Hello Family and Friends

It is June 26th. I tried to get in here on my days off this week, but my timing was off and couldn't get on line when I was free. Got in early enough today from the run into the park that I think I can get posted before I get booted out of here. I have current news, but to think and write I'm not very quick, I need to see it written down - so I will just type the notes I have been writing. This may be confusing because my notes date back a few days but I think you can follow the dates listed as I continue my saga.
I will get all of the latest happenings written down before I blog again so I can just type it all from my notebook.

Continuing on from last blog . . . .
June 10, 2008
Tomorrow is Hollie's birthday. I have talked to her Mom and hear she is going to get the three F's - flipflops, fingernail polish and food (chocolate dipped strawberries while having a pedicure). In Hollie land these are the three essentials. It is good to know that she has moved on - it used to be her main goals were to have her own corner, run a cash register and adopt every stray dog in the world. I am so proud of her and also proud of the choices she has made in her adult life. Ok, I know that at one time she could have had a great career on the pole, but she opted for the horse shit at Rockome and worked her way thru school. It is something how your kid can make you so proud. Happy Birthday, Hollie.

100's
I am in training again. Have made a lot of contacts here and have learned that you need to plan well in advance for things that you would like to do. That is a little out of the ordinary for a flatlander, but I don't want to leave any stone uncovered that won't fit in my pocket. It is what you know and who you know and how much you can do for them that is important. As a flatlander, it has come to my attention that they have a Junior Alaskan Program here where you can get all the basics to become a sourdough in just a few short weeks. So I have made a decision that I will try to complete all of the required courses this summer - that includes iddaron mushing from some place in the bush to Fairbanks to bring back some rare serum or medicine to save some famous flatlander or just to get a summer supply of 100 bottles of Nyquill for everyone park side. I have a profound knowledge of mush - yellow and white. One of the first requirements, and the second most important thing, is to have a good platform to support you in case your dogs get lost. I don't have to worry about this just yet, as I have not aquired a sled or a team as of yet - but I have learned not to get to involved in the details at this point - in time it can all happen (with the right increments of hundreds). I have found that everything is possible in Alaska with the right hundreds of the right things. Everything is based on hundreds. It is the Alaskan numerical system for everything. Someone will say, "let's go get a hundred dollars worth of gas, drive 300 miles to town and back to get 200 cheeseburgers and a hundred gallons of beer and have a party for one hundred friends. The Alaskan numerical system - it works for everything. A hundred pounds of salmon is what I am working on now. That is what it will take to get to Fairbanks so I will have to find something to trade for a hundred pounds of salmon to feed the dogs. The only thing I have is a hundred riders every other day - so I have found a way to trade them to an airplane pilot who flys sightseeing trips over the mountain. I think this is going to work real well for both my salmon and my McKinley climb at the end of the year. And all of this is in the junion Alaskan Class I am taking. Hopefully I can have my dog mushing out of the way by mid-summer. It is required that you have it completed within the first 100 days. Log rolling and axe throwing is this weekend. I am looking forward to log rolling, as I have had some experience at falling off of logs. And really, all that is required is 100 revolutions without stopping in order to pass the log rolling part of the course. And axe throwing will be easy for me if I can throw under-handed. It should be just like using a pitching wedge from twenty-five yards out. All of this depends on my being able to trade 100 people out of all that ride my bus this summer to the mountain climbing people. This McKinley thing is going to take a lot of working out, but all I need to be able to do is climb a hunderd feet an hour - and who can't walk 100 feet an hour. So, what I am doing is this - when people on my bus ask if I have ever been on one of those airplanes that fly around the mountain, I tell them yes and that they should too. "Go see Hundo", I tell them, "over at Telketnia Air and tell him that Monty sent you". This way I build up flying time with Hundo. All I need is 100 referrals and I will have enought to trade for up to at least 7 thousand feet, where they can land on the glacier and I can start my climb of McKinley. That would only leave one thousand, one hundred feet to climb to reach the summit and at 100 feet per hour I only have to climb about 500 feet per day. I should have at least three days to get to the top and back down to the 7 thousand foot camp, where an Attabasken Indian will take me down to Kantishna for only 100 bottles of Nyquill. And all of this will be possible just because of the junior Alaskan class I've been taking this summer.
Last summer none of these exciting adventures were possible for me because of all of the restrictions that had been placed on me. There must have been at least a hundred things that I was told I could not even think about doing. But this year when I left home, she didn't say "Don't even think about it!"


June 14th
Father's day is tomorrow. The kids have sent me a Father's Day package but I can't get to the post office until Monday. It is hard to wait but the post office is not open on Sunday and I have to go inside to get the package. My box for letters and postcards is outside where I can get to it whenever - that is where they have all their summer resident's boxes. I sure miss the kids a lot, but knowing they are doing well helps me a great deal. I don't worry as much as I used to. I have kind of accepted that they have grown up and can take care of themselves.

Have had some really great wildlife days - yesterday was a hummer with 9 bears, 2 wolfs, a linx, lots of carabu and 2 foxes. Lots of dall sheep and 2 big rams. Had a long day earlier in the week - bus broke down on Government Hill and had to wait for another bus, transfer passengers and then continue the tour - but we saw all the wildlife except for a wolf that day so it was good, just long.

Had a new one for me - went to my first union meeting. I didn't know what to expect during the meeting but I knew what to do after it was over. My brothers-in-law taught me well what it is you do once union meetings are over - so I called in sick the next morning! Ha ha!

Hoping everyone is doing good. Sure do miss you all. Give me a "blog" when you can. I'll continue with my notes now.

Krumangen
Day 17 - no buggers. ( I'm sure that all flatlander keep stats.)

I have had no grand slams yet this year, but have come close three times. There is a change in the air and I feel it is a change that calls for short pants with white socks - with home being the place you want to run for and hear the crowd roar as you touch the bags, to have the power in that wood again and know you can go for the fence. You can touch them all and have no fear in going from first to third or center to the plate. It is a time of spring and I think it's here at last. The cold that had gripped my bones has started to thaw and the chill that has been upon me is gone. There is a change that has started to come over me as well - a metamorphasis - and I don't know if I can stop it. I think I am going to the dark side, a place that hides deep inside us all - it's a demon - and I think it is coming out of me. I am having trouble just writing about it. There is no one here I can talk to about it. No one here would understand what I am trying to tell them because no one knows me here. No one knows what I am really like - no one knows who I am - not like my buds and my friends in the flatland. It is a bad feeling for me to write down - a hard emotion to express. But I have signs. Signs that I am changing. There are things I am doing that I have never done before. It's like the boy of summer has left and responsibility has crept inside of me - or maybe it's the "M" word - maturity. Yes, the "M" word!! There are clues that it is happening to me. You see, I have started hanging up my pants at night - on a hanger - not just on the back of the chair. I've started picking up my socks when I take them off and have even gone as far as to hang up my shirt. I know this would not seem strange at all to these people up here in the north land. But to the people that know me, this is not right. It's like I have some other person from the dark side inside of me trying to come out. I think it all started when I became a vegetarian. I think I have become health concious. I consider my body as a temple now - ever since I started reading the word of the Sholmay. Yes, I have a new vegan lifestyle. I'm trying new foods - sprouts - spinach, okra, blue ribbon, wheat germ. I have started chanting in the evenings! - getting involved with the other followers of the jolly llama - real fun bunch. I am glad I have an orange bathrode. A friend here has loaned me a spare rug, which is nice, but I am having trouble sitting with my legs crossed. My legs go to sleep and I fall over into the person chanting next to me, then they fall into the person next to them - it's the domino effect. They are in deep meditation and chanting and don't even realize they have fallen over and I start to set them back up without messing up their bathrobes. But the problem has been solved. I just take my rug and go sit up againt the wall, fold the edges up under me when no one is looking and sit on it that way. My butt doesn't get tired and my legs don't fall asleep as fast. Chanting is harder than it looks and I'm not that good at it yet. Most everyone chants in "F" and you know me and Ike - everyting in "C"!! So I've been off key a little but they've been kind and have overlooked me breaking off into the chorus of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" every once in a while when I really get my hum on. I am light headed a lot these days since I went vegin and just today I noticed I was wearing white socks with brown shoes. The next thing you know I'll be wearing my pants pulled up to the middle of my stomach - and just today I was told no more wearing my orange bathrobe to work with white socks. What is wrong with white socks. If only I had a set of suspenders - a good belt is hard to find these days. And I have to trim my eyebrows every other day. What's up with that!! The only add I can read in my AARP magazine without my bifocals are the ones for hearing aids - and why are my legs as white as my ass checks - they're even whiter than my socks. And why do I go to bed at 7:30 and what do bags under your eyes really look like. . . . . and does touching them all mean you have to see them, too? I can't remember the last time I pissed over a fence and thank God for automatics - the stick shift should be outlawed. And I don't leave anything on my plate these days. Me and Dave Blethroade's high school health teacher was right - STATS - everyone keeps them, some are just different than others.