Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 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...