Winter Pantry- Alaska

            In late spring, early summer or the very early fall , Eskimo families pack their camping gear and head toward their historic family camps.  In later summer or very early fall they go to the Berry Camp.  In the spring or summer they all head towards Fish Camp.   There never seems to be an exact date each year, someone would know when was the best time to go and then they would go.  There was never an exact amount of time they would stay either.  It was all determined by how many berries or fish they thought they needed for the rest of the year.  The women and children would forage all over their specific locals gathering black, blue, and salmon berries.  The more enterprising of the villagers would pick and pack more than they needed and upon return try to sell them to the Teachers.  I think the going price was $20 a quart.  I liked the black berries, the blue berries were OK, and the salmon berries were just a little too gritty tasting.  The berries they did not sell to the Teachers were frozen and brought out now and then through out the year for special treats and occasions.

            The fish, usually Salmon from the streams inundating the tundra, but caught via nets by the men and cleaned on an assembly line basis by the women and not of age children, were hung out to dry on fish racks.  Fish racks are very interesting structures but I lack the writing skill to describe them very well.  The best description I can come up with is that they resembled those small wooden things that people use to dry small articles of washables on in the house.  However most of the fish racks were huge, some over six feet tall, stretching 20 to 30 feet in a serpentine manner, and had several layers of rods connecting the sections.  These were permanent structures and left out on the Tundra year after year with no one bothering them nor using one that was not theirs.   As you might imagine living near the water, be it an ocean or river, fish is a staple, a big stable.  The people who I lived around really fished all year round one way or another and they would dry their fish either on fish racks that they had near their dwellings or on clothes lines .  Some times the laundry would share the same line.

Appian Way - A Diary Entry

Feb 27, 1992

Camp Darby is supposed to be the resort area of those soldiers stationed in Italy.  I don't see it.  They have some camping grounds and some cabins for rent and it is next to the Italian Riviera, so I guess it counts as one.  The official use for Darby, named after Darby's Rangers they claim, is for prepositioning equipment in case there needs to be a rapid deployment to North and Northeast Africa or Northwest Asia.  It is sort of like our poncus sites in Germany.

For the last several days I tried to figure out how I could get the guys to take advantage of their free trip to Italy.  I came across an idea and it worked.   They had been pestering me all day today to take them bowling at the camp.  I finally relented and said I would.  When we started bowling I suggested we make a bet to make it more interesting.  They complained that they didn't have as much money as I did, so I told them that I would put up a $100 that could be split between them if any of them beat me and that if I beat all of them they had to let me plan a weekend excursion for them this coming weekend.  Well, I won.  I even picked up the 6,7,10 split.  We will be going to Florence this Saturday and Rome on Sunday.  I'll even pay for the train tickets.  They complained about losing the rest of the evening.  Go figure, I wouldn't mind losing several bets like that.

Panama Pundits - 5

Jan. 13, 1991

I re-read my book about Alaska.  I would like to go there some day.  I attended a briefing on what to do if trouble starts tomorrow when the President of Panama visits our location.  I am supposed to be in one of the vehicles that will evacuate a General and an Ambassador to the prearranged helicopter landing site.  I really don't anticipate any trouble.

Jan. 15, 1991

Yesterday was great.  We setup the security for the President's visit.  We had listening and observation posts surrounding the camp, a security detail, evacuation helicopters, evacuation cars, crowd control, the whole nine yards. 

Like I mentioned earlier my job was to command one of the evacuation cars.  If something went wrong my driver and I were to get the President, a 4 star U.S. General and an Ambassador, in that order and take them to the escape helicopter.

Nothing happened.  There were a lot of Panamanians walking around in the woods and up and down the dirt road leading to camp, but they usually did that anyway.

I could see the President very plainly.  At first five helicopters landed.  A bunch of people got off in civilian clothes accompanied with some in military uniforms.  This one guy stood out from the rest.  He wore a white shirt and a big hat, so I took a picture of what I thought was the President.  A few minutes later a white helicopter landed and a short fat man got off in a business suit. I knew immediately by the deference he was given that he was the President, I had taken a picture of the wrong guy.  I tried taking another picture but was out of film.  A bus came out to greet the helicopter and everyone got on and was driven to the reviewing stand.

We, the US MP's, all had loaded weapons.  Apparently the Panamanian Government was not 100% sure about the loyalty of the local Panamanian National Police and wanted our back up.  They also had their own bodyguards.  We were told a little earlier that if the PNP started anything stupid we were to stop them.  They never really told us how to stop them but was told any encounter we might have should fall under the rules of engagement.  I guess we were supposed to shoot somebody in the head of something.

A few minutes after the President and his party had moved to the reviewing stand another helicopter landed.  No one was there to greet it and I noticed that two men in white got off the helicopter, looked around with darting black eyes and then a very tall distinguished man got off.  All three of the men starting walking our my way.  I was the closest person to the new arrivals so I walked towards them and when the tall man got with in hand shaking range he stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, how are you."  Fine I replied.  He then said, "I am Jerry Ford,"  in prefect English. Well it wasn't the Jerry Ford I knew.  I responded, "Hi, I am Conley McAnally from Independence, Missouri, home of Harry Truman, but who are you?"  He laughed real hard and said, "I'm the Vice President of Panama."  I saluted, said excuse me, and escorted him to the reviewing stand. 

In this haphazard way I met and was an additional bodyguard to one of the leading figures of Panama who will probably be the President one day.  He was a very impressive looking man.

End of the Earth - Alaska

“No,” I wrote a friend once while living in Alaska, “Hooper Bay is not at the end of the earth.”  I also recommended that he pay us a visit.

“Hooper Bay,” I told him, “Is a Yup’ik Eskimo village of about 1200 Native Americans and 20 Gussicks.”  Gussick being the name given by the locals to any outsider.  The villagers say that the term is not derogatory, but the way it is used sometimes makes me wonder.

“Our village,” I continued, “Is 125 air miles and one hour northwest of Bethel and can only be reached by a propeller driven plane piloted by the last of the real flying daredevils, the Bush Pilot.  Bethel is 450 miles and a one hour flight by a modified commercial jet west of Anchorage and Anchorage is a three hour forty minute and a lot of miles from Seattle.

“When you reach Bethel be prepared to spend a night or two just in case the weather does not cooperate and flights to the bush are cancelled.  This happens more than one would like.  However once in the air, seldom does the pilot turn around and more than likely the trip will be uneventful.  Listen to the prerecorded safety instructions closely, just in case.

“About ten minutes out of Hooper Bay the pilot will call me on the local CB channel.

I will pick you up in the school truck, one of the three in the village.  If it is snowing have no fear the school owns a snow-go, one of a couple of hundred in the village, with a nice open air dog sled attached.

“We will only have to travel about a mile down the road if the snow drifts cooperate and if they don’t the snow-go will just cut across the tundra about three quarters of a mile to my place where you can thaw out.

“Don’t worry about bringing food or anything, we have plenty, buying supplies for three to nine months at a time depending on the item.  Don’t bring any alcohol however because it is against the law to drink, posses, or sell such.

“Once you have recuperated from the “trip in,” as we call it we might be able to go to the daily bingo game at the tribal council building.  Don’t plan on winning though, but if you do be prepared to make a donation back to the assembled group.  They don’t like outsiders, especially Gussicks to when ‘our money.’  “There may be a teacher’s potluck going on and later if we are real lucky we might be able to watch TV given a clear signal from an ever weakening satellite signal.

“Perhaps the next morning we can walk to the four stores in the village, via interconnecting boardwalks and let you check out the prices on some of the items.  Right after that we will have to go to the local clinic staffed by health aides and get an infusion of oxygen to help get over the price shock.  From there we can ride of walk, depending on the weather to the beach, stopping by the halibut processing plant which is temporally closed because there were no halibut caught last season.

“While standing on the almost black sand beach, I am sure you will be the first on your block to say you have seen the Bering Sea close up.  Some think the murky looking water and sand is unattractive but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the yellow foam churned up by the waves is not pollution they say.  After visiting we can walk along and between the dunes and head back stopping at the laundry mat and see how many washers and dryers are working.

“The post office is the most modern building in the village and if you want to I am sure they will let you sort packages in the backroom and if you sort and lift the big ones it will be appreciated, it usually is.(note to blog reader: now they have a new school and were preparing to build a new health clinic when I left and there could be more I am not sure.)

“We can then venture to the unkempt graveyard that is adorned by wooden crosses and again depending on the weather, we might find a casket resting above the groud because the tundra was too frozen to dig a suitable grave.  The village dump butts up to the graveyard and if we are real lucky we will see a child discard trash and human waste in black trash bags.

“To get a real feel for the village a short walking tour at this point will be in order regardless of the weather.  We will pass by clothes and fish drying on clothes lines or wooden fish racks.  There will be moose antlers and skulls lying on the ground or sitting on top of the plywood shacks the Eskimos call home.  Snotty nosed little children will follow us and want to be your friend, ask you where you are from, how long you are going to stay and if you have a dollar to give them.  There will be many inoperable snow-goes and four wheelers propped up on drift wood or sunk in the mud in front of many dwelling that you gaze upon.  You might see a half eaten walrus head next to a dog house, the remnants of a butchered seal, or a vertebra of a beluga whale resting near the boardwalk.

“We could stop by and visit the two churches, one Catholic one Protestant.  The priest is a Jesuit and pastors several other communities.  The Protestant church is served by a missionary from North Carolina whose wife comes from Mission Kansas.  He, his wife, and five children have been here seven years and don’t plan to leave soon.

“There would be more to see, the Octagon, once used as the community center and now for teen dances, the Village Police building with its one cell and dedicated men wanting to improve and protect their community, the bay where the fishing boats are tied and anchored and men go out daily to catch and then feed their families, but by then the plane will be due to land, depending on the weather of course, and we will have to hurry back to the landing strip.  Besides one day is enough for most visitors and I am sure you, like most outsiders, will be more than ready to leave and can’t wait to tell our friends back home that Hooper Bay may not be at the end of the earth "but you can see it from there.”

Lutherans - Alaska

For several years a group of laity Lutherans and a couple of ordained ministers came to our village next to the Bering Sea to teach Bible School during the month of July.  It was a mission for them and there was a large Alaskan Lutheran  mission organization that provided logistical support.  Each member of the delegation had to raise at least half the money for the trip, their local church kicked in twenty-five percent, and the rest of the money was raised by bake sales, car washes or what ever kind of event they could come up with.  

One of the pastors was named Ted.  He was about 38 years old, big, tall, and friendly.  He stopped by my lodging several times and we would chat about, television, football, baseball, and other things other than religion.  It was sort of a break for him I guess, I mean one can only be around religious people so long. 

Big Ted, as he called himself lived in Texas but grew up in Minnesota.  I think he might have been a secret Treky because he could not take his eyes of Star Trek while it was playing and sort of timed his visits when it was going to be on.  

I mentioned to him in a weak religious reflection moment that I was sort of friends with the local missionary and although he believed in the six day creation and the earth being no more than 6000 years old he was a nice person, practical in his approach to dealing with potential converts, and had done a lot for the community.  Big Ted shook his head like he was agreeing with me and then would go back to watching Captain Kirk fight off some sort of space alien. 

A couple of nights later Big Ted showed up again and we began talking about religion for some reason.  I guess I needed more weak moments.  He sort of got pleasure in telling me that he too believed in the six day creation and the 6000 year old earth.  Oh well it wasn’t the first time I had stuck my foot in my mouth but I took admonition with ease not being the embarrassed kind.  I am sure that if Ted thought I would have gotten embarrassed he would never have tweaked me that way.  Religious people do have a sense of humor now and then.

Big Ted and his group only stayed a week.  Cynics might say that they did very little but smile and think the native Eskimos were interesting and the kids were cute and thought that having 200 attendees at the events they held, they could go home and tell all the other parishioners what a great thing they had done.  But the cynics are being cynical.

I had a group come to my classroom one day and it turned out to be a very good geography lesson and I even let them witness, but there is no need to tell the ACLU, besides I am sure the statute of limitations has kicked in my now.  Besides it killed a half hour for me in the morning and afternoon classes.

As far as coming into the village and leaving thinking they did a good job, well they did.  I equate them to the story about the guy throwing the star fish back into the ocean (if you don’t know that story let me know and I will relate it one to one.)

I have often thought that it was too bad that I as a teacher and was unable keep up the love and enthusiasm to my students and the villagers I came in contact with daily as did the Lutherans did for that week.  It would have been great if a Big Ted would have come by my dwelling every day or so just to pump me up.  I would have bought the entire three years worth of Star Trek on DVD just for him.

   

Deutschland Diary 5

15 Sept 1984

We have started our shifts.  I work as a Division Fire Coordinator from 1600 to 0800.  Dutch has the same shift and has been assigned Division Intel Officer.  Jerry is working at something in the Division Artillery Operations Center.  I am not sure what shift he has, he seems to be working more than Dutch and I.

Last night I had to deliver some maps and overlays to Division Headquarters.  I was in an open jeep driving all over the country side, it was dark, rainy and cold.  We drove through a lot of little towns but it was so dark I did not get a good look at anything.

16 September Sunday

Last night we pulled into a town called Ellensburg.  It was dark and still raining.  Dutch and I could not fine our duffel bags or packs mist a lot of confusion about setting up the Tactical Operation Center (TOC).  Given the fact that we were not on duty we decided to let them figure out the mess on their own and took a little walk around town. 

No one in the town was up it seemed but we just enjoyed walking through the center of town and eventually found ourselves on a residential street that had some very nice looking modern houses. 

It has stopped raining.  We saw a guy in his driveway washing down his car.  This was about 11:30 pm.  We asked him if there was a phone somewhere back in town.  He invited us into his house.  We hesitated because of the late hour, but he insisted.  The house seemed to be under some kind of remodeling on the outside but as we entered the front entrance we gazed upon a very; beautiful living room.  His wife was sitting on the couch, she smiled, got up and greeted us.  She spoke not English but her smile was pleasant.  The floor was marble, the furniture was made from solid wood with appropriate cushions, the fireplace made of stone and living room sunken.  They offered us the use of their phone.  We both tried to call home but could not get a line out for some reason.  The lady offered us hot chocolate, we accepted, drank it, thanked them and said good by.

We went back to our camp site.  The confusion had subsided, we found our gear and sat up our pup tent which we shared and slept comfortably.

The next morning we Dutch and I walked into town again due to having a semi day off and found an open guesthouse.  We hesitated to go in because it was against the rules but decided that we could use some rest and relaxation.  We sat down and ordered coffee and struck up a conversation with a young couple from Frankfurt.  He was a banker and I am not sure what she did.  They were just out for a weekend trip.  They didn’t speak English very well, but then we spoke no German, Dutch thinks he can, but just enough to get us into trouble.

We are near Bavaria and it is very mountainous.  The plan is to move once a night.  It is a good experience but I am ready to come home already.  This will be something to tell my grandchildren about.