Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 For a number of years now, I can't really say how many because they tend to all run together, my daughter Jennifer has been hosting family and friends at her house on Christmas Eve for shoe box dinners. Jen is an elementary teacher and all elementary teachers worth their weight in salt have all manner of fun projects up their sleeves to make learning interesting to their students. I'm not sure where she learned about the shoe box dinners, but it's one of my favorite traditions during the holidays. She wraps shoe boxes with colorful Christmas paper, including the lids, and fills each one with some chips, a soda, a couple of mandarin oranges, some candy and a small gift for each person who is attending. While the gifts may be small, they aren't inexpensive, especially when she is getting something for a number of different people. This year I had several packs of hoochies in my shoe box. Our friend Mark received a flashlight, complete with a laser pointer. I...

The other day my wife, Jan decided we needed a new toilet seat. I'm not sure why. The old one worked just fine, no splinters or anything, but nonetheless, she didn't like it, so we're now sporting a new one. With my arthritic back and knees, I was thinking that if it hasn't already been invented, a hydraulic toilet seat would really be nice. When you were done with your business, as soon as you flushed, the hydraulic rams would automatically kick in and lift your behind right off the potty. No doubt it's the next billion dollar idea.   I spent ten years at a farm here in Alaska where there were no indoor toilets. We all had some manner of honey bucket in our homes for use during the night. As I've mentioned before, I never really had to avail myself of those once we built our house out in the woods. My closest human neighbor was over a block away, and the squirrels, deer, martens, bears and other woodland creatures never lodged a complaint...