The Perfect Day

So yesterday was about as awesome as a "just plain ol' living' day" could ever hope to be.

Friday night I drove about 60-odd miles northwest to an "alumni gathering" for the churchgal's group thing I went to last fall. And it was AWESOME. We were ferried by powerboat to our cabin on the lake, and after a meet'n'greet for everybody, three of us grabbed the "cool kids tent" and passed around a friends' silky-sweet homemade violin*, my flute, and a recorder. Later I walked out on the dock that night - magic! A couple cabins across the lake were lit, but for the most part it was empty. Stars littered the sky above so dense it might have been a hubble image, and clouds floated in the still water of the lake. I lay on the dock, drinking in the stars and occasionally sending a few snatches of melody across the water to see if the loons would answer again.


Morning came eventually, chilly and damp. Fog blanketed the lake, and for a time I was the only one up and about. One by one the others woke and came out of the tent, and eventually we all went into the cabin to prep some breakfast. Plenty of pleasant chatting amongst the whole gaggle of us for some time before the boat with the rest of the class and our class leader arrived.

Introductions and laughter and singing followed, then our teacher started sharing some of what she'd learned from a Messiac Jew concerning the first parts of Genesis, getting into connotations of the Hebrew that didn't carry through in translations through Greek**. I suppose it should come as no surprise that Professor Tolkien's Ainulindalë jumped out to bite me, so similar were the opening strains. All the while I was absorbed in watching the dance of golden light on the birch and grass at the lakeshore, for the lake was throwing little bits of sunlight everywhere.

After that feast of poetry for the ears and eyes, I had to leave. I'd promised friends back in the city I'd join them for a concert that evening, and so was granted leave to disappear early from the proceedings. Several of us had gotten together earlier to try to work out a quick rendition of "Be Thou My Vision" and while I couldn't stay for the whole thing, our teacher did ask me to play a bit over the group study while waiting for the boat... and so I did, getting lost in the flute again.

Soon though the boat arrived, piloted again by the husband of the cabin host. This time we shared the boat with a quiet young man and three rowdy dogs, proving that be it a car on the highway or a speeding plywood boat on an Alaskan lake - dogs will be dogs.



The drive back was spectacular. It was one of those heartbreakingly beautiful days, with a brilliant blue sky and scenery so sharp you could cut yourself on it. Photos taken from a speeding jeep on the little highway can't possibly do it justice, but I'll toss one in anyhow. Suffice it to say that the whole trip back was more prayer than commute, interrupted only by a fond stop for lunch in Wasilla, all full up with encouragement for their now famous hometown girl.

Once home I sped through a couple quick tasks, then got ready for the event of the evening - a performance of Tristan and Iseult given by the legendary Celtic Harper Patrick Ball. I'd had the good fortune of seeing him once before in Tennessee, and was eager for another show.

Years ago, when I was first drawn to the Celtic harp, he was one of the masters I gravitated to. These days true wire-strung harps and harpers are relatively common - even as recently as ten years ago the nylon-strung neo-celtic folk harps like the one I learned on were very much the standard. But Mr. Ball has always performed like the bards of old, on a large bronze-strung harp that wouldn't look out place a millennium ago in a Welsh lord's hall. A traditionalist at heart, I'd always greatly admired Mr. Ball and his music.

It wasn't until I got to see him in Tennessee though that I was truly struck with the man as a performer. More than a musician, he is a modern bard - the best storyteller I have ever seen. He can hold an enraptured audience breathless in his hands, weaving a spell of song and story so skillfully the kings of old would have counted him a treasure in their halls.

And we got to see him, my dear tour guide and me. He was even kind enough to stay and chat some with the audience afterwards, a delightful treat!

Afterwards, buddy and I went to an after-show party put on by another friend from a local historical group, where we passed the hours into the wee morning over story, bread, mead and laughter. The deep researchers of the group were entranced in debating the details of St. Brendan's voyages of the 6th century, as one of the number passed around his model and diagrams for the reproduction full scale currach he is building, following on the heels of Tim Severin.

All the while I got to warm my fingers on his own harp, absentmindedly drawing a stream of consciousness melody from the strings as I followed the conversation. Noticing at one point that the background music on the stereo had been turned off though was a better compliment than even the thanks I had at the end of the evening.. wow.

It was a day and a night of poetry, or prayer, of communion and of fellowship.
A better span of time I've not seen in ages. Here's to the simple joys of life - may you have them in abundance.



==============================================

* The thing had the softest, sweetest sound I've ever had the chance to feel - it was the classic "humble origins, royal sound" instrument. Wonderful to play on, and it responds to its owners classical touch beautifully! She picked well!

** I confess if I have a favorite scriptural passage, this might well be it. The sheer poetry of the first few verses of Genesis never fail to seize my heart, so pregnant are they with that breathless anticipation of possibility. I'd particularly recommend the old Mike Oldfield album with the Apollo recording for a more modern taste of "Ainulindalë."

A walk on Jiangyin.

Okay, geek time. :)

So you know that episode of Firefly*, when the Tams get left behind on the backwater planet? You know, where you see Serenity pick up and take off through a break in the trees?

Wouldn't you know it, but today's walk showed me near enough that very sight.

See, the little cottage where I live is in the part of town nestled right between a city airfield and the local air force base. Between here and the base is a little swath of forestland all criss-crossed with trails - makes a great place for an evening walk.

You see where this is going.

Yup, sure enough, along comes one of those HUGE air force cargo planes not a hundred yards over the forest floor on approach for their airfield. The big grey beast was all awhir and roaring seemingly close enough to touch, hanging impossibly above the golden wash of trees.

Yeah, it might not have been a Firefly spaceship, but it'll take your breath away nonetheless.

Just plug your ears.










* One of the charming things about Firefly is how closely Mr. Whedon managed to nail the quirkiness of a modern "rimworld" where high tech and old-fashioned solutions lived side by side. The lodge I worked at last fall had wireless internet, but we used woodfired saunas for bathing and privies for the other necessaries of life. (The guests had indoor water heaters, but those were a luxury that cost!) So for all the affectations, I can easily see a future where a frontiersman might take his pony and rifle on a trip to whatever passes for an internet cafe.

Gosh it's cool living on the borderworlds. :)

Sweet, sweet vacation.

Oh what a beautiful day!

Late last week it felt like the city was suffused with a woodland full of the descendants of Laurelin, as everywhere green boughs dripped bits of gold to the ground. This week fall has struck in full force - the birch are now gold tufts against the dark evergreens, and here and again splashes of red dot the underbrush.

You can see winter approaching from town - it takes the form of a stark borderline on the mountains surrounding town. Above is winter, below fall. And as the clouds break away in the morning, each day that line marches a little closer.

A friend had suggested going up to one of the local shooting ranges not long ago, and I'd agreed. It's been almost a year since I'd done any gunny stuff, but she'd been wanting to learn more about it and I thought "why not?" The first time we tried the range was closed, so we tried again today - and tra la! This time it all worked out!

Gosh I was rusty - I brought along my "Friends and Family 1911", and well.. let's just say I won't be winning any trophies. It is amazing how perishable a skill pistolcraft is! After a magazine or two I buckled down and tried mentally going through the basics again and got a little better.. not expert by any means, but decent enough I suppose.

More fun though was the .22 rifle we passed back and forth - another CZ, and it was just as scary accurate as the first one I had years ago. The gal I went with was just getting started, and doing wonders with just the basics of instruction off the bench.

We also played with some updated classics, a somewhat-modernized "cowboy style" lever rifle and single action revolver. That last was particularly fun with the lighter plinking cartridges - seeing the whispers of smoke come away from it in the autumn breeze was for a moment like seeing an old western movie, but from the back end. I tried a couple of the critter loads as well, just to keep in the littlest bit of practice.

Owie. I think I can wait another year before doing that again! Not bad in the little carbine, but all kinds of hand-stinging in the revolver!

On the slightly creepy side, I didn't see anywhere near as much uncollected brass on the ground as I'm accustomed to seeing at a range. Granted I've never been to this one before(or any formal Alaskan range, for that matter), but it was a noticeable difference from most anywhere else I'd ever seen - almost everything on the ground was steel. As expensive as ammunition was yesterday when I went to buy some, I suppose I can understand why. I imagine reloading has become a more common hobby these days. Sad, really. But the AR guys were out to play as well, and that's always a comforting sight.

The best part of it all though was chatting with the ol' fellers who ran the place. Both are cowboy-style horsemen, and one a pilot to boot. He and my friend (the pilot/soon-to-be-flight-instructor) were just talking shop a mile a minute. I tell ya, the oldtimers behind those counters can be some of the sweetest people you ever did meet. So after being - um - encouraged - to go to the NRA banquet by a couple different groups of people, we gathered up our stuff, washed our hands, and went out for the most wonderful sushi dinner.

Not back home with a steaming cup of hot chocolate and my fiddle, well.. the evening just couldn't get better.

Hope your weekend was as good. God Bless, y'all.

Where'd I put my hat?

Wuh.

Life is anything but dull lately. The music tutoring I'm doing has swung to theory in lieu of fiddle, so it's mostly composition exercises and bits of solfege - gal's got a great ear! Meanwhile I'm working on one freelance site, doing some "straightening up the kitchen" type webwork for the church I used to work at*, and halftime (soon to be fulltime) work at a local fledgling IT company - which incidentally is kicking my butt. Squeezed in there is a few hours a week of sorting and polishing wingribs for the airplane I'll be getting lessoned in, along with some hourly work at the airplane mechanic's shop.

Oh, speaking of - turns out my toolbag wasn't stolen after all! It turned up buried in a C172 from a couple weeks back. I was *sure* I'd checked that bird three times, but oh well. Regardless, now that my little Kaylee bag is back in my hands I'm all kinds of delighted. There's a lot of memories already in that little grease-stained canvas bag - now many more to come I hope!




In between all that, a couple neat little melodies have started worming their way out from my fiddle fingerboard these last couple months. I've been recording roughs every now and again, so as to be able to go back and polish the good ones this winter once they've aged a bit. Nice to have something to look forward to in the long frigid dark!

Guess that's all from the Northlands folks. God Bless.

-J



* It's awesome seeing everybody again - all hugs and smiles!
** Talk about a good incentive to make sure it's all done right!

There are many like it, but...

... well actually, there aren't. This one is mine. Unique.



Honestly, it's been a while since I'd seen it. Because I live in one of the less well to do parts of town, it's a treasure I've not wanted to keep at home - a friend of mine has been looking after it for me. But her new roommate has teenagers, so I thought better to bring it back under my roof. And since another friend and I share the same experience of recently having sentimental treasures walk away with the conscience-impaired of the world, I thought it wise to document this one of mine now. So out came the camera.

And now here's the story.

This pistol is very special to me. Not for its utility, nor for its cost, though I suppose neither is inconsiderable. Nor for any symbolic value as a personal - and personalized - weapon, although it has that to.

No, this pistol is precious to me because of the time it came into my possession, and all that happened since.

It started about five years ago. My brother's death was still fresh with all of us, then another shockwave hit the family - my parents divorced. The reasons aren't important anymore, just know it was devastating as only the the dissolving of a near-forty year marriage can be.

My father was, as you can imagine, crushed under the weight of it. Since I was flailing around in the dark at the time to, we circled the wagons - I returned to Tennessee and for about three years lived again with my father for the first time since college. I'd known him as father all my life... for the first time I really got to know him as Dave, the man he is. Despite all the traumas, those are years I'd not trade for anything.

By way of explanation, we're a very left-leaning family. My father, God love him, still has a McGovern for President bumper sticker on his file cabinet in the study. Personal arms were something that just wasn't done in my family - I remember there was one .22 in the house when I was growing up, and even it was there because my grandfather insisted no daughter of his was going to live with a man who couldn't look after her proper. It came with my mom as part of the deal, I think.

So anyhow, that's as we were. I'd grown away from those beliefs myself over the years, especially in California. By the time I returned home, it was a point of polite disagreement between my father and myself.

One day though, he and I were out for a drive on the outskirts of town. Without a word, he pulled into the parking lot of a small gunstore. He was looking at the pistols, then asked a question that startled me.

"If you were going to get a pistol for the house, what would you suggest?"

photo by Oleg Volk

Flustered, I answered that what I would choose and what I'd recommend for him were different things, preferences and comfort being what they are. He asked again.

"Well..." I said... "probably that one" indicating a WWII reproduction 1911 from Springfield. The company had a good reputation, I had already grown to love the ergonomics of that pattern, and let's face it - it was the cheapest on the rack amongst the "good stuff."

To my shock, he bought it.

This pistol is thus one of the most meaningful gifts I've ever received. Not for what it is, but because of the spirit in which it was given. It's the tangible residue of my father reaching past whatever petty disagreements we might have had in order to strengthen the bond between us in a horrid time.

That would be enough for this lump of steel to always occupy a special place in my heart - but it didn't end there. At the same time I was staying with my father, I regularly visited friends the next city over. One happened to be quite possibly the brightest student of history and arms I've ever had the good fortune to meet, and again some of the brightest, best memories of my life have been in the company of her and her companions.

Nighttime on the porch was the best, especially when friends from all over came.

Everyone circled around the little firebox, trading stories the likes of which you can only hear amongst a bunch of Southern rascals, old vets, and the romantic at heart. Tales of Nelson's navy and Lee's army, of backwoods 'shiners and ne'er do wells, hunting tales and friendly gossip.

On the best of those nights, they passed around a book of Kipling, reading aloud. If you have never heard a voice break or seen a military man's eye glistened, lost anew in the echoes of "Tommy," well.. I can only say the loss is yours. Faulkner himself could not capture those nights.

So.. where was I?

Yes, the pistol. It was during this time that dear Tamara introduced me to a talented chef/gunsmith of her acquaintance, under who's tutelage I went about tweaking that pistol, trying to make it more my own. Swapping out some parts for those in a bin, rounding off all the edges (or "ruining" it he said), checkering the front strap... For most of the three years I was back in the South, that pistol sat in pieces in a box, coming out occasionally as I tried one thing or another he showed me. Sometimes I even did the work on that very porch so filled with stories.

It was only in the months leading up to my departure for Alaska that I begged that gifted smith to work his magic and finish it for me, so I might have it complete before I left.

So now here it is. It's been months since its stayed under my own roof, and I can't remember the last time I fired it... well over a year I think. These days my fingers are much more comfortable on fiddlestring or flute than trigger and slide - my own personal farewell to arms is well past now.

But this pistol remains a treasure. Memories of my friends and family flow through that steel like its very own blood. It could be a painting, an old carved armoire, or a finely wrought necklace. It happens to be a pistol.

There are none like it.
And it is mine.

Conversations with Death.

It feels a little odd, reflecting back on it, that my brother's death was so close to those of so many others seven years ago today. I remember when I got the news, sitting in a waiting room of the Boise airport about to see a dear friend off.

The call came on a cellphone. My father's voice sounded tight in a way I'd never heard before. Oddly, he wanted to speak to my friend first.

She handed me the phone with a stricken face, and I walked away into a little alcove for some measure of privacy, dreading what I would hear. Through the speaker of the phone, I heard my father's broken voice. He managed to force out the words "your brother is dead..." just when my eyes had locked on a brass plate mounted to the wall. On that brass plate were names. The names of local airmen who'd died in wartime.

In one of these first rushes of foolish thought that pass through your mind when news that destroys your whole world arrives, one of the first whispers through my own head was "Matthew you idiot, you could have at least died for something, like these men here." But no, he hadn't.

No valiant solider, no victim of a national attack. Not even the random chance that can strike any family, any time.

No, we lost Matthew to his suicide over a broken heart, and likely other demons we'll never know. It wasn't heroic in the least, and the trail of devastation it wrecked through my family casts echoes to this day. The fury over that loss has long since died to pity, but death is death no matter how he finds us.

The time that followed is familiar to anyone who's lost a loved one. The house fills up with friends and sympathetic strangers. Dumb stricken silence is punctuated with screaming into your pillow. Silent, wet eyes meet yours everywhere you look in the house. In time the agony of it wears off, and it becomes like the quietly accepted old wound that just aches sometimes as weather blows in.

Almost seven years past though, I have to admit the one light spot to that agonizing ordeal - perspective. If I may be permitted the observation that sounds slightly blasphemous, when you lose someone that close to you it's almost like seeing Christ in miniature. It's the smaller, more digestible version of a story you can't really comprehend no matter how many preachers try to relate it.

Through death, new doors are opened.

See, there before you is a whole life shattered. Not just theirs, but yours to. Every given in your life, every normalcy, is ripped away. The pleasant fiction we each build around ourselves and call the world is in tatters.

"If this can happen" we ask ourselves, "what else can?"

There is no longer any normal for life.

And it is in that shattered, wrecked time that things can change so dramatically in our lives. Some for bad, some for good.. and many in ways we won't be able to know, not on this side of Eternity.

You question every act of your own life -

How else can I show love to this person, or heal that old barb?
Am I spending the days of life on something worthwhile?

Old wounds are forgiven. Past wrongs fade to insignificance.
New purpose may even dawn in your life.

Death comes like a forest fire, sweeping away the tangled growth of petty squabbles and old grudges. The souls of friends and family are stripped open, bare to each other and themselves. And in that gaping naked vulnerability, you start to heal into each other. Life clings to life, no matter how foreign it once seemed.

This world is as it is though, and no wound stays open forever. Eventually the weeds will return, misunderstandings or disagreements once though unthinkable or trivial may resurface with time. With grace however, the foundation of love underneath those disagreements is the stronger for the trial.

So - may those of us who once in our common loss shared common cause remember.. however wrong we may believe each other to be, we remain every bit the brother and sister we felt each other to be seven years ago today.

And when death comes again past your door, for come he will - seize that chance to build closer still the bonds of love you have remaining in this world. For you will need them.


Vaya con Dios, Beloved.

Fading Summer

It's with a little trepidation that I see the signs of fall coming again. Winter means something completely different up here - achingly long cold nights, and literally not seeing the black of the roads for months at a time. I still remember splashing in puddles this spring for the sheer joy of seeing liquid water again.

But those signs are there, no mistake. A couple weeks ago I saw the first raven in town. The mountains are starting to get shaggy towards the top, starting to look like molting buffalo as green fades patchwork away to brown. And now in town, the first leaves are starting to turn gold.

So before it all goes away, here's a reminder of one of the joys of this summer - one evening at music camp stolen away from the desperate practice time.



It had been a long, long time since I'd been out on the water before, at least in a little craft. Not since I was little I think, when my parents would take my brother and me out on the lake at a church camp in Illinois. The canoe this time was plastic rather than aluminum, and it just me clumsily paddling instead of our parents, but the magic was still there. It was so still and quiet, with that faint fishy smell on the water and mist close to the surface.

A simple thing, but still a highlight of the summer for me. It's been fun.

Certainly, it's been one of the more memorable seasons of my life.

It has seemed every few years the steady run of workaday life hits a bump as one long-term job comes to a close. The last time was the tech bubble of 2003, where for the longest time I couldn't find anything close to a professional job. That was a hit to the bank account of course, but the various odd jobs I found in that time held an amazing variety of life experiences - from illustrating cute little piggies for a farm to refinishing M16s, it was an incredible treasure trove of unique memories to keep.

This summer has been much like that.

Some memories are just incredibly vivid still - Swinging around the wing struts to wrench out the injectors on an amphibious turbo C206. Chatting in a tiny little workshop, looking over the shoulder of a marvelous luthier while he shows me the inside of my violin. Sitting in the shelter of a sign some distance from camp, trying desperately to learn a tune overnight from a sketchy recording, or the walk alone up the road and back the night after our performance when I could finally allow myself music we weren't needing to memorize back in my ears*. Sitting on the floor of my little cottage, drinking lentil soup while filling out job applications, or teaching a fiddle lesson myself over tea and cookies.

It's been a delicious summer, and a real turning point in ways I couldn't begin to describe. It's not been easy nor carefree, but it has been a delight. Well-lived, I think.

Here's to autumn.










* let me tell you, Heather Alexander's Ichibod Crane takes on a whole new meaning when you're walking alone in the dusk past signs crying "Danger! Bear sighted in area!"

Living in Alaska, Palin, and more. Part III of III

Let me stop a moment to share my background here. I am not a native Alaskan - I was born and raised in East Tennessee, and since that time have lived in North Carolina, Illinois, California, Washington state, Idaho, and now for the last year or so Alaska - some of that time in Anchorage, some out in the bush.

Realize then that the following observations are those of one who's still an outsider here, long enough to get a good taste of the character of the place, not so long that I've forgotten the contrast.

Now here's where it might get a bit tetchy, family.

Alaska is today more American than America is.


In much the same way that those in the colonies were closer to the "Platonic Ideal" of the English yeomanry than the English were themselves, so to are Alaskans closer to the archetypal American than - on average - you are likely to find in the 48.

The reason for that is twofold I think - time, and necessity.

The first is obvious - statehood here happened within living memory. While not the wide open frontier it once was, that memory is still fresh. Heck, it's traded on! During the height of summer activity Anchorage reminds one of nothing so much as St. Louis, circa 1850 or so - the last stop of city life before you hit the wild.

Substitute DHCs and Cessnas trundling off the field for Prarie Schooners, watch guys in town getting new supplies for their shifts out on the North Slope or Bristol Bay instead of trappers getting kitted up for a season after beaver, and it's staggering how close to the history books the place seems sometimes.

And so, that "Can do!" attitude forged on America's frontier still burns bright here, noticeably more so than most anywhere else I've lived. What is it the military guys say? "Improvise, adapt, overcome" I believe... a way of life here, especially in the bush.

Other parallels ring sharp to - the memory of death and danger is much nearer than in most of the US today.

The land itself comes first to mind, of course. It's stupidly easy to wander off where no one can help and become overwhelmed - you can walk a hundred yards from the highway, look around in the dark and the cold and the high mountains and - even stronger than the grandeur - comes the message - "you could die out here."

Critters aren't often thought of, but someone runs afoul of bear or wolf or moose every year. Once out of town, weapons are regularly carried, especially when the fish are running or the berries are out.

Danger from other people is an afterthought. Sure, a generation ago when the Cold War loomed, the Soviets were just on the other side of the water. MiGs regularly buzzed the airspace with live nukes, go the local stories. A generation before that, the Japanese landed on and held some of the Aleutians, doing some island-hopping of their own before being fought off. There's a memorial to those who died reclaiming taken American soil on the local airfield.

Fighting a foreign enemy on local soil within living memory. And yet, the land herself is so overwhelming that those events are hardly an afterthought. The folks I know who own a lodge out in the bush will often regale their guests with one tale or another... and more often than not it seems the story includes "remember old so-and-so? When did he die?"

Plane wrecks. Accidents in the field. Or just disappeared. Some that make a romantic story for idealist undergrads like McCandless or Treadwell get some play down in the 48. Most? A momentary sad smile, a fond story... and life goes on.

You'd think the result of all that would be a callousness, the ready acceptance of death with a shrug my brother reported from some Africans he met.

Just the opposite is the case.

"Hey, how can I help?"
"Here, you need another blanket?"
"Take some salmon with you when you go."
"Sure I'll show you how to do that. C'mon by the shop next week."


Alaska breeds not just hardy American stick-to-itiveness and self-reliance, but community and looking out for your neighbor. Because it's just plain the right thing to do.

Oh sure, there's all kinds here. Freeloaders and scam artists, thieves and poachers, just like anywhere. And yet, I've known few places where sheer chutzpah and true neighborly love go hand in hand so well.


So yes, America - if you get that Alaskan gal down there in DC, you can count yourself lucky. She'll do ya proud.


Now if you'll excuse me fall has started to whisper. There's work to be done up here.

Storybook lives

Today has just been... incredible. Not in the unique exciting way, but rather that happiness that comes with just looking around at life and saying "wow..."

I was sitting inside a gutted-out Cessna 180, tying together bits of the wiring while chatting with a feller from work about our Governor - a veritable neighbor she feels like now - and her VP bid. It quickly spiraled out into more esoteric issues from scripture to history to ethics to government to.. well.. you name it. We didn't agree on much application wise, but were pretty much down the line as one on basic principles (That's Alaska for ya.. our evangelicals have prolly done pot in their youth and our hippies have rifles*).

Then suddenly the sheer.. fascinating uniqueness of the situation struck. I was sitting in Alaska, working one of the mainstays of bush aviation, talking Roman aphorisms** and Biblical history with a coworker***. This was not what I was expecting when studying web tech or English Lit in college, I tell you. And you know what? It totally rocks.

Later in the evening I was trimming bits of aluminum to reinforce wing ribs for the WWII era taildragger another friend will be showing me flying in. That conversation meandered from her stories of Chicago to economics to making plans for a snowshoeing trip come winter.

"Look at what we're doing!" I laugh at one point. "It feels like we're in a storybook!" She returns the grin -- "If you told me then what I'd be doing now...."


Life in Alaska - even "city Alaska" as Mr. Westerberg might say, is definitely unique.


Later y'all.



* True story... I was at a womens' get together at church last spring when the MC asked a series of questions. One of them was "okay ladies... how many of you are packing heat? As in, right now?" There were a goodly number... I want to say about one in ten, maybe one in twenty. Enough to shock our out-of-town visitor at any rate, to the laughter of the whole room. Oh, and the beauty salon next door to the grocery just off the airfield has a foot-wide NRA sticker. What can I say? Gals in AK take their shooty things seriously.

** Tacitus' ""The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." if you were curious. Yes, it's an internetz mainstay, I know. Aphorisms stick around for a reason though. :)

*** Yes, Mr. Big City Sophisticate. You can find some pretty amazing conversationalists behind grease-stained gloves and blue collars. Not universally sure, but I've known some dunces on college campuses to.

Degrees of Separation.

A friend was gracious enough to invite me up to her place tonight for an impromptu dinner, and we all settled in to watch Gov. Palin's speech. I'll leave the speech analyzing to the pundits, I'm sure they're pulling out their knives or pom poms already.

More touching though was looking around.. it wasn't a matter of "look at the politicians on the stage" but rather "watch the family friends making good." As much commentary was spent on "wow, Track is really grown up" or "Oh there's her mom! She is so sweet...." and of course cooing over Trig and Piper than on the meat of the speech... but then, the principles behind the meat were pretty much agiven already.

I can't pretend to have even met the Governor myself, but to the extent you can know a person by their friends, well... let's just say the recommendation of that family rings stronger to me than anything I hear on the TV.


It also forced me to remember something else - that everyone on that screen or in the news I read is more than the sum of their convictions and their speeches. Every face and voice there, no matter how much they might make me veritably squirm in revulsion for principles I find anathema - every one of them also has families of their own watching them.

No matter how much I dislike what they say, no matter how disastrous for this country I might believe their politics to be - somewhere in this nation there's another family smiling over their children. Someone else is looking in love at their own friends made good.

For all our rancor, let us not forget that common humanity.

God Bless, y'all.

-J

Living in Alaska, Palin, and more. Part II of III

I promised I'd talk about why the "here" of "Sarah Palin is unusually popular here" is important.

But we're going to start with a historical detour.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Patrick Henry

In the time leading up to the American Revolution, only a few radicals even conceived of the idea of rebelling against Britain. Of course we often are reminded that they thought of themselves as British, but it goes deeper than that. And here's where it gets important - in very important ways, many of that time thought of themselves as more British than their progenitors back in the Mother Country.

Let me explain.

The British experience in the late 18th century was almost unique in the world, because of the constraints it placed upon royal power. Unlike the gilded courts of France or Imperial Russia, Britain constrained the power of their monarchs with a Parliament and written law. It happened organically, bit by bit, as the powers of the country struggled against each other. Lords tried to wrest some power back from their feudal monarch. There was the occasional rebellion and twisted-arm compromise, there was consolidation of the justice system. Slowly, steadily the idea of absolute dictatorial power wielded by the monarch crumbled even as England's reach expanded.

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

The Gaels fell to their Anglo-Saxon neighbors in engagements spanning centuries.. eventually all the islands were living under a single flag by the mid 18th century. The throats that screamed for freedom at Culloden were stilled, the claymore and pistol dropped in the bloody field. But as the blood seeped into the ground, it took root and flowered forth in a form that was unfamiliar only a generation later.

The Jacobite cry of "freedom" had meant "not your king but our own - not Protestant but Catholic." The Enlightenment era that followed, and captured the hearts of many of the sons and grandsons of those Jacobite warriors, was of a different character altogether.

... individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

These were men talking not of rival kings or the prerogatives of feudal lords, but of the Rights of Man. Fundamental human rights.

Life. Liberty. Dignity. Equality of mankind under the law. Property rights. All those ideas on which our nation was founded, this was when they flowered. Certainly the authors of the Enlightenment were to be found all across the continent, but the cultural soil of Britain was unique. That culture, formed over centuries of struggle and compromise, was one in which the ideals of the Enlightenment could truly take root, and grow into solid, real dreams for a better life.

"Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here ."
Captain John Parker, 1775

In their home country though, there were still lords and monarchs and ancient prerogatives. And the King's Army, near at hand.

Here in the colonies however those strictures were comparatively faint and far away. They were near and strong enough to make independence a desperate struggle of course - but nonetheless, a possibility. A possibility that became a reality.

Our ancestors had the perhaps unique opportunity to truly attempt to emulate the ideal of their age... and of their culture. We became Americans because we were first British.

You see where this is going. More in Part III.