The Vietnam veteran and the returned Mormon missionary; the bicycle and the wrecked airplane

Doubtless, regular readers are wondering what a man in my financial situation is doing dining out at Mat-Su Valley Restaurant for breakfast? Four nights have now passed since Margie went into Anchorage to stay and take care of baby Jobe and one more will pass until she returns to spend just two nights here before she goes back again.

As much as I love this house and the cats who wake with me, it feels awfully chilly and damn bleak in here in the mornings. Whereas, it will be warm at Family Restaurant. There will be smiling people there, waitresses who will serve me coffee and laugh even if I make an unfunny joke.

This is Jobina, doing just that.

I like the name, "Jobina." It's like a feminine version of Jobe. 

If I can, I always like to get this spot, because from here I have a good view not only of all the people sitting and moving around inside this busy, warm diner, scented with the aroma of breakfast cooking, but of those wandering to and fro outside.

My observations tell me that a very broad array of Wasilla life passes in and out of this diner, particularly at breakfast time.

Also, if I am very lucky and the train comes bye, I can often get a pretty good look at it from this window seat.

So I would rather be here in the midst of all this than all alone inside my chilly house. The melting snows did expose a fair amount of firewood that had been hidden in our yard, so I can always heat the house up, but, by the time it gets comfortable, I will be done with breakfast. 

And even if I have no cash, I do have a credit card. So its off to Family I go.

Plus, to eat here is a sign of optimism, that things will soon get better and I will be able to pay all my bills.

I took this picture for future reference and it had not been my intent to post it just yet. Many veterans come into Mat-Su Family, and I have a desire to know their stories to the extent that they would be willing to share - just as I would like to know the stories of so many who I see gathering at Family. 

I have this idea in my head that as time progresses and I figure out how to fund this blog so that I can have the time to more effectively pursue my goal of finding the soul of Wasilla and to tell such stories, I will do just that. Seeing the hat, I thought this veteran might have a good story to tell, so I took the picture to remind me to look for him in the future, when that time comes.

As it happened, we wound up in line together at the cash register, so I asked if he had been a POW. No, he said, he had friends that had been and the experience had been hell for them. However bad combat might get, he said he had always kept a bullet in reserve for himself, just to make certain that he would never become a POW.

He served in Vietnam in the very early '70s, in what he described as the clean-up stages of the war, as the US was deciding to quit and pull out.

When I talk to such men, I am always self-conscious of the fact that they risked their lives in Vietnam and I did not. It had been my intent to go. When I was a senior at El Camino High School in a suburb of Sacramento, I decided that I would break with what had become the tradition in my family and what all of us males were expected to do. I would not go to Brigham Young University and I would not serve a two-year Mormon mission. I would enlist in the Army, and go for the Green Beret.

But I was in love with a red-headed girl who did decide to go to BYU. I knew that if I did not follow her there to protect my interests, she would marry a returned Mormon Missionary, as any good Mormon girl would.

So, at the last possible moment, I surrendered my plan to enlist, applied to BYU and was accepted. I followed the red-headed girl there and lived in misery as a returned Mormon missionary courted her. We would still get together to share an occasional lunch or movie or a concert and I took her motorcycle riding a couple of times. The the RM who courted her ordered her not to ride with me anymore, as it was just too damn dangerous.

I might crash and break her neck.

She did marry him, but by then I was in love with her best friend and was not troubled.

Vietnam was a very unpopular war and many people felt that the draft was being most unfairly applied. If you were wealthy, a college student, a Mormon missionary or fell into a number of other categories, you could get a deferment and most likely never be drafted to serve.

But if you did not fall into such a category and you were in good health, then you could pretty much count on being drafted.

This unfairness created such an uproar that a lottery system was instated in which each date of the year was drawn at random. If one's birthday came up number one, then, in theory, whether he was rich, a genious in college, a Mormon missionary or whatever, he was going to be drafted.

If one's birthday came up at #365, there was no chance in the world that he would be drafted.

My number came up 321. After that, the draft was not an issue for me anymore.

In the meantime, I found myself the object of a horrendous amount of social pressure, filled with exhortations that I repent, make my life right with God, yield to The Spirit, accept the call and go serve a mission. Worse yet, I looked into the eyes of my sweet mother and saw that if I did not go, I was going to break her heart. And there was no chance that the best friend would ever marry me if I didn't.

So I told everyone that The Spirit had come to me and so I had repented and was ready to go on a mission. No more weed for me. I had toked my last joint, taken my final hit off the hookah.

That's how I wound up not going to Vietnam. Instead I went to South Dakota, to teach the Lakota that they must never drink coffee. It was my mission to remake them, but they remade me. After two years, I returned to BYU - but found that I could not really return. 

As to this gentleman, he remarked that Vietnam was an unpopular war and that when he returned, he found out what it felt like to feel the wrath of the people for whom he had served. He said that people sometimes ask him why served, did he believe in the war?

It was not a matter of whether or not he believed in the war, he told me, but rather that the fact that he had a duty to serve his country and so he did.

This is what passed between us as we paid our bills at Family Restaurant. It was a very brief visit, and I thought that I would wait until another time and then have him tell me more of his story. I would take a portrait to go along with the interview, and would then include this picture as well.

But what if that time never comes? What if I do not see him again at Family?

What if I forget I ever took this picture and it just slips away unseen into my archives, as do the vast majority of the pictures that I take, never to be seen by anyone?

So here it is, with this tiny fragment of the man's story along with one from my own.

I got lucky! The train came rumbling by!

Yes, many veterans come to eat at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

When I came out, I saw this dog in the back of a truck. When I see such a dog, I find the urge to reach out and touch it to be...

...irresistible!

Inside the Metro Cafe, Study #8881: Carmen and Tyler, who is ten and loves to play football - and me, too.

After I completed the study, Carmen caught the unmistakable scent of cologne wafting off Tyler. She teased him a little bit for that, as she now knew that he had interests even beyond football.

After driving away from Metro Cafe, I saw a man riding a motorcycle.

And another sweeping the place where his driveway meets Church Road.

Some days I see Caleb and some days I don't. As he works all night and sleeps in the day, our waking paths seldom cross.

They crossed here, though - with me going one direction down our street and he the other. They also crossed when he stepped into my office to pay me a surprise visit.

"Dad," he said. "I patched your back tire. Your front tire was low, so I put air in that, too."

So I took my first bike ride of 2010. I am badly out of shape now and did not know far I should go. I decided to pedal the 1.5 miles to Church Road and see how I felt when I got there. If I felt good, I would turn right, go to the Little Susistna River and put my front wheel in the water.

If it felt like that might be overdoing it, that the return trip, largely uphill, would overstress my flaccid muscles and tear apart my weak lungs, then I would turn left and follow a shorter, flatter, more easy route.

The final approach to Church Road is all uphill, and I was a bit upset when I realized how it was taxing me. I deemed myself unfit to make the return from the Little Su and so concluded that I must turn left.

I turned right, anyway, and headed for the Little Su.

I did not put my front wheel in the water, though, because I felt that if I did, the under-cut ice might break beneath me and I would get my shoes, socks and pants wet. I wanted to keep them dry.

After I left the Little Su and neared the curve that leads to the biggest and steepest hill, I saw this guy ahead of me, cutting down the vegetation alongside the road before it can begin to grow.

No more snow plows for awhile.

After I topped the first big hill, I pedaled along on a flat stretch toward the corner where I would turn back onto Church Road and then face the next set of up and down hills. At some point, I glanced behind me and saw another biker, who had just topped that hill. I pedaled a little further and then looked back again. It seemed he was gaining on me.

I did not want him to pass me, but I realized that he was almost certainly younger and stronger and in better shape, that he was going to pass me whether I wanted him to or not.

I reached Church Road, turned right, climbed up the first big hill, then began my descent towards the next upward grade.

As I coasted down, I glanced back and there he was - closer yet, I was certain.

Damn. He was going to pass me.

Oh well. I would take a picture of him as he pedaled by me.

I decided that I would take a series of pictures of him closing the gap, passing me, and then moving on. I began with this one.

I then climbed the next hill and then again coasted toward the bottom of the third. Again I looked back. I was surprised to see that my competitor was now further back than he had been.

I figured maybe it was because I was going downhill now and he had been going up. Now he would be going downhill and I would soon be going up. I was certain he would yet close the gap and pass.

But no, he never did - even though he turned left on Seldon just like I did and followed me all the way to my street. In fact, each time I looked back I found him to be a little further behind. It became pointless to take any more pictures, for he had become such a small dot, readers could not have even picked him out.

That's what he gets for deciding that he, being so young and strong was going to humiliate a much older man who hadn't pedaled a bike since early October.

Of course, he never came close enough for me to actually confirm age or sex for certain.

I supposed it is possible that he was actually an 87 year-old woman who was pretty damn pleased that, though she never caught him, she kept that young guy worried every pedal of the way that an old lady was going to smoke him.

Or maybe it could even have been Patty, out keeping her cancer at bay.

When I got home, I parked my bike by the wreckage of my airplane, The Running Dog. I thought about the good days, when this dog and I flew together all over the main body of Alaska, up and down the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, through the valleys of the Alaska and Brooks Ranges, across Canada's Yukon Territory and into The Northwest Territories.

Why did I ever have to get cocky and crash the damn thing?

I can't stand it, being grounded like this. As I have said before, I dream about airplanes - usually this one, every night.

I have a friend in Cordova who says that if I really wanted another plane, I would have one by now. He cites himself as an example, pointing out how he wanted a big crab boat once, didn't have the money for it but got one anyway.

I'm glad for him, but he's 100 percent wrong about me. He is a bachelor and lives in a house that he inherited from his father and he simply has no idea what I face.

But he's right, too. To accomplish what I want to accomplish, I must get another airplane. Somehow, there is a way.

On this day, when I have no money to pay the simplest bill, when I owe the IRS, when I go to Family Restaurant only because I have a credit card and then I bring the leftovers and derive a second meal from them later and to Metro for coffee only because Margie has given me access to the bottles full or quarters that she has saved up over years, it seems utterly impossible.

But it's not impossible. It can be done. I must yet find the way.

A Pay Pal donation button to help with this blog isn't going to do it, but still, you who have urged me to put on on here have convinced me that I am not begging if I do, so I will.

Soon.

No Kalib today - boring entry - I wouldn't even bother to drop by - but please do: I need the hits

I spent the day alone with the cats and Muzzy. Margie went into town early to help out however she could with the painting and such going on at Jacob, Lavina and Kalib's new house. Caleb was going to go in, too, but he was struck down by something that caused horrible pains in his stomach and so spent the day in bed.

So I went to Family Restaurant just before noon to buy some breakfast.

On the way home, I saw this man riding a bicycle through the sub-zero air. I haven't ridden my bike in so long. Not because its cold, but because I know if I do, sooner or later it is going to slide out from underneath me on the ice and I am going to go down.

This was not a terribly big deal in the past, but now that I have a titanium shoulder, it is. Even if I come down on ice, I don't want to fall.

Not far from the biker, I saw this man walking. All this excitement happened on Spruce Street.

And here I am, driving down Church.

Now I am on Shrock.

I then spent several hours at my computer, but at 4:00 PM, when NPR's All Things Considered Weekend Edition came on the radio, I took a coffee break. Metro Cafe is closed on Sundays, so I went to Mocha Moose.

It was then back to my computer for a couple of hours, but soon it was time for dinner. I looked for something good and simple to cook, but could find nothing.

I wanted something nutritious, so I headed to KFC, where I bought chicken, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob.

I did see the train go by. That was exciting. It's always exciting when the train goes by.

Margie came home pretty late, but then was struck with such bad tummy pains that they made her cry. She looked awful. Now she is in bed. She says she is going back into town with Lavina early in the morning to help out some more, but I don't know.

So a couple of days ago, Kalib was vomiting. He still looks weak. Then earlier today, Caleb was smitten by horrid stomach pains. Now Margie has been. Both say they are quite unlike any regular kind of upset tummy pains that they have ever experienced before.

And Jimmy, my good black cat, has been passing foul gas.

Oh, dear.

None of this portends anything good.

The Railroad Condos - the most elegant, pleasant, exclusive neighborhood in all of Wasilla*

Not so long ago there was a big plot of vacant land by the railroad tracks across the Parks Highway from Wasilla Lake.

We all knew that such vacant land could not be allowed to stand. When we saw the contruction begin, we wondered what someone could be building, right by the railroad tracks and the highway.

Of course. A huge condominium complex. I am quite certain that it is the hugest in all of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.

I actually took this picture on September 17, when I was riding my bicycle back from Kendall Ford, where I had dropped the Escape off for an oil change and routine maintenance. I didn't use the picture then, so I will use it now.

I wondered why anyone would want to live here and why it is that developers insist upon doing this kind of thing to Wasilla.

Have you ever driven down the Parks Highway through Wasilla?

Truly, it is an appalling sight. And it just keeps getting worse.

One of the most beautiful locations on earth, and this is what they do to it.

And then a few days ago, I passed by at the same time as the train and I understood - at least the part about why anyone would want to live here.

A straight line from our house to the railroad tracks is about 2.2 miles. Sometimes at night when I am lying in bed, not quite asleep, I hear the train clattering down the tracks. I hear the whistle blow. And I like the sound of it. It is pleasant, dreamy and soothing.

My mind drifts off to that train, and travels with it to far away places, even beyond the reach of the Alaska Railroad. I am a child again, hoping freight trains in Montana.

And that's from 2.2 miles away!

Think how much all that pleasant, dreamy, soothiness must be amplified when you are lying in bed and the train passes by just outside your window and the engineer blows the horn.

Maybe we will sell our house and move into these condos ourselves.

As long as I'm posting pictures from September 17, I might as well post this one, too. I took it immediately after I photographed the man driving by the Railroad Condos on his motorcycle. I liked the moment so much that I was tempted to pull off the bike trail, go a little closer, stop, get off the bike and practice some careful composition - but here's the thing - when you set out to see what kind of photos you can take with a pocket camera while pedaling a bicycle it destroys the whole project if you stop, get off the bike and carefully compose.

You can only do such a project while pedaling a bicycle.

It's kind of like being a quick-draw artist on horseback as opposed to a sharp-shooter lying prone on your belly with your rifle braced on a tripod.

So I photographed the motorcycle and the condos and then, still pedaling, swung my camera 180 degrees and photographed this scene, too.

Just like Clint Eastwood, swinging his Colts from atop the back of his mule.

And just ahead was this guy. It was the first time I ever saw a person who, instead of a human head, had two dogs growing out of his neck. Can you imagine what life is like for him, when he must walk upright and there is no table for him to support his dogshead on?

I never want to see such a sight again.

This picture was really hard for me to take, but I took it.

And here's a shot I took from my bicycle today. As you can see, the leaves are pretty much down now. As I noted yesterday, by this time last year the snow had set in for good.

But it was warm today. Really warm. The temperature rose into the 50's. Maybe it was a record. It felt like it. I was sweltering. All day long I sweltered. It made me wonder if it will ever snow again.

*I'm still officially in cocoon mode: it's just that I'm feeling really lazy and burned out tonight.

Cocoon mode,* day 22: Update: Old Girl is lost no more! The 17 year-old dog is home!

I just talked to Carol Shay on the phone. The dog has been reunited with its people. After Carol drove the 12 miles to the Borough animal shelter, the good folks over there dug a little further back through their "lost dog" report records and found that a report had been filed that they had earlier missed when Carol called on the phone.

Hallejuah! This meant that the poor old dog had never been abandoned to die, as I had feared, but had somehow wandered off and hobbled two miles into the marsh. She had survived for five days. And she is 17 years old. She is loved and cared for.

Carol returned Old Girl to her "mom," and even learned her name, but she could not think of it when I talked to her.

"Senior moment," husband Dodd apologized. That's okay. Happens to me all the time - as frequent readers of this blog know. Carol did not have an address or a name, but she described how to get to the woman's home, so I will try to find her and see if I can get a photograph of the two of them together. I haven't time for such an activity, but then I take a bike ride just about every day, so I might as well bike over there and see if I can find the dog and her mom.

As for the train, my reason for including it in this post should be obvious.

Let us all be thankful that the dog came here instead of going the same distance in the opposite direction, which would have brought her to the railroad tracks. Being an adventurer, she would have undoubtedly hopped into a freight car. She would have wound up in Fairbanks, where she would have had to eat nothing but Spam, and tough out a very cold winter as she huddled by her hobo fire.

Of course, I hope to get to Fairbanks before too long. Perhaps destiny would also have brought us together there. We could have sat by the fire and shared some Spam, on Pilot bread, with mustard and cheese, washed down by Pepsi that would have turned to slush the moment it left the can and poured into our mouths.

We would have laughed and barked happily. Then one of us would have said, "pass the cheese, please," and the other would have answered, "woof, woof," just before she passed it.

I photographed the train through the window of Family Restaurant this morning. I was thrilled that it happened to pass by just as I was finishing off my ham and eggs, over easy, hash browns on the side, with coffee to wash it all down.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

That Momma Pitbull that gave me the big scare until I discovered that she is really a sweet American bulldog named Tequilla

I saw Tequilla on the second-floor deck of the rocket house as I walked today, so I stopped to introduce myself to her people.

Tequilla, who I mistakenly described as a pitbull is really an American bulldog and her primary caretaker is Malia, and that is her in the background. The pug-nosed dog at left is Lolita, the cat is Mellow and the little boy is Gabe.

While Malia notes that Tequilla is protective and will raise a fuss should a suspicious person come around, she describes her both as a sweetheart and a Houdini, as she can be locked in the house or in a pen and then she will appear outside, at the bottom of the stairs.

Tequilla is most affectionate and so shares a kiss with Malia as Gabe looks on. 

Sadly, Rocky, the black pup, is no longer here, but has passed on. Malia only recently adopted the two dogs. Right after she did, the father of her children died. In the midst of such tragedy, Rocky contracted Parvo.

How does a Mom and her children deal with such loss, back to back?

They just go on living. That's what people do. It seems impossible, but they do it, anyway.

Gabe and Mellow.

Tequilla and Mellow.

A little further on my walk, I found Mary in her driveway. I had not seen her for a long time but today she was out. We talked for quite awhile and she told me many stories, but I am tired and need to go to bed soon, so I will not attempt to relate any of them.

Suffice it to say, she has led an interesting life and grew up in Florida, where her sister would like her to return. She did visit recently and the jet ride there and back was pretty miserable.

As we visited, her poodle and cat came out to join in.

Miss Rita, Mary's cat.

Then I was in downtown Wasilla where I had just parked when the train came along. Naturally, I was thrilled.

The Alaska Railroad engines were pulling Princess Cruise passenger cars and one of them had a picture of a giant grizzly bear on it - probably to scare the real bears away so that they will not frighten the tourists inside.

Nobody likes it when the tourists get frightened. 

Well, the bears like it. They think its great fun.