Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

     I was going to do this post back in May, but it got put aside when we had the car accident. Then, because I often have to do things when I'm thinking about them, I did a post about giving blood and receiving a box of delicious thin mint cookies. Not just any old thin mints, these were Girl Scout Thin Mints. I think they should sell them year round, but I guess they would loose their novelty if they did. In any event, I'm now getting around to writing about our oldest daughter, Jen's visit at the end of May. It was such a pleasant trip, and to add to our pleasure she brought us some halibut from Hoonah, part of which she bought, and part was given to her by some friends in Hoonah, Julie Jackson and Denise Grey. A huge shout out of thanks to the two of them for their extreme generosity. We've enjoyed several meals so far, and to say the least, it has been delightful, a real blessing to have. Jen likes to be on the go, so I went with Autumn and her to the Eklutna Tail...

  I dropped in on the Wasilla Blood Bank a few weeks ago to make a donation. I think I'm allowed to give blood about every eight weeks, maybe its six weeks, I can't recall. They gave me a card with my blood pressure, temperature and pulse, and a date when I can donate again. I think it's August 6th, but I'll have to check. Anyway, when I went in, behind the counter there were three stacks of girl scout cookies. What the heck? Are they trying to sell cookies at the blood bank? It seems like they'd have more luck if they tried across the street at the WalMart parking lot. I looked at what they have and was disappointed to see that of all the many cases of cookies, there were no thin mints. I mentioned it to the young gal, Kaylee, who is now managing the place, and she pointed across the room to four or five more stacks of delightful, however, most likely unhealthy treats. There was a stack of my beloved Thin Mints.  I merely needed to depart with a pint of my blood to...

  Well, as you can see, the current Bottsmobile is out of commission. Jan and I as well as our friends and guests Bob and Judy Clark were on our way to a memorial service for our fellow Game Creeker and friend Rocky Hughes yesterday in Wasilla when we had an unexpected situation happen.  When word got out that Rocky had passed away, Bob contacted me and asked if we could pick them up at the airport in Anchorage on Saturday morning and if they could possibly spend the night with us. We said yes to both requests. At one point Bob had mentioned that if it wasn't convenient they might be able to find other lodging or an alternate way to get from the airport to Wasilla. I would imagine he might wish he had opted for door number two. As it is, we had a delightful time renewing our friendship and talking about a multitude of subjects. We visited Autumn at her house before we came home and even dropped off at the Eklutna Tailrace to see the beautiful glacier water that flows there and...

  When we lived in Hoonah, we knew just about everybody in town. Most folks came to the store where I worked at least once a week. Some folks came several times a week and some came in every day. I guess they wanted to plan dinner based on what we had on the shelves at the time. In any event, in a small town of 850 people, it was hard not to know everyone. My good friends across the street informed me the other night that the neighbor who we had known as Dwight, was in reality Glenn, with two n's. I was only repeating what Jan had told me a few years ago. She had gone and introduced herself to Dwight/Glenn and his wife Maxine. They are about our age, elderly, apparently childless, and pretty much keep to themselves, which is kind of hard to do when you live in a cul-de-sac of 9 homes. How in the world she managed to mangle his name is anyone's guess. Dwight doesn't sound anything like Glenn with two N's. His wife was talking to my friends and mentioned that it was spell...

   The other day I was on my way down to the den when my wife stopped me. She was in the laundry room holding one of my old flannel shirts. Apparently she had just washed and dried it, and was getting ready to put it into the laundry basket to bring upstairs when she had a change of heart.   "Do you want this shirt?" she asked. "Its old and the collar is frayed and there's a rip in it."    I looked at the offending item for a few seconds, and decided it wasn't worth getting in to an argument about, although it was the only blue flannel plaid I had.  She didn't mention all the white paint I had somehow gotten on it, which would have boostered her complaint. I let her toss it in the waste basket and went in to the den. On my way out I glanced at the shirt again and decided to give it a closer exam. I didn't see any rip in it. Granted, the collar was frayed all the way around, and it didn't look nice, but I wasn't planning on wearing it to churc...

  I vividly recall walking in to one of the bedrooms in our house back in Ohio. It was an older home, and at the time the registers to transfer heat upstairs were on either side of the walls opposite each other, one in each bedroom. There were metal vents that could be opened or closed so that you could heat one room, but not the other, if you so desired.   I must have been around two or three years old, and for some reason I had awakened early, before my folks were up. I knew that there was a Santa Claus doll filled with sand in the bottom drawer of a dresser in the room I came in to. I had been told in the past not to play with it because the doll had a small hole in it, and the sand would leak out.   When you're a little kid, Santa is like a hero. He's never crabby, doesn't make you eat broccoli, and even if you're sometimes bad, he seems to have forgotten all that by the time Christmas rolls around, because he's brought you a bunch of toys. He never gives you so...