Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  The P P mentioned in the above title refers to ping-pong, not the commonly used term for urination,as when addressing a child or dog and asking-"do you have to go Pee Pee?" To the best of my knowledge, there is no tournament for that. However, when I was a young lad, I do remember a few unofficial contests to see who could project a stream the farthest or perhaps have the most success writing their name in the snow. With a name like Tom or Ben, it was fairly easy to win the contest. If you had a long name like Alexander or Horatio, chances are you wouldn't win. Of course due to anatomical make up, girls were unable to compete, so they weren't even considered for the contest. No doubt the modern day feminist would take issue with such a sexist contest. Take it up with God ladies.Yesterday my daughter Jen came to the house and announced that there was going to be a ping pong tournament at the youth center in the evening. Back when I was a y...

  Thunderation! Christmas is rapidly approaching and I still haven't wrapped present number one. I'm still waiting for a few things to come from Amazon and a present for Jan that I had my daughter pick up in Anchorage. There's a lot more variety in the stores there than what I could find at Hoonah Trading.  I just hope the gifts get here in a timely manner.I don't know what's going on with the mail service. In the past six weeks I've had two packages disappear once they arrived at Federal Way Washington. The packages have to be around somewhere, they didn't just evaporate, although I do wish they could translate like the guys on Star Trek. Can you imagine how drastically that would change every aspect of the transportation industry? Food for thought. Speaking of food,  a couple of weeks ago I had my first experience making fudge.   One of my sons-in-law is overseas for the holidays and had expressed a desire for fudge. Since I have...

   For those of us who live in Alaska, hunting is a major part of our lives. It's not just the sport of bagging an animal; for many of us, how well we make it through the winter depends on the success of the hunt. Meat is expensive no matter where you live, but here in the bush, it's especially costly. For a lot of folks, there just aren't jobs available and so being able to shoot or catch what you eat is a necessity. Where we live, on Chichagof Island, there is a large deer population. Seven or eight years ago when we had twenty three feet of snow, many of the deer were wiped out, and for a few years the bag limit was cut back, as it should have been. It would have been disastrous if hunting had continued as it had been prior to the big snow. For the past three or four years though, the winters have been uncommonly mild, and the deer have rebounded and are abundant. For years I took my sons out hunting with me. Like many others here, we counted ...

  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe that it's that time of year again. I can attest to the fact that the older I get, the faster the time seems to fly. Last Sunday I was watching Dr. Charles Stanley on TV. He's a preacher who has a program on every Sunday on TBN. I really like what he has to say. Because Thanksgiving was just around the corner, he spoke about gratitude, and how Thanksgiving has become more of holiday revolving around food, football and shopping, and much less about acknowledging God and his goodness to us. When I went to church later, our pastor also spoke about gratitude and giving thanks, and being thankful even for those people or circumstances that don't seem be what we would consider good things in our lives. Many years ago, when I left the farm where we had lived for ten long years, I had mentioned to one of my friends, who happened to be an elder, that I hoped to be able to go halibut fishing with him again, even though I wasn...

   Wooo Hoooo! One of my favorite musical artists has just released her latest album today. Of course I'm talking about Enya and her album, Dark Sky Island. I was able to pre-order one song about two weeks ago from I-tunes, and there was a teaser video put out by the Enya web site that you could get on to both view and listen to the songs available. I've already ordered five of them, and depending on what happens, I may order more.Something that just came out today as part of the promo package is a video of Enya singing Echoes in Rain from this album. She's accompanied by an all female orchestra, and it's quite pleasant to view. Prior to the introduction of the I Pod, if a person wanted to hear a particular artist, they had to order the whole album and listen to songs they may or may not enjoy in order to hear the ones that they really care for. Back when I was growing up, individual songs were available in vinyl records the played at 45 RPM's. Entire albums ...

   Recently we received a package in the mail from a friend of Jan's who still lives back in our hometown. She had attended the class reunion for Marion Harding High School. It's been forty five years since we graduated; hard to imagine. Where does the time go? I've never had any inclination to attend. For one thing the reunion always takes place during the height of fishing season. Even if there wasn't a financial component involved, I would much rather fish than fly back to Ohio to meet with a bunch of people who for the most part I don't remember. While high school was much more enjoyable for me than any of the previous grades that I  had attended, largely because we had more freedom, I can't say it was especially fun. I'll admit, it's where I met Jan. First day of Art class. I was smitten right from the start, but other than that, I don't remember having much fun. Of course like any endeavor, the more you put in the more yo...

 I was down at Hoonah Trading shopping the other day. I'm usually there at least daily, sometimes multiple times per day. They have the only hardware store in town as well as groceries and fuel, plus Jan works there, and I often drop in when I'm picking her up for lunch.  I frequently end up buying something and of course automatically get a receipt, which I usually just put in my pocket.  It's not all that uncommon for me to have six or eight of the blasted things cluttering up  my pockets or the seat of the truck. Often they're scattered around the house, on the kitchen counter or the dining room table. When I received my mandatory receipt the other day, I happened to mention, wouldn't it be great if they made the receipts out of toilet paper? Then you would have something useful. If you went out hunting and the call of nature struck while  you were in the woods, you just reach right into your pocket and pull out a handful of receipts and you're good to g...

    It was with a sense of sadness that I departed Vermont and my long time friend Buffalo Bob. It had been thirteen years since we had last spoken face to face. I doubt that we can allow another thirteen years to pass if we are to be together again on this earth. Not that he couldn't be around. That would put him at ninety and me at seventy six. He's in surprisingly good shape for a man his age, still chopping firewood and mowing his two acres of land. He's got a fairly stress free life so chances are he could outlive me. In any event, I hope that sometime in the next few years the opportunity will arise again for a visit. He's made it plain that it would fall on me to do the traveling, but a road trip sounds good to me, so maybe it will happen again soon. Though I was sorry to be leaving Buffalo, I was quite excited to see my good friend Renee again. The first time I saw her she was sitting in front of me in church. I coul...

Welcome Center in Vermont Buffalo Bob Holden The grave markers of Buffalo's Great Grandparents The Holden Homestead One of the lovely old homes in small town Vermont Inside the Country Girl diner A popular cooling off  spot for the youth   When Jan and I first came to Alaska, some 39 years ago, we had to take a ferry from Prince Rupert, British Columbia to Juneau, and another ferry to Hoonah. There are no roads to Hoonah, it's on an island. The few roads in town were basically mud, with a smattering of gravel and had craters in them that could float a boat. After traveling across the country  from South Carolina, there was really no place left to drive. In order to get to the farm where we would reside for ten years, we had to take a boat. The only road there was from the tabernacle to the fields, a rocky ox cart pat...

 I  invited my daughter Jen over for dinner last night. She and her daughter came. It was a delightful meal  I must admit. I made Halibut Olympia and English pea salad. We also had some pickled beets and green jello with pears. Lovely. Afterwards she wanted to either go on a walk or a drive. I opted for the drive since my legs were sore from climbing up and down the ladder yesterday slapping some paint on the house. For whatever reason, Jen loves car air fresheners. I don't know why. There have been plenty of times when I wish I'd had one for my car, like after I've hauled bait in the front seat or packed a load of neoprene gloves that I use to clean fish. Inevitably they get holes in them and of course the blood and slime gets inside and it doesn't take long for them to exude a stench that can take your breath away, or perhaps you just wish it would. Anyway, we went for a drive in her car last night, and upon entering I noticed an overpowering smell. Initially ...

 This past Monday was Labor Day- a day of celebrating the folks whose hard work has made America what it is. It's kind of the unofficial end of summer I guess, although by the look and feel of the weather here in Southeast Alaska, summer started giving way to fall during the first week of August. That's when the cottonwood and alder trees started to turn from green to gold. My daughter Liz and her husband and youngest child rented a cabin from the Forest Service out at False Bay during the Labor Day weekend, along with Jen and Kaylahni. They invited us out for dinner, so of course we had to go. When the chance to eat your kid's food comes up by all means take advantage of it. It's payback time. Of course there was hot dogs and chips and soda, but there was also shisk- ka -bobs on the grill, which was an added treat. I noticed that Jen was sitting on a makeshift bench, and the smoke from the wood fire kept drifting right towards her. I...

  I've been trying unsuccessfully to access the internet for the past few weeks. I'm not really sure what's going on. At best it's been sporadic, so doing a post has been very difficult. However, for the immediate time being, I do have the internet, so I'm going to attempt to post something.  Several weeks ago, during a rather extended hot spell that we were going through, I had the wonderful idea of enjoying a delicious rootbeer float, and believe me, enjoy it I did. This particular rootbeer is a delightful brand sold at the local market, Henry Wienhard's. It's some of the best I've ever tasted. When I was a kid Barq's root beer was the local favorite. I don't know if they still make it or not. Hire's root beer was always good, and of course one of the highlights growing up was a trip to the root beer stand on a hot summer night for a frosty mug. Oh my! I did a little research on the origin of root beer. Apparently some semblance of it h...

  Way back in 1990, I had the genius idea that if I had a bigger boat, I would catch more fish, which for any fisherman, is the ultimate goal. I still had a bunch of kids at home at the time, and could only afford a wooden boat, which I knew would be a lot of work. However, the Bonnie J had a fairly new Isuzu diesel engine in it, and the boat looked sound enough, and the price was right, so I procured a loan and low and behold, I was the owner of a wooden troller. Twenty five years later, I hate to think of the money I've poured into the old gal. Just recently I was hauled out of the water for four months getting some planks replaced on the port side. Lord knows how much that's going to cost. I haven't gotten the bill for the labor yet, and I'm kind of afraid to see it. By the time I finally launched the boat (for the second time) the king salmon season was over. Cohos hadn't really started in yet, and the only thing biting was humpies,...

 It's sunny and windy today, two weather events that I don't care for very much when I'm out trying to fish. They actually go hand in hand. Most sunny days around here are accompanied by the wind. It makes for a miserable day out on the water. On the one hand, if there wasn't any wind, the heat would be almost unbearable. On the other, the wind makes it so difficult to control the boat,and it almost always gets lumpy and very uncomfortable. Sooooo, I took care of some projects on the boat and I'm working on getting some stuff done around the house so that maybe tomorrow I can go out and catch a fish or two. What you see in the pictures above are almost all Pink salmon, or Humpbacks, or as they are so affectionately known by the fishermen, Humpies. They are the smallest of the salmon, averaging around three and a half pounds more or less. This year the processors are only paying a quarter a pound for them, so a lot of them aren't eve...

  It runs in my mind that there is an old western song that talks about being back in the saddle again. I'm not sure, but  I assume it's because whoever was singing it was away from their  horse for awhile and had finally returned. I can really relate. Back on March 29th, when I hauled out the boat for some plank work, I had no idea that I wouldn't be returning the Bonnie J back to her assigned stall for almost four months. It's been years since I've missed this much time during the fishing season. I've been chomping at the bit to get out for quite some time. Unfortunately I missed the king salmon season and though historically there is a little mop up for the remaining quota in August, this year there will be no mop up. Part of it is politics and part science I guess. I won't be able to catch another king this year until the winter season starts on October 11. I may be down south then, so chances are I won't catch any kings this y...

    There are certain things in life that are indicators that perhaps you've entered the "golden years". One is when you have a cupboard specifically designated for holding all of your medicines. I'm not talking about the medicine cabinet in the bathroom where the tweezers, band-aids and Neosporin are located. I'm talking about all the pills you need just to keep life at some semblance of normal. Things like blood pressure meds, prostate pills, thyroid medicine, calcium supplements, Vitamin D tablets and assorted and sundry other things. The container  that separates all of my pills into daily doses is so full that I can hardly close the lid anymore. Between my wife and I, we could probably open a pharmacy. We have pills, ointments and creams for everything from hemorrhoids to shingles; high blood pressure to Padget's disease. Holy cats! When we order our medicine from Juneau it comes in a bag the size of a small suitcase. One of...