Sunday, June 09, 2013

I have a 1973 International Harvester Dump Truck.  It has a big V-8 engine and is complete with air brakes, and air horn, duals in the rear, a body in pretty good shape, and a working dump bed.  It is really kind of cute, in a heavy equipment kind of way.  It’s only problem is that it doesn’t run too well.  It needs a set of spark plug wires and maybe plugs, points, distributor cap, and condenser.  This is the kind of automotive work I cut my slightly greasy teeth on back in the day.  Why is it that I have parked it in front of the garage to give it a tune-up at least twice without accomplishing anything except getting to honk the air horn.  This sort of a tune-up was standard for every vehicle before the age of electronic ignition and fuel injection and computer-controlled everything.  This beast, despite having an automatic transmission, was born in the age of manual.  Everything is. Why is it that I have so little desire to perform those restorative tasks that few even have the tools for anymore?  I suspect that part of it has to do with leaning over the engine and having to grow joints in the middle of my forearm to reach hidden parts.  Part of it has to do with my back complaining.  Part of it has to do with my wanting to do something more “fun”.  And much of it has to do with the fact that I’ve grown lazy and content with a vehicle that doesn’t require much more than a regular oil change and a couple of sets of spark plugs during it’s life. Life has really gotten much easier for all of us in so many respects, that it has deprived us of the necessity to know how things work and how they break and how to fix them.  I appreciate those skills and tried as a semi-patient father to imbue my children with a similar appreciation.  In large part, I am gratified to see success.  It wasn’t so in their youth, but now I see my kids taking on projects that I never thought they would ever attempt.  Sarah sews.  Not as a teenager, but as an adult, she wanted to learn and did.  Robert recently put together an entire in-floor heating system for an addition to his house from parts we both had laying around.  He also removed and replaced the biggest automatic transmission I ever saw in a pickup truck.  Rebecca just finished remodeling her kitchen and called for advice about support for the table she had to build that would be finished with a granite countertop.  Jonathon just finished making an aquaponic system that uses live fish to filter and feed vegetable plants, similar but better than a hydroponic system.  Jennifer and Tyson are getting ready to dig up their driveway and reslope it to guide water around the house.  Carolyn just finished building up a corner of their front yard with a dump truck of topsoil, and then building a greenhouse on top.  These aren’t necessarily remarkable achievements.  Lots of people do these sorts of things, but lots don’t.  There is a dearth of knowledge and inspiration and drive and can-do attitude  in the world that I am grateful my children and their loving spouses lack.  And tomorrow, I will put on my can-do attitude and tune up the dump truck.

Saturday, June 08, 2013

Mason Williams was the poet who wrote a series of poems that are best delivered while clapping on the beat and stomping a foot on the back-beat.  There is quite a collection including “Them Toad Suckers”, “Them Lunch Toters”, “Them Moose Goosers”, “Them Dog Kickers” and so on.  Today I was pulling out the branches of barely leafing devil’s club and I happened to remember one of his originals, “Them Sticker Gitters”.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gJQwgLWSjJ0

  That particular ditty is quite appropriate while pulling out devil’s club because, as you might imagine, it is full of stickers.  Devil’s club, as far as I know, is an uniquely Alaskan weed.  It’s branches grow underground and then shoots arise from them.  The underground sections have few thorns, but the shoots and branches that grow up from them are covered.  The stickers are particularly nasty because they seem to each have their own drop of poison and whether they imbed or not, wherever they break the skin, they leave a sore that swells a bit and irritates for days.  If the thorn is broken off under the skin, then digging it out is the only cure.  I remember spending entire summers in Phoenix without shoes.  There were several stickers that grew around the neighborhood like mesquite and paloverde and the occasional tumble weed, but the worst surprise was to step, full-force, on a bullhead.  Named after the fish, I’m sure, the bullhead is maybe ¼” in diameter, hard, and covered with spines of various lengths.  Stepping barefoot into a bullhead patch gave little alternative but to sit down as quickly as possible and pull out the little monster.  If the tip was broken off, then it was Mom’s turn to find a needle and dig it out. We just loved that, and I decided that I would rather dig out my own thorns than have someone else do it.  Our yard was surrounded by inhospitable plants.  We had a rose hedge that surrounded the back yard and a pyracantha hedge along one side of the front yard and Mom’s individual roses on either side of the driveway on the other side of the front yard.  One might assume that Mom enjoyed picking out stickers, but I think she was just teaching us to be careful.  When I was old enough to join Dad on hunting trips, we would walk miles in the desert looking for quail.  Cactus grew everywhere and the large-thorned varieties like saguaro and barrel cactus weren’t really too much of a problem because they were visible, but rubbing up against the small thorns of a prickly pear would insinuate tiny spines into your clothes and your skin that you couldn’t hardly pick out.  It was more effective to scrape them off with the knife edge.  The real evil specimen, however, was the cholla or jumping cactus.  The little balls of thorns were so tenuously attached to the main plant that bumping it would result in the balls going everywhere.  The hundreds spines on each ball were barely hooked on the tip and were as fine as a hypodermic needle, so if you inadvertently hit one, you were left with maybe dozens of needles stuck deeply in whatever part of your body they happen to contact.  It was common to see a steer with jumping cactus stuck on it’s body and I have spent some time pulling out the spines from our dog while roaming the desert landscape.  The story that still makes me cringe is of a neighbor as told by her husband.  They were not outdoor types and found themselves out in the desert.  The wife had to relieve herself, and having no rest room for miles around, decided to squat out of sight in the time-honored tradition.  Untraditionally, she squatted over a cholla and it was a painful learning opportunity that she realized as her husband pulled the many spines from her tender parts.  And here I sit this evening with the devil’s club spines that penetrated my leather gloves irritating my fingers.  I am ready for a little exploratory surgery, I guess, so maybe I’ll just play that Mason Williams clip one more time…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gJQwgLWSjJ0

www.youtube.com

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

I suppose dumpster diving is the natural progression from talking about the attraction of the dump.  Dumpster diving is not for the faint of heart because some things just belong in the dumpster and shouldn’t be disturbed.  The waste from our summer fish butchering operation after dip netting comes to mind.  Those bags really just need to go straight to the landfill and be buried ASAP.  On the other hand, construction sites yield all kinds of building supplies from pipe and steel and lighting fixtures and conduit and lumber to 5 gallon buckets and tools in need of repair.  My favorite dumpster story involves chickens.  Years ago when I was in the Army, we raised chickens for the eggs and for the experience.  In Alaska, it is not particularly cost-effective because in the winter, egg production falls.  Chickens really like to scratch, and will eat greens voraciously.  We had 20 plus chickens and feeding them through the less productive winter was not very profitable, and though they would go out to eat the snow, they spent most of the time in the henhouse.  Robert, who worked at McDonalds, would bring home a bag of dried-out buns from time to time and the chickens would go wild, but what they really loved was salad greens.  I had noticed that in grocery stores, the produce section would prepare their goods for sale by taking off the outer leaves of the cabbage and lettuce and would throw away anything that didn’t look fresh.  Safeway refused to part with their produce waste, and it went into a compactor-dumpster so there was no chance at retrieval.  I inquired at the Commissary (the military grocery store) and the produce manager told me he couldn’t give the waste away either because if it killed me or my chickens, the government might be liable, but he took me to the back door and pointed out the dumpster that they threw the black garbage bags in every night, and I began frequenting the dumpster and the chickens couldn’t have been happier.  A couple of bags of leaves would keep them happy for a week.  I was a Lieutenant Colonel at the time, and had traveled with another officer to Fairbanks for the day to work in a clinic there.  We flew on a military C-12 aircraft and the trip took about an hour.  When we returned to the base one evening, I was giving my friend a ride home and suggested we check the dumpster.  It was quite dark out with snow on the ground, and Paul felt more than a little conspicuous, but I assured him it was alright, and that I had never even been questioned.  That was all about to change, however.  Picture two senior Army officers in uniform rooting around in a dumpster  looking for vegetable scraps when two squad cars of military police roll up with searchlights lighting up the night.  Of course the trash is much too valuable to allow anyone to pilfer, so they wanted to know what we were doing.  I explained about my chickens and they inspected the contents of the trash bags and finally let us go.  They even let me keep the bags, and the chickens were happy as usual, but I know I will never hear the end from Paul of nearly getting us arrested for stealing the produce trash from the dumpster at the Elmendorf Commissary.

Monday, June 03, 2013

I’m not sure what the attraction of trash is, but it is clearly there.  As a boy, I loved to walk down the alleys and see what goodies the neighbors threw away.  I came home with books and a washing machine and lumber and fencing and bags of screws and nails and who knows what else.  Dad always complained that I was hauling home all that junk, but those pieces of sheet metal and those boards wound up in some project or another.  I took the washing machine apart into all the various components and reproduced the electrical connections on the workbench to figure out how the timer and float and motor and switches all worked together.  Those kinds of experiences helped to make me foolishly fearless in disassembly and repair of almost anything.  Trips to the dump were a fascination for me before the people that run the dumps got so fussy about who could recover materials and reusables from their premises.  When we lived in Japan, both Camp Zama and Atsugi Naval Air Station had dumps that were unattended, and we made many happy trips recovering discarded materials.  I still have logging chains from the Atsugi dump, and we recovered enough lumber to build beds playhouses and a shop and a greenhouse and a swingset.  Pallets were made of teak, so pulling the nails and planing them down left some beautiful wood for special projects.  Even here in Eagle River, the dump can be a place of excitement and mystery.  If you dump on the “face” of the landfill where the bulldozers work, you will see lumber and iron and toys and appliances and everything else you can imagine being buried by the heavy equipment.  They pretend to have a recycling program here, but the very highest level of recycling is reuse, and that is completely ignored.  If a product or material can be reused or repurposed, it doesn’t have to be broken down into component compounds to be of value.  It is already of value.  Fairbanks does public dumping better than most places.  They have lots with dozens of dumpsters surrounding them and a covered area where people can leave objects that they no longer want but that still have some value.  Free for the taking and affordable to all, chairs and toys and playground equipment and tires can all be found there, and if not taken away, the dumpsters are pretty close.  I have brought home pipe and drawer slides and electrical wire and moldings and even a Fisher Price car that the grandkids love.  So why do we as a society stand by and watch as these things are crushed and buried in a landfill while we worry about saving aluminum cans?  My dream would be to have everything entering the dump pass through a conveyor where all the reusables and recyclables would be removed and put in a proper stream, either for sale at a reduced rate or recycled.  Hazardous wastes are handled in such a manner here in Eagle River.  If a reusable container of paint or oil or wax or windex or whatever is dropped off at the facility here, it is put on a shelf that any other patron is free to take home and use up of it what is left.  This is a great service to both donors and reusers, and keeps the waste from going into the landfill or having to be disposed of as a hazardous waste.  What a marvel it would be if that same logic could be applied to solid waste.  Instead, try and “steal” material from the dump and you will be threatened with arrest.  Logic?

Sunday, June 02, 2013

Today has been a sad day.  I have had the honor and privilege of serving as Bishop of the Bear Mountain Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for the past 5 years.  A Bishop is the ecclesiastical leader of a congregation and serves with two counselors.  In our church, all serve as unpaid volunteers.  The Bishop is called through inspiration and revelation by the Stake President.  The Bishopric calls through inspiration and revelation those who serve in the ward.  As Bishop, I have received that inspiration and have extended those callings to most of the members of the ward who almost universally have served faithfully.   Serving in this capacity has brought untold blessings to my family and to me, and while the responsibility is significant, the love I have received and have learned to give has far outweighed the burden of any responsibility.  Bishops generally serve for about 5 years, and it has now been nearly 5 years and two months, so being released was not a surprise.  Teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and bearing witness of Him has lifted me up and brought me closer to our Father in Heaven.  Watching the Gospel in action as faithful members pattern their lives after His has been a continual inspiration.  Being released from the chance to serve those who I have learned to love and respect leaves an ache in my heart that will not soon be filled.  

Saturday, June 01, 2013

I suppose it is fair to say that everyone has a particular candy that they like best.  Judging from my own reactions, that varies somewhat with how I feel and what is available.  Chocolate, for instance, is a favorite.  My real preference in the chocolate line is white chocolate, which really isn’t chocolate at all, but Lindt truffles melting their slow but delectable essence unleash an explosion of sensation that is hard not to love.  Even the milk chocolate truffles are pretty great, but my wife’s opinion would be much different.  She still savors the texture and flavor treat, but her preference is dark chocolate; the darker the better.  For me, dark chocolate is hardly worth bothering with which is one reason we are such a great companionship.  We can each pretend to sacrifice from a bag of mixed chocolates those which we don’t prefer and still provide a taste  delicacy for the other.  We also have learned to really sacrifice for each other, but that is another story.  At other times when chocolate isn’t really the thing, I love caramel.  I eat it only rarely because it isn’t good for me.  Health is not what I am talking about, however.  Wonderfully sticky caramels tend to handily remove my onlays from my teeth requiring another cementation, and Robert gets cranky when that happens too often, so I just deny myself.  When neither chocolate or caramel are on the sweetshop menu, I love hot cinnamon candies.  When we would go to the theatre in my younger days, I would by a big box of Ferrara Red Hots and start out slow, but soon I would be chewing up a mouthful and enjoying both the burn and the cinnamon flavor.  Hot Tamales I learned to like a bit later, and when Costco started carrying the 4.5 lb. bags, I could actually get burned out.   Then I discovered Atomic Fire Balls.  Fire Balls are cinnamon jaw-breakers that can be just smoking hot.  Not always, but sometimes.  They just have an occasional better batch, I guess.  Anyway, I have had to restrict my Fireball intake for 2 reasons.  Jawbreakers are really misnamed.  More appropriately, they would be called Toothbreakers.  My desire to bite them is pretty strong, and as I already indicated, Robert gets grumpy if he has to fix my teeth in an unscheduled appointment.  I won’t even mention the times I had to sew his face back together in an unscheduled manner.  The other reason I usually avoid Fireballs is that they are pure sugar,  and 30 calories a piece.  With 240 in the Sam’s Club container, that is way too many calories to calculate.  When my son-in-law Curtis asked for Carolyn’s hand in marriage, I told him that I wanted something from him first.  Of all the expensive things I could have asked from him to prove his dedication to her, I asked for a container of Fireballs.  I’m still waiting.   But I want you to know that Carolyn would be worth the risk.

Friday, May 31, 2013

When I think of woodcutters, I think of Hansel and Gretels’ father, or of the lumberjack that rescued Little Red Riding Hood, or maybe the lumberjacks in the silly Monty Python Lumberjack song.  They are always pictured with a big, sharp axe and that is the way woodcutting was done for eons.  In the Yukon Territory during the gold rush in the late 1800s, entire forests were cleared away by hand to provide fuel for the steamboats that moved freight and people from Whitehorse to Dawson.  Being way too mechanized for an axe, when I needed to cut firewood for wintertime heat, I opted for a chain saw.  My first was a small Homelite purchased at Costco when we were stationed at Ft. Huachuaca.  Our historical house on the parade field had a fireplace and we were determined to have a fire.  There was a woodcutting area on the post, and after reading the manual, I took my new saw out and began by cutting up some wood on the ground and soon was felling trees.  As I became more experienced, I was much more at ease using the chain saw, and I filled up the bed of my 1958 International Harvester ¾ ton pickup and hauled it home, only to burn very little of it.  The chimney didn’t really draw very well, and that smoky flavor we found delicious on our steaks just wasn’t as attractive inside the house.  In Kentucky, we also had a fireplace and I cut and burned firewood there, but it really wasn’t until we moved to Alaska that I began to think of myself as a woodcutter, even without the fairy tale.  Our first home had 2 fireplaces and I cut enough to burn in them.  I even put a log lighter in so that building a fire was as easy as turning on the gas and striking a match.  When we built our first cabin however, was when I began felling trees for use in construction as well as to cut and split for heat.  We built the cabin on piers which were spruce logs I cut and that we debarked, treated, and planted in holes to support the cabin 4 feet off the ground.  On each wintertime visit, we burned what I had cut and stacked in the summer, and if we weren’t very careful, the inside temperature would be in the 90s, even when it was -20 outside.  We learned to cut trees that were dangerously near the house by winching them in the opposite direction or using an ATV to put enough traction on them to get them to fall away from the building.  The new cabin in Trapper Creek is much larger and more comfortable, and uses lots more wood.  Fortunately, there is a lot of downed wood around.  I spent a good deal of time this winter cutting, splitting and stacking firewood so that next winter we will have seasoned wood ready to burn.  It is actually easier to cut it in the winter because the snow allows you to go nearly anywhere, and in the summer the vegetation and the swamps limit your ability to travel.  Robert heats his home with wood, and as I was driving through an area of road construction on Eagle River Road, I saw a big pile of wood.  A workman told me it was free for the taking so I called Robert and off we went to cut wood for next winter.  The trees were stacked on the side of the road and we pulled his truck and trailer as close as we could get and set about cutting the logs into bite-size pieces.  We actually were aiming for 6-8 foot lengths which we could end-over-end to the trailer or truck and muscle into place.  We maxed out both the trailer and the truck and got home safely where we unloaded the truck onto the ground.  He will cut it and he claims his kids will stack it.  Hmmm.   Sounds just a little hokey to me.