Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  As often happens in Alaska, when the skies get clear, winds start to blow. This past Friday night, the wind started blowing harder than normal. The weather channel had mentioned winds in the thirty five to forty five knot range, with possible gusts to eighty. It seemed like they were being a bit extreme, but I know from experience that such hurricane force winds are certainly possible, especially in the winter. As the wind roared outside my window all Friday night, I could hear the glass flexing and branches hitting the side of the house, as well as the trees trying to resist the force of the wind, bending and snapping back in an endless game of stretching to their limits. I spent a restless night, waking frequently, expecting at any moment to see the night light in the master bathroom dark, and the appliances in the house completely still. About six-thirty in the morning on Saturday, Jan said that we'd lost power. I was already awake in anticipation of such an event. I dressed a...

My wife, Jan, loves candles. We have a whole drawer in the kitchen devoted to them- and not a small drawer either. It used to be that you only brought out the candles for special occasions like Thanksgiving or Christmas.They were white or maybe  red or green; holiday colors.  Sometimes during thunder storms back in Ohio they made an appearance if a tree blew a line down somewhere. Everyone had a few candles on hand for emergencies. Last week the power went out in town, and the whole city was thrust into darkness. It's kind of eerie- no street lamps or anything. On the one hand it's kind of neat if the stars are out- you can really see them unimpeded by the town lights. On the other hand, it just so happened that it was Thursday evening, the only night that I really care to watch TV. My two favorite shows were on, both of which I missed. The power was out for over four hours and since we don't  have an alternate source of heat, aside from Rigby the dog, it got a littl...