Letters From the Last Frontier - Alaska, 4

04/12/2003

Hi All,

Gee I find this place interesting.  You notice I did not say I like it up here, but even this place’s worst critic could not say it was not interesting.  I mean every time you walk out the door you find adventure.  A thing as simple as walking to the store can stay with you the rest of your life.  It is nothing to be walking down the boardwalk and see a moose skill and rack on the ground or on top of a house or what passes as a house.  There are so many dried fish hanging from wire strung across and between houses that you would need a book on North American Fish Identification, if one existed, to tell one from another, and one never ceases to be amazed at clothes hanging on the line being dried by the 20 mile and hour below zero wind coming off the Bering Sea.  I will always carry as one of my fondest memories the half eaten walrus head in the front yard of an Eskimo dwelling that for practical reasons was being used for dog food.  Ah yes, memories are made of this.

I went to the post office today.  It is about a mile from our home.  The temperature according to my computer stated it was a balmy 34 degrees.  So I figured the walk would be nice and pleasurable.  I didn’t look at the wind index.

As soon as I hit the door I realized that it was not going to be an easy walk, but being the old Tundra hand that I am, seal hunter, ghost ship explorer, failed bootlegger, counselor to priests, etc., I could deal with it.

The wind would blow me first one direction and then another; there was just enough melting and re-freezing for the slush to turn into ice and make a very slippery avenue of travel.  I finally arrived at the post office after 30 minutes of snow bound adventure, only to find the doors were locked – dumb me; there was a body in the village.  The whole village shuts down when a body is here waiting for burial.  Kids don’t come to school, the stores close, all municipal services cease (both of them) and of course the representative of the Federal Government, the US Postal Service, shuts down also.  Now I am not one to not want to pay homage where homage is due, but things can get a little out of hand.  I am a guest here so I don’t say anything, or at least I don’t say anything to anyone else but you, my dear long suffering reader.  But alas I digress.

Walking back to my semi-subterranean dwelling I saw in the distance a site that I thought would make my whole excursion worth the effort.  Though wet, tired, and cold I ventured near the apparition.  As it focused into view my heart jumped for joy – my first dog sled and driver viewing.  The closer I got the more focused things became.  There he was, a small boy driving a small sled, with a little larger dog, pulling a very much smaller cousin probably  who was sitting in the sled.  At least someone was trying to keep the tradition of the Yup’ik Eskimos alive and well – I was elated.  But then I recognized the boy, it was one of the kids that one would not consider one of the better students due to lack of interest in their own eduction.  The boy was smart enough, but some how school work never seemed that important to him.  One of the more cynical teacher suggested that he and his family were “job security for the rest of us.”

After arriving home, my friend Nanook stopped by to set in motion the final plans about our upcoming whale hunt.  I mentioned to him about the dog sled.  He just laughed and said that was just like the (name deleted) family for you, “Why would anyone drive a dog sled when there were plenty of good snow machines to be had.”

Just another day in paradise. 

Love,  Dad, Snapper, or Conley

Crisp Lake Chronicles - Vol 5

Crisp Lake Chronicle, Vol 5  1953

What follows may seem a little delicate to report but it is the job of all reporters to state the truth as they see it and let the chips fall where they may.  However it is also their duty to warn the reader that if they are of a sensitive nature or get easily offended that they should stop now.  Also if you are not of a mature age and on the front side of puberty it best you stop now unless you have the permission of your parents to continue. 

Mrs. Francis Huggins read an article in the Atlantic Monthly that described a nude bathing area that was becoming the rage in Yugoslavia.  She wondered to herself if that was one reason the people in Sugar Creek, most of Slavic decent, did not usually associate with those living in Fairmount in general and Crisp Lake in particular.  She had no proof of such but the thought was intriguing.  So intriguing was the thought that she suggested to the Crisp Lake Woman’s Auxiliary if they would be interested in developing such a place around Crisp Lake where people could sun bathe in the nude.

At first the women were not really keen on the idea but Mrs. Huggins explained it would be only women or only men and not naturally at the same time.  She then showed the article she had read to the women and with the few pictures that were present in the article the women of Crisp Lake got as intrigued as Mrs. Huggins.

A delegation met with the Crisp Lake Board of Directors and the suggestion was made that if they would build a privacy fence around Mrs. Sullivan’s, president of the Auxiliary, back yard it would be a healthy benefit to the neighborhood.  Being nude she said in an outdoor atmosphere was beneficial to ones health with all the vitamin D the sun provided all over the body.  The men readily agreed and saw the wisdom of the attire affair.  The fence was built in record time after receiving a pledge from Mrs. Sullivan that she would keep her blinds closed when it was the men’s turn to use the sun bathing facility.

It was decided that since it was a woman’s idea, that the women should be the first ones to use the facility.  The day came and many women from Crisp Lake and some even from Maywood showed up.  At first there seemed to be a little timidity in taking off their clothes but one by one the garments were discarded and the ladies lounged around on chairs, hammocks, and blankets.  Eventually they all decided to play volley ball.  It was then that strange sounds began to be heard from Mrs. Sullivan’s backyard.  There were deep sounding vocalizations of “Boom, Boom” and then sounds less than a big Boom all the way up to small little “Peep, Peep.”

The men kept their promise and did not try and look in on the women in fear they would see their mother, sisters, or daughters naked.  They even prevented Morris Applegate, an 80 year old vet of the Spanish American War, from climbing a tree to find out what all the Booming and Peeping was about.  It was very perplexing to all.  However we at the Crisp Lake Chronicle found out what was going on in side the fence that sunny afternoon.  This is what really happened.

The ladies on the west side of the lake had challenged the ladies on the east side of the lake to a volley ball game.  Everyone was naked of course so when the ladies would jump up and spike the ball the audience would make the sound of a boom or a peep or somewhere in-between depending on the size of the player’s breasts.  The bigger the breast the deeper and louder the chant from the crowd would be.  The smaller the bosom the higher and softer the response from the crowd.  The ladies found this very amusing among themselves and felt no embarrassment or shyness in all the bouncing bosoms and the subsequent noises that followed.  A good time was had by all.

A couple of days later it was the men’s turn.  They were a little shyer about discarding their clothes than the women had been but eventually got with the program.  They felt a little awkward just lying about so they started playing croquet but stopped because they could not hit the ball just right given the impediments associated with the between the legs swing necessary for excellent performance.  They then thought about wrestling but immediately dismissed that idea for the obvious reasons.  There was a net still up, so bad mitten was tried but there was one to many careless swings and the term shuttlecock took on a different meaning altogether.  Eventually a volleyball materialized from over the fence, no one knowing who through it over, and like the women the east side challenged the west side.

The women reported later that they did not know who played volleyball.  Several of the women were sure that their husbands did not play because they only heard a lot of “Boom, Booms” and no “peep peeps.”

Native Youth Olynpics - Alaska

Every year in Alaska they hold the Native Youth Olympics or NYO for short.  To prepare for NYO the kids begin practicing things like wrist carries, seal hop, scissor jump, one foot high kicks and other physical feats of strength and endurance that are based around when either you lived or died buy your skill and stamina.  But they also work on skills that are needed in modern times like essay writing, math contests and oral presentations, something perhaps that other Olympic event ought to include.

The coach here in Hooper Bay is always a native that has returned to the village to teach, which is the goal of all bush school districts.  It gives the rest of us a shelf life but we know that going in.  One of my students asked if I would help her with her speech and after reading it I asked her if she really wanted to give it.  She looked at me sort of puzzled and said she did, like why would I even ask.

I asked her if I could use the speech in this column if I gave her full credit.  She thought that would be great to see her name in print.  What follows is the speech delivered at the district NYO meet this year.

“Hello, my name is Samantha Hill.  I am 14 years old and I come from Hooper Bay, Alaska.  My speech is about my family.  Long ago I was born to Nancy Ann Hill and Arnold Davis Simon.

“In the year 1989 my mom graduated from Hooper Bay High School.  She wanted to go to college but she couldn’t because that was the year I was born.  My grandparents, Reuben and Kathryn Hill wanted to take me, but my mom wanted to keep me.  So she did.

“As I grew older my sister Paula was born.  Everything was doing well until October 29, 1990.  My dad died seven months after my sister Paula was born.

“The one thing I remember about my dad was the funeral.  Can you imagine a 2 year old remembering something like that?

“A few years passed and we were doing well.  As I grew older I asked my mom how my dad’s funeral looked.  She described it to me and it was exactly how I remember it.  I was really amazed.

“We grew up to be a happy family, just the way I wanted it.  When it came to holidays and birthdays our mom always gave us the most perfect presents any child could have.

“Before our dad died y mom became pregnant again.  So we had a sister.  Her name was Eva.  We had to give her away to Sam and Mary Black because we had too many girls.  After Eva was born my mom had another baby.  My mom called and asked us what we should name the new baby and I suggested Arnoldine Hill.  We decided to keep Arnoldine.  When they came home we were happy.

“Three months went by and I was holding Arnoldine over my head and she puked all over me.  She got sick when she was held in the air.  The one thing I wanted most was to have a baby brother.

“Arnoldine grew older and when she was about 6 we finally got a new baby brother, his name was Jon Raymond Louis Koby Hill.  My mom named him after out baby sitter, Koby Joe.  I was glad when mom came home with a baby brother.  He was the first boy we had gotten.  He has grown up to be a funny brother and every time I am sad he cheers me up.

“Everything changed on April 23, 1999.  The time was 3:50 P.M.  My mom told me not to come home because her boyfriend Balingo was drunk.  At 4:00 P.M., David Hill came to pick me up, but I didn’t want to go home, but knew I had to.  When I entered the house every body was crying.  I asked what had happened.  They told me that my mom was gone.  I started to cry.  I asked again and they explained that Balingo had shot her.  I cried even harder.

“They took her to Bethel and then to Anchorage.  When she got there she was still alive.  They called later and told us she had suffocated.

“When the body came back to Hooper Bay everybody went down to the airport.

“They brought her to our grandparent’s house, we had the body and everyone came by to visit.

“The day of the funeral we sang songs and then had the ceremony.  We gathered around her body and before we could go to the cemetery my auntie Romaon cried and yelled out my mom’s name.   Thank you for listening.”

Samantha won second place in the eighth grade division.

Log 9 - Alaska

Continued from Log 8

11/18/02

I went out tonight and walked around hoping to see the northern lights.  I didn’t so I then hoped I would see some Hooper Bay night life.  All I could see was a bunch of 4 wheelers running all over town, going God knows where.  Which brings something up, I did run into one of my students out in the dark, he said he was just walking around until he ran into his friends.  It is starting to get cold now , don’t know exactly what the temp is, but it is cold..

12/12/02

No entry for a long time.  Thanksgiving was spent at the Principal’s house.  Paula left for Dixon – I’ll leave on the 21.  she said she spent 26 hours in travel time including airport waiting areas.

At a pot luck for the students an old Eskimo man asked me if he could borrow Paula.  I wasn’t quick enough to ask him how many seal skins he had to trade. 

Things are quiet.  I did manage to piss off the post mistress, but am still getting mail.

The kids are very restless in the afternoon.  The morning class is good though.

Paula and I thought we would go to the Amboy Church Xmas eve – that ought to be interesting if my second wife is there also.  I need to some how make contact with Darren while there.

12/13/02

Got stopped in the hall on the way to lunch.  Marta was furious.  She got a bad evaluation.  I have never seen her teach but she can’t be a bad teacher.  In fact I have never heard anything but praise about her skills.  The administration does not like her because she is out spoken.  She is also the union rep.  She says she is going to appeal the evaluation than sue the principal personally.  Pot luck ought to be fun tonight.

Water Buckets - Alaska

Teachers are such a spoiled lot when you come right down to it.  Little things like not having enough pencils or paper, a broken electric pencil sharpener, or having to walk an extra 20 feet to your classroom when the temperature drops a little, can put them over the edge.  So when the most serious crisis to ever hit our village occurred one day a few years back I wondered how we would manage.

At our Friday night potluck dinners there was always a central topic of discussion.  Venting now and then was a basic necessity and always felt good to everyone.  The discussions were never really planned; they just sort of arose out of the ashes of burning complaints.  The week’s topic in question that potluck, over the aromas of sliced smoked turkey, barbecued caribou, moose stew, and pumpkin pie, was water – or the lack thereof.  The running water for the school, thus teacher housing, had gone out the previous day.

The well either had a bad pump or clogged filter, or was caved in or ran dry, no one seemed to know for certain.  In any case there was no drinking, washing, (dishes, clothes, or bodies,) or flushing water availale.  Gee, I thought at the time, just like the rest of the village.

I informed my friends in the lower 48 not to worry about me, however; because I was rather a resourceful person and there were other items at my disposal, albeit inconvenient.

First there were two watering points that tapped into different wells in the village.  One can walk to those points without much trouble and bring back a five gallon bucket of water.  We called that packing water.  The nearest watering point was only a quarter of a mile away and packing water a couple of times a day built character.

I suggested to my wife that she could make extra money packing water for the teachers but she showed little interest in doing so.  She only reminded me that one of the criteria she established before coming up here was that running water be available and that I would have to do the running.

We teachers had been warned that the main pump could go out and that we needed to store drinking water, we never seemed to store enough.  The acquisition of several five-gallon buckets was highly recommended so one did not have to resort to using honey buckets.  Most of the teachers spent the first day of the debacle scampering around looking for containers to store drinking water but for some reason the place my wife and I lived had 15 gallons of water standing by when we arrived and enough five gallon buckets filled so we did not have to resort to that honey bucket thing.

I chided my peers that Friday evening for being such wimps and told them we should be thankful that we had running water at all.  I told them I was aghast to hear them moan and groan.  Look at the bright side I told them, “By our contract if water is out for 10 consecutive days our rent is cut in half, school is out at one o’clock each day until the crisis is over, and the hauling of water is good exercise.”  The village watering point that week had some unfamiliar faces.

It was amusing to see teachers hauling water back to their dwellings.  There was snow on the ground, the temp was in the teens, and the boardwalks more slippery then ever.  My friends could not understand why I was not upset.

Secondly, they never understood that just a common ol’ pioneer type like me from Independence could take that sort of thing in stride, that my days in the army had prepared me for such things, my growing up in Fairmount made me tough because of all the guys I hung with from Sugar Creek, and working for the State Emergency Management Agency caused me to see real suffering and disaster.  What was happening was not a disaster.  Besides I had a secret.

My dwelling rested lower than the school and the other teacher housing.  I was not a hydrology expert, but I did remember from a Van Horn science class that water runs downhill.  I had also learned during my travels that you always made friends with the maintenance men.  They have keys to where you might want to go, respond quicker to your problems if they like you, and know where the valves are.

What little amount of pumping left in our worn out system did not create enough pressure to send water to the school or any of the housing save mine.  I received only a trickle but enough of a trickle for the necessities.  The pressure was enough to supply the engine room though.  Instead of going down to the village watering hole after work, when I determined that a trickle was not enough I just went out my back door, down the hall into the pump room, turned on the spigot, filled my buckets, and stealthily retuned to my abode.

I loved my fellow teachers but some things are better left unsaid.  I kept this bit of information to myself.  The last time this had happened was two years ago I was told and given the 80% turnover in personnel since then, no one knew about my source except Dennis, the maintenance man.  Cookies and a free lunch once a week bought his silence.

If anyone had gotten into real distress I would not have let them go with out naturally.  Distress and inconvenience are two different animals and comedic entertainment was hard to come by.

They had to set priorities as to what was important for them, ie, bathing, toileting, dish washing, or drinking water.    

It seems to me if I remember correctly they passed on bathing everyday in exchange for not having to use honey buckets.  I thought at the time that if the situation continued for more than a couple of weeks the aroma arising from the Friday night potlucks would not only yield smoked turkey, barbecued caribou, moose stew, and pumpkin pie.

Panama Pundit. 2

Jan 2, 1991

New Years Eve was spent going between Ft. Sheraton and down the coastal road to Nombre de Dios.  Three trips were made in all because one we had to find it, 2 we had to deliver 2 MP guards and two caterpillars, and 3 we had to bring the MP’s their overnight gear and feed them. 

It was a lot of riding but I saw a lot of the country side.  The country is pretty except for the trash.  It seems to be everywhere.  The houses are literally shacks  There are some exceptions but not many. If my pictures come out I’ll write what they are in some detail. 

The people are nice looking with their mix of Spanish, Indian, and black blood.  There are a lot of blacks here.  They seem to populate the cities while the more Indian looking people are in the forests.

Some of what I write will not make since because it will be in cryptic form.  It will be that little lost tantalizing part of social history lost forever that only the viewer can remember.

-waited at port for convoy commander.

-stopped traffic on lonely road, tried to tell a Panamanian to wait 5 minutes.

-a lot of pumps in the road.

-A young couple and naked little girl watched the convoy go by.  They were living inside a whole dug into a mountain side.

-a church is next to a whorehouse.

-saw the Caribbean Sea at midnight.

-saw European tourists in strange places.

-found a drunk in the road.

-the roads are rough and would not pass for anything resembling a road in the U.S.

-met Bob V’s.company commander, Capt Peterson.  We both agreed that Bob hadn’t changed a whole lot.  I’ll try to look him up before I leave (Bob was an employee of mine at UMB.  I talked him into joining the army.  I apologized to Capt Peterson.)

-Went to see Bob V. at his company area.  Small world.  He was a gate guard a the compound we were staying at on Sheridan.  He is homesick and has an attitude about the army.  I tried to pass on all my wisdom about moving forward and not looking back.  Someday he will understand out conservation.

Deutschland Diary. 2

Deutschland Diary 2

9/8//84

Today we left for Germany.  We boarded a 747 and took off.  Presently we are flying over Washington, D.C and Baltimore, Maryland.  We are supposed to land in Bangor, Main to refuel. 

All day today we spent being processed.  It amazes me how easily we all just follow instructions without comment.

Jerry Sonderegger got pulled out of line and had to empty his back pack.  The sniffing dogs smelled food and we were not allowed to carry food aboard.

Sunday in Germany.

After refueling we took off and headed towards Germany.  The plane holds 500 people by the way.

We crossed the Atlantic and I saw the coast of Ireland and an Island to the west and just the beginning of the coast line of England.  I was not able to see any other part of Europe because of cloud cover until we landed in Frankfurt.  I also occurred to me that I was the first McAnally to cross the Atlantic going East.

We loaded on some busses and took us to  Kaiserslautern or what they call K-Town.  We left of Gersheim but got lost.  Which was Ok with us since we saw a lot more of the country than we would have normally.  The fields are clean and the towns are mostly multi family dwellings.  Things are quiet modern, much more than I had thought they would be.

When we arrived at the base (which is small by U.S. comparison) our bags were missing and there was no place to stay.  We hung around the commanders headquarters for a long time and I tried to get hold of Verna, my cousin, but could not get anywhere in finding the phone number.  I even tried to get an overseas operator to call home but could not.  We ended up sleeping in a gym on post.  We had no covers or anything.

Monday  10^th

About 0300 another bunch of soldiers arrived without bags also.  They too slept on the floor.

When we woke up our bags had caught up with us.

Tuesday  11 September

We were transported to the mobilization station yesterday.  We made camp.  There are a bunch of people here and we have little to do.

My job assignment is sort of confusing.  I am not sure what my assignment is or how to do it.  We will not do much until Thursday and then will move to the Tactical Assembly Area.  It is dark, not sure what time it is, around 8 I think.  I am going to crawl in my tent and go to sleep now.