The big "Spirit of Wasilla" train vs. pickup truck race - sponsored by the Alaska Railroad

If you click on the above picture that I took this morning, it will blow-up a bit and then you will see that the three words right in front of the "4008" say "Spirit of Wasilla." The Spirit of Wasilla is the most famous train engine in the world and if you didn't know that, it is just because you have been distracted by all the other nonsense that has come out of Wasilla this past year.

People come here from all over the world, including Burmingham, Botswanna, hoping to catch a ride on this engine, but few succeed.

Anyway, I learned about the great train vs. pickup truck race that took place in Wasilla today as I lay in bed this morning, listening to the news. I was horrified to hear that the Spirit of Wasilla and the truck that it was going to race had already lined up at the starting line and that the contest was about to begin.

Quicker than a tiddly-wink shot out of a canon, I leapt from my bed into my Levi's, sprinted through the house, out the door and into the Escape and sped off toward the starting line. I did not want to miss this race!

When I arrived, I was a little distressed to find out that not only had the race already started, but the pickup truck had taken the lead!

Of course, everybody knows that a pickup truck is faster off the line then a train but give a train a little time and it can really pick up speed, so I still had hope.

Holy cow! This old Ford truck came barreling from the other direction, straight toward the competing pickup truck. The poor race driver wet his pants and barreled off the road. The "Spirit of Wasilla" sped away, into the lead. It looked like nothing could prevent it from winning now.

OH NO! Another train came roaring down the track from the opposite direction, driven by a passenger in a passenger car that I photographed when passed near here in August of 2006.

Oh, the humanity! The humanity!

The race was lost.

"Billy!" I can hear Margie shouting at me from the living room. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it right now! Somebody is going to believe your nonsensical lies and then we will be railroaded out of town!"

I love the train. I just love it. One day, I will ride on it. I never have. All these tourists come up and ride the Alaska Railroad, but I never have.

How come?

I spent my day pretty much right here, in my office in my house in Wasilla, but sometimes I forgot and thought I was on the Arctic Slope

Except for a couple of brief breaks to eat and walk, I spent the day right where I sit right now, in front of my computer screen, my mind deep into the Arctic Slope. This is how it will be for quite some time to come - until I feel good enough about Margie's progress that I can return to the Slope. 

Due to her fall, I am way behind where I had thought I would be by now, but I am going strong, editing my take from the five weeks that I just spent up there as one step that I must take to put my special issue of Uiñiq Magazine together.

As always when I must do almost nothing but sit here and work, Jimmy, my good black cat buddy, has been right here with me, all the time, helping me along. Today, I worked on the caribou hunt take and if you are curious about all those black dots on the screen, they are mosquitoes. Here, Jimmy uses his tail to suggest how I should crop this image. I am going to reject his suggestion, however, and you will understand why once you see the picture unobstructed by his tail and butt.

The truth is, cats are not good picture editors. And you should never listen them when they suggest crops. They are lousy picture croppers.

The onscreen picture was taken at 12:02 AM, July 14, my birthday, in the light of the midnight sun.

As I was unable to find the time to edit and post very many images at all while I traveled, but would like to share the stories with my blog readers who will never see Uiñiq, I think that once the special is out, I will break it down into several posts and run it here, just for you.

I will even be able to run pictures that a lack of space will not allow me to put in the magazine.

Of course, the day did not begin at my computer, but with me lying in bed, wondering whether I should make this the fourth day in a row that I disciplined myself to eat oatmeal, or if I should get out of bed, head to Family Restaurant and have somebody cook an omelette for me as someone else waited on me.

I decided to do the undisciplined thing and go, but first I fixed oatmeal for Margie. I wanted to bring her along but she found the thought too frightening and so did I.

As I ate my omelette, I was surprised to see Jim Christensen walk in with his daughter, Jennifer. Back in the days when I published Uiñiq on a regular basis, Jim was a North Slope Borough Public Safety Officer - a cop. He also flew a Citabria, just like me.

Now he lives in Wasilla. He wanted to stay on the Slope, because he finally had all that he needed to go out and enjoy the good life that can be had there - boat, snowmachine, rifles, shotguns, fishing gear, etc., but his wife insisted they leave and come down to Wasilla's more mild climate.

Funny thing is, his wife is Iñupiat and Jim is taniq, like me.

As Jim and I visited, I was even more surprised to see another Barrow face walk through the door - Adeline Hopson, here with her grandson, Rashad. Adeline still lives in Barrow with husband Charlie, but was visiting.

I should not have been surprised, as I frequently run into North Slope people in Wasilla. And when I go to Anchorage, I almost always do.

Rashad looks at me through the Family window as I leave.

Back to ANMC - Margie's first time out of the house in over two weeks

I had been a bit worried about how we would get Margie out the door, down the two steps and then up into the Escape, which sits pretty high off the ground and is averaging 23.1 miles to the gallon, but the process went fairly easy. She pretty much did it all herself. 

Then we took off for Anchorage. As I drove, I noticed a young man pass by on the left. He looked at us and then started laughing. I figure this was because Margie was in the back seat and me in the front. The young man probably thought that he understood the situation - that my wife was mad at me, and refused to sit in the front seat with me, or perhaps he thought that I had picked up a hitchhiker and had made her sit in the back seat.

Or maybe he thought that my name was James, that I was the hired driver and that it was mighty strange for a chauffer to wear a t-shirt and drive a red Ford Escape.

We pulled off the freeway in Eagle River to get something to eat. We went through the Taco Bell drive-through and then parked next to a police car. It is the first one that I have seen with this picture of Anchorage stenciled into the word, "Police."

Yesterday, Margie got a call from someone at ANMC who asked her to come half-an-hour before her appointment so that she could get new x-rays shot first. So we did, and then we waited an hour before the x-rays were shot.

"It's so good to finally be out of the house," Margie said.

Margie getting her x-rays shot. I had to stand in this room for my own protection.

Margie's knee. The Physicians Assistant, a camera shy woman, who would attend to her would tell us that her bone structure is not good; she has osteoporosis, which means she can more easily fracture her bones.

When she was a child, Margie's family was poor and there were many times when they had little more than flour from which to make tortillas and tennis racket bread (cooked over an open fire on a homemade grilling device that looks like a tennis racket - very tasty). She seldom had milk or other dairy products, although her grandfather had a wagon and a donkey and on occasion would take her up the hill to the trading post and buy her an ice cream cone.

She greatly enjoyed that, but it just wasn't enough calcium for a growing girl.

Her bones have been a bit weak ever since. One time, right after we were married, we were playing in a park when I wrapped my arms around her and twirled her in a circle. We were both laughing, but then a rib cracked. She suffered pain for weeks.

That was when we first found out what the childhood lack of milk had done to her. We haven't thought about that for awhile. Now we have to think about it, because she's getting older and its getting worse, so we must do what we can to arrest it.

Damnit! This should not have happened to my Margie! She should be able to hike through the mountains with me, and run down the downhills, but she can't.

As we wait for the PA, I examine a fake knee. We didn't learn much, because, despite all her improvement, Margie was still too sore and tender and could not bend her knee far enough for the PA to make a good exam. The PA scheduled her for an MRI Friday, so that they can take a good look at her ligaments.

If this had happened to me, and I needed an MRI, notwithstanding the $100 thousand plus dollars that I have spent on my insurance, I can tell you from experience that the insurance company would find the way to get out of paying most, perhaps all of the cost, and I would be set back several thousand dollars more.

This fear of further financial setback is keeping me from going to the doctor for things I ought to go to the doctor for, from taking medications that I am supposed to be taking, and from getting checkups that I am supposed to be getting.

American Indians and Alaska Natives paid a terrible price for the health care that the government is now obligated to give them, but the good thing is, unlike my private insurer, her federal insurer will make good on all expenses involved. Furthermore, if something is bothering her, she need not fear what a trip to the doctor will do to us financially, the way I, who have paid a modest fortune for my health insurance, must.

You see, Sarah Palin, screamers, et al, these panels that you try to whip up so much fear about are already active and are denying many Americans the care they need right now, even as they drive them into a financial pit - but they don't work for Obama or the federal government. They work for the insurance companies. 

And so do you.

Can you feel my rage?

Charging momma pitbull gives me a big scare

Not long after I set out on my walk, I saw three dogs in the distance, advancing towards me, side by side, a white pitbull in the middle, a beagle to its right and a smaller black dog whose breed I could not determine from that distance to its left. They looked tough, like a gang - a gang coming towards me.

I was only sorry that my little pocket camera does not have better telephoto capabilities, for I figured that if I could zoom in close on them coming like that, it would be a neat picture. "Three toughs," I imagined the title.

The beagle soon chickened out, but the white pit kept coming as the black dog fell in behind it. It quickly drew closer and began to bark and growl ferociously. Even as it advanced, it made little spring-board hops up into the air that made it seem all the more vicious. I have had a couple of bad run ins with pitbulls, including a white one that used to live in a house in the direction from whence this one came.

That house had been sold, but now I wondered if the dog came along with it. I took a couple of worthless pictures, but the pit just kept coming, growling, barking, snarling, the black dog on its heels. I figured it was time to prepare my defense, so I let the camera dangle and I picked up a BIG rock, big enough to crush a skull with, and then a second, just in case the first didn't do the job.

Usually, if a dog is bluffing at all and you pick up a rock, it will back away.

The pit kept coming, undeterred. I took that to be a bad sign that this was one of those pits that will attack through any pummeling or pain and go straight for the throat. I saw that it had lactating nipples. The black dog was its pup.

Geeze! How could the situation get any worse?

And then, as the pit drew nearer, I caught a certain glimpse of longing in its eye, a certain tremble shook through its body that belied the viciousness in its bark and growl. This pitbull only wanted love. It was raising a fuss just because it was afraid it might not get love - but love was what it wanted.

I cast my rocks aside. "Hey, silly puppy!" I spoke soothingly. "Come on over here! Let's be friends."

She stopped her bark and growl. Tail wagging lowly, she came running to me. I patted her on her head. We were now friends.

She and her pup followed me for awhile, romping and playing all the way.

It doesn't always work this way with pitbulls, but this time it did and I was glad.

Meagre berry picking expedition leads to magic moment between toddler, cat and the clouds

Melanie and Charlie came to visit Sunday and as we took a little ride, we drank coffee, listened to All Things Considered and then This American Life. Afterwards, I returned to my office, sat down and worked for a couple of hours on a project that has been vexing me. 

When I stepped back in the living room, Lavina had prepared dinner, but Melanie, Charlie and Royce were nowhere to be seen. "They went into the swamp to pick berries," Margie said from her position on the couch. So I ate my chicken and salad, grabbed my G10 pocket camera and then went out to see if I could find them.

I did, as you should be able to tell, even without me saying so.

They were about done but they had not done well, so Melanie tried another place, where she spotted a few. She had barely begun to pluck them when she swatted her face. Must have been a mosquito, but the mosquitoes are just about all gone now. 

Just a short time ago, one could barely have tolerated being where she is in this picture, because the mosquitoes would have been maddening. But their season is over, thank goodness.

As you can see, the berry picking was not good at all. Melanie figured it is because the swamp has pretty much dried. "Back when it was wet, there were a lot more berries," she lamented. You cannot even rightfully call it a swamp anymore. She wondered if the house wells were responsible. I don't think so.

Quite some time ago, some developers tore out the wettest end of the swamp and made a gravel pit out of it. The developers said that after they had taken the gravel they would make a nice lake of it for the whole neighborhood to enjoy, but, as developers so often do, they didn't. Now it is just an ugly, abandoned, gravel pit with some ugly pools of water in it. I think that is what dried up the marsh.

I knew that there was another reason Melanie and Charlie had found so few berries. For two days in row now, Jacob and Kalib have been out there picking and eating berries as though they were about to go out of season.

Speaking of those two, we heard some commotion so we looked, and here they came. With Muzzy.

Kalib left his Dad's shoulders so that he could pal around with Muzzy and Royce.

And then it was just Kalib, Royce, and grass going to seed.

 

Royce soon led Kalib to another spot, where they found an even taller blade of grass.

Kalib studies the grass.

And then he lays down upon Royce.

He soon spots an interesting cloud, and points it out. The cat does not care, but he cares about Kalib.

I think, perhaps, this was one of those magic moments of early childhood that, even if it may one day be forgotten, it will be felt for the remainder of Kalib's life, even when he is an old man.

Kalib, his head on the fur of a warm, tolerant, and loving cat, watching clouds drift through a clear, deep blue sky. Yes, this is a fleeting moment that is ever lasting.

And so passed this day, right here in Wasilla, Alaska.