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A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

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Wasilla

Wasilla is the place where I have lived for the past 29 years - sort of. The house in which my wife and I raised our family sits here, but I have made my rather odd career as a different sort of photojournalist by continually wandering off to other places to photograph people and gather information, which I have then put together in various publications that have served the Alaska Native Eskimo, Indian and Aleut communities.

Although I did not have a great of free time to devote to this rather strange community, named after a Tanaina Athabascan Indian chief who knew Wasilla in the way that I so impossibly long to, I have still documented it regularly over the past quarter-century plus. In the early days, my Wasilla photographs focused mostly upon my children and the events they participated in - baseball, football, figure skating, hockey, frog catching, fire cracker detonation, Fourth of July parade - that sort of thing. 

In 2002, I purchased my first digital camera and then, whenever I was home, I began to photograph Wasilla upon a daily basis, but not in a conventional way. These were grab shots - whatever caught my eye as I took my many long walks or drove through the town, shooting through the car window at people and scenes that appeared and disappeared before I could even focus and compose in the traditional photographic way.

Thus, the Wasilla portion of this blog will be devoted both to the images that I take as I wander about and those that I have taken in the past. Despite the odd, random, nature of the images, I believe they communicate something powerful about this town that I have never seen expressed anywhere else. 

Wasilla is a sprawling community that has been slapped down hodge-podge upon what was so recently wilderness of the most exquisite beauty. In its design, it is deliberately anti-zoned, anti-planned. In the building of Wasilla, the desire to make a buck has trumped aesthetics and all other considerations. This town, built in the midst of exquisite beauty, has largely become an unsightly, unattractive, mess of urban sprawl. Largely because of this, it often seems to me that Wasilla is a community with no sense of community, a town devoid of town soul.

Yet - Wasilla is my home and if I am lucky it will be until I grow old and die. Despite its horrific failings, it is still made of the stuff of any small city: people; moms and dads, grammas and grampas, teens, children, churches, bars, professionals, laborers, soldiers, missionaries, artists, athletes, geniuses, do-gooders, hoodlums, the wealthy, the homeless, the rational and logical, the slightly insane and the wholly insane - and, yes, as is now obvious to the whole world, politicians, too.

So perhaps, if one were to search hard enough, it might just be possible to find a sense of community here, and a town soul. So, using my skills as a photojournalist and a writer, I hope to do just that. If this place has a sense of community, I will find it. If there is a town soul to Wasilla, I will document it. I won't compete with the newspapers. Hell no! But as time and income allow, it will be fun to wander into the places where the folks described above gather, and then put what I find on this blog.

 

by 300...

Anywhere within a 300 mile radius of Wasilla. This encompasses perhaps the most wild, dramatic, gorgeous, beautiful section of land and sea to be found in any comparable space anywhere on Earth. I can never explore it all, but I will do the best that I can, and will here share what I find and experience with you.  

and then some...

Anywhere else in the world that I happen to get to, such as Point Lay, Alaska; Missoula, Montana; Serenki, Chukotka, Russia; or Bangalore, India. Perhaps even Lagos, Nigeria. I have both a desire and scheme to get me there. It is a long shot. We shall see if I succeed.

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Entries in veterinarian (1)

Tuesday
Feb092010

Royce update, Through the Window Metro Study #6,899,043; the long way home

DateTuesday, February 9, 2010 at 4:00AM

Royce did not smell nearly so foul this morning as he has for the past two days. So I figured that maybe the leaking had stopped and that he had cleaned himself up in the way that cats do. This was not pleasant to think about, seeing as how just the odor had made me sick to my stomach.

I kept the appointment anyway. To be on the safe side, Dr. Nance drained his anal glands (although I know that smell, too, and what was coming out of Royce was different than what I am familiar with). Royce was put on a scale, where he weighed in at nine ounces less than the first visit.

And when you are only a few pounds, nine ounces is a tremendous loss.

Dr. Nance suggested that I try some expensive, very moist, high-caloric, prescription food that is not available in pet stores and that I add a quarter teaspoon of Metamucil to it, as the old orange boy was packing some hard turds.

Royce has to come back in another week for some more blood work. Depending on what that shows, and whether or not he is still losing weight, the dosage of the thyroid medicine that he is taking might be increased.

There is another treatment, "the gold standard treatment" that actually destroys the thyroid and then its function is replaced with medicine.

But that treatment is not available in Alaska.

We would have to put Royce on a plane and send him to Seattle, or some other southern city, where he would have to be quarantined from our contact for a full week.

I don't think we are going to do this.

Plus, he could still be suffering from kidney or other problems that have not yet been detected.

The yellow thing beside him is the carrier that I brought him in. He doesn't like it.

All the way to the vet's office he made a fuss in that carrier. On the way home, he got out of it and I let him be. As I neared home, I looked in my rearview mirror and this is what I saw.

No - I am not a person who drives with a cat or any kind of animal on my lap. That is simply too dangerous, to both the cat and me and the occupants of other cars. But, as I turned onto our street, he crawled over the seat and onto me. There was only about 300 yards to go and no traffic at all, so I let him stay.

At the usual time, I headed to Metro Cafe, where I found these kids, who were very happy to become the subjects of Through the Window Metro Study #6,899,043. Or something like that. Their names are, left to right, Justin, Jake and Ashley.

This was their first time ever in Metro Cafe, and Carmen was very impressed with them. "They're nice kids, good kids," she said. "Really good kids. I hope Baranson grows up to be good like that. When they came in, they said, 'thank you for welcoming us into your establishment.'"

As I took the long way home, I saw these three in my rear view mirror.

This rider was traveling with two others, all of whom appeared to be having fun.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment13 Comments |
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