Eagle perched in tree at dusk, just up Shrock Road from the Little Su; two kids pose for someone else

The sun had gone down, darkness was setting in and I was sipping coffee as I drove the Ford Escape down Shrock Road toward the Little Susistna River. Shoshana had served me that coffee. She always looks nice but today she looked exceptionally so and I thought that I should shoot a few more "Young Writer Studies" of her as she prepared my coffee, but I couldn't because I had forgotten my camera.

Then I came upon this bald eagle, perched in this tree.

"Damnit!" I swore. "Here I am, with no camera! I could drive back home and get my camera, but the eagle will surely be gone by the time I get back!"

But sometimes an eagle will sit still in a tree for a very long time, so I decided I would give it a try. I was somewhere between three and four miles from the house. I turned the car around, raced back and got my camera.

The eagle was still there when I got back.

There wasn't much light left.

I took the picture anyway.

"Thank you, Bill," the eagle said.

"You're welcome, Eagle," I said.

Actually, no such exchange took place.

The eagle did not care. The eagle was completely indifferent to the fact.

They say that eagles have the sharpest eyes of anybody.

Yet, this eagle will never look at this photo.

If by chance the eagle did see this photo, the eagle would not care about it at all.

The eagle would rather see a fish.

The eagle would rather that the eagle be the last thing that the fish was ever aware of.

Eagles have their priorities, and admiring photographs of themselves are not among those priorities.

Somebody came driving along in a pickup.

Maybe the driver saw the eagle, maybe not.

I suspect that the driver did see the eagle.

Even though it was getting dark, the eagle was kind of hard to miss.

And this from India:

Through the window of our taxi, I spot two kids posing for someone else as we drive by.

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Kalib and Jobe visit via pixel; a single study of the young writer, Shoshana; Carmen froze in Arizona; moose in the road; elephants in the road

I have not seen these two, Jobe and Kalib, for over a week now. Lavina is pretty good at sending pix to me over the phone. I always show them to Margie. She always likes them.

For those who might have read my entry three days ago about my dream of Jobe and the grizzly bears but who may not have read all the comments, here is the one left by Lavina:

"Wow, that intense, I got chills thinkn about it! But Jobe is of the Bear clan on his Apache side so maybe that's why they befriended him b/c he's one of them...I'll give hugs to Jobe for you."

As soon as I read this comment, I went into the house, grabbed Margie, dragged her out here into my office and had her read it.

She was startled, and pleased.

"Yes!" she of the Bear Clan said. "I didn't even think of that."

And neither did I.

That's Lavina - always in tune.

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana - this from two or three days ago. I had not planned to do any more studies of Shoshana for maybe another week, at least a few more days, but her earrings caught my eye.

Here I am, on my way to Metro again, as this kid shoots by in the opposite direction. It is Monday, January 10. Carmen has been gone on vacation since Christmas. She is supposed to be back to work today. Will she be?

She is! Elisabeth tells her I am at the drive through window. We are all happy to see each other.

"How was Arizona?" I ask her.

"Freezing!" she answers. "Cold. It was so cold, Bill! I couldn't get warm. I was cold all the time. You must bring Margie by. I must ask her about this."

It was cold everywhere she went, she says, including Phoenix and Scottsdale.

They did not take any warm clothing with them because, after all, they were going to Arizona from Alaska.

She folds her arms and draws them tight against her body, as if she is trying to conserve the heat that she lost down in Arizona. She looks like she is about to shiver.

"It was cold, Bill," she says. "Freezing cold."

 Back out on the road, this moose crossed in front of me. I could have been forced to hit my brakes and to slide all over the place, maybe right into the moose, but I was watching out for it before it ever showed itself.

I just knew that a moose was going to pop up right around here.

I felt certain of it.

Sometimes, you just know these things.

Sometimes you don't.

Then you are more likely to hit the moose.

It happened again this morning. I got to sleep somewhere between two and three am, woke up a few times and then could not sleep a wink past 5:15. Still, I stayed in bed with the covers over my head, two cats laying on me and another tucked in close to my side until Family Restaurant opened.

Then I went, sat down, was served breakfast and all the coffee that I could drink and I drank too much. I photographed myself in the window. I noticed this morning that the amount of gray or white in my hair seems to have increased by at least four-fold over what it was just this past fall.

Maybe it was the mirror and the way the light hits it. Maybe if I look in another mirror, I will see that I have not gained all this gray, after all.

I need to get my hair cut and my beard and mustache trimmed.

Wouldn't everybody be surprised if one day I just shaved my beard and mustache completely off. They would really be surprised. Nobody has seen my like that for over a quarter century. I bet my face would be really pale, and shiny.

If I were ever to do something like that, I would grow the beard back real quick.

If I didn't, I would have to shave everyday. To me, it just makes no sense to waste time shaving every day.

And these two from India

We drove through two national parks where wild elephants hang out, and both times it was after dark. But every now and then, an elephant would appear in the headlights of our taxi.

People passing through the parks are required to stay in their cars. They cannot get out and go roam around. One can only hike in the parks with a permit.

My nephew, Ganesh, Soundarya's brother, knows how to get these permits and has promised to one day take me hiking out there, among the elephants.

When she saw the elephants, Soundarya shrieked with joy. There is more to this story, of course. There always is.

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We get our Christmas shopping done early; Todd - met at Carr's; Melanie gets the blessing of an elephant

We had no milk for oatmeal, so I didn't cook any. Instead, I sat down right here at my computer and started to work on pictures. Then Margie came in and wondered what we should do about Christmas shopping. "Well," I answered, "we're out of milk so we might as well go to breakfast and then see if we can get some shopping done."

She agreed. I remote started the car, let it warm up for about 15 minutes. It was still very chilly inside and the seats were like solid blocks of ice, but we climbed into the car and headed for Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. As we neared, this raven passed over the car.

"This guy is really annoying," Margie told Connie, our waitress, as I took this picture. Connie did not agree, but she laughed politely so that Margie would think she did.

I believe that I may have ranted about this before, and I probably will again, but this is one of the great ironies of my life as a photographer. It is only in recent years - pretty much since grandkids began to enter our lives - that Margie has tolerated me taking photographs of her at all.

True, I did manage to get a few in here and there, mostly when the children were somehow involved, but fundamentally, I, who am possessed with genuine passion to photograph anything and everything, found myself with this exceptionally gorgeous and beautiful wife and everyday that we were together I would look upon her and I would want to photograph her and everyday she would refuse to be photographed.

Be assured, I still find her beautiful - sometimes so much so that it makes me ache just to look at her. She now has the beauty of an aging woman who has weathered much in life, suffered many hurts and disappointments but has created a family that loves and adores her.

Each one of us loves and adores her.

Back when we were first married, she possessed a different kind of beauty - exquisite physical beauty of the most desirous kind - her hair so deep black, long and wavy against her lovely brown skin, her eyes radiant, dancing with fun and mischief - and I, the artist, who looked upon her every day, was not allowed to document this beauty - except on rare occassions, almost always involving children.

The only exception that I can think of is this one, which I posted on Mother's Day last.

I cannot remember how I persuaded her to pose that day, but, even though she relented, if you click the link and look at the picture, you will see that she was not happy about it.

And now, as the years and decades push those days of youthful beauty ever farther back, I sometimes long to look at the photos of my beautiful, young, wife. I long to show the photos to her children, her grandchildren and say to them, "see how beautiful she was? She had a host of would be suitors and yet she chose, short, awkward, shy, socially inept, me and together we made you."

But those pictures do not exist. I cannot look at them; I cannot show them to anybody.

If all the people who I have photographed over the years would have reacted to my camera the way she did, I would have utterly failed as a photographer. I would probably be selling newspapers on the street somewhere, because there's nothing else I could have done.

Our first stop was at Meta Rose Square, home of All I Saw Cookware. Get it. "All I Saw?" "Wasilla" backwards? Was-i-lla?

We parked right next to this car. I am not quite certain why some guys feel compelled to emblazon their vehicles in this manner. To attract attention, I guess.

In my case, it didn't work. I didn't even notice. I didn't notice at all. I walked away without even giving it a sideways glance.

I am not quite sure why, but, as we walked through Meta Rose, I found myself wondering why I had to grow up Mormon; I was sort of a cowboy, once, briefly, but a Mormon sort of cowboy and it wasn't like this.

Inside the store, we came upon this piggy bank. As piggy banks always do, this one transported my mind back to Pendleton, Oregon, when I was five years old. My mom had taken me downtown to go shopping and when we came to JC Penney's, there was a red, plastic, piggy bank in the window. Or maybe it was the window of a bank. Or perhaps Woolworth's. Whatever window it was, the pig on the other side was wearing a little hat.

I wanted that piggy bank. I wanted it badly.

Mom had grown up very hard in the Depression and was against all spending that was in any way frivolous. And a piggy bank was frivolous. One could make a very fine bank from an empty Morton's salt box, or a band-aid can.

She did not understand that it was not that I wanted a bank - I wanted the little red pig with the hat on its head, but in the name of frugality I was denied this item that maybe cost 25 cents. I never did get a piggy bank. I kept my coins in Morton salt boxes and bandaid cans. And every time I would go into a store and see a piggy bank, I longed to have it.

Then, when I became a young man, a curious thing happened. I would go into a store, see a piggy bank and feel the same longing. So I would buy the piggy bank.

I bought all kinds of piggy banks. It became a waste of money. There was no place to put all these piggy banks. At the Alaska State Fair, I even found a little red plastic one, wearing a hat - made from the very same mold as the one that I had been denied in the first place.

Finally, I had to get rid of most of those piggy banks.

As for the ones I kept - I don't even know where they are now - not even the little red plastic one.

When I saw this one yesterday, I wanted to buy it - not as a gift but for me.

But I didn't. I resisted temptation and moved on.

I am not going to show you what Margie is holding in her hand, because it might be a gift for someone. It might not be, but if it is, I would not want to spoil the surprise.

Out in the hall, a little boy took a ride on giant duckling.

We left the store with two days to go. This is the earliest we have ever done our shopping. Especially me. I am usually in a store at closing time on Christmas Eve, buying ceramic roosters, things like that.

Next we went to Fred Meyer's, where a raven sat upon a pole. You can't tell it in this tiny window, but that raven has its head cocked to one side. It looks very "Chooo 'weet."

Margie checks out some socks as gifts for grandkids. When I was small, it was such a great disappointment to open up a gift only to find socks. I wanted toys!

Now, this looks like a gift that a little boy could like! At least if his name is Kalib Hess. But then Kalib already has a spatula. What would he do with another?

I suppose this must be adorable, but personally, I found it to be just a little bit eery and frightening, somewhat macabre.

Then we happened upon a very cute scene - the two month old puppy, Brisa, held in the warm embrace of her human, Sierra.

Although we had eaten breakfast out, we found ourselves feeling hungry again. So we drove past the little cove at the west end of Wasilla lake, looking for hotdogs.

We found two hotdogs - both at Dairy Queen.

Dairy Queen has good hot dogs - especially the foot-longs. To all those from out of town who wonder whether or not they should come and visit Wasilla - come. If nothing else, for the Dairy Queen hot dogs.

They will taste just the same as the Dairy Queen hot dogs in your town, if you are an American.

So you will feel right at home - even if our little city is a bit more odd than yours. Which, trust me, it will be.

The view from Dairy Queen as I eat my hot dog. How come these guys are still up here in the north?

Late in the evening, Margie and I headed to Carr's, to buy turkeys and other food for Christmas dinner. Just as we reached the turkeys, this fellow stopped me. "Are you the guy who does the Wasilla 300 blog?" he asked.

Indeed, I am.

He told me that we disagree politically, but that he loves the blog - especially some of the stories that I do in Rural Alaska. He said that he has been looking out for me as he moves around town.

"Wasilla is a small town," he said. "I knew we would cross paths some day."

And there she is, my Margie, checking out the turkeys. We bought two 16 pounders.

And this one from India:

Remember the scorpion from yesterday? Photographed at, as Cawitha refreshed my memory with the name that just always flees my brain, Hampi?

I took this picture approximately 100 yards away from the place where I took that one.

It is Melanie, about to be blessed by an elephant. A "chooo 'weet" elephant.

For those who did not read the comments left on yesterday's post, one was left by Cawitha, Soundarya's cousin.

Yesterday, I speculated how Sandy might have reacted if I could have showed her the photo of the scorpion, and that was with the word, "Chooo'weet! I added that there was one element in the photo that would likely have disturbed her - namely, that the string had been tied to the scorpion's stinger.

Cawitha agreed, and took it one step further. She imagined Sandy not looking at the picture but being there at Hampi with us:

"Am sure Soundarya (Sandy) would have said "Chooo 'weet" and if she were to see this she would have ensured the arthropod was set free. She was the most compassionate person."

Thank you, Cawitha. I am certain that is exactly what Sandy would have done. And no matter how tough a guy the individual walking the scorpion might have imagined himself to be, he would have had to back down to her, just as did the vet who at first refused to treat the raven that she saved with Anil's help.

Cawitha, btw, has been my friend since the day that Sandy wed Anil. Like Margie, Cawitha does not like to be photographed and so that day asked me to please not take her picture. I didn't, unless maybe as part of the crowd, so I cannot show you what she looks likes. 

However, we are committed to one day going "trekking" together, perhaps in the Himalayas, perhaps in Alaska, maybe both. I expect that then, I will get her picture.

I can't be postive, but I think so.

Now, contrast this picture to yesterday's. Everything is turned around. It is the animal who is huge and powerful, the person who is small and relatively weak - especially because this person does not have the protection of a poisonous stinger.

But the elephant is gentle. The elephant blesses my daughter with its strength. The elephant does not harm her. And when the elephant laid the end of its heavy and powerful trunk upon my daughter's head, so powerful that it could easily have wrapped it around her neck and broken it, it felt like a blessing to her. 

As it did to me, when the elephant blessed me.

This was the second elephant in India to bless me.

No, I do not worship elephants. But this does not mean that I cannot appreciate being blessed by one.

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The young writer, Shoshauna, Study #4; a shot of Tequila on a cold day; Mary in the Grotto - five studies; he walks his pet scorpion

The young writer, Shoshauna, Study #4: On this day, I had to buy my own coffee. That's okay - everybody should buy their own coffee now and then. I would have bought a cinnamon roll, too, but other customers had already eaten the entire day's supply.

I did not want any of the other available pastries, so Shoshauna retrieved a basket full of biscotti and then sorted through them, telling me what kinds they were. I settled on cranberry with a white chocolate frost.

I think that I enjoyed it as much as if it had been a cinnamon roll.

Sometimes, one's day gets out of order. I actually encountered this dog earlier, before I drove up to the Metro Window. It is Tequilla, and she is trying to frighten me, even though she knows I know her better than that.

As this was the first picture that I took of the day, I was going to put it at the top of the post, but then I decided that I would rather have the image of Shoshauna greet my readers than this one of Tequila.

After I left Shoshauna and Metro behind, I drove off sipping the coffee and crunching the biscotti and soon found myself passing by Grotto Iona. It had been a long time since I had actually stopped and gone into the grotto, but on this day I felt that I should stop and go inside. So I did.

There was very little daylight left. I pushed my ISO to 6400 and then underexposed by at least a full stop and then lightened it up a bit in Lightroom/Photoshop.

Thus we have:

Mary in the Grotto - Study # 1

Mary in the Grotto - Study # 2

Mary in the Grotto - Study # 3

Mary in the Grotto - Study # 4

Mary in the Grotto - Study # 5

And this one from India:

One day, while walking through an ancient site the name of which slips me at the moment, Melanie, Vasanthi, Murthy, Buddy and I came upon this fellow who was out on a morning walk with his pet scorpion.

As this is the first time that I have ever pulled it out of my India take, I never showed this picture to Sandy or told her of it, so I cannot say for certain how she would have reacted, but I think I know.

As far as I could tell, Sandy loved all creatures. She found cobras to be cute, she gently held praying mantises in her hand and would bring her blurry little camera close to even bugs of a sort that many might find horrid and repulsive and would take the sweetest, most heart-felt photo imaginable.

I believe that if I could show her this picture, she would adore the scorpion. "Chooo'weet!" she would say - "chooo'weet" being a word that she also used many times to decribe puppies and kittens and Kalib and Jobe, who she never met but loved through my photographs. If anything about this picture bothered her at all it would have been the way that the string had been tied to the scorpion's stinger.

Now, when I made it a project to drop in random shots from India on a somewhat regular basis, I stated that I would do so without direct reference to Sandy, but that the photos themselves would be silent evidence that I was thinking of her.

And now I find I keep dropping the pictures in and writing about her, anyway.

After this one, though, I am going to try to go back to my original plan. I will let future photos stand in silent memorial.

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A cold wind blows and life just rolls along

As they say, no matter what happens, life just keeps rolling along. It's true. If you don't believe it, all you need to do is to glance into your rearview mirror. There you will see that people continue to smile, to laugh, and to drive big pickup trucks under the low high-noon sun of a chill, windy, day.

As for Margie and me, we need to eat and there was not much food in the refrigerator, or the cupboards, either. So we set out for the store, to do some grocery shopping. Yet, we were hungry right now, so we by-passed the grocery store and continued on toward Taco Bell, where we ate lightly - a bean burrito for Margie, an original crunchy taco for me, plus a small Pepsi and a Diet Pepsi for her.

Of all the fast food joints, Taco Bell is the best for eating lightly. Several years ago, I decided that I needed to lose 15 or 20 pounds and so I went on a diet that included lunch at Taco Bell, just about every day. Even when one loses weight, one must enjoy life.

It worked, too. In about three months, I met my goal.

Some of that weight has come back, but not all of it.

Once we had eaten, it was time to go to the grocery store. Along the way, while stopped for a red light, we saw some kids rolling along in a school bus. They looked trapped to me, prisoners of a system that they did not create but that seems to get us all. They did not look very happy - yet I see that one seems to be smiling a bit.

The driver doesn't look very happy, either.

I really don't like to shop at all - unless its for cameras, computers, airplanes, canoes, guns and things like that, that I can never afford to buy anyway. So I dropped Margie off at Carr's and then headed over to the Post Office to check the mail.

I parked by this car and went inside.

We got a credit card bill and an Aperture magazine. A day has now passed and I have yet to remove Aperture from its protective cover and even to glance at the cover.

In the past, I would tear these magazines open right away and, at first opportunity, spend an hour or two - sometimes more - just devouring the contents.

Not necessarily devouring the words - because they always manage to write a lot of nonsensical hyperbole in these photographic magazines as they try to explain just what it is or was that put the photographers featured on a different plane, but the photos.

Just the photos - some more than others.

Aperture has never featured any of my photos. That's mighty foolish of them, if you ask me.

Then I went back to Carr's to help Margie finish the shopping. Even so, we forgot to buy frozen raspberries.

I wanted some frozen raspberries.

After we bought the groceries, we returned home. I sat down to my computer to work and accomplished nothing - nothing at all. At the usual time, I headed off to Metro Cafe, to get my 4:00 o'clock cup and listen to NPR.

I pulled up to the window and did not even have to order because Carmen knew. I started to pull out my wallet, but she would not let me. Then she showed me this $5.00 bill and note from Shoshauna. Due to her changed schedule, I now only see Shoshauna on Saturday's, assuming that I can get to Metro before she leaves at 2:45.

Shoshauna was buying my coffee this day - and the next. too.

She reads this blog, too, you know. It was an act of kindness and care on her part.

Thank you, Shauna.

And keep writing.

Just keep writing.

One day, I will buy you a coffee - from one Wasilla writer to another.

I did give Carmen a pumpkin cookie after Thanksgiving.

On the way home, this young bull moose ran into the road in front of me. I saw it well ahead and so it was not a close call. Just another, typical, everyday moment, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska - where I find moments to thrill to the sight of what surrounds me, to smile and to laugh, despite the great sadness that blankets the land and all that it holds.

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