Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

Lots of people collect things- coins, books, stamps, you name it. My daughter Camille likes to collect nail polish apparently. Last time I saw her she had enough to treat the toenails of every circus elephant in the world and still have some left.I used to collect comic books when I was young. Back then they only cost a very reasonable twelve cents each. A fellow I knew in grade school used to receive three cents a week for allowance. At the end of the month he had enough to go buy a comic book.How pathetic. His first name was Hampton and he seemed kind of like a three cent a week fellow. He's probably worth millions now. Anyway, displayed in the above picture is a varied assortment of lip balms. They belong to my daughter Jen. I'm not sure if they qualify as an actual collection, because she uses them all. In fact I think she's addicted to lip balm. She let me keep her stash overnight and the next morning she was getting kind of panicky because she claimed her li...

    Here in Hoonah we recently had a new postmaster assigned to us. Frankly, I didn't see why we needed one. Joyce Skafelstad, a gal who had previously been the magistrate for a number of years here, was filling in and she was doing a spectacular job. However, for reasons I can't comprehend, the powers that be felt that we needed an official postmaster, so we got one. Fortunately, the person they chose was a perfect fit for Hoonah. His name is Mark Smith and he has proven himself to be very well suited for the job and the community. In a relatively short time, he's gotten to know everyone and his been involved in a number of extra- curricular activities around town. He's joined the bird watching group that meets on Saturday, a Tuesday night jazz band, a group that gets together to play canasta at one of the local homes and at least one night a week he's busy carving a Tlingit paddle up at the Hoonah Indian Association building. Apparently ...