What I saw as I wandered through last week's Wasilla Tea Party rally

I see that I have done it again. I have spent too much time writing too many words and so have created a document that few will likely read. I should cut at least two-thirds of those words out, but to make it short and concise would take even more time than it took to make it long and rambling and I can't take that time. Those who wish only to read my direct followup to yesterday's post could skip everything else and go directly to photos 6 and 8.

I pick up where I left off four posts ago, with the three vehicles of the four-wheeler caravan, their flags flying as their drivers race toward Wasilla's Tea Party rally. After spending the day in Anchorage, I was tired. I thought I might just skip the Tea Party altogether, except to shoot a frame or two of the smiling faces of those who would wave their signs at me as I drove by on my way home and then let it go at that. At heart, I am a peace-loving man who prefers to avoid confrontation.

Yet, when I saw these three charging so gallantly to the rescue, it looked so exciting that I decided that I should stop by - but not right away. First, I needed to go to the Post Office to check my mail. Then I wanted to drive back up to Machaus and check out the new iPad. I wanted to pick one up in my hands, manipulate it, see how it looks and functions.

Maybe one day I will be making iPad books, or customizing an iPad version of this blog.

And that's where I found the Liberty Tax Service mascot, on the corner by the little mini-mall that houses Machaus.

This was a very hard tax day for Margie and I.

Yet, according to news reports that I kept hearing and reading, on the whole, it was the lightest tax day most middle class Americans had experienced in years. This year, I heard it reported on the radio, Tax Freedom day had come after 99 work days, as opposed to the 104 of the recent past. Elsewhere, I saw it reported as 100 days this year, 104 in the past.

After I played with the iPad for a bit, I headed back toward the rally, and passed these people working together to get this Dodge rolling again. Elsewhere, substantial amounts of snow still lingered but here, in this cleared out, windswept area, it was all but gone.

I could have driven straight down the Parks Highway to the Tea Party rally, but instead I took my time and meandered down along the frontage side roads. As I did, I saw this man, pedaling his bicycle upon which he carried a sleeping bag, mattress and a few other possessions.

When I came to this corner, I was driving in the right lane. The sign told me to turn right and, by the laws that govern me, I had to. As I did, people waved signs and shouted, "Honk your horn! Honk your horn!" 

I did not honk - but I did wave politely and I did smile.

These are my neighbors, my fellow Wasillans. We can meet in the post office, the grocery store, at a restaurant or an athletic event and be friendly and talk and show each other respect. Indeed, I later saw the father of one of my oldest son's former American Legion baseball teammates. He carried a sign that I disagreed with, but that does not change the fact that in the past he and I have had many good and pleasant visits. In the years since, when we have happened upon each other, we have always engaged in friendly chat. We always ask about the other's children and grandchildren.

On just about every matter that brought, these, my fellow Wasillans, Alaskans, and Americans here, I disagree with them, both as to cause and solution. I see their facts as often erroneous, their blame misplaced. I can't help but wonder where they and their professed anger at government were during the reckless tenure of the Bush years that destroyed our national surplus and drove our nation 13 figures into debt. I wonder why they were silent about the impacts of the deregulation of the financial world that led to such a huge transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes into the pockets of the wealthy - and ultimately to the financial crisis that exploded upon us in 2008 - to no easy, quick, solution.

Yet, I feel it important that I respect my community members, that even when I disagree with them, I do not call them insulting names. I must not throw cheap, gratuitous insults at them. This has become the norm these days on talk radio, cable news and the blogosphere, in the public forum, where so many do it. Debate, drowned out and stifled by insult.

While they alone do not define it, those who gathered at the tea party by the hundreds, certainly totalling more than a thousand strong over the course, make up a significant part of the soul of Wasilla. if I am to meet my goal to find the soul of this community, then sooner or later I must sit down and speak with some among them, ask them why they believe as they do, listen to their stories and pass them along as they relate them to me.

This does not mean that I cannot express my own opinion or ask some uncomfortable questions. One question I would have for any member of the Conservatives Patriot Group, the sponsor of the Wasilla Tea Party rally, is to better explain this quote, prominently displayed on their web page:

"Evil cannot be wished away, it cannot be loved away, it cannot be talked away, it must be destroyed!!!!"

How do you define this evil that must be destroyed? How do you intend to destroy it?

As theirs' is a political organization dedicated to advocating a political point of view, one could reasonably suppose that by "evil," they do not necessarily describe the kind of things that many of us think to be evil, but rather political viewpoints that differ from their own.

Not only can a political viewpoint not be wished, loved, or talked away, it cannot be voted away. Under the US Constitution, political differences are settled at the voting booth - but the outcome never eliminates the differences. They continue, to be reargued and refought at the next election. The more liberal forces may win one election and then the conservatives the next, but sooner or later it will always tip back the other way.

So, if a differing political viewpoint is what you describe as "evil" and you cannot wish it away, you cannot love it away, you cannot talk it away, you cannot vote it away, then how do you seek to destroy it?

Or maybe I have misunderstood and you mean something entirely different than an opposing political viewpoint. I would like to hear an explanation.

Of course, it is always a little bit challenging to remain respectful and civil when right away after you get out of your car and walk into the crowd you come upon the smiling face of a man who is telling you that you have a mental disorder. I know it doesn't really mean anything. It is just rhetoric. Everyone does it. So what the hell. Let him wave his sign.

I wonder, though - why is he wearing Mickey Mouse boots? And why is his friend wearing Bunny Boots? Those boots are designed for 40 below and it was 40 above.

One could develop sweaty feet this way. It still gets pretty cold at night. Maybe they were out all night, setting up.

And you who wave that flag just remember that it is not a conservative flag, it is an American Flag. Yes, wave it with pride, but don't forget that we who see the political situation differently than you do also love that flag - no less than do you.

Never have I felt more proud than I did on that day when I saw that flag draped across my father's casket as he was carried to his grave by six of his fellow warriors. They were much younger than he and I knew that some had fought or soon would fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe one or more would themselves return in a flag-draped coffin.

I looked at those soldiers who carried my father and I felt love - pure love; strong, heart-piercing love. Tears streamed down my face and they were not all tears of grief. There was pride in those tears. Afterward, I thanked them, but I owed them so greatly that I knew my thank you to be vastly inadequate.

Remember after 9/11, how flags few from just about every home, be it occupied by conservative, liberal, middle of the road, unsure? 

And then there was that very chilly January 20 of last year, when I stood with my youngest daughter and wife in the midst of two million others on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Two million people, two million flags, all waving, people smiling, people cheering, tears of pride streaming down cheeks - white cheeks, black cheeks, brown cheeks, yellow cheeks, red cheeks; all the cheeks of a diverse America; an America that had become a place of greater equality and thus greater potential than had been the America that I grew up in.

And then, as we waited in the chill for the hour when the man who, under the provisions laid out by the US Constitution had been duly elected as President would be sworn in as Commander-in-Chief, images of Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger appeared on the many gigantic screens spread throughout the the mall. Chilled though they were, two million joined in the song, "this land is your land, this land is my land..." two million flags waved... Powerful! How proud we all were to be Americans. How proud I am to be an American. And how proud I am of the vote that I cast to make what happened that day on our National Mall possible.

Nothing that anyone could say or do or write upon a sign can ever take that pride away.

So wave your flag, but remember: it is not your flag alone - it is OUR flag. 

And when you shout, "Patriot," remember that a liberal can be every bit as much a Patriot as any conservative and a conservative can betray his country as quickly as can a liberal. Liberals also wear the uniform. Liberals also shed their blood for America. They die right alongside conservatives, as Americans.

"I was willing to fight, kill or die for this country and for the ideals that it represents and that has not changed. I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, it had no expiration on it. I remember taking that oath as a young soldier and it said that I would swear to defend the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic and I didn’t understand that domestic thing. Never in a million years did I realize that the domestic enemies would be our greatest threat and they would come from the highest levels of government in this country, from the highest positions. Today, for me, I have no eligible President in office, I have no qualified Commander-in Chief; that’s my personal opinion."

In my post yesterday, I paraphrased the above quote and expressed some thoughts about it, as I had found it not only deeply troubling, but intimidating. A conservative participant at the rally, whose opinion I respect and who I am certain speaks honestly, responded to tell me that she had been there, that she had applauded the speaker and had interpreted his meaning very differently than did I.

"Not once did I hear anyone preach violence as the answer to the problems we face today with the current government," she wrote. "In fact, the voices of many said don't turn to that, use your voices, your votes, stand up for what you believe in."

This struck me with a fear that perhaps I had misinterpreted his words - particularly as I had paraphrased his words from memory, rather than by quoting from a written or recorded verbatim account. Fortunately, I have found a 47 second clip from his speech that is comprised entirely of that part of his statement that I found so troubling. It is on the website of the Conservative Patriots Group, the sponsors of this year's Tea Party Rally, and I quote it above. You can find the clip here, identified as "Rick." It is the seventh of ten very short video clips to be found on that page. The internet is a fluid thing, so this could change.

I think it noteworthy that Rick spoke for probably five to seven minutes and it is these 47 seconds of his speech that, not only me, but his own organization chose to break out and highlight on their own website. As I stated yesterday, 95 percent of his words were ones that, in a different context, most Americans, be they Republican, Democrat or Independent, could go along with, although many would draw different conclusions from the good words that Rick spoke than he did.

Yet, it is the above statement that his own group chose to emphasize. This is what they chose to promote on their website. I will now break the statement down piece by piece and explain why I found it so offensive and still do. I am open to anyone countering here with a different interpretation.

"I was willing to fight, kill or die for this country and for the ideals that it represents and that has not changed..."

So far, very good. I honor Rick for his service to our nation...

"I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, it had no expiration on it. I remember taking that oath as a young soldier and it said that I would swear to defend the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic..."

Again, very good. Praiseworthy attitude...

"...and I didn’t understand that domestic thing. Never in a million years did I realize that the domestic enemies would be our greatest threat and they would come from the highest levels of government in this country, from the highest positions..." 

Frightening words. I begin to grow a little concerned...

"Today, for me, I have no eligible President in office, I have no qualified Commander-in Chief; that’s my personal opinion."

Now I am deeply troubled by Rick's words. I think of my youngest daughter and how serious she took the Constitution and her right to vote. I think how hard she campaigned for Obama and how, when he won the vote fair and square, nothing could stop her from going to Washington, DC, to be there for the swearing in. Were it not for her, Margie and I would not have been there.

Yet, Rick has expressly stated his readiness to "fight, kill, or die" to protect his country from a domestic enemy and he has defined that enemy as the President of the United States. He has stated his belief that the President is not eligible to be President and not qualified to be Commander-in-Chief.

If this does not insinuate a threat to future violence against the government of the United States, to a willingness to nullify by force the votes of myself, my wife and my daughter, then what does? And if that day were to come when he were to take these words to their ultimate implication, were he "to fight, kill, or die" to remove he who he has declared to be a domestic enemy, ineligible to be President and not qualified to be Commander-in-Chief, then who would he fight? Who would he kill?

Would it not be we, the American People, those of us who live right here in Wasilla and elsewhere, who, in a Constitutionally held election and under laws and rules that found candidate Obama to be eligible, voted him in as President? Not only would that fight be against us, it would be against many who voted with Rick against President Obama, people who deeply oppose our President and resent his policies, but who are loyal Americans with deep respect for the foundations that hold up the United States and would defend their country. 

While I hope and do not believe that it will ever come to this, should Rick or any others who share this sentiment ever act out the full implication of his stated words, he and they would then literally become the domestic enemy that he swore himself to defend against.

That's what his words say to me. They tell me that, while he was part of the laudable "get out the vote in 2010" message of the Tea Party rally, should that effort fail to achieve their desired goals, he has considered other, non-democratic options and found them acceptable.

Again, to those who see a more positive, non-threatening interpretation to his words, I invite you to express your viewpoint.

Look at that mountain, standing so beautiful above and indifferent to the fray. It is not on your side, it is not on my side. It doesn't give a damn about you or me or our squabbles. That mountain is Alaska, that mountain is America. It is the absolute, real America. When we are all gone and forgotten, it will still stand. Not forever - nothing of this earth does, but long beyond any memory of us.

Other speakers stated that the Heath Care Bill was Pearl Harbor to conservatives and that it would result in the deaths of more Americans than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined; that, compared to nature, humans pump one tenth of one percent of the total amount of the gas that climatologists blame for global warming into the atmosphere, so humans cannot possibly change the climate. 

My father fought the Nazis in World War II. Many times, he risked his life. A bullet from a Nazi machine gun once struck him in the forehead of his flight helmet, turned it 180 degrees backwards and knocked him unconscious. His captain thought he was dead and ordered a crew member to shove his body out of the way and take over his spot.

Many of the airmen that he flew with died fighting the Nazis.

Down on the ground, Americans and our World War II allies were killed by the hundreds of thousands in combat against the Nazis.

To use the word "Nazis" as it is used here cheapens the sacrifices they made to rid the world of this evil. To use the word in this way dishonors the tens of millions of innocent men, women and children murdered by the Nazis.

Why not use the word "Nazis" to describe... Nazis? No one else. Why not use the name, likeness and moustache of Hitler to describe just one man... Hitler?

It really lets both Hitler and the Nazis off far too easy to lay these obscene titles upon your fellow Americans because they disagree with you.

This also goes for Liberals who would use the word in the opposite direction.

It truly is a great country that we live in. May it long survive and stay that way.

I have already stated my feelings about this one, two photos above.

Margie goes off with Jobe and leaves me alone; I see a dark cloud over my valley, my nation

Lisa came out Sunday morning and took her mom and dad out to breakfast at Family Restaurant. Sadly, when I pulled out my pocket camera to photograph the occassion, I discovered that I had forgot to put the card back in - just like I had done when I had breakfast with Aaron Fox in New York.

Just like then, I did take a few pictures with my iPhone, but have not yet bothered to download them.

In the afternoon, Kalib and Jobe showed up with their parents. Lisa tried to entice Kalib to give her a hug, but he wasn't going for it.

I tried to get him to give me a hug, too. He didn't want to.

I don't feel too badly about it. I remember when I was small and I never wanted my grandmothers to hug me and it seemed just smothering and awful when they would do so anyway and then try to add a kiss on top of hug.

My one grandfather who still lived never did try to hug me. At that time, in the family and society that I was born into, males just didn't hug each other, period. We would shake hands.

I'm glad that nonsensical code is behind me now.

How awful it would be, never to hug my grandson - if only he would hug me.

How nice it would be to get the opportunity to hug my grandmothers, and kiss them on the cheek - my grandfathers, too - both the one who I marginally knew and the other, who descended into the earth before I had the chance.

The reason they had come out was to snatch Margie away from me and take her back to Anchorage is because Lavina had to go back to work today and someone needs to care for Jobe. That someone is going to be Margie.

From now until sometime in August, when a spot is scheduled to open up for Jobe at daycare, Margie will spend four days of the week in town, caring for him in the day and staying overnight in his family home.

I do not like the fact that she will be gone so much and I will be without her, but for little Jobe, it is worth the sacrifice. He is too little to be going to daycare, anyway. When he is with his grandma, I know he will be loved and cared for to the full measure of her devotion.

This will not be easy on Lavina, either, for she is a woman who loves being a mother.

They had to load up a mattress for Margie into their Tahoe and as they did, Kalib went into the back yard to golf with Caleb. See how he keeps his eye on the ball and how hard he concentrates as he draws back the club to make the swing?

His aim was right on.

Golf never interested me much, but this kid is a natural, I tell you!

Uncle Caleb then prepared to give nephew Kalib a demonstration of what can be done with a different kind of ball - a softball that had just emerged from the snow.

Uncle Caleb tossed that ball and the three of us watched as it climbed high into the sky. I kept waiting for gravity to take hold and draw that ball back to the earth, but it just kept rising, higher and higher, until it was just the tiniest dot. Then it disappeared altogether. It looked as though it had gone into orbit.

Soon, it was time for Margie to go back to Anchorage with them - but after they put the mattress in the Tahoe, there was no room for her.

So I drove Margie to town. Kalib rode with us.

Jacob, Lavina and Jobe reached home well ahead of us. When we finally got there, Jacob came out to get Kalib, unbuckled him and removed him from his car seat. He began to carry him back to the house but then stopped, looked up into the sky and stammered, "what the...????"

It was the softball that Caleb had launched! Maybe three hours before! Finally coming back to earth! In Anchorage! I wonder how many orbits that softball made? Why didn't it burn up on reentry?

I tried to take a picture, but the swoosh of wind from that softball as it plunged downward to bury itself deep in the frozen earth beneath the snow ripped my pocket camera right out of my hands. Fortunately, it suffered no major damage.

This is the bed they fixed up for Margie to stay in, four nights a week for the next four months. Lavina made certain that it included a stuffed Muzz, just for Margie.

I left Margie among family a bit after 9:00 PM to begin my drive alone back to Wasilla. According to the metadata, I took this photo at exactly 9:40:50 PM and it looks exactly as I feel, for inside me wages that ever present battle of light against darkness, of black clouds and night moving against the sun - even during this time when the length of the day steadily increases.

I feel this way for many reasons - some economic, the fact that I am in this house alone with the cats (always good company, by the way) but also because I attended the Wasilla Tax Day Tea Party rally. That rally was largely about getting out the vote to turn around a situation that many participants see as intolerable. They lost out in the last election and now they want to get out the vote and reverse that situation.

That is the way the American system is supposed to work; when it comes to choosing our leadership and the political course of our nation, we leave our guns at home and go to the ballot box. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. When we lose, we gear back up and work toward the next election. And so it goes, back and forth over time. One side rises after the vote, then falls, then rises again, then falls again... and there is impeachment, should enough people and their Senators be persuaded that they had erred in the last election and that the situation has become too urgent to wait for the next election.

Voting. An act of light - one that keeps people from killing each other over political differences.

But there were also clouds darkening at that rally, not-so-subtle insinuations made by people who proclaimed themselves to be patriots, loyal Americans eager to defend the Constitution of the United States even to the point that if they must, they stood ready to nullify by violence the majority of votes, constitutionally cast in 2008 by other loyal Americans, in order to force an outcome more to their liking.

I do not attribute this attitude to all who participated, but the sentiment was there and prominently so.

It is the words of one man that keep coming back to me the strongest. When he was called to the mic, he did not rant, he did not scream, he did not yell. He was articulate and spoke softly, clearly, in words that he chose carefully. He referenced his military service and that of the sons that he had sent to war.

He said many things that I agree with and, in fact, that most Americans, be they Republican, Democrat, or Independent would agree with. I would say 95 percent of his words were along this line. While the comparison would undoubtedly offend the man, in Garrison Keillor's own unique style I have heard him say the same things this man did.

Yet, he spoke with a different end in mind. He made it unequivocally clear that as a Patriot and soldier, he had taken an ever-binding oath to protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic and stood ready to kill or be killed in order to do so.  He said that domestic enemies now held the highest offices of the United States, that Barack Obama was not a legitimate President and was not his Commander-in-Chief. In other words, he stated his readiness to kill me and how many other loyal, patriotic, Americans from Wasilla, Alaska and elsewhere, in order to nulliy those votes that we Constitutionally cast in November of 2008, because he does not approve of the President we elected and installed as Commander-in-Chief. To be fair, he was still definitely a part of the "get out the vote" in 2010 effort, but he clearly implied what he felt needed to be done beyond the vote, should that effort fail to accomplish his larger goal.

There is no way around it. That is what he said. I can see no other way to interpret his words. And he was applauded. 

Perhaps I make too much of it and it is nothing to be concerned about - just words spoken by a calm, angry, man exercising his First Amendment rights; words that will be blown away and forgotten in the winds of history.

Yet, he spoke as a movement leader to a small town audience of maybe 400 people, with more recycling in and out, their overall numbers growing. Others continually drove by, too busy to stop, but not to honk their horns in support. Over 1000 hot dogs were sold.

A lack of time has prevented me from posting the pictures that I took at the Tea Party rally and time is passing by and the timeliness of the event is fading. An argument wages inside me, should I still take the time to post those pictures and do my write up or should I just move on and let this do it?

I want to make that post, and I don't want to make that post.

I want to just move on, forget about it and just live a peaceful life and let others do the same, whatever their political leanings. We can work it out at the ballot box - but I'm not sure I can just forget about it. Perhaps we now all plunge forward in a direction from which no u-turn can be made.

Perhaps not. I don't know. It's too easy to get carried away by hyperbole.

We take Jobe home, where he is eagerly greeted by his lonely family; Misty and Kennedy give me a Kivgiq video

It was time to take Jobe back to Anchorage and to his parents, but he was fast asleep in his cradleboard. Margie began to untie him, so that she could take him out, but she did not want to wake him.

Very gently, she picked him up to transfer him to his car seat. He snoozed on.

And then she buckled him in. He slept through it all. He did not stir.

And when his mother came dashing out the door to meet us at the car to retrieve the baby whose first night of absence from her had left her so miserable, she found him just as he had been when Margie had buckled him in one hour earlier: fast asleep, but with a smile upon his face.

Mother and baby, in the house, reunited.

Father and baby, reunited. It had been a long night and day for everybody there.

Even Kalib wanted to hold his baby brother, who had been gone for so long.

Misty Nayakik of Wainwright performs Iñupiaq motion dances in a style of great beauty and grace. She is one of those performers who always draws my lens straight toward her. Until last year she had not missed a Kivgiq in 20 years, but last year she could not go.

Recently, she got a copy of the video made of the 2009 Kivgiq. When she and Kennedy Ahmaogak watched it, they came to the part where Isaac Killigvuk gave me a gift and then brought me out of my shyness and onto the floor without my cameras, to dance with him.

When they saw me dancing, she and Kennedy wanted me to have a copy. Last week, she sent me a message to tell me that they were coming to Anchorage and she was going to bring a copy of the DVD to me.

After we left Jobe with his parents and brother, Margie and I headed over to Residence in where they are staying. As we walked from the car to the door we saw Kennedy, Misty and one-year old daughter Adina waiting for us.

Thank you, Misty, Adina and Kennedy. I will treasure this video always.

Saturday evening, I received a text message from my youngest son Rex, who had joined in a 200 km bike ride on the Kenai Peninsula: "132 miles on my bicycle completed in about ten hours and 45 minutes!"

Melanie drove along to provide support.

This morning, I encounter a little conflict between the Wasilla Tea Party and my grandson Jobe - who do you think will win?

Recent readers will recall that Kalib burst into my office yesterday as I was working on this blog - just when I had gotten to the point where I was about to arrive at the Wasilla Tea Party rally, staged April 15, Tax Day. This little surprise knocked me off my schedule and when I tried to get back on, too much of the day had passed. I could spend no more of that day working on this blog than I already had, so I stopped, and left it to speculation as to whether or not I would get my tea party rally coverage up today, or ever, or whether I might get distracted by the natural progression of life.

This morning, I sort of woke up thinking that I had better post those Tea Party pictures and I had better write something about what I observed as I wandered through the rally. If not, then what was the point of ever taking the pictures in the first place? What was the point of listening to participants speak those words - some articulate and thoughtful, some totally absurd?

I say, "sort of woke up" because I am not 100 percent certain that I ever really went to sleep and if I did not ever really go to sleep then how could I have woke up?

So I am rather tired. I am not certain that I possess the energy required to think through the words that I must write to go along with the Tea Party pictures.

I will start today's post with this picture of Jobe, Lavina and Margie and see what happens from here - if I make it back to the Tea Party or not.

Even when I am so sleepy that my brain hardly functions, I can find a few words to write about Jobe.

Lavina had brought the two little ones out in part because Kalib has been very clingy towards his mom lately - at least when he gets the chance. So often, when he wants her, she is busy with Jobe, taking care of his needs. Kalib's day care center had scheduled a very special, annual fun day for he and his classmates and all their parents today, one at which a surprise animal always shows up.

Last year, it was a kangaroo.

Lavina wanted to be able to devote a period of uninterrupted, special time to Kalib and his fun day and so we agreed to keep Jobe with us overnight and to return him to Anchorage Saturday afternoon. It would be the first time that Lavina had ever been separated from Jobe for more than a couple of hours.

In the meantime, as the three visited us, both Kalib and Jobe fell asleep. By now, it was 4:00 PM. Coffee and All Things Considered time. So, as Margie stayed behind with the babies, Lavina joined me in the car, we went to Metro, got our coffee and then took the long way home.

Along the way, we saw this student leaving his school bus. I felt a little bad that Kalib was not in the car with us. The sight of a school bus greatly excites him. He would have loved this moment.

Shortly after we got home, not without misgivings near to the point of tears, Lavina picked up her oldest son and left her baby boy behind with we, the grandparents.

She would have a very hard night. One that would bring her to tears - especially when she looked at Jobe's changing table and the place where he sleeps. Even at midnight, she would almost give in, drive out, and pick up her baby - but, for the sake of her oldest son, she persevered and left him with us.

A bit later, I had to check the mail and run a couple of errands. As I did so, I kept hearing sirens and those deep-pitched yet screechy, loud horn blasts that firetrucks make when they are in a hurry and need to get around people. It sounded like the end of the world.

Many screaming, blasting, vehicles passed outside my range of vision, but when I came in sight of the highway, I saw this one coming behind the others - and police cars, too.

Trucks from different stations were involved. It appeared that something major had happened.

Right after the above truck passed, this guy came by on a motorcycle.

Now I had to pull out onto the highway. No more emergency vehicles were in sight, nor could I hear anymore coming. So out onto the highway I went. Then I heard a police siren. I looked in my mirror and saw a police car coming, fast. The traffic was packed in our lanes near the stop light where I now was, so the driver veered into the oncoming lane of traffic, shot past and ran the red light.

This fire vehicle soon followed, and went round on the right.

The driver, as he passed me. I scanned the horizons ahead for smoke, but could see none. I turned off the Highway onto Lucille Street and headed back towards home.

I do not know what happened. This morning, I looked at the Mat-Su section of the Anchorage Daily News, but there was not a word about it. So, for all the drama, it must not have been as bad as it appeared, but, I suspect, for someone, it was very bad indeed.

I decided just to spend some time relaxing in front of the TV with Margie and Jobe - something I very rarely do. We watched The 3:10 to Yuma. To me, there will never be a better kind of escapist movie than a good western.

To his great joy, I gave Jobe some whiskerly love.

And then I fed him some twice-warmed Momma's Milk.

At bedtime, Margie tied Jobe into his cradle board and put him down in our room. Not long afterward, I came in. As regular readers will know, I am joined by at least one and usually two, sometimes three or four, cats every night.

We decided to keep the cats out on this night. What if one of them jumped up onto Jobe's cradleboard?

And that is why I am so sleepy, why I wonder if I ever slept.

Two of those cats, Pistol and Jim, positioned themselves outside the door and kept up a ruckus, all night long. I know I gave in and got up and groggily let one, then the other, in, but somehow, each found the opportunity to get out at some point and then start pleading, pawing, and tapping to get back in.

As you would expect, Jobe woke up crying a couple of times.

And when I heard his little cry, pulling me again into full awakeness from the edge of sleep, I smiled and chuckled.

Never in my life have I heard a more beautiful sound than that little cry.

And so ends this post. No Wasilla Tea Party today.

On tax day, I take prints and visit Warren Matumeak and daughters; I return to Wasilla and find a Tea Party; my coverage is interupted

It had been very chilly in our bedroom when we went in to seek sleep the night before. After I tucked Margie into the single bed where, as a result her injuries, she still must sleep, I jumped into our bed and the cold sting of the sheets against my flesh almost shot me back out again.

But I held my spot, because I knew that the blankets would hold my body heat and soon I would be warm and toasty.

Sure enough, it happened just that way. Sooner or later, insomniac me went to sleep. And then, somewhere around 3:00 AM, I dreamed that I was out in the country somewhere but was inadequately dressed and so was getting cold. Then I woke up and discovered that I was inadequately blanketed and truly was getting cold.

I keep a special quilt on the bed just for such moments, but the quilt was gone, folded and put away somewhere. Oh well, I figured, I could just reposition myself a bit to create a better layer of air insulation between the blankets and me and I would warm up and be fine.

I did not want to get up and go search for a blanket.

And so the rest of the night went, me always thinking that I had found just the right spot, dozing temporarily off, then waking, chilled, again.

In the morning, when I finally got up, it was to a clear, blue, sky and a beautiful world. Barefooted, I stepped onto the back porch to shoot this image. The porch was frozen and I felt the cold, sting of ice against my feet, but it was only for a few a seconds and I did not mind at all.

A few months back, Darlene Matumeak-Kagak got in touch with me to request a print of a photo that I took at Kivgiq 2003 of she and her sister, Mae Ahgeak, dancing with their father Warren Matumeak. Warren is pictured in my April 14 post, drumming and singing.

Providing prints to people who want them is a very difficult thing for me because, literally, I have received requests for THOUSANDS of prints, dating back to my film days and it is just impossible. Furthermore, the big majority of people who want these prints are Alaska Native who have befriended and helped me and without whom none of this work that I have done would have been possible, so it has always been my policy not to sell prints to such folk, but to give them and, despite my huge backlog of undelivered orders, I have given THOUSANDS away.

So I always tell people that if they want a picture, don't be afraid to keep sending me little reminders. In time, a reminder may well hit me when I am in a circumstance that makes it possible for me to make a print. The digital age has made it easier for me to get pictures to people in .jpg form, but even then, there are so many that it remains a challenge -plus a .jpg is not a print.

Darlene and her husband Jake have been very good to me over the years. Warren, her father, is one of the great men of the Arctic, a man who I greatly respect, love and admire. So, when I learned that he was coming to Anchorage to get chemo for cancer, I decided that I needed to make those prints right now and deliver them personally.

So here I am, in my car, looking at the Talkeetna Mountains from the stop sign at the intersection of Seldon and Lucille as I drive to Anchorage. Sitting alongside me in the passenger seat is three, 13 x 19 Velvet Fine Art prints that I had made late the night before.

The road was slick, but the temperature was rising and would hit 40 come late afternoon. I don't know what the low had been. About 10, I would guess.

Pioneer Peak and the Chugach Mountains, as I cross the Knik River bridge.

Someone in the opposing, north-bound lanes of traffic had been pulled over. Police officers were positioned at both the passenger and driver doors and, if I recall correctly, three patrol vehicles had stopped.

I don't know what happened. For all I know, in the end, the driver got off with a warning. I could do some investigative reporting and find out, but I don't think I will bother.

After I got to town, the very first thing that I did was drive out to the Dimond area to pick Melanie up so we could have lunch together. Along the way, while stopped at a red light, I saw this scene. I thought about how thin is the line that separates me from being part of it and wondered if and when I might yet cross that line.

I did not recognize the man, but maybe I know some of his family, somewhere out in Rural Alaska. Maybe some of his relatives have brought me into their home, be it a house or a camp, and have fed me.

For some reason, I failed to take any pictures during my lunch with Melanie. We got to talking and I just forgot. I can tell you this, she is a big help to me and her mom right now and to her youngest brother, too. I need to be more of a help to her.

She has also helped many cats, and that is just one of the many trillion reasons why I love her so.

As I do all my children, and those with whom they have united to bring even more family into our lives.

After I dropped Melanie off back at her work, I drove straight to the airport to meet Warren and his three daughters, who were already headed back to Barrow. Given what I had heard about his cancer, he looked surprisingly strong and good, and his spirits seemed high. He told me, though, that how he looked on the outside hid what he felt inside.

His doctors here in Anchorage had started him on some intense chemo and he would stay on it back home in Barrow for about two more weeks and then he would return. If it was having the desired effect, he would stay on it. If it wasn't... well, he said, he had experienced 82 wonderful years in this life and was ready to go to his home on the other side.

Those of us who know him here, I answered, are not ready for that. We need and want him here. This, he said, was what he also wants and is hoping for, but, if not, he is ready. He has already experienced many miracles in his life that have kept him here when it seemed, perhaps, that his time was already over.

He told me about one, in the days before snowmachines, when he had been out on the ice with his dogs and had to cross a wide section of very thin ice, one inch thick at most. His dogs did not want to go on, but he had no choice and so urged them forward. He leaned into the sled, which was buoyant. The dogs pushed forward and as they did, their paws punched repeatedly through the ice, but sea ice is flexible in a way that freshwater ice is not and the dogs managed to keep moving forward without going all the way through. A couple of times, Warren gave a push with his foot and his boot also broke through.

Finally, they reached stronger ice about two inches thick and soon were on safe ice. Warren stopped his dogs, and offered a prayer of thanks.

All too soon, it was time for them to head for security and then on to the Alaska Airlines gate where they would board their flight back to Barrow.

One of his daughters offered to get a wheelchair to make the journey a little easier for him, but Warren said, no, he needed the exercise and he would walk.

This reminded me of another of his survival miracles, one that happened about 24 years ago and that I wrote up in an early issue of Uiñiq. In that instance, Warren suffered a heart attack out on the tundra while hunting caribou with his young grandson Tommy, who, if I remember right, was eight years old at the time. Warren knew that he was going to die and so had his young grandson bundle him onto the sled and then told him to drive the snowmachine toward the moon, because in that direction he would find his grandmother at camp and could return his body to her.

It was a tough and long ride, but young Tommy saved his aapa's life. 

Afterward, I would often see Warren in the evenings on the indoor track built above the Barrow High gymnasium - walking and walking and walking, building up the strength in his heart.

Behind him here are his daughters Darlene, Alice and Mae.

This is the photo that I had printed in triplicate for them, with Darlene dancing at the left and Mae at the right. Suurimmaanitchuat.

I should note that in his work days, Warren served as Planning Director for the North Slope Borough and later as director of the North Slope Borough Wildlife Management Department. He is a choir director at the Utqeaqvik Presbyterian Church and is well known for his oratory from behind the pulpit.

Do any of you regular readers ever pick up on the conflict that tears always within me, between the pull of my communal home on the Arctic Slope and my physical and blood-family home in Wasilla?

Now, at Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, I had once again taken a mental trip back to the communal home, but it was time to return to Wasilla. As stated in the sidebar at right, one of the primary reasons that I started this blog was to better get to know Wasilla, where I have lived now for nearly 30 years. Yet, outside my house and family, Wasilla is a town in which I have mostly been a stranger, because my work, heart, and soul has always been out in the rural areas where I have done my work.

Yet, I love Wasilla and I want to know what this place, where I have for so long kept a physical presence, is all about. I want to find its soul, but, even since I started this blog, a lack of time and financial resource has severely limited my search. I am not even close to meeting this goal.

Perhaps I am little bit frightened by this goal, too. I don't know.

As I drove back to Wasilla, I passed this Volkswagen.

The first car that Margie and I ever owned was a lemon-yellow Super Beetle. We loved that car like we have loved no car since - but I do love the Ford Escape. Among the many cars that we have now ground down, I love the Escape second only to the Super Beetle.

Back in Wasilla, it was Tax Day, and the Liberty Tax mascot was out, seeking to draw in those who had procrastinated almost beyond hope.

It would prove to be a very hard tax day for us, as we came up owing, with no funds to pay the difference. It won't be fun, but we will get through this. It happened before, in 1997, about ten times worse than now. We got through it. I never wanted it to happen again, but it did, and we will get through it again.

Not far down the road, I saw a man riding his four-wheeler like he was part of the US Calvary, leading a caravan of three, charging to the rescue of his beleaguered nation on Tax Day, charging to Wasilla's Tea Party rally.

All of a sudden, my coverage of Tax Day and the Tea Party is interrupted. This is because, as I sat here, diligently working on my report, my office door flew open and Kalib came charging in.

His mother had brought him and Jobe out to visit us while she goes to Metro Cafe to go online and do some homework.

I thought he had come rushing in to hug me, so I extended my arms, but he was not interested in giving his grandpa a hug. He just wanted to feed his grandpa's fish, and he didn't want to waste any time getting at it.

After he fed the fish, he disappeared, but I soon followed him into the living room and this is what I found: Kalib, Caleb, and Jobe.

In time, I came back to the blog, but I had stated that I would have it up no later than noon and here it is, nearly 2:00 PM, and I cannot spend another minute of this day working on this blog.

So I will save the tea party part for tomorrow. Or, perhaps, by then, life will have moved on and so will I have and my tea party coverage will just languish, perhaps to one day be seen, perhaps never.

We will see.

PS: My niece, Shaela Ann Cook, has a new blog. I have given her a link and invite all to visit her site. You will see that her outlook towards food is very different than mine, but it doesn't matter. We love each other and she supports Iñupiat whaling. She wants to make a movie on my book, Gift of the Whale, if only she could find the means.