Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 Have you ever watched a little kid when they first get the training wheels taken off their bikes? They keep looking behind to make sure that the parent is still hanging on to the bike; they don't want to fall. When they're finally on their own, there is usually a bit of time where the front wheels wobble as they try to maintain control. I'm not sure what happened  here in these pictures. I can't imagine anything like this happening in Juneau or Anchorage, but I can understand it happening in Hoonah. I mean, after all, that's where I live, and a good bit of my life is made up of the never before seen or experienced. Far be it from me to criticize the operator of the line painting machine. Lord knows that I could never paint a straight line, even if I had a thousand yard straight edge, somehow I'd manage to veer off the mark and end up with something that looks like this. Really though, what are the odds that the state of Alaska would hire someone like ...

Flasher and Hoochies Flashers and hoochies on the job   For my birthday or perhaps Fathers Day, or perhaps both, I don't know, my daughter Jen and her family blessed me with a flasher and some hoochies from Cabelas, the giant outdoors outfitters. You would think that being in the fishing business as they are, they would be well familiar with all of the jargon that fishermen have for assorted fishing gear. However, that isn't the case. Jen went in and asked the salesman where she could find the hoochies. I guess he must have thought she should have been shopping in a sex shop or something from the look he gave her. She had to explain what they were used for and that they mimicked an octopus. I think they call them skirts or some such thing. Anyway, I'm the proud owner of a glow in the dark flasher and two new packs of hoochies that I love. I tried out the flasher on one line, but even though that line was catching fish when I used the conventional gear, when ...