Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  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...

            I suppose the title probably doesn't line up with the picture when one thinks of peep shows. I did a little research and found out that peep shows have actually been around since sometime in the 1500's. The first known version was traced back to Europe to one Leon Battista Alberti. I think they started innocently enough.  Apparently, a vendor would wonder around the country with a box on their back. Inside the box would be drawings of far off places or miniature figurines, or theatrical scenes or other things of interest. A candle would be lit and for a small fee the customer could look inside the box through a hole. They used to be called Rarees short for rarity shows. In the 1890's, machines were created that projected slides of naked ladies. Go figure They eventually were given the name Peep Shows after a tailor, who allegedly cut a hole in the shutters in order to get a glimpse of Lady Godiva as she came riding by naked on her horse. Wh...

  I came down to the office the other day and opened up my email. I scanned through the usual stuff, most of which was of no interest to me whatsoever. Then I saw I had an email from ED Trick. That's a weird name. Who the hell is ED Trick, and what does he want? I don't know anyone named Ed. The last guy named Ed that I knew was a family friend who died years ago. It finally dawned on me that this was an advertisement for E D- not education- Erectile Dysfunction. What the heck? Why are they sending me this message? I've never asked about it. Frankly, I don't need it, and if I did, I wouldn't be inquiring about it on the internet. I guess because I'm old now, they naturally assume that I'm still interested in sex, which I have to admit I am, and that I need some help, which I don't. Aside from that, whose business is it anyway? I think its weird that nothing is off limits now, even on TV. If you fart a blue streak, there is a pill for that, and a commerci...