Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 I was coming in from fishing a few days ago and was a little surprised to see this rainbow. For the past week or so we've had a lot  of sunshine. It seems like it's been much longer than that though. I've mentioned before that when the sun comes out here in the summer, it can get brutally hot. Today the electronic sign at the school stated that it was eighty one degrees. Frankly, it felt even hotter. I'm looking at the clouds in this picture and wishing I could seed them and spark a thunder storm, or at the very least an all night cloud burst. I like the sunshine as much as anyone else. When you wake up in the morning and its sunny out, it makes a person feel pretty good. The bad feelings don't start until about ten in the morning when it becomes blatantly apparent that it's going to get blazing hot. I believe sweltering is a good word. When I lived in Charleston South Carolina, I expected it to get hot and muggy, but good Lord, this is Alaska for crying o...

 Tonight I'm going to write one of the saddest posts that I've ever done. Today around noon, our beloved dog Rigby passed on.  These pictures were taken just over a month ago, but when he passed today, he was just a fraction of the size that he was when these were taken. Over the past month he had steadily been losing weight. His ribs were starting to show and the skin on his belly was hanging. He's always loved to eat, and I indulged him. The kids were constantly telling me he was spoiled, but I don't care. My feelings were that if you were going to have a pet, and especially a dog, he was going to be getting the royal treatment. I've been thinking back over his life, from the time that our daughter Autumn first brought him down from Wasilla in a small carrying case that fit under the airplane seat. He was as cute as a button. For the first week or so he slept in that case in the laundry room and would cry at night. Eventually we purchased a small bed fo...

Today, as many of you know, is the 75th anniversary of D- Day, the day that the allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy. It was a decisive day in the war against Germany and was the beginning of the liberation of France and the rest of Europe and led ultimately to the defeat of the Nazis. When I was a kid, I just assumed that all of the men who were in the army were like super heroes, strong, brave, unafraid. I didn't realize that the majority of the men who stormed the beaches were young; many just out of high school, eighteen, nineteen, twenty year old men who hadn't even gotten a good start on life yet. They were like young men everywhere with dreams and aspirations, perhaps with wives or girlfriends. I'm sure they had plans for a future that didn't include storming a beach in a foreign country with the noise and the smoke and the terror all around, watching their friends and fellow soldiers bleeding and crying out and dying on those blood soaked beaches...

 A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I got a call from my friend Doug Courtney. I've known Doug since he was just about eight years old down in sunny Charleston South Carolina. I moved next door to his family in 1974. I took him out fishing with me a time or two at the Naval Weapons Station ponds back then. When his family moved to Hoonah a year or two later, I followed suit. We fished in my fourteen foot Highlaker and hunted for ducks out on the flats at Game Creek. I caught a thirty nine pound red king salmon one afternoon off the blinker at the cannery when Doug was with me in the boat. It was one of the most thrilling times I've ever  had in my life. Anyway, as I mentioned, Doug gave me a call and mentioned he was sending me a package. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what it could be. When the airline called and said it had arrived I went out and picked up what turned out to be the picture at the top. I was blown away. For those who don't know thei...