The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

  A number of years ago, when Clint Eastwood was still a fairly young man, he starred in a few spaghetti westerns, one of which was titled, The good, the bad and the ugly. I'm sitting in my home today listening to the wind howl, and the rain beat against the roof, and realize that I'm experiencing the bad part of living here. As you can see from the pictures, we're still dealing with the after affects of the last major snow storm. This past week it actually warmed up fairly well and with the rain the snow is starting to melt  a little quicker, so I guess in that respect the rain is good. However, it's gloomy and cloudy out, and that seems kind of bad. I almost wrote cluddy instead of cloudy. I think cluddy would pretty well describe the scene outside my windows. Kind of muddy, cruddy, rainy and cloudy all rolled into one. In other words, depressing. When we first moved into Hoonah, it was kind of a step up from where we had been living on the farm. The houses all had electricity (most of the time) there was indoor plumbing and warm toilet seats, there were three stores in town, and several restaurants, and telephone service. All the modern conveniences that a person could want. At the time I wasn't too concerned about issues like planning and zoning and whether or not my neighbors threw their washing machine out in the front yard if it quit working.  I just needed a warm, safe, dry place for my family. Now thirty years have passed. There have been some considerable changes to the town since we've first moved in. Some years back the state paved the streets, a big plus.That was good. We've gotten a modern ferry terminal and a new health clinic, both of which we needed. That was also good.  I would have hoped that some of the modernization would have rubbed off on some of the citizens and they would take a little more pride in how they live, but many haven't, which seems bad. It looks like tourism is here to stay, which could be good, bad or ugly, depending on how you view the impact that it has. There are a number of tourists who leave the cannery area and go walking around the town. I think many are struck by the contrast between the beauty of the bay and the  state of some of the homes here. For many residents, having a nice yard or a fresh coat of paint on your house isn't a priority.  In their defense, I have to say that I can only think of one or two homes here that have garages, so all the junk that everyone  stores in their garages down south gets left in the yard here. I guess you could suggest that maybe we should purchase less stuff, but hey, this is America, shopping is what we do. Out (in the yard) with the old, in with the new. Last year the city manager and the police chief identified somewhere between five and ten homes that were considered abandoned and were condemned. The green house next door is one of them. Again, that could be both good and bad. I've been living beside an empty house whose roof has been steadily blowing off with each windstorm for the past ten years. That's ugly.  I've been keeping the lawn mowed so it wouldn't detract from my home. On the one hand it will be nice to see it go.That's good. On the other, I fear that an empty lot will be an invitation for the neighborhood dogs to use it as a fresh toilet. That's bad. If I could, I'd purchase the empty lot and put up a privacy fence and build a garage so I could park my truck and store my excess junk, however, I don't think that's going to happen, so I have to hope for the best. Well, I guess I'm having a kind of cluddy day. I hope wherever you are the sun is shining, the neighbors are respectful and your garage has room for the car.