Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

The Little Susitna River coming down from the Hatcher Pass area Looking down on the Mat-Su Valley                                                       We're right up in the mountains Ben  on the mountaintop at sunset               Trying to catch one of the slippery little jerks that kept biting but not getting hooked                                                                Success at last!! Summit Lake in September My granddaughter Abby with her two Japanese friends. Not sure why they closed their eyes               Two foreign exchange students trying their hand at fishing.            ...

It's hard to believe, but for over fifty years Jan and I have known Bud and Helen Burnette and their family. These pictures won't mean much to those who don't know them, but for family members and friends who have known these people, they will give a small glimpse into their lives. We met Bud and Helen back when I was in the navy in Charleston. Bud had been a navy seal and spent time in Vietnam, and when we met up with them through the church, he was still in the navy working as an ET, an electronic technician. They were the guys that fixed all the radios, radars and other electronic devices on the ships, and they kept pretty busy. We moved to the farm in June of 1976. I'm not sure when they moved to Juneau, but they were living there by the time our third daughter Amber was born in 78. Amber was the first of five of our kids who were born in Juneau, at the Bartlett Memorial Hospital. Because Hoonah was forty miles away from the closest hospital, and there was no set de...

  After I took a shower today, I got a pair of jeans out of the closet. As I was putting them on, I realized that  jeans aren't the same as they used to be. For one thing, they're consarned expensive. I don't think they last as long as they used to either, but that's a story for another day.   I looked inside the waistband before I donned them and noticed that they were Extreme Motion jeans by Lee. What that basically means is that they've made them a little stretchy at the top, so that, I guess, if you eat too much, you don't get too uncomfortable and feel like you've got to unbutton your pants. Personally I've never done that, even after a Thanksgiving meal, but I believe some fellows do. I'm not sure how far they will expand. I suppose I really don't want to test the limits though.    I do enjoy having a little stretch to the waistband. I've lost a few pounds that I never should have found to begin with, but its good to know that if they c...

  I haven't had too much to write about lately. I guess my life is more boring than usual or something. Part of the problem of getting older. Who wants to read about how many times I was up during the night to take a leak or what new pain cropped up while I was attempting to sleep? There isn't a lot to take pictures of around here, so I thought I'd look through some of the thousands of pictures from back when my life was a little more eventful. I came across this one from our trip down to the Grand Canyon. We had crossed a huge bridge that spanned the Colorado River and on the other side, a group of Navajo women were selling their wares- necklaces, bracelets, Christmas ornaments, arrows, and Lord knows what all else. It was interesting, and I ended up buying Jan an ornament. When we travel, we like to buy something that helps us to remember where we had been. Ornaments are nice, because we're sure we'll at least see them once a year. I asked one of the ladies if I c...

  I'd like to say a few words about pillows. I would venture to say that the vast majority of us use one every night. With that in mind, I would like to ask, do you like your pillow? Does it provide you with the comfort you expect, and can you get a good night's sleep with it?    The reason I'm asking is I haven't had a good pillow in years. Every night I have a battle with mine. Oh, it starts the night out pretty much OK. I use two pillows to prop up in bed for reading, but then remove the one and sleep on the primary pillow. Frankly, it's a little bit too fat and it elevates my head more than I like. Sometimes in the morning I awaken with a sore neck  or a headache. It still beats the Puffy pillow that came with my Puffy mattress. Puffy. What the hell kind of a name is Puffy for a mattress? Its not really puffy or fluffy-wuffy. Its kind of stiff and stuffy. Anyway, I'm writing about pillows, not mattresses.   In any event, I wake up several times during the ni...

  I'm not sure at what age we begin to make choices in our lives. I suppose it starts at an early age. You go to the barber shop, and if you sit still and don't fidget too much, the barber might give you a choice between a green sucker or a red one. I like the color green, so it wasn't too hard to choose. Somewhere around the age of eleven or twelve, I got a paper route. On Friday nights I would collect for the papers I'd delivered. Unfortunately for me, there was a drug store down the street from where I delivered. They had a soda fountain, as well as a pinball machine, and they carried the latest copies of comic books every month. I used to spend an uncommon amount of money at that drug store and when I got home several hours later, I'd lie through my teeth when mom asked how much money I collected. Needless to say, my dental hygiene suffered from the vast amounts of junk food I consumed. I'm a little surprised that I didn't end up with juvenile diabetes o...