Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

     Years ago Timex watches came out with various commercials showing their watches being abused in assorted situations - people skiing down a slope and falling or a guy using a jack hammer or something along that line to show how tough their watches were. The announcer would come on and say - Timex watches, they take a licking and keep on ticking. Well, Jan and I celebrated our forty third wedding anniversary recently and I'm pleased to say, we're still ticking along. I didn't say tickling, I said ticking, like a watch. I didn't include any pictures of us as we look now, the contrast is so great, that you probably wouldn't believe that it was the same two people. It's amazing what time does to a person. I wish I weighed now what I did in these pictures. I think I had a 29 inch waist then. Heck, my head probably wouldn't fit into a 29 inch stocking cap right now. I can't recall when the last time was that my hair was anything ...

   Years ago, when I was still a kid and my interest in fishing was starting to rev up, I would go to the Super X drug store at least once a month to see if the latest copy of Field and Stream or Outdoor Life  or Sports Afield had come out. I devoured them, hoping to glean some secret to catching more fish. No doubt fishing someplace other than the local mud filled streams and ponds would have been a good first step to catching more, but you have to do the best  you can with what you have. Anyway, while I was perusing the magazine isle, I always passed by the ladies section of magazines- Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal,  Fashion, stuff like that. Then, at the end of the section would be the more risque publications, Cosmopolitan and True Confessions and whatever other titles there were. These magazines were designed to titillate their readers with scandalous articles about illicit affairs or whatever other shameful or disrepu...

\   A few years ago I was working at the boat haul out getting some plank work done, when the shipwright, John Kveum, mentioned the location of an outhouse across from the haul out. It was tucked away in a little bit of an alcove under the towering rock wall of what we here in Hoonah know as the tunnel. There were rocks all around the base of the outhouse, and of course I had to do a blog post about it. The idea that people would get beaned while on the way to a porta-potty kind of tickled me. I have a strange sense of humor. Anyway, the next year, they moved the potties. Probably wisdom to do so. I spotted some fairly good rocks where it had been residing, and if one of those had hit the outhouse when you were in there, if you didn't have to crap when you got there, you'd probably have to afterwards. I guess last year there was a few more rocks falling off the face of the tunnel and there was a fear that a tourist might get hit by one and of course ...

   Jan and I grabbed up Jen and Kaylahni  and made a mad dash out to Freshwater Bay last Sunday. We wanted to take advantage of the sunshine. There has been darn little of it this year, even though the winter has been exceptionally mild. It was almost fifty degrees in the sun, so it felt great. It's hard to imagine the East coast suffering through record snow and cold, while here in Alaska, we hardly have enough snow for the Iditarod dog sled race. Simply amazing, but I'm not going to complain. The road out is all gravel and narrow with lots of blind spots and hills, to say nothing of potholes, so you can't really drive all that fast on it. I think it's about twenty seven miles to get out there, but it still takes over an hour to get there- sometimes longer depending on the condition of the road. When we got there, Jen wanted to build the fire. She had been out to Long Island the day before and had built a towering inferno, so I guess ...

  For those few folks who follow this blog, as you know, I've not been very busy posting here lately. Sorry about that. I can't really explain it, I just haven't felt like writing. I don't know if it's depression setting in or what, but I just haven't had the energy or the desire. Hopefully that will be a passing phase. I was kind of keeping up on one blog periodically,but last time I checked it, it simply said, So Long. I guess the fellow who was writing it just didn't want to do it any more. It does take some effort. In any event, if I should ever decide to give up this blog, I'll try to give the readers a little notice so it won't be like going cold turkey, like when you're giving up smoking or something.   Today I wanted to write about a piece of clothing that has been around for a number of years; what is commonly known in America as sweatpants. In England, New Zealand, and South Africa they're known as track botto...

   In my bedroom I have a picture that I've had for a number of years, ever since my days when I was was managing L. Kane Store. I first ran across it on the cover of a Guidepost magazine. I can't remember the title. The  caption says, in case you can't read it- Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. I love this picture and the scripture that goes with it. My problem is that I've become used to seeing it there hanging on the wall every day. I don't pay much attention to it or the scripture anymore, which is of course, not a good thing. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a tendency to see the negative in almost any situation. I complain a lot. I'm very much a pessimist. I wish I wasn't. It's not a fun way to be. I can take a perfectly good day that someone else may be having and turn it into an unpleasant experience. By the time they get done talking to me they're going to wish they'd stayed in bed. I've...

  For most of the month of January we had rain. In my almost thirty eight years here, I've never experienced such a winter as this. Frankly, I was delighted that it was rain instead of snow, but honestly, waking up every day to the sound of pounding rain and the gloomy skies overhead was getting pretty consarned depressing. Yesterday the day dawned bright and sunny, and although much cooler than it had been, it was a welcome reprieve. After church I had almost no choice but to go on a walk out to the cannery. I took Jen and the dog with me. Usually Rigby likes to walk into the woods and sniff all the different smells. Jennifer on the other hand, never stops to smell the tracks on the ground. I'm kind of glad.Yesterday though, he was reluctant to get too far into the walk. He took a dump early on and, feeling that he had done his duty, started turning around trying to get back to the truck. We kept pulling him against his will to keep going forward. He...