Encounters at the Post Office: an aging dog, the man who loves the dog even more than he loves cameras and the anonymous woman coffee buyer; health benefits of coffee

I spotted them the other day at the post office as I was walking back to my car, the man still in his car with the dog. I thought, "I should photograph these two before the man gets out of the car," but I was feeling very lazy, tired to the extreme, worn down by all my recent travels and sleepless nights.

If I took the picture, then it would only be right to show it to the man and dog and tell them what I was doing, but I did not feel like explaining anything to anyone and I already had a tremendous amount of pictures to deal with, so I let the moment pass.

Just before I got into my car, the man stepped out of his car and commented on my camera. He wondered if it it was film or digital and if one could even still buy film at all.

He still had an old film camera, he said, but the camera didn't work anymore. He loved photography, he loved film. He had misgivings toward digital.

So I told him I would like to photograph his dog with my digital camera and he said sure. He wondered if he should roll down the window so that I could see the dog better but I told him "no" because if he left it up I could get both the dog and him in the picture - he by reflection.

The dog is Sleater, and she is 13 years old. She has cataracts and diabetes. Jerry would like to buy a new camera, but he spends a lot of money on Sleater's medical bills. There is not enough left to spare for a new camera.

Through the Metro Window, study # 4997: Discussing the health benefits of coffee

At the post office, I also came upon someone else. I am not quite certain who. A woman. Was it the woman driving a pickup truck who parked in the spot next to mine? Was it the woman who came through the door right behind me, so instead of letting it shut in her face I held it open and she walked through and smiled and said "Thank you?"

Or was it the one who held the door for me and I said "Thank you," to?

Or just one I passed in the hall?

There was one more who I remember seeing as she walked on the sidewalk to the post office door and then went inside well before I reached the door? She returned to her car even as I was still getting my mail.

These incidents happened on a couple of different days and I cannot quite sort which ones happened on the very day that I pulled up to the window at Metro Cafe and Carmen said my coffee was free, that a woman had seen me at the Post Office and so had bought this coffee for me, plus a pastry and she had even left one dollar for the tip.

This left a quarter in change, so Carmen gave me the quarter.

Whichever one of these ladies you might have been - thank you!

I also heard a story on NPR about coffee and health and in particular, prostate health. A study had been done and it found that men who drank a goodly amount of coffee were 60 percent less likely to get prostate cancer than men who did not. 

Those who drank a modest amount of coffee, 30 percent less likely.

And it noted that due to the anti-oxcidents in coffee, there are many other health benefits to be had from drinking coffee.

In my upbringing, to drink a cup of coffee was to sin - and to sin big.

I developed prostate problems very early in life. These problems caused me a great deal of pain and discomfort. I had to get up two or three times a night - sometimes even more.

I did not start drinking coffee until I started to hang out with Iñupiat whale hunters. 

It took a lot of years, but those prostate pains and problems all seem to have gone away.

Most nights, I do not have to get up even once now.

I did take some medication for awhile and it helped a lot, but I had to stop because I could not afford it and the insurance company that charged me cadillac premiums for clunker service and eventually drove me off their rolls before health care could pass would not help with the medications.

Yet the problems went away after I quit the medication.

Coffee?

I don't know. Maybe. Could have been.

In this picture, by the way, Carmen, Shoshana and I are having a serious discussion about the health benefits of drinking coffee, vs. religious taboos against drinking coffee.

In some ways, I still feel like I am committing a grave sin everytime I drink a cup of coffee, but I enjoy the coffee and maybe, just maybe, it is helping to keep me alive.

The story said that for maximum benefit, one should drink six cups of coffee every day. 

I would, but I fear that if I drank that much coffee every day, it would kill me.

When I am with whalers, I sometimes drink that much coffee but when one is on the ice the body metabolizes everything very fast.

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They'rrrrrrre baaaaack.... in the blog: Jobe, Lavina, Kalib, Jacob and Margie - in that order

How long has it been since this face has appeared in my blog? Six weeks? Something like that. And look, in this, the very first frame that I shot of him upon our reunion, he is just standing around. STANDING around. Not wobbling shakily. Standing.

As though it is no big deal at all. As though it is just something that a little kid would be expected to do.

Jobe. 

Standing around.

And he walks around at will, too.

I was worried that after all this time, he might have forgotten his grampa. Remember how he loved me? How he adored me?

Has he now forgotten me?

After a brief period of study and contemplation, he walked right over and sat down on my lap. He had not forgotten.

And then he went out to play with Martigny. Martigny did not not want to play with him. Maybe it was the "woof" on his shirt that scared her away.

I'm afraid Jobe has been sick the past couple of days. Respiratory infection. 

Jobe needed rest.

Still, he gets up and moves happily around. He is getting better.

Then Jacob called, to say that he and Kalib were coming home from their walk and would soon reach the nearby park. I went out to see and this is the first frame I shot, right after they came into view.

Last time I saw them, there was a still a good amount of snow here. Now the leaves have come out.

Kalib went straight for the slide. As he started down, he looked up at his dad to see what his dad would do.

His dad came sliding after...

Kalib threw some pebbles into a slide chute and then watched as they tumbled and slid back down.

Then he ran off and his dad chased after.

Soon, they were in the house, eating popsicles. When offered a variety of colors, Kalib chose the green one. Then he saw his mom pick a red one for herself and decided that the red one would be better instead.

I also had a red one.

The red ones are best.

Although the green is pretty good.

It was about 10:30 PM now. Margie's flight was scheduled to arrive at 1:38 AM. I had come in early just so I could finally see the boys, but Jobe was now asleep and the rest would soon join them.

That meant I had three hours to wait.

The prospect horrified me.

What I could I do with all that time?

I could go sit in a bar and sip root beer, wink my eyes at honkey tonk women and say stupid things as they danced and sauntered across the floor.

Instead, I laid back on the couch. I sank right into it.

I closed my eyes. The lids were so heavy, I did not feel like I could ever open them again.

I fell asleep right there. At 1:09 AM, I forced myself to get up and go. I drove to the airport and picked Margie up. Her plane had come in half-an-hour early and she was standing there waiting when I pulled up, so I stopped, she put the one bag that she had left with in the back plus the other that she had bought and filled in Arizona and jumped in. 

I took off without even taking a picture.

As regular readers know, it is our tradition to go out for breakfast the morning after either one of us returns from a trip.

So this morning we went to Family Restaurant - no, not Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant but Denali Family Restaurant, just a few miles further up the Parks Highway.

I would not have even known about this brand new restaurant had I not gone to Fairbanks to cover Katie John's graduation, but I saw it as I drove home.

If they had named it, "Mckinley Family Restaurant," I would never have tried it. I would not have walked through the door. I try never to patronize a business that bears the name, "Mckinley." I stick to "Denali."

Inside, it was very much like Mat-Su Family Restaurant. The decor was similar, the menu similar, the food similar and the plates exactly the same. Even all the staff that I could see, including the waitresses, were staff I recognized from Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

So I thought maybe it was an extension, built by the same owner to compete with him/herself.

No. It wasn't. It was built by a competitor and the staff that I could see had all been hired away.

Breakfast was very good - the hash browns cooked just right and, I hate to say it, better than at Mat-Su. 

I will still continue to patronize Mat-Su. It is a bit closer. And Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant has helped me bear some extremely hard mornings. Very hard mornings. Mornings that followed nights of turmoil and grief, nights without sleep.

So I will keep going to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

But I will patronize Denali, too. Good hash browns are a big draw to me.

Margie enjoyed it, too.

It was the first time she had drank coffee in weeks, she said. 

She stayed with her sister, who remains a pretty active, decent and abiding Mormon. She allows visitors to brew coffee for themselves, but Margie did not feel like brewing coffee for just one so she abstained.

Tomorrow, I will discuss a recent NPR story about the health benefits of coffee - particularly for the prostate - and will thank a generous, almost not-anonymous lady who bought me a coffee at Metro the other day.

Margie is glad to be home, but she says it feels cold here.

"I have come back to winter," she said.

This, even though the leaves are sprouting out here and it snowed three inches at her sisters house 6000 feet up in Arizona her final morning there.

Still, it was warmer there than here.

Which it ought to have been.

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Simultaneous major events - when lone me needed to be three; red pickup truck; Jim

Man! My recent travels and work schedule have left me too exhausted to even make this blog today, but if the pilots above can fly their helicopters when I am exhausted, then I ought to be able to make a post.

As regular readers know, I have spent the past few weeks zipping about the Arctic and Interior by plane and car, shooting from one location to another, bouncing from 0 degrees F to 65 above and doing it all with many nights of little sleep.

Yet, I only accomplished about one-third of what I wanted to, what I needed to. In this time period, three major events that I needed to cover and be present for took place almost simultaneously.

One happened in Arizona, and I had planned to go. I had my airplane ticket. It was the one-year tradtional Apache memorial for my cherished friend, the Navajo artist, poet, song-writer, cartoonist and humorist Vincent Craig, whose bedside I had rushed to on May 14, 2010, only to arrive hours before he died. The memorial would take place on May 14, with preliminary events scheduled for the evening of May 13.

Before I learned of the memorial, I had planned to be on the Arctic Slope at the time, or maybe in the Brooks Range village of Anaktuvuk Pass, but when Vincent's wife Mariddie called to invite me to the memorial, I dropped those plans. I cashed in my miles for an Alaska Airlines ticket to Phoenix, Arizona.

From spring through fall, I do not like to leave Alaska to go anyplace where the night gets truly dark, but if there was going to be a memorial for Vincent, then nothing could keep me away - not darkness, not work, not any other event... well... almost no other event.

One month ago today, I dropped Margie off at the airport so that she could go to Arizona before me and spend some good time with the Apache side of our family. Afterward, I stopped by the Alaska Native Medical Center to visit my friend, Larry Aiken.

There, I happened upon Bruce Cain, director of operations for Ahtna, the Alaska Native Regional Corporation whose territory includes most of the Copper River basin. Bruce informed me that 95 year-old Katie John would be receiving her honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks at ceremonies to be held in Tok on May 13 and Fairbanks May 15. 

What a quandary! My heart told me that I HAD to be in Arizona for Vincent's memorial. My heart also told me that I HAD to be in Tok and Fairbanks for the honoring of Katie John. I had a history with Katie as well, and the way circumstances had played out had made me the only journalist to cover first hand the final, critical events of her story, particularly when she met with Governor Tony Knowles at Batzulnetas on the bank of Tanada Creek and turned his heart away from what all the major non-Native voices of power, money, and influence told him he must do in the best interest of the State of Alaska and instead toward justice for Katie and Alaska Natives.

I had also spent time in her culture camp. It was while I was landing on the road in Mentasta to cover her victory celebration that I had crashed and destroyed my airplane. After I crawled out of the cockpit, I shook that personal disaster off and I covered that celebration.

With this history, how could I miss the honoring of Katie John - a one-time event in the life of one of Alaska's true heros and most important people?

I couldn't miss it. I had to be there.

I snapped the picture above, by the way, as I walked down Seldon Street the morning after I returned from Katie's honoring.

So I set off to Point Hope and then Barrow with plans to return to Wasilla on the evening of May 8. This would give me time to take care of business, prepare an essay on Katie's history, square some things away and rest up a bit before I drove off to Tok.

Yet, on Friday, May 6, I borrowed a snowmachine from the North Slope Borough's Department of Wildlife Management and made my way across the Barrow ice to the camp of the Saggan whaling crew, captained by North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta.

I did not intend to stay beyond one evening. I went there intending to get a single picture, one of the Mayor at whale camp that I could put in Uiñiq along with a statement from the Mayor.

After I took a few pictures from which I could select, my plan was to visit other whale camps as well as the "perch," where scientists and whale counters were conducting a bowhead census.

Yet, after I reached Saggan camp, I saw the good spirit and enthusiasm of the crew. I saw how strongly they desired to receive the gift of the whale and to feed their community. I had no way to know if they would succeed, but if they did, I wanted to be there to document it.

Come Sunday, May 8, the ice conditions made it apparent to me that they would not be able to get their whale before my flight was scheduled to leave. I decided that I could still get everything done that I needed to do if I waited until the night of Tuesday, May 10, to go home.

Come that night, I pushed my departure back one more day, to the night of Wednesday, May 11. This would be pushing it, but would still enable me to get back to Wasilla in time to accomplish the bare minimum of what I needed to do before making the six hour drive to Tok.

Shortly before I left, the lead closed. Saggan crew pulled off the ice.

Sometime after I boarded my plane, Saggan returned to the lead, which had reopened. Twelve hours after I left Barrow, their bowhead came to them and they landed it.

I was thrilled for Saggan, but devastated for me. Utterly, utterly, devastated. I had missed the moment by so little.

Yet, there was nothing to do but my laundry, take a short night's rest and then drive to Tok and Fairbanks to cover the honoring of Katie John.

What does one person do, when three major events that he longs to be at happen simultaneously?

As frustrating as it is, I do believe that I made the right decision.

This honor will come to Katie John but once in a most significant lifetime.

I needed to be there. I was there.

And tonight, Margie will come home. Tonight, I will see my grandsons - who left for New Mexico and Arizona even before she did - in what feels to me like about ten years ago.

So I plan to put them on this blog tomorrow. This also means that I will push my promised posts from my Arctic travels back until next week.

In the meantime, here is Jim yesterday in the backyard, where the buds now sprout into leaves.

Katie John, champion of traditional Alaska Native fishing and hunting rights and culture bearer, becomes Dr. Katie John: Part 3 - honored in Fairbanks

At a reception held for Katie John the day before, Dr. Bernice Joseph, UAF Vice Chancellor and an Athabascan herself, stated that all students in Alaska should be taught the story of Katie John - that Katie's is a story that everyone who lives in Alaska should know. I agree, and I had hoped to post a few highlights from that story here so that readers unfamiliar with it could get an idea of the magnitude of what Katie John has done with her life, and what her fight has meant to every Alaska Native - and also to non-Natives who have made this place home yet still believe that respect and justice must be paid to the original people of this state, that the rights that they held prior to our coming did not simply disappear because we came and wrote down a pantheon of legalities upon paper.

My time has been so filled and my schedule so busy that I have not yet been able to do that.*

So, for now, at least understand this about Katie John:

She was born on October 15, 1915 in the upper Copper River basin, into country and society where the only real law was Indian law -specifically, Ahtna Athbascan law. There were no roads, an airplane was a rare sight as was the appearance of a white or other non-Native person. Yet, as it happened, there was a white man in the area who was befriended by her family and he recorded the date of her birth.

Katie grew up in a society where knowledge was found not in books but in stories and teachings passed down and memorized, to be held fast in the head. Knowledge was also gained by living upon the land, by observing the animals and fish that yielded their flesh to the people so that they might survive.

That knowledge was deep and complex. Not many hold it today.

Katie John grew up in this world, speaking her own language, eating her own food, following her parents to the places that they would go to catch their fish, kill their moose and caribou and do all the things necessary for their survival. They did this without the oversight of game rangers, State or federal, without the incursion of law written by people who did not know their ways.

They worshipped and prayed in their way and danced according to their own tradition. 

And then one day as she sought to feed her family by setting up a fishwheel in the same place where her "Daddy" had set up a fish trap and caught salmon to feed her, a ranger, new to her ancient country, knowledgable about what was written in books and on paper but ignorant of her history and the Indian law by which she lived, showed up and told her that she must take that wheel down.

And so began a fight that lasted well over a decade until finally Katie's lawsuit forced the federal government to take jurisdiction over fishing in the waters where she set her wheel away from the State of Alaska. This because, in its over-zealousness to grant "equal" rights to all to what had once been the exclusive right and property of Native people, State law has always refused to recognize any aboriginal right to hunt and fish. The federal government, despite all the many wrongs it had brought down upon indigenous Americans, does recognize aboriginal rights, including those of "subsistence" users to be given a preference over sport users, at least in times of shortage.

Thanks to Katie John, the federal government must now regulate fishing in navigable waters with "subsistence" as the highest priority.

The story is much more complex than this, of course, but I need to move along and complete this post so that readers will know that Katie John not only stood up for her people against the State of Alaska and won, but has now been honored by the State of Alaska, through its most important university, for the determined, principled, courageous stand that she took against it.

The main University of Alaska, Fairbanks, graduation was held at the Carlson Center, not far from the bank of the Chena River. Graduates would number 1141. Dr. Katie John would precede them all onto the graduation floor. As the moment for her to enter drew near, she waited with her granddaughter, Kathryn Martin, for the door to be opened.

While Martin had received her bachelor's degree the previous Friday in ceremonies at the UAF Interior-Aleutians Campus in Tok, just as Katie had received her honorary Doctor of Laws degree, graduates from the rural UAF extensions also earn the right to walk with and be honored with their larger graduating class at the main Fairbanks ceremony.

Ninety-five year-old Katie John raises her hands to acknowledge the applause she receives as she enters the stadium. The red sashes signify that graduates are Native.

Katie takes her position of honor among the seats set for the graduates.

She is followed by the Ahtna Heritage Dancers - most of them her direct descendants.

Then the Ahtna Heritage Dancers took the stage. With the Alaska flag and it's "eight stars of gold on a field of blue" standing large behind them, danced with energy and enthusiasm for their grandmother - for all the graduates - but grandma especially.

Does this look almost identical to a picture that I posted yesterday from the Tok ceremony? Yep, same girl, giving her great or maybe great-great grandma a congratulatory hug. Katie and her late husband, Mentasta Traditional Chief Fred John, raised 14 children and six adopted children.

At the reception the day before, Kathryn put the number of Katie's grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren at 211.

Katie spoke of how she had set out to raise her children in the Ahtna way, always speaking Ahtna to them. Then came the time that her children were sent off to boarding school. In the summer, when they would come home and she would greet them in Ahtna.

No, her children told her. At school, their mouths had been taped shut when their teachers had heard them speak Ahtna. They told their mom to speak only English to them. Ahtna was the language of the past, English the future.

Katie did not know what to do. She hardly spoke English at all.

She did her best, and through it all fed them from the land.

In her old age, she has run a culture camp at Batzulnetas, which I have had the privilege of twice attending. There, she teaches not only her descendants and all others who wish to come and particpate the Ahtna way of living.

Noted scholars of significant achievement file past Katie and take their places alongside her.

Katie sits as many graduates file past after receiving their diplomas. A few stop to shake her hand, including Juliana Orczewska, an Ahtna who had just received a Masters in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Katie and granddaughter Sara Demit, who earned an associate degree while studying at the UAF Interior-Aleutians Campus, congratulate each other.

Granddaughter Kathryn Martin receives a congratulatory handshake from Chancellor Brian Rogers after being awarded her diploma and bachelor's degree in Rural Development. 

Dr. Katie John and her granddaughter, graduate Kathryn Martin.

Katie is congratulated by Chancellor Rogers and other dignataries.

Dr. Katie John - who rose from her wheelchair and under her own power walked onto the stage to accept this honor.

As she returns to her place, Katie raises her diploma for all to see. The Alaska flag, which she predates by nearly 40 years, rises behind her.

Katie blows a kiss...

...to one of her multitude of admirers.

When the time comes, Katie observes as Kathryn moves the tassel from the right side of her cap to the left.

Then Kathryn helps grandma Katie do the same.

As balloons are released to drift down upon the graduates, Katie double-checks the position of her tassel.

The ceremony over, Kathryn wheels her grandmother past graduates toward the exit. See the young woman at the far left with the red sash? She is Crystal Frank, the daughter of a good friend of mine, Kenneth Frank, Gwich'in of Arctic Village and has just received her Master's degree.

To the applause of scholars of merit, Katie leaves the stadium.

Outside, the temperature was in the mid-60's - by far the warmest weather I had felt since I paid a visit to Utah last October. Graduates took advantage of the pleasant weather to stand in the sun, shake many hands, and pose for many pictures.

Katie had been going hard for three days straight now. She is 95, going on 96. She chose to leave and get some rest. As she returned to her car, her family presented her with a copy of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that included a story on her.

*I will put a fuller telling of this story as one my priorities for the future. Perhaps I will tell it on October 15, when she turns 96. I won't commit to that date - I could be anywhere October 15, from the Arctic Slope to Wasilla, the Yukon River, Arizona or maybe India.

In time, I will tell this story in greater depth.

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Katie John, champion of traditional Alaska Native fishing and hunting rights and wisdom bearer, becomes Dr. Katie John: Part 2 - Graduation in Tok

Katie John, champion of Alaska Native fishing and hunting rights, wisdom bearer and teacher of her culture, was twice honored this past weekend with an honorary doctoral degree of laws from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. The first honoring came on Friday, at UAF's Interior Aleutians Campus in Tok, where she joined 14 graduating UAF I-A students.

The ceremony began when 95 year-old Katie led the procession of graduates with an assist from her granddaughter, Kathryn Martin, who was about to receive a bachelor's degree. 

The red sashes designate students and faculty of Native heritage.

UAF Vice Chancellor Bernice Joseph and Miranda White, Director of the UAF Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development, during opening remarks. The ceremonies took place in the Tok community center.

Along with Kathryn, Katie was also joined by another granddaughter, Sara Demit, who would be receiving an associate degree.

Katie smiles as a graduating student is hugged by her daughter as she receives her diploma.

UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers congratulates Kathryn.

Kathryn Martin with her diploma.

Katie waits as Vice Chancellor Joseph and Chancellor Rogers prepare to place the sash upon her that will tell the world that, although Katie John had very little formal schooling and never attended college, she has always been a student of her land, the animals upon it, the culture fostered by it, and has obtained a degree of knowledge easily worthy of a Ph.D.

Dr. Katie John.

Chancellor Rogers congratulates Dr. Katie John.

Vice Chancellor Joseph, also Athabascan, congratulates Dr. Katie John.

Graduate Kathryn Martin explains how it was her grandmother who always taught her and encouraged her to learn and make the most of life.

After the degrees and honors, the Ahtna Heritage Dancers drummed and sang their way onto the floor to honor their Matriarch and the graduates.

Ahtna Heritage Dancers.

Ahtna Heritage Dancers.

Katie observes the dancers.

Katie is congratulated by a young dancer.

Katie with the Ahtna Heritage Dancers - about half of whom are her direct descendants.

Then the dancers brought the ceremonies to an end.

Before I make my post from the ceremonies that followed in Fairbanks, I need to do a phone interview with Kathryn Martin, who has been tied up in meetings all day today, so I am holding that post until tomorrow. I will also ask Kathryn to help me identify the young dancers and add their names in later.

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