Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

There are few places that one can go where the words Corona Virus or Covid 19 aren't heard now. It's a plague that has come upon the whole world. Turn on the TV and every news cast is filled from beginning to end with tales of sickness and death and fear. That's what newscasts do. They don't describe the everyday miracles that we enjoy. You don't hear about how many babies were born healthy this week, or that the sun came up again, just like it has since the beginning of time. Air is still free. Granted, air in some places is better quality than in other places.I'd much rather breath the air here in Hoonah Alaska than in Beijing China, but there still isn't any charge for it no matter where you live. There are still trees and flowers and deserts and beaches and everything in between. However, things aren't the way they were designed to be. Earth wasn't made polluted, with dirty air and streams. We made it that way by some of our practices. I'...

Like most of the rest of the world, I've been watching this whole drama of the Coronavirus unfold. I don't know why it is that we've lived through the Ebola virus, the H1 N1 virus, the SARS virus without all the panic, but now the whole world is going spastic over this. I'm not saying that it isn't serious, but as of a few minutes ago, there had only been 72 deaths attributed to it in the United States. I can only assume that most of those deaths were of folks whose immune systems were already compromised. What worries me more than the virus, is the fear surrounding the virus. Fear makes it hard to make a good decision. A case in point is the rush to purchase mass quantities of toilet paper. Really? You're afraid that you won't have any toilet paper if the virus persists? Not only are folks buying toilet paper, but napkins and paper towels are flying off the shelf. A word of caution. DON'T use napkins or paper towels in your flush toilet. For that ma...

 I went to the city office this past Monday and someone told me about a huge rock that had fallen into the road down by the tunnel. I guess rock isn't the correct word, boulder would be more accurate I suppose. In any event I'm glad that there weren't any people or cars running by when it decided to go tumbling. That might have made for a messy situation. It's kind of ironic that the mountain that this boulder came from was the subject of much debate a few years ago. The powers that be, both the local native organization and the mayor and city council somehow came to the conclusion that it was too dangerous for tourists to be walking by the tunnel. They feared that a rock might fall down and hurt someone. Of course that was never a concern for the local people  here. It wasn't until tourists started showing that there was any thought for anyone's safety. In any event, obscene amounts of money were spent blowing tons of rock off the side of the mountai...