This post is just a few thoughts that have collected with no real forum to launch them into, so here seems to be the place.
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Where the crazy life began – Lovie with Ed Jolly on the Hoxie in Cook Inlet, longlining halibut in 1978.
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Commitment. Some folks commit to a greater degree than others. Country, occupation, sports, whatever, they just aren’t afraid to make the statement – wear the company jacket, put on the “Proud To Be” bumper stickers, plaster the team’s logo on everything. My favorite is a local fisherman in Sitka. A younger generation fellow, he approaches life at high speed, with a degree of reckless abandon that borders on the extreme. Rumor has it that the level of chemicals in his bloodstream is a little higher than most, and not all of them legal. I don’t know, but he took commitment to his lifestyle to the ultimate. A deckhand from a young age, now a boat owner, he goes by the nickname of “Red-Green”.
All vessels are required to have operational navigation lights; a red light visible on the port side (left side, facing forward), and a green one on the starboard. This way, if you see a vessel at night, you can get an idea of which side you are on, and their direction of travel. All good practice, although not as necessary on the sidewalk as it is at sea.
Red-Green wanted to be sure. He shaved his head, and had the port side tattooed Red, the starboard side Green.
This is for real. That, my friend, is serious commitment.
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Brahams Lullaby. I was listening to the iPod the other day while working on the computer. My music collection is a huge pile of miscellaneous stuff I’ve collected over the years – my kids have contributed, as have many of the soldiers who deployed with O, people that Em worked with, the boys in the band, relatives, etc. I love music of all sorts, so I have all types. When you play the songs alphabetically, you never know what you’ll get, from Hank Snow to Abba to Metallica.
So, I listen. And, just after”Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, came a silence. Then a slow piano began. A simple melody played on a nylon stringed guitar. My memories whirled, work stopped, everything seemed surreal. The simple tune played on.
I was transported back, to the years in the little cabin at Ashley Lake. Life was not always so easy there either, but it was good. The kids were at those magic years where they always stay in my mind when I get nostalgic. Hectic days would come to an end eventually, and almost always, we would tuck them into the safety of their beds, stuffed animals to guard for the night. And almost always, Lovie would sit and softly sing the words to the song that has stopped me in my tracks, and brought me to a bleary-eyed, runny-nosed halt -- “Lullaby.., and good night…” All’s right with the world. Miss you kids.
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Hands. Ever think about them? I was sitting in the autumn sunlight last week, with nothing to do but listen and think, looked down, and saw my hands. Hoyt Axton wrote a song with a line, “If that cat could talk, what a tale he’d tell” which seems appropriate when applied to hands, also. Mine are no longer the smooth, unblemished tools of youth and they bear the marks of 50+ years of front-lines exposure.
They started off pretty smooth and clean. Then there were the bike wrecks, the garage experiments gone wrong, the knuckles busted fixing motorcycles…
I can still see the marks of early Alaska, the bowsaw rip on the left hand; halibut hooks, burns from welding at the sawmill..
Then there are the countless scars from building houses, pulling wire; smashed fingers, cuts, splinters, abrasions of all sorts; the unseen damage from handling frozen lumber and tools in the Montana winters;
Then, the climbing years..
Hanging from tiny ledges by two fingers; jamming them into crevasses and flexing a fist to hang from when no other hold would do; rope burns, and all the rest.
They’ve had a workout, those miraculous little guys – I can still hit these keys with them, and I can still coax a little music from the strings of my guitar.
Best of all is when they get to hold my wife’s – hers seem to have a similar tale to tell.
It is getting harder to pick my nose, though… not sure why.
Weird thoughts, weird time of life.
Stay tuned.
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