"Best Present Ever"

BEST PRESENT EVER

 

I have had some fine birthdays.

 

Fading photographs reveal me

At the dining room tables of my youth,

Ringed by grinning cake-eaters,

A stack of gifts heaped by a centerpiece candle.

 

In my teens, my birthdays became family affairs.

I stared solo into the camera,

Or my brother and sister posed at my shoulder

For the obligatory motherly Polaroid.

 

As an adult,

Even when I had begun to form a family of my own ,

I counted on my mother to ply me

With a “special meal” and a cherry cake,

No frosting.

 

But soon my children’s birthdays took precedence

Over my own,

As my father’s had done before me.

Cards and well-wishes still warmed my heart,

But the occasion itself lost its luster.

 

What’s funny to me now

Is the fact that I remember so few specific birthday gifts—

Except for the time that Larry gave me an entire case of Coca-Cola—

Or special events—

Such as a winter camping trip with Monte and Steve.

 

Mainly, I received clothing and books,

Practical things.

 

More than anything else,

I recall that my birthday signaled the return of the light—

The terminus of another winter

Resolving itself into hints of spring.

My birthday was about rebirth,

About opportunity,

About process,

Not just a single moment in time.

 

And it still is mostly that.

 

Only now it is also something more:

The acceptance of an invitation to birthday lunch;

Grilled cheese and tomato soup;

The aurora viewed from a frozen field;

Hiking up the Skyline Trail;

Midnight in Paris on a flat-screen TV;

Homer baked goods and beach walks;

Skiing in the sunshine on Center Ridge;

Adventure racing, and running at thirty below;

A mid-winter visit to Oklahoma,

And a homecoming.

 

As my birthday came ‘round again this year,

Everything seemed different.

Better.

 

Soon it will be the equinox again,

But I feel as if the light has been with me for a while.

 

I need no gift greater than that.

 

"Still a Drive at 55?"

STILL A DRIVE AT 55?

MARCH 6, 2013

I was born in the Territory of Alaska. When Alaska became a state on Jan. 3, 1959, I was nearing my first birthday. The first birthday for the state came 10 months after mine, meaning that, even though I am inextricably linked to this state, I’ll always be just a little older.

Not that that really means much of anything.

I’m not even sure it’s all that interesting.

It’s just that, since today is my 55^th birthday, I’m mulling the subject of age and wondering how much the numbers really mean.

Personally, I agree with those who say that age is relative, and with those who say “you’re as young as you feel.”

And I feel good. I’m healthy and active. I’m blessed with healthy and intelligent children, a home of my own, work that is satisfying, good friends and family, and a woman I love very much.

So what is 55?

In mathematics, 55 is the 10^th Fibonacci number and the sum of the numbers 1 through 10. It is also a “semiprime,” being the product of multiplying 5 and 11. And it is the sum of the first five square numbers: 1 + 4 + 9 + 16 + 25.

Many famous athletes have worn the number 55. The three who come most readily to mind are the NFL linebacker Junior Seau, the pitcher Tim Lincecum, and (one of my favorite former Dodgers) the pitcher Orel Hershiser.

Some of the famous people who also turn 55 this year are Ellen Degeneres, Madonna, Prince, film director Tim Burton, Kevin Bacon, actress Angela Bassett, rocker Joan Jett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Viggo Mortensen, Drew Carey, Jeff Foxworthy, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Sharon Stone. And if Michael Jackson were still alive, he’d turn 55 this year, too.

I read that during the year 55 A.D., Julius Caesar first invaded Britain.

The standard speed limit on the highway is 55 miles per hour.

An old dive in Greenwich Village is called the 55 Bar, famous for its jazz and in operation since 1919.

Interstate 55 (nicknamed the “double nickel”) is a north-south highway that has its official beginning in LaPlace, Louisiana, and its official ending in Chicago, Illinois.

The winner for Best Picture in the 1955 Academy Awards went to Marty, starring Ernest Borgnine.

Most old gas barrels contain 55 gallons of fuel.

On the periodic table, element number 55 is cesium.

And the list goes on and on—including spiritual and mystical and biblical connections, several arcane notions, many mathematical possibilities, etc.

But in the end, 55 is just a number.

And today it is just my age.

Should I act my age? It depends.

The number is irrelevant. Living and loving are what’s important.

 

 

"No Santa, but Eight Reindeer"

 

NO SANTA, BUT EIGHT REINDEER

The woman with the giraffe head, the pale diapered man from Arkansas, and the running banana were among the highlights. The reindeer—the centerpiece of the Running of the Reindeer event at Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage on Saturday—were not.

The reindeer get the most prominent mention on the marquee, but they’re not the main attraction. It’s all about atmosphere, all about hoopla, all about participating in something big and noisy and full of promise.

It’s a lot like a carnival arcade.

Carnival games promise big prizes—giant stuffed bears, huge plastic drinking glasses, cool autographed posters—but the odds are stacked against the players. Try to toss a tiny ring over the top of a glass soda bottle. Try to burst three balloons with three wobbly darts. Try to knock down all the milk bottles with a single tennis ball.

Mostly what participants harvest from such promise is a series of near-misses and then, if they’re lucky, a cheap plastic runner-up prize for coming really close.

That’s sort of what it’s like to participate in the Running of the Reindeer. There’s plenty of build-up, plenty of bluster, plenty of pageantry and pizzazz—but the run itself is all anti-climax.

The announcer from KWHL’s “Bob & Mark Show” stirred up the onlookers by booming out the possibilities—a good goring, a shish kabob human on antler tines—danger, danger, danger! The crowd wanted blood, he said. The crowd wanted to see someone hurt, he claimed. He likened the milling throng, which packed both sides of Fourth Avenue from D Street to H Street, to the crowd at a NASCAR race: Sure, they were fine with all the left turns, for a while, but what they really wanted was a good pile-up.

As I stood among the hundreds of runners, waiting to be released on a sprint for life itself, I was reminded of bad small-town circuses I have attended. I recalled slick ringmasters who knew how to play to the crowd, who knew that the real thrill was not the limber woman performing backbends while riding a somber elephant around a sawdust circle inside a big tent. The real thrill lay in anticipation, in bits of unexpected humor, a delighted child, the antics of an obnoxious clown, a minor explosion and a shower of confetti.

Those circuses had little to offer in the way in true danger or excitement, so it was the possibility of such things that had to carry the day. (Besides, they were there to make money on tame rides, high-priced concessions, and selling lucky-chance tickets.)

“Running of the Reindeer” is designed to make money, too, but for a good cause—for the Toys for Tots organization—which is one of the reasons that the anti-climax of the run itself is really no big deal. It feels good to be a part of something so buzzing with energy and good will, despite the fizzle at the end.

The announcer kept the crowd rollicking, through a series of sarcastic remarks and double-entendres, humorous observances and asides, and plenty of instructions. He punctuated his pronouncements with introductions of guests—Hobo Jim, singing the national anthem and his “Running of the Reindeer” song; Anchorage mayor Dan Sullivan, who attempted cordiality and formality in the face of irreverence; broadcasters from the Anchorage ABC-TV affiliate, who were on hand to film the event live and send images streaming out across the state.

Eventually, though, like the reindeer, we were culled from our herd and put in place for the race.

The first batch to line up were the out-of-state runners, a mix of people from the Lower 48 and other countries, many dressed in costume.

I was not in costume, but costumes were ubiquitous. I saw cheeseheads, a man dressed up an insect with multi-faceted eyes, women in tutus, hockey players in full gear (except for the skates), military personnel, a group of guys in red long johns, shirtless men wearing only running shorts and shoes. (The temperature was perhaps 35 degrees.) There were colorful wigs, plenty of animal motifs, lots of leftover Halloween regalia, a big guy dressed as Sully from Monsters Inc., two women dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat, and fur, fur and more fur.

And it seemed to me that the majority of runners were holding cameras or cell phones capable of taking photographs.

People in the crowd, too, many members of which were wearing the blue-foam reindeer antlers given away before the event, were wielding cameras. Spectators stood packed behind the wooden fencing along the raceway, many holding their cameras and phones aloft, all angled out into the same view of the street, all about to capture the same images from their cramped and seething vantage points.

As a helicopter pulsed across the sky, the announcer had the crowd help him count down to send the runners on their mad dash to the finish line. Then about 10 seconds later he began a second count to release the eight reindeer, who gamboled up the slushy snow (left behind by that morning’s ceremonial start of the Iditarod) and then bolted and ducked through the runners to reach the end point, well ahead of even the fastest sprinter.

The reindeer, all bulls, were motivated by a combination of two things: a supply of reindeer chow, and a cow in heat, both waiting inside an aluminum cage at the other end of the raceway.

After all the runners had reached the end of the course, they were shunted onto H Street, and the reindeer were gathered by handlers who maneuvered the animals back down the blocks to the starting area again so that they could chase after the next group.

The women followed the out-of-state runners. Then men ran next. And the couples and groups finished up the event.

During my run, I tried to stay in the back to get a better view of the reindeer and maybe photograph a big bull darting just past me, but other runners got in my way and obstructed my view, and the reindeer were past me and through the crowd with remarkable agility and alacrity. I satisfied myself with a slow jaunt through snow so soft it was akin to running on beach sand.

Still, I had fun, and if I ever again run with the reindeer, I’ll know what I’m getting into. I’ll dress in costume and leave my camera gear behind. I’ll wear boots to keep my feet warm and dry because running fast is unnecessary. I won’t expect big thrills or the dangers of Pamplona. I’ll participate because, in the end, it’s good clean, slightly wacky fun during our long Alaska winter, and because the entry fee goes to help people in need.

Besides, where else will I get to see a big-bellied man dressed in Carhartt bibs and draped in furs gallumphing down a city street ahead of charging animals?

 

"Oklahoma! (Almost by Accident)"

Iconic scenes like this are just one of many good reasons to visit Oklahoma.

OKLAHOMA! (ALMOST BY ACCIDENT)

Until I realized that I had forgotten about Louisiana, I thought that Oklahoma was the only state west of the Mississippi River that I’d never been in.

Now I’ve been in Oklahoma, too, but that’s not what’s important.

I didn’t go to Oklahoma just to see Oklahoma, although it was nice to see. Going there helped me dispel a lot of personal misconceptions about that state—that the whole thing was as level as a tabletop, that it was hot and bone-dry, that it had no real identity because it was so overshadowed by its neighbors, especially Texas and Missouri and Colorado. But it was much more interesting than I had expected. I appreciated its history, even some of its largely flat topography. I thought its residents were mostly friendly folks—a lot of good Midwestern prairie stock, mixed with oilmen and cowboys. There’s a lot of money, still, in Oklahoma.

Custom bootmaker, Ray Dorwart, of Guthrie, is another

good reason to visit Oklahoma.

I liked the streets and stores and statues of Guthrie, Oklahoma’s original capital.



I liked the museums and memorials.

I liked driving on fabled Route 66.

I liked seeing real windmills and stockyards, even real oil pumps and derricks.

I even liked seeing skunks, although I wish they hadn’t all been dead and quite so smelly, and a opossum, even though it, too, was deceased—another victim of highway proximity and heavy traffic—and six whitetail deer, four of which (all in Beavers Bend State Park) were still alive and Bambi-like.

I liked seeing dozens and dozens of soaring, swooping, scanning hawks prowling the grasslands for prey.

I liked revisiting the Big Sky Country I hadn’t really seen since my college days in Montana and one brief pheasant-hunting trip with my father to North Dakota.



I liked seeing white pelicans on Lake Overholser, watching the flashes and hearing the booms of a thunder-and-lightning storm one night and then awakening to an inch and a half of hail-like slush, hiking the dry and rocky ravines of the Skyline Trail in Beavers Bend State Park, visiting with old Kenai Central High School classmate Holly Deitrick in the Tulsa area, spending an hour with custom cowboy boot maker Ray Dorwart, chatting with rickety old Mr. Gerard at the Frontier Drugstore Museum, listening to the backwoods-vernacular musicality of the mother-daughter pair at the convenience store in Antlers, and lunching on an excellent torta with the largely Hispanic crowd at Taqueria Los Comales.

It was a real treat to see a huge flock of white pelicans on Lake Overholser.



And there was plenty more—all packed into 10 full days.

But, as I said, Oklahoma itself was not the goal.

I would not have purchased a United Airlines ticket to Oklahoma City if it hadn’t been for a certain girl who was down there in the midst of nine weeks of training at the Federal Aviation Administration academy. She was the real attraction, more alluring to me than any geography or history lesson the Sooner State had to offer.



Here's the real reason I finally saw Oklahoma.

Together we drove to Broken Bow and Broken Arrow. We dined on crawfish pie and a po’ boy filled with deep-fried catfish. We toured a magnificent botanical garden, watched the whitecaps form on a churning reservoir, and strolled through the stores of Western outfitters. We ate at Crabtown, the Cattleman’s Steakhouse, and the Blue Rooster. We ran along streets and hiked along trails. We felt the stiff Oklahoma winds and crunched over its snow and ice.

More importantly, we communed. We spent time together. And it was wonderful—worth every minute in cramped airplane seating, every airport layover, every bit of jet-lag.

I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, but I don’t need to … because the girl is coming home soon.

The world is full of interesting places—Oklahoma among them, I must say—and I hope to see more of the world. Much more.

But I hope to see even more of the girl.

And then, of course, there’s Louisiana….