What Takes Twenty-three Years to Happen?

Well, twenty-three years, of course. In that amount of time, sixteen-year-olds become thirty-nine. A thirty-two-year-old becomes … never mind that part. A lot happens in that many years. And for those of us who wander about like some sort of lost Gypsies, a lot of ground gets covered as well.

Which leads me to share about an unlikely reunion.

It was 1993 when we left Alaska. My growing family, two cats, and all of our worldly possessions were bundled into the Warthog and the Getwangefargen, and we headed for America.

Some people don't get it that Alaskans feel isolated from the mainland, and we probably will never be able to explain it, so just take that at face value. As for the funny names, the Warthog was our '75 Dodge Power Wagon, full time 4x4, which was seemingly indestructible. It was ugly, with more rust than steel, but it never quit. The Getwangefargen was our boat. Trust me on this one, there's a long story to the name. And all of our worldly possessions really amounted to a bunch of junk we held on to. Some things never change.

It was a sad departure in many ways, not the least of which was leaving behind friends whom we had acquired and grown to love during those years. But, after many years, twenty-three actually, and unimaginable circumstances, we were able to reconnect with some of those old friends in Memphis, Tennessee, of all places.

It was our son's senior recital at Visible Music College, just a week ago. Our friends saw the information on Facebook. Yes, I know it's fashionable to hate on Facebook, but we have had a number of good things come about from the popular social media site.

Meanwhile, our friends had relocated to a southern state. And since they were within striking distance of Memphis, they decided to meet us there. It was a fabulous time which brought forth a flash flood of memories. I'm sure I shed a few tears during the weekend.

So I present this nostalgic little tidbit as a peek into my world. Kay and daughter Grace are pictured here with us. Often, in Alaska, we did our laundry at Kay's house. And Grace used to babysit our kids. There are so many more stories to this story, so stay tuned.

As an odd piece of trivia, the room we were in was called the Green Room because it is the prep room for the musicians before they go on stage. The name apparently has nothing to do with its actual color.

An Alaskan Christmas Tradition to Avoid

This is as much a calendar reminder as anything.

If you are intending to purchase Boathouse Mouse, or any of my other books as Christmas gifts, it is better to order sooner than later.
If you delay too long, you may need to pay for special postage and handling.
Or, you may get the gifts after Christmas. In Alaska, our gift packages came to us as late as February. It really stretched out the festivities, which never really bothered me. But younger readers may not appreciate that so much.

Order by clicking the links below.

Boathouse Mouse Series

Kingdom of the Falcon Series

In Search of Discomfort

There is a disturbing societal trend taking place in our country. It may be infecting the whole world, for all I know.

The trend is toward adventuring. Now, I am all for adventures. I have lived my life as an adventure. I have many scars and near-death stories to share as a result. What I am bothered by is the heroification of “safe adventuring.”

If you want to go camping in a motor home, that is perfectly fine with me. I'm sure I would enjoy it too. But please don't confuse that with a genuine adventure. Adventure, by my definition, requires a bold step into the unknown, the uncertain, the potentially unsafe, and certainly the uncomfortable. Carefully calculated, risk-mitigated activities are not adventures.

I suspect this trend stems from two roots. The first is the notion that we are entitled to a life of comfort and satisfaction. We are not. That is neither a Constitutional guarantee, nor is it in the Bible. Second is the proliferation of “reality” TV show. I only have secondhand experience with the reality show stuff, as we do not have a TV. But from what I have heard, “people who live just like we did in Alaska,” do not live anything like we did in Alaska.

Maybe I should have posted a spoiler alert there. Sorry. Those shows are as staged as a Broadway musical. When I got hurt, or stuck, or lost, or threatened by a wild beast, there was no one else around to record the event. There was no one to call out to for help. There was no safety network.

It may have been foolhardy, but that was reality. Try walking thirteen hours out of the mountains after getting good and lost, soaked, and all but unconscious with hypothermia. First time, do it without anyone in the world knowing where you are. Next time, try it with a camera crew, aerial shots and all. One of these things is not like the other.

Okay, that's out of my system. I feel better.

Surprisingly, the primary objective of an adventure is not discomfort. The primary objective is learning or discovering something. No one ever learned the limits of their strength, character, or skill by watching someone else do something amazing. They learned it when they surpassed their own comfort zone. That would include discomfort.

No one ever discovered a new continent, or stepped on the moon, or climbed to the top of a rugged mountain, while walking on a sidewalk. They discovered those places long after the safe horizon had disappeared. I'm pretty sure that included discomfort too.

I could go on here, but I'm not actually promoting anything. I am only making a distinction between activities and adventures.

On second thought, maybe I am promoting something. Do you want to climb a mountain? Do you want to go to Kenya and volunteer at an orphanage? Do you want to build your own house? Do you want to study something? What are you afraid of?

Have an adventure! Live as if you are alive! Maybe don't do some of the really stupid risky stuff I have done, but stretch yourself. It will hurt. Do it anyway!

A Priceless Piece of Worn Out Rope

To the untrained eye, it looks like a piece of used-up rope. That is a shame. Every knot, every cut, and each abrasion has its own story.

This old rope may look like it has been through the mill. In fact, it has. But it comes with more than a twenty-five year history of adventure, service, and travel. It started its life in Alaska as a 200 fathom long floatline on a commercial salmon fishing net. The floats were attached to the line and the net was woven on around the floats. After the net was discarded, I salvaged the line. I can still remember the smell. It was a damp, slightly fishy, and a little bit earthy smell. It was also a hot day at nearly 70°. It would have laid in that pile and rotted over the years if I had not intervened.

As a matter of definition, a rope is a rope as long as it is on the spool. After it is cut for a purpose, it is a line. Don't ask me, I don't make up the rules. I can barely speak the language.

With a workload rating of 9500 pounds, I used that repurposed line for just about everything while we lived in Alaska. I used it as a safety line when I shoveled snow off of our roof. I used it to drag deadfall logs out of the woods for firewood. I tied down anything that needed to stay down for real. I pulled cars out of the ditch. I hung game meat in the woodshed as we processed it for winter. I probably made a swing for my kids with some of it.

When we moved back to the States in the early 90's, I used it to lash our awkward load of worldly possessions into the boat and truck. When we built a cabin in the woods in Minnesota, it was used to secure lumber to the trailer for transport, and to suspend heavy wall frames for construction.

I tied off wind-damaged trees with that line to tension and fell the tree away from the house. Amazingly, that worked each time. That success is not a universal guarantee, and I know of people who lost their lives doing that. (Don't try it, hire someone with a bigger piece of equipment.)

Through the years the line would get broken, abraded, or necessarily be cut. As an aside, I have a personal aversion to cutting line. I am sure that is a form of neurosis, but you can never uncut a line, so I do everything I can before I resort to the knife.

Eventually there were only a few pieces of it left. I saved them for use as the bowline on my boat. It is a traditional way of securing the boat to anything. I like it. But the piece in this picture was special: it was the very last piece. I was a young man when I acquired it.

As I unceremoniously tossed that piece of line into the trash can, I ended its long and interesting career. Oddly enough, all those memories were summoned into my recollection by cutting that damaged line and replacing it.

I'm looking around at the old damaged people I know. Every one of them has some story. No doubt some of them laid around in a coil and decayed. But some have been to interesting places and done amazing things.

I Was There When the World Came to an End!

Why do you have a mayonnaise jar full of ashes? Oddly enough, quite a few people ask me that question. It is really a jar full of memories. No, this is not the remains of a deceased pet or loved one. That would be really weird in a mayo jar.

This ash is from Mount Redoubt volcano. It was across Cook Inlet, about 50 miles from our little corner of Alaska. The year was 1989 and the mountain had been having contractions for some time. The day it gave birth … the ground shook and the sky went black!

I was on my way out of Ellington's Hardware in Soldotna when I saw the ominous cloud. I stood on the porch of the hardware store with several others, just watching in awe as the cloud grew. It was enormous, like 45,000 feet high enormous. As if on cue, everyone realized that ash cloud was coming our way.

I jumped into my car and headed home. If the world was going to end, I wanted to be with my wife and kids!

I hastily filled all our water buckets at the neighbor's well and loaded in firewood as the sky was dimming. In moments, the world went dark and ash began to fall like snow. The air was thick and suffocating. We stuffed towels under the doors to seal off the choking smell of sulfur. It was an ominous experience, to say the least.

The hardest part of the ordeal was to hold my family like the world was ending, yet without causing alarm. I did not actually know if we would survive. I did not know if we would get a dusting of ash, or ten crushing feet.

It seemed like it took a long time for the ash storm to pass. I suppose it was an hour or so. The smell was oppressive, but when it ended, the sun came out. That was when it got really weird.

I walked out into a moonscape. Everything was a dull blue-gray, and there was no sound. Walking in the volcanic fallout was so silent my ears hurt. I spoke to hear something. “Is there anyone else alive here?” My voice was muffled an inch from my lips.

It was a long time before there was another sign of life.

As I carefully measured the ash on several surfaces, I decided to save a jarful for memory. It was carefully scraped from a one square foot portion of my car's hood.

That ash is more than the sum of its parts. It reminds me of the numerous times we saw that volcano erupt. It reminds me of the indescribably awesome upward lightning coming from inside the volcano during a night eruption. That one was viewed from a friend's roof. We weren't just hanging out on the roof, we had to shovel the snow off.

There is more, much more, in that jar than ash. And if you ask me why I have a jar of ashes, I will correct you and say that it is not ashes, but ash!