Cool Hand

83 is a good long life, and he led a full one.

Bread

If only I could post the smell. Mom baked bread every week and I remember walking in the door after school and smelling the fresh bread. After school snacks of bread and butter and jam.

Of course, it's cool now, and at the time I enjoyed sitting at the table, slathering warm bread with butter. If I'm going to be honest, though, I recall being embarrassed of my home-made bread and peanut butter sandwiches at school lunch. I remember hiding them and gazing wistfully (no- lustfully) at the Wonder Bread bologne sandwiches of my classmates. I remember begging for bread at the grocery store, "PLEASE, PLEASE, could we have bread this week", we would cry. What must people have thought?

Beaver Lake

OK, I've got to get something else up here. My last two posts in a row are about dead friends. That is such a downer.

Yesterday, we did my favorite hike in Sitka- Beaver Lake. It's not a particularly difficult hike, but it's so gorgeous. Yesterday wasn't perfect- it was rather overcast- but not rainy and not too cold. Plus, the hike started out with this:



Someone's been hitting the berries pretty hard. I always feel concerned when they take a crap right in the middle of the trail. Pretty clear message, I'd think. We probably should've turned around (especially since Dennis and Lucy have had a Close Encounter with a bear on this hike), but stuck with it and were rewarded with this:





Big tree:

Chuck

Fuck. I'm tired of writing these kind of blogs. Chuck, my friend, I miss you already.

Buh-bye Alaska

I'm back home, in Sitka, for a few weeks while I study up for my board exams. Probably the last time I'll spend here, perhaps the last time I'll be in Alaska at all. There are things I truly hate about this place. I hate the Alaskan (well, to be fair- it's the American) mentality that everything is here for us to exploit. That Alaska is full of resources for us to use, and damn the consequences. We want to dam, drill, fish, log, dredge and mine every last ounce of natural resources that we can get our grubby little hands on. Then, when we've extracted all the assets from the land, we'll go ahead and build 5,000 square foot McMansions and sell them off as vacation properties to wealthy businessmen who come here for the rapidly disappearing halibut fishing.

I hate that we ship everything (everything we eat, everything we wear, everything we use to clean our carpets or fix our vehicle) a thousand miles or more. I hate that after we've used it, we ship it back a thousand miles to a landfill in Washington.

But then. I lay in bed, where there are no sounds of traffic and I listen to the lap of the waves on the beach. I walk the dog along the river and watch the eagles pick their supper out of the salmon-clogged, shade-dappled pools. I won't find this anywhere else. Yeah, the weather is shitty and Alaskans are annoying. Still, I'm proud to have been here. To have seen as much of Alaska as I have (from Barrow to Nome to Bethel to Metlakatla). I had my Alaska adventure, seen caribou and moose and polar bears and grizzly bears. I've been lowered out of helicopters to mountainsides and sinking ships. I've attended potlatches and Native dances. I've been out with subsistence hunters and fishermen, camping in the mountains and lost the ocean. But, now it's time to move on. Thanks, Alaska.

George Gardner

"You're so great". When you first hear someone say that to you in the middle of a normal conversation, you don't really know how to react. You give a little laugh, you look away, maybe change the subject. As a catchphrase, it seems silly at first. It's hard to take such words seriously. But, as time goes on, you start to believe it a little bit. You start to use those three little words in your own interactions with people, and you start to mean them a little bit. Maybe he's right, you think to yourself, maybe I am great. Maybe everyone really is great.

George, with his huge smile and his belief that we are all great changed everyone at Sterling College, a small school in northern Vermont. You couldn't talk to him for 2 minutes without making him just glow with pleasure and assure you that you are, indeed, great. We'd tell eachother that we were great, and we'd mean it, but the words would also bring George's presence into the conversation and with it would come his peace, his joy, his appreciation for life.

I spent many nights camping with George in a small 2-person tent. We seldom slept- we talked about religion, about love, about the mountains. He taught me to ice climb and he improved my rock climbing with his insightful instruction. But more importantly, he taught me to appreciate the people who I meet every day. When you're open to people showing you their greatness, it's not hard to find.

George died in the Teton mountains this week. It's easy to say that, "well, at least he died doing what he loved", and that is certainly true. But, the world is a sadder place without him. My thoughts of peace go to his dear wife and two children (with whom I shared memorable a Thansgkiving dinner, many years ago) at this difficult time.

Moving on

My last hike in Haines. The doc I work with and I went scouting for goat in the mountains. There was a little trail for the first part of the hike, up to a cabin, but the final 1500' was mainly bushwacking. It was quite steep- goat country- but so gorgeous and peaceful. Peaceful until I sat on an anthill, that is. Two days later, my legs are so sore I can hardly walk.