A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

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Wasilla

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

by 300...

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

and then some...

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

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Wednesday
May052010

Harley riding in Alaska vs. Harley riding in Florida; I bike to the patio of Metro Cafe

"You must ride a Harley," I observed after taking note of Larry Shumake's t-shirt, just before he took his seat at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. 

"I did for 22 years, but not anymore," he answered.

That 22 years of riding took place in the Lower 48, most recently Florida. He loved it, but after he retired from the Army and came to Alaska at the invitation of a friend and wound up staying, Larry found that riding a Harley here is not the same as it was down there.

"When you ride in Alaska you've always got to dress for winter," he explained. "It doesn't matter what time of year." Plus, he added, there is always loose gravel on Alaska roads, tiny rocks that become missiles upon being flung into the air by the tires of other vehicles.

Then, despite the fact that Alaska drawves all other states in size, area and open space, there just isn't that much open highway to drive upon. One road leads north out of Anchorage and road leads south. That's it. And those two roads tend to be pretty busy. In Florida, he said, there are many, many, highways, including back-country highways where the traffic is light and bikers can ride two and three abreast and go on and on with out ever encountering heavy traffic.

Plus, he added, if you ride a bike long enough, it is not a matter or whether or not you will go down, but when you will go down. He figured the time for him to go down was probably drawing nigh.

He noted that many drivers do not show much respect for bikers. Even though a bike can stop in a fraction of the space required by a car or pickup, people in cars and pickups will ride right on the tail of a biker - much closer than they would follow a car.

"I learned to always keep marbles in my pocket," he noted.

"Marbles?"

"Yes, marbles. Then when someone comes right up on your tail, you take a couple out and toss them over your shoulder. They back off real fast."

Larry did three tours of duty in Vietnam and served "at just about every point in between." He loves to fish and runs his own little business tying flies and making jigs. He calls it, Shu Flies and Jigs.

I begin every summer wanting to find some serious time to just go out and catch fish. Every summer ends almost as soon as it began and if I have caught a fish it is only because I was out in the rural areas somewhere shooting photos on someone who was fishing and who let me borrow their pole for a bit.

Now that summer is coming on, I again find myself wanting to go fishing.

If I do, maybe I will buy some flies from Larry.

Life can be pretty tough, you know? The squeeze of a hand between a waitress and her long-time customer can make it just a little easier to bear.

Through the window, I saw an elderly man assist his wife out of their car, and then help her to the restaurant door. They caused me to think of my own parents - except for the fact that, in the final years of her life, my father could not get my mother to leave the house for anything - not even to go to church, church being what she had lived her entire life for.

It was sad. It still grieves me.

It is a story that I must tell, but I don't yet know how.

Remember this dog that I came upon after I stepped out of Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant one day last week? It was there again.

Being a very perceptive fellow, I have concluded that this must be a plumber's dog.

A clue or two.

Basically, except for going out to breakfast and then again for my 4:00 o'clock coffee and All Things Considered news break, the day was spent, up until near 2:00 AM, sitting right here in this chair in front of my computer, working.

At 4:00 PM, I brought All Things Considered up on my iPhone and then pedaled my bike to Metro.

As I drew near - these kids and I recognized each other. You might recognize them, too, as they have been in a couple of Through the Metro Window studies.

Immediately after I photographed my fellow Metro patrons, this kid blew by me on the right, dusted me. I imagined that he was pretty proud of himself, thinking that he had smoked the old man.

Kid... if I hadn't been taking pictures, I would have left you in the dust.

As I pedaled on toward Metro, I watched him grow smaller and smaller in the distance. I thought about pouring on the pedal power, about blasting by him, dusting him.

But I knew he was basking in his victory over me. I did not want to take that away from him, so I didn't.

Carmen has put her patio tables out now. It is nice to sit out there. The chairs are comfortable. I photographed Carmen in Outdoor Metro Study, # 1. If you look at the window behind her, you can see that I very cleverly included myself in the picture.

My reflection is a bit distorted, but then I am somewhat of a distorted person myself, so it is okay.

I then sat there, sipped my coffee, listened to the news and watched people pass by. Some walked.

Some traveled in school buses.

A boy pedaled uphill.

This one roared past.

A boy pushing his bike uphill was overtaken by a man pedaling. 

I then pedaled a looping route home. I came to a stop sign, where I passed a cowboy and his dog. Both seemed to have split personalities. 

Except for the breakfasts at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, the weather has been so nice that I have been eating all my meals on the back porch.

Jimmy always comes out with me.

We have good times together, Jimmy and I.

You will notice the greening is less here than elsewhere in Wasilla. We are always the last to leaf out and the first to drop.

Tuesday
May042010

As I enjoy a good breakfast at Family, two women die just down the road; I meet a friend of Cheech and Chong who witnessed the aftermath

Once again, I had to do it. I got up, the house was empty, the dishes were dirty, and I did not want to sit in the cold air that still permeated the house, there to eat oatmeal alone, so I got into the car and drove to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. Connie was again my waitress, so I showed her the Moment in Time picture on my iPhone as it appears in this blog, then she brought my ham and eggs-over-easy and I began to eat.

It was superb - from the hashbrowns cooked just right to the ham dipped in the runny egg yolk. A bit after 9:00 AM, I looked up from my food, saw this scene, thought it worth a click and shot it.

What I did not know, what none of us gathered there at Family Restaurant yet knew, was that just up the road, a silver Chrysler Pacifica had crossed the suicide turn lane all the way into oncoming traffic and had struck a Tahoe head-on. The woman who had been driving the Pacifica was already dead and the one driving the Tahoe soon would be.

Just as she and the other Family waitresses always do, Connie waited until I finished the main course and then she brought me my two slices of 12-grain toast, each cut in half. One at a time, I spread strawberry jam over the halves and then ate very slowly, stopping frequently to take a sip of coffee. I wanted to savor every bite, every sip, every moment of it.

Then, feeling pleasant and satisfied, I got up, paid my bill, climbed into my car, turned right on the Parks Highway and then came home via Church Road. I arrived with much to do, but feeling good.

I would have felt completely differently, had I turned left on the Parks Highway instead of right.

I had a rush of work to do and stayed with it solid and non-stop, taking no time for lunch, because, really, one does not need lunch after eating breakfast at Family until 4:00 PM, when I took a break and drove to Metro for my All Things Considered cup.

As I drove along, sipping, I passed this fellow driving his four-wheeler. Do you notice anything happening in those trees behind him? Something we haven't seen for awhile?

Shortly after that, as she does every afternoon, the KSKA announcer jumped in during a break in All Things Considered to drop in a kicker for the Alaska Public Radio Network's Alaska statewide news. Barrow hunters had landed the first two bowhead whales of the season, she said.

I shouted, and clapped my hands for joy!

Later in the evening, Maak in Wainwright dropped a comment into yesterday's post to tell me that her village had also landed its first whale.

It was a joyous day in the two northern-most communities of the United States of America.

I came upon a little dog, walking down the road. I passed by at about one-mile per hour, because I did not want to run over it.

I then returned to my computer, but by 7:30, my muscles were screaming for exercise. I got up and invited Shadow to go bike riding with me.

We had not gone far when we spotted a little fourwheeler putting down the road in front of us.

"Do you think we can pass her?" I asked Shadow.

Shadow didn't answer, because Shadow never speaks.

I passed her! I soon reached the end of Sarah's Way and turned left toward Seldon. Then I heard a small engine, whining loudly, gaining on me. "Well," I said to Shadow, "it sounds like she didn't like us smoking her and now she is going to show us."

The pitch was so high, I wondered if her engine might blow apart.

Then the vehicle passed me, but it was not the girl on the fourwheeler. It was a little tiny blue car. I don't know what make.

Shadow and I continued on. Half-an-hour later, I photographed Shadow as the two of us pedaled down Church Road. Then I spotted another man on a bike, coming in our direction. "When we draw near, I will photograph this guy," I told Shadow.

I readied my pocket camera, but, unfortunately, I forgot the lesson that I had learned at the Wasilla park on that day tht I flipped my bike and leaped over the handle bars in front of the shocked little kid. I held my camera in my right hand. This meant that I had only my left hand available to brake, should I need to. As we know, left-hand brake stops front wheel only - sudden stop means bike flips.

But this guy could see me coming and I could see him. No cars or trucks could be seen anywhere. It would be okay. I would not need to brake.

As the biker drew near, the camera zoom was its widest-angle setting. As I began to lift my lens toward him, the oncoming rider looked straight at me and with a mischievous chin and a somewhat maniacal glint in his eyes, issued a challenge: "Wanna play chicken?"

He stood up and pedaled hard, straight toward me.

For an instant, I was determined to get a shot that captured that grin on his face and the force in his body as he pedaled at me. If I had been in the same exact situation prior to June 12, 2008, I am quite certain that I would have succeeded.

But, as regular readers know, the risk that I took that day to get a truly insignificant photo that no one will ever care about put me inside a Lear Jet ambulance on a $37,000 + ride from Barrow to Providence Hospital in Anchorage, a ride that my insurance company, contrary to the promise they had verbally given me when I bought the policy 15 years earlier in anticipation that, given the way I lived, the day would inevitably come when I would one day need an air ambulance, refused to pay.

That's why I have this titanium shoulder and that's just one of the reasons why I hate the insurance industry.

That coupled with the fact that I had flipped my bike in front of the little boy when I had braked with my left hand, added to the fact that I suddenly believed that this guy coming at me truly might not chicken out nor veer away in the slightest degree, added to my painful knowledge that my titanium shoulder is a fragile thing, and my memory of spending the summer of 2008 mostly in bed and the long convalescence that continued for a good year-and-half caused me to chicken out.

I knew I had to brake with my left hand but I reckoned that I had just enough space to do it gently, and not flip the bike. Even as I applied the brake, I shot this image.

As you can see, the oncoming rider was, in fact, chickening out, veering to his right. He, too, was applying his brakes.

 

We came to a stop side by side. My rear wheel did lift up about six inches and, fearing that I might yet go down, he reached out to grab me - but I had it under control and was not going to go down.

Some of you may recall how, way back in March, I had become shaggy, in both hair and beard. I was scheduled to do my slide shows in Nantucket and New York and so had committed myself to good cut and trim before I left.

I ran out of time and decided to get the cut and trim in Nantucket. When that didn't happen, I decided that I would get it in New York.

I absolutely will get it done before I leave for Arizona in just ten days.

This is Dave, by the way.

We pedaled side-by-side for just a short distance.

Then we stopped to visit. Dave was animated in his conversation, smiling continually. He said that he had just pedaled his bike up a road that climbs up the Talkeetnas and it had sure been hard, but it was easy coming down.

He asked if I biked often and I said, "yeah."

I asked if he did and he said he pretty much had to, if he wanted to go anywhere. I asked if he enjoyed it. As he thought about his answer, a big, white, Chevy pickup that looked to be almost brand new came driving by. He looked at. "Well," he said. "I'd rather be driving that. You can imagine how I feel when I'm on my bike and something like that comes by. But, hey! I can go all the way downtown and back and I don't burn any gasoline, I don't put any pollution into the air."

I wanted to catch his smile, and the glint in his turquoise-green eyes and told him so. He struck this pose. The smile disappeared.

OK - look at these trees. Now do you notice something happening?

I had him try another pose, but I quickly realized that, as long as he knew a camera was pointing at him, his smile was not going to be there.

I then showed him the pictures. "I look terrible," he said. "You can see all my scars!" He pointed to the one that starts between his left eye and the upper part of his nose. "I got that one when someone kicked me in the head." He then began to point out other scars, and tell me the histories behind them.

"Man! I should have shaved. My hair looks so dark. My eyes look blue - but they're green!"

He then mentioned that earlier in the day, he had been pedaling alongside the Parks Highway on the other side of the police station when he came upon the aftermath of a horrible accident.

"That little silver car had shot across the dead man's lane right into the SUV!" he said. "I could see that the air bag on the passenger side had worked."

The victims had already been removed. He did not know that two people had died in that crash until I told him. He seemed a little shook.

"Men or women?" he asked.

I did not know. The news bulletin I had read online had identified the dead only as the drivers of each vehicle.

"I'll read about it in tomorrow's paper," he shook his head.

The conversation fell to more pleasant topics. His smile returned. He had just painted his bike silver, earlier in the day. He was proud of it. He asked if I smoked and if I had a light. I said no, and I didn't. He pulled out a paper and a bag and began to roll.

I wanted to catch his smile, so I took this shot without raising my camera. Afterwards I showed it to him. "Hey," he said. "I want to tell you about when I went to Mexico with Cheech and Chong. We tried to come back across the border in our van, but the border guards wouldn't let us cross." He said he and Cheech and Chong then backed up, traded the psychedelically-painted van for a more conservative vehicle, returned to the border and were allowed to cross back in. They drove on to El Cerrito, where he checked into a bed and slept hard and long.

"You know Cheech and Chong?" I gushed.

"Oh, yeah!" he answered.

"Famous guy!"

"I'm not famous," he said. "They're famous."

"But you hang out with famous people."

"That was a long time ago."

As to the contents of that plastic baggie, I know what you are thinking - but it actually looked and smelled like tabacco.

As they say, "that's my story and I'm sticking to it!"

Dave and I said, "see you around." I pedaled on home.

That was last evening. This is from this morning. Now, surely, you notice what is happening in those trees... they are turning green! The leaves are coming out!

The first year that we lived here, the leaves came out May 14, as they did for the next 15 years or so. Then they started to come out earlier and earlier and earlier.

This year, they came out May 3.

And here is the place where the two women were killed, as I saw it this morning. God be with them, and even more so with those loved ones they left behind.

Monday
May032010

A man drifts through Wasilla; Jobe, Kalib and Lavina come out; they take Margie back with them

This would be Margie's last day home before returning to Anchorage - this time for five days and nights - to babysit Jobe, so we took a short outing together in the afternoon.

On the edge of the bike trail that follows the Parks Highway through Wasilla, we saw a man, drifting by, sitting upon the ground.

Then he got up and moved on, leaving a puff of smoke behind him. A short time later, as we drove past Wasilla Lake, which on this day the ice had mostly disappeared from, we saw him again, his thumb out, hitching a ride north, towards Fairbanks, but who knows what his destination was?

It was a hard-looking scene and, had I been able to photograph it, it would have told the story far stronger than either of these two pictures. Unfortunately, I had put my pocket camera in my pocket and, given the traffic, it would have been far too dangerous to try to extract it, activate it, and point it at the man in the little time that I had between spotting and passing him.

Yet the image remains burned into my mind.

I wonder still - will that man drifting past, on the roadside, not a youth but an individual of mature years, hitchhiking to an uncertain destination, yet be me? It often times feels to me like that is where I am headed.

And if so, what will that mean for Margie?

I often times think that she is only reason that it hasn't happened yet. She is the reason why I can't let it happen.

Shortly after we arrived home, Lavina showed up with Kalib. He was feeling much better. I don't really know what was wrong with him but he was doing good now.

He was feeling good enough that he was not about to be tied down by a newspaper - not even the Anchorage Daily News...

...not when there was a whole house to roam about in.

It won't surprise regular readers to learn that his mom had brought Jobe along, too.

Margie and Lavina left to do some shopping and to get a hamburger and had given me instructions on what to do should Jobe wake up. He did wake up, but Caleb got to him before I did.

Caleb is the ultimate bachelor uncle.

Soon, Caleb was feeding Jobe - just as I had been instructed to do.

Caleb and Jobe.

Caleb can't wait for Jobe to get a little bigger, so that he can do the kinds of things with him that he does with Kalib - like play, golf, shoot rubber bands, and whatever.

He thinks Jobe is growing way too slowly, but he isn't.

He is growing way too swiftly.

Soon he will be a big rebellious teenager - not long after that, an old man who has lived his life.

I will be long gone then - hopefully, with my ashes set free to drift the planet, my molecules to help construct other organisms.

Maybe potato bugs and spiders.

I have never seen a potato bug in Alaska, but I remember them well from childhood. They were very fun bugs - the way they would curl up into a little round pellet.

It was like they were custom designed to please children.

They went into the bedroom where Kalib and his parents slept during the year-and-a-half that they lived with us. Kalib had a rubber wristband, which he pulled back, hoping to smack the ceiling with it. "Shoot it up to the stars!" Caleb encouraged him.

Not so long ago, those stars glowed through the winter nights, directly over Kalib in his crib.

Kalib removed Caleb's cap, and put it on his own head.

Then Caleb was in the living room, Kalib in the front room, ready to throw some cardboard package cushioning at his uncle.

Both of them loved this game. Kalib laughed outrageously after each toss - and there were many tosses.

Royce and Jobe. I still wish Royce would get the chance to raise Jobe the way he raised Kalib, but that is not going to happen. He is doing better on his medication and improved diet, but as life goes he is still on the declining slope.

Hell. So am I.

One thing I need to make clear - in some reader's minds, it was Royce who scratched Kalib when he was a crawler, but this is not correct. Royce would never have done such a thing. The patience and tolerance that this cat always granted Kalib, no matter how rough Kalib got with him, was amazing to behold.

It was Martigny that scratched Kalib. She did not do it out of meanness. She did it because she paniced when he got too rambunctious with her.

Margie with Jobe, shortly before they left to go back to Anchorage.

I hated to see them go, because now I am alone again for the next five days, except for the occassional glimpse of Caleb.

But it is far more important that Jobe is cared for by someone who truly loves him than it is that I have the company of my wife.

They back out the driveway, then drive away.

Sunday
May022010

I suffer many trials and tribulations, then take a picture at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant for The New York Times

First, this is not the picture. The picture had to be taken this morning at 7:00 AM. It could not be 6:59, AM, it could not be 7:01. It had to be 7:00. Not only was this picture not taken at 7:00 AM, it was not taken today at all. I took it last Tuesday, while Margie was in Anchorage babysitting little Jobe.

Yet, it is the image that set me on the pursuit of today's picture.

One of the blogs that I visit everyday is Lens, published by The New York Times. Recently, Lens put out a call to all interested photographers anywhere in the world - pro, amateur, novice, whatever - to shoot a photo at 15:00 UTC/GMT. Out of these, they plan to build some kind of huge montage for a project they have titled A Moment in Time. In Wasilla, that moment would be 7:00 AM AKDT.

Naturally, when I learned of the project I immediately wanted to participate. So, I thought, where should I be at 7:00 AM Sunday?

My first choice was somewhere on the Arctic Slope where Iñupiat whalers are out right now, hunting bowhead: Barrow, Wainwright, Point Lay or Point Hope. Yet I lacked the funds to go there on my own and had no projects going that would take me there.

So I began to think about exciting, wild, dramatic places in the Mat-Su Valley where I could position myself - places that said, "this is wild and wooly Alaska!"

And then, last Tuesday, as Connie King poured my coffee, I thought, wait! I'll just go for the ordinary, mundane, everyday, typical Sunday morning, 7:00 AM scene: a waitress at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, pouring coffee.

I knew that such an image would have to compete for attention against much more dramatic fare: shots taken on the battlefront in Afghanistan, the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, rescue and relief efforts in disaster stricken regions of the world from China to Haiti; against the action of athletic events to the glamour of models and showgirls - for you can count on all of this kind of material and much more being prominent in the mix.

But what the hell. Every morning, at Family Restaurant, the waitresses pour coffee. And they always smile.

I told Connie I would come at 7:00 AM Sunday. She laughed and said "okay."

This is also from last Tuesday, as is the next image after it. The three that follow that are from today, but shot after 7:00 AM. I will use them as the backdrop to tell the story and then I will post today's 7:00 AM shot. Please do not cheat and skip ahead.

I could have cheated on the photo, and started shooting a couple of minutes before 7:00; I could have then continued for a couple of minutes after so that I would have a bigger selection to chose from, but I didn't. I kept it strictly honest.

This still gave me some choices to make. Should I shoot with the pocket camera, as I have typically been doing for this blog? Or should I use one of my big, pro, DSLR's?

As you know, the pocket camera is very slow to recycle, to focus, and to do all sorts of things that one wants a camera to do.

In the time it would take a waitress to pour a cup of coffee, I would be doing good to get two frames off. If I were to bring a DSLR, in that same time, I could shoot a dozen frames.

Plus, the technical quality would be far superior.

Still, I have elected to use the pocket camera as my primary tool for building this blog. If it is good enough for my blog, then is it not good enough for the New York Times "Lens" blog?

Yet, I do miss many images with my pocket camera that I would have gotten had I been shooting with a DSLR. For example, just before I shot this image last Tuesday, this big, tough-looking man patted the baby girl on the head.

I spotted the action and had the camera on them while it was still happening, but I could not get the damn thing to focus until the action was over. With any of my DSLR's, it would have been in focus just like that.

Still, the moment I did get was nice, if not as nice, and that is the kind of compromises one makes when shooting with a pocket camera. You get what you are able to get, not what you could have got and in return you live a more subtle, peaceful life.

Can you imagine what a spectacle I would be, sitting at the breakfast table in Family Restaurant blasting away with a big, noisy, DSLR?

This man followed the big man to the baby. Again, although I had the moment framed, the camera did not focus in time to get the image. Still, the emotion does bleed through the blur and, as I am giving a demonstration of the strengths and weaknesses of pocket cameras, I use it, anyway.

I decided to leave the big DSLR's at home and shoot today's image with the pocket camera.

I am not a morning person. I seldom get to bed before 1:00 AM. Three and 4:00 AM are common bedtimes for me. Once I get to bed, I have difficulty falling asleep and after I do, my sleep usually comes poorly, in fits and bursts.

There is only one place that I want to be at 7:00 AM and that is in bed.

This morning, knowing that I had to get up early, I started to head for bed at midnight, but somehow did not manage to tuck myself under the covers until 1:30 AM.

I then thought, "do I really need to participate in this? It will make no difference to my career. My image will get lost in the thousands upon thousands of images that will surely pour in - many of them to be shot in dramatic circumstance by top-notch photojournalists working with the best equipment; others will have been carefully planned, lit, composed and staged by genuine artists in preparation for that one moment.

"Doubtless," I thought on, "there will be some who will fudge a bit - who will start shooting at, say, 6:50, keep at it until 7:10, then choose the best of a few hundred frames. Set against all this, my poor little coffee shot will just disappear into the morass; no one will take note of it at all.

"Why I should I subject myself to the pain, agony, and suffering that getting up in time to be at Family Restaurant at 7:00 AM will inflict upon me?

"Yet, isn't that what the artist does? Subject himself to pain, agony, and suffering, just to create his art? Art which, in most cases, will simply disappear unseen and unnoted by the mass of humanity, itself destined in its entirety to die out and vanish?

"So why not just sleep in?"

As I thus deliberated, Pistol-Yero, the white-booted tabby cat, crawled onto the blankets atop my chest, flattened out there and began to purr. 

I felt warm and snug. I wanted to stay that way as long as possible.

The thought struck me that, come 7:00 AM, I could just grab my camera from where I lay, take a bleary-eyed picture of Pistol-Yero and the black cat Jim, who would surely have joined us by then, close my eyes and then just drift back to sleep.

Yet, one cannot count on a cat for something like that. A cat is going to do what a cat is going to do and it does not matter what the cat did 30 days in a row prior without fail, the cat is going to do what it wants to do and if you plan in advance for it do something specific it will surely do something else.

I went to sleep fairly quickly and slept soundly until 2:30 AM. I then woke up, checked the time, fell back asleep and then stayed that way until 3:15, when I woke again. And so it went through the night until 6:15 AM. I then decided to get up and go get the picture.

I had planned to position myself at one of the booths by the windows that face the railroad tracks, so that the light that comes through those windows would fall upon my waitress. At the instant I stepped into Family, I saw a young family with a boy who looked to be about six-years old sitting together on the other side of the divider, near the bar-style counter. I suddenly knew that I had to make them the subject of my 7:00 AM shot, so I walked over, introduced myself, told them what I wanted to do and they said, "sure, join us."

So I did and I shot and I shot and it was all so beautiful and the interaction was wonderful and I knew that I was just getting the most fantastic shots. Then they finished their breakfast, got up and left the restaurant.

I looked at the clock. It was only 6:34 AM.

Oh, no! I had gotten so excited that I forgot to check the time. None of those fantastic pictures that I had just taken would qualify.

I decided to return to my original plan. I looked over at the booths by the window but was horrified to see that they were now all filled. There was no space for me to sit there. Wait... I saw a diner get up, leave his table. I arose and rushed for that booth... but just before I reached it, a serious-looking man wearing a white shirt, black slacks and black-rimmed glasses sat down there ahead of me, opened up a copy of the Anchorage Daily News and began to read.

Damnit! Rude S.O.B! Here, I had an assignment from The New York Times and I was blowing it! This man wasn't helping!

I looked back at the clock to see how much time I had. It read 6:35 - but this was the clock in my bedroom, not the one at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. I was still in bed. I had been dreaming.

I got up and drove to Family Restaurant, where, after completing my big shoot, I would see Rob, who I met last Tuesday right here at Family, and his wife, Katie, who I met just today. This is them, smiling above.

According to my iPhone, which must be right on, I took a seat at a window booth at 6:55 AM. Connie came over to fill my cup. "Wait!" I stopped her. "You can't fill it until exactly 7:00 AM!"

"Oh, this is for that special deal you were telling me about?" she said. "I thought it was supposed to be Saturday. I wondered why you didn't show up."

She promised to come back right at 7:00 and then left to do something else.

I decided that I should do a test shot to check out exposure and lighting. I let my hand play the role of the waitress.

I kept checking the minutes on my cell... 6:56... 6:57... 6:58...

Come 6:59, Connie was nowhere in sight.

I decided to give her 40 seconds. If she didn't show, I would then track her down.

Forty seconds passed. No Connie. I got up, walked a short distance to a spot where I could peer down into a little enclave alongside the kitchen where the waitresses sometimes go. There she was, talking with another waitress.

"Connie!" I said. "It's time!"

A look of panic swept over her. She scurried empty-handed into the area between the counter and the big window that opens up on the cooks, then dashed to the far end, grabbed the coffee pot and hurried to my table. She lifted the pot to pour.

"Wait!" I said. I picked up my cell phone. It still read 6:59. Two seconds later, it switched to 7:00.

"Okay," I said, "pour!"

Oh, damn! Despite my test, I could see that the shot was going to be somewhere between one and two stops underexposed and there was a strange purple cast that would be a bear to ever fully correct. The framing was not quite how I had envisioned it.

But it was 7:00 AM and the coffee was pouring...

I had to shoot...

Connie King, Waitress, Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, pouring my coffee at exactly 15:00 UTC/GMT, 7:00 AM AKDT.

It's nowhere near the best coffee pouring shot that I have ever taken, but it is the one that I took at a specific Moment in Time.

"Now, what is this for again?" Connie asked as she raised the coffee pot back up. I explained.

"I've been pouring coffee for 35 years," she mused. "I always knew it would take me somewhere."

I returned home via Church Road. Along the way, I passed this young woman. She, too, was going somewhere.

 

Saturday
May012010

Desperate to live on, winter gives us a 35 degree blast of snow and rain, but spring continues to win; Kalib gives us all a bad scare

Now that I have an iPhone and can listen to the radio on it, I had decided to pedal to Metro Cafe instead of drive. Plus, the weather has been so nice lately, I figured that maybe I could get my coffee and then sit at one of the little tables on the patio.

That way, I wouldn't burn up any gas and I would still get to travel and listen to the news.

But, when I stepped out my front door, I was greeted by a fierce mix of rain and snow, coming down hard. 

So I got into the car and headed to Metro.

I did not shoot a study there, because Carmen was busy with some folks and could not come to the window. Afterward, I drove onto Church Road and this is what it looked like.

Two days earlier, we had been pleasantly shocked by 65 degree temperatures. Now it was 35. In Barrow, this would be outrageously hot for this time of year, but for Wasilla it was on the cool side.

That 91.1 is for KSKA, where All Things Considered was playing.

Church and Spruce.

Down by the park, the same one that I featured Monday, I saw three girls, eager to cross the road. They had probably not expected this storm to hit so suddenly when they set out to walk.

Now they were getting wet - and cold, I suspect.

In some places, the snow began to accumulate.

In other places, it didn't. This is on Schrock, where the temperature was just the same and the precipitation as heavy, but there was no snow in it. Only rain.

Out of curiosity, I circled back to Church and found that it was still coming down as snow there.

Curious lady, Mother Nature.

As I drove, my iPhone rang. It was Lavina. Kalib had become worse. He had blisters in his mouth and could not eat or drink. He was drooling. He was feverish. He was miserable. Jacob was coming home and they were going to take him to the emergency room.

I headed straight home after that, and gave Margie the car so that she could go in and take care of Jobe. I had work to do and so stayed put

Around 8:00 PM or so, I broke from my work to tale a walk. I felt very nervous. I looked at the trees and I could see that buds had become prominent on the deciduous trees.

Very soon, we will see leaves.

Try as winter might to deny it, it has been defeated.

A jogger jogged past me.

I picked my way along the muddy trail.

When I reached home, I saw these two balls on the roof - undoubtedly the work of Kalib, assisted by his Uncle Caleb.

I went into the house and called Margie.

Although we would have to wait 24 hours for the tests that had been run on Kalib to be diagnosed, the news was good. He had taken medication that had removed the pain from his mouth. He was eating, he was drinking, his spirits were good and his energy renewed; he had come home.

Lavina also had blisters in her mouth when she got sick last week, but now she is fine.

I am certain Kalib will be too.

Lavina is now breast-feeding Jobe again.