anchorage Daily News, he is in pain but is going to be okay.

Troubling thing to have happen in Anchorage.

I was surprised when Jolene showed up at my table to wait on me. It has been many, many, months since I have seen her waiting tables at Family and she was pregnant last time. I meant to ask whether it was a boy or girl and what the name is, but she had many tables to wait on and we spent our limited talking time discussing hash browns. 

She said she would make certain the cooks did my hash browns right. And she did. The hash browns were excellent.

I'm sad to say that Jolene is only working temporarily.

Hungry people, pouring into the Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

She stood there for awhile, waiting for someone to join here - and there he is, coming through the door.

It was blustery outside, but something made her smile.

I can't say for certain, but it looks to me like a grampa, carrying a little teddy-bear boy from the restaurant to the car.

After I finished my breakfast, I got into the car and tuned the radio to 90.3, KNBA public radio, the Alaska Native station. I tuned it there because I knew that Steve Heimel would be on the air with "Truckstop," his program of old-time country and folk music, with a bit of Gospel and Blues thrown in.

This was a big mistake on my part, as I had many things I wanted to do back here in my office, but I was trapped. I could not point the car towards home as long as that great music was playing.

So I would waste time I could not afford to waste, burn gas I could not afford to burn, and pump greenhouse gases into the air that I should not have putting there.

I think it would be safe to say that Steve is a conscientious, environmentally conscious, green-oriented person. Yet, I can assure you, he causes many people besides me to inject the atmosphere with greenhouse gas.

I circled around and found myself stopped at a stop sign before I could cross Wasilla's famous Main Street, and drive past Wasilla's famous library.

Then, captivated by the music and unable to go home, I returned back to the Wasilla portion of the Parks Highway.

I had thought that I would go to KNBA's website and pull up a playlist of all the songs Heimel played today, and then I would note some of them, link to them, and then tell you where I was at the time and make some other commentary.

But, sadly, there was no playlist and a good many of those songs are obscure enough that I can not remember their titles.

Sure, I remember some of the obvious ones, like "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton and "Tom Joad" by Woodie Guthrie, but some of the others just escape me.

It's okay, though. Truth is, its late and I am too tired to go find all those songs, make all those links and write all that narration.

Heimel is a very smart and knowledgeable guy and every now and then he drops in his own narration. Like just before playing a good gospel song that was all about Jesus being on the radio before there was radio, he recalled an experience that happened many decades ago when a man asked him, "are you saved?"

"Saved from what?" he responded.

As to the Battle of New Orleans, he gave an off the top of his head summary of the events that led to it, including the fact that it was fought after the war had ended but the poor Brits who went on the attack did not know it and they got slaughtered - 214 dead to 14 Americans dead.

And all this for a war that had ended.

At the end of Horton's piece - and I wish I could quote Heimel, but, damn, his exact words have slipped my mind, he said something like this: an alligator canon is a mighty effective weapon.

"What's your dog's name?" I shouted as we were stopped at the light.

"Annie," he said.

"I bet lot of people take her picture."

"Oh yeah," he agreed, "you wouldn't believe how many people have cameras."

And then the light changed and the interview ended.

I need to get another beaver hat like that. That looks just like one of my three that have disappeared.

I'm not accusing anybody of anything, because I'm pretty sure Annie keeps the man honest. I wouldn't be surprised if his hat was made by the same guy who made mine. The hat maker lives just up the road in Trapper Creek area - or at least he did at the time.

He would go to Barrow to help count bowhead whales and that was how I met him.

Here I am, stopped at another light - and here is the guy behind me.

I turned off the Parks and drove down the Palmer-Wasilla Highway for a short distance.

And to my amazement, even as Heimel took a break to say, "KNBA, 90.3," there was a KNBA Volkswagen right in front of me, with the call letters, 90.3 emblazoned on the back.

What are the odds?

This kind of thing happens all the time to me.

Finally, I knew I had to go home and so headed in this direction. As I drew near, I saw this stuck vehicle on a side street, with this guy trying to help push it out.

I thought about turning around and going back to help, but the song that was being played was too good.

Plus, with this artificial shoulder of mine, I must be very careful about such things.

As I continued on Seldon, I saw three snowmachines ahead of me, on the same trail that I photographed the kid yesterday as he sped along in careless disregard for the mothers and babies who use that trail. This time, I was going 25 mph and I passed all three snowmachines.

So, you see, not all snowmachiners are wreckless and irresponsible.

The street this snowmachine is crossing is my street. I finally turned down that street and got to my house, about 10 minutes before Truckstop ended.

Melanie showed up not long afterward. She expressed great concern about Royce, who is losing weight at a horrifying pace. She said she was going to run to the store to buy him some soft cat food, because she hadn't seen my blog lately and did not know that I had already done that.

I am pretty convinced, though, that the problem is not that Royce is not getting enough to eat. He eats all that I give him and more, voraciously, but still the weight is melting off him.

He has thrown up a lot the past few days, and not hairballs.

I guess I had better take him into the vet.

He seems energetic and bright, but he grows so frail.

Melanie suggested that maybe I am letting him eat too much, too fast and that I should give him smaller servings, more often.

She may be right. 

I am trying that now.

"He is a special, special, cat," she said.

Then the two of us went out for coffee. She brought her mug and ordered her's black. I ordered mine with cream and two raw sugars.

Mine wasn't very good. Her's was better.

I will not say where we got them, because I don't want to make the poor barista feel bad, but it wasn't Metro Cafe. Metro Cafe is closed on Sunday.

And Metro Cafe has spoiled me, because their coffee is always good.

Now - I've got one week before I leave to join Margie in Arizona for two weeks. I have about three weeks worth of tasks to do in that week, so I expect the posts between now and when I leave to be brief - although I never know for certain until I do them.

Steve Heimel - radio reporter and program host, keeps people driving after they would have shut their cars down

This is Steve Heimel and he bears a great deal of personal responsibility for the increasing pace of global warming and the next fuel shortage. Steve is a radio reporter and program host for the Alaska Public Radio Network and he keeps people in their cars, driving, long after they would have parked and shut down their engines, were it not for him.

How many times have I myself been driving, headed home, listening to Talk of Alaska on KSKA when Steve has asked a guest a pointed question that I would never have thought of and then sparked and moderated a discussion involving people from every region of this far-flung state that I simply could not pull myself away from, so I have driven on, spewing green house gas, burning gasoline.

And how many Sundays have I been headed home, intent on parking and getting out of the car as fast as I can, listening as Steve hosts Truck Stop on KNBA. All of a sudden, he's got Johnny Cash doing Fulsom Prison Blues and then maybe Hank Williams wailing about the tear in his beer because he's crying for you, dear, followed by Woody Guthrie declaring this land to be my land and his land.

Who can stop their car and turn off the radio in such a situation?

I sure can't. So I drive on, even as millions upon millions of other Alaskans do the same thing.

We are all helpless. We cannot shut our cars down. It's Steve's fault.

This picture is from earlier tonight, when I saw him at the "Send Congress back to DC with a Message" at Romig Middle School in Anchorage. The event was held to give Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski a pro-health care reform message as they return to Washington DC for the next session of Congress.

Before the event got under way, Steve mused about the unbelievable fact that he is 66 years old. Listen to him on the radio. He sounds like a young man.

It has been a long, busy day and I am exhausted and must go to bed, so I am going to put my pictures from that event into the queue, where they now compete with Kalib at the fair.