You folks get them flu shots ever’ fall? I try not to, but Doc has this y’r nurse that’s not only stouter’n a streetsweeper, but fleet of foot as well. This y’r’s Windy, a-course. So, yeah, I prit-nearly allus get one a-them shots each fall.
But I been workin’ on a way to either speed me up or slow her down. Ever seen on them summer Olympicals the relay race? You know, when one guy’s runnin’ and he sticks out a stick and the next guy takes it for a while? Thass what that there nurse looks like in hot pursuit ‘cept it’s a hypothermic needle and not a stick in her hand. Now you know ol’ Doc makes fun a-me ever’ dang time she catches up. A-course, she could stand to run off a few calories here and there, mostly there. Truth be told, wouldn’t hurt me none, neither.
As I lay there in my super-duper borrowed-from-the-Army mummy bag, I had time to think about things. Mostly, I pondered how stupid I’d been to take a dog team out across the North Slope of Alaska in November.
As I can now contemplate, 50 years later, it was a dumb thing to do, making the first crossing north to south from Prudhoe Bay’s frozen oil fields to the Brooks Range. Brooks Range roughly translates to “that frozen rockpile there to the south.”
But even then, in the deadly silence of the arctic, I knew my doing this was … well, me. I guessed at the time it would cost me my life, but I don’t know if I could’ve done otherwise. I HAD to do it. Ever since that first dogsled trip nearly a year earlier, I knew I was entangled in driving a dog team for good purposes. And good stories.
Many of our Native American tribes call this month the “hunger moon,” and for good reason. The early fall hunting is generally over, the late season hunts in the snow aren’t happening yet, and the fishing? Well … let’s just say the salmon are all spawned out and dead, the trout? (Well, who can really figure out a trout’s thought processes) and the burbot is delicious and isn’t too hard to catch, but they are one of Nature’s ugliest creatures, giving even the mole rat a run for his money.
But most of us go to the store in November and buy grub the way we do the rest of the year. The hunger moon shouldn’t affect us, really.
But it does.
Our daylight has pinched off to about zilch, It’s cold enough in the living room to hang meat, and the kids are bringing home report cards that look as though they’ve been put together by gnomes.
Have you been counting the minutes until election day when your neighbors can remove all those campaign signs from their lawns for another two years? Yes, these are mid-term elections, just as serious as the presidential election yet to come two years from now, but not as interesting.
Why not? Because the great candidate Vermin Love Supreme only runs for President and doesn’t mess about trying to be someone’s governor. V.L., who appears to be a bearded cross between Archimedes and Alexander Graham Bell, tends to stand out in a crowd. That is largely because he’s usually wearing a boot on his head and is carrying a giant toothbrush.
I think there must be autumnal reasons for Halloween being hued in orange and black. It’s a fun time, a magic evening if you’re a kid, and if you’re a grandpa-type guy, like me, who gets to hand out the goodies.
But the colors of this sweet evening celebration are orange and black, and so is October. In another week or so, our deciduous trees will stand like skeletons against the gray skies of winter, but now we have the orange and black of fall.
It happens right about sunset each day. The sky turns that eternal burnt-umber orange and the remaining leaves and the baring branches of our trees fill the evening with a holy filigree of contrast.
Oh, it’s not something we need to do anything about. There’s no need for picture taking or anything. But it’s just something that we can step outside for … look toward the west through the lacy pattern of black branches and for a moment, just a short moment, say to ourselves, “Isn’t that pretty?”
If the paint store could sell me something that looked even close to that for the walls of the little cabin I have, I’d buy a gallon. Maybe two.
Chickens have forever had a place in our hearts and on our tables. Why is that? Well … why not?
And so I’d like you to come with me back to the summer of 1970, ‘way up north of Fairbanks, Alaska, to what was once the thriving gold mining village of Chicken, Alaska. I was on my way, hitchhiking with a canoe, to paddle down a stretch of the Yukon River and to see the cabin where Jack London spent the winter once upon a time.
Just as an aside here, hitchhiking with a canoe, or with a sled and 11 dogs, would make a lengthy how-to book all by themselves. It doesn’t sound easy, does it? It isn’t.
So what I would do on these “adventures” of mine, (my boss, Larry Fanning, referred to them as Slim’s tin-cup trips because of all the scrounging I had to do) is go to neat places and interview great people, and write stuff. My column in the Anchorage Daily News was called … brace yourself … “Slim’s Column.”
Truth in advertising.
So I arrived in Chicken, Alaska, only to find I’d nearly doubled the local population. In the far-distant past, Chicken was a ghost town. When the gold gave out, so did Chicken.
So what was left was “the business” consisting of a gas pump, a coffee pot, some postage stamps and a couple of nice folks. But there was something else, too.
There was not only an outhouse there, but it was electrically lighted. So where should I write my column? In an electrically lighted outhouse in Chicken, Alaska.
Naturally.
The raising of poultry this far north is uncommon; too many local varmints, including any resident sled dogs, eat them. So how did this gold camp get its name? Ahh … the very reason for that column typed on the wooden “desk” beneath that 20-watt bulb.
Chicken, Alaska, got its name because none of the miners there knew how to spell ptarmigan.
Beat the holiday rush! “Strange Tales of Alaska” by Slim Randles now available on Amazon.com.
Chickens have forever had a place in our hearts and on our tables. Why is that? Well … why not?
And so I’d like you to come with me back to the summer of 1970, ‘way up north of Fairbanks, Alaska, to what was once the thriving gold mining village of Chicken, Alaska. I was on my way, hitchhiking with a canoe, to paddle down a stretch of the Yukon River and to see the cabin where Jack London spent the winter once upon a time.
Just as an aside here, hitchhiking with a canoe, or with a sled and 11 dogs, would make a lengthy how-to book all by themselves. It doesn’t sound easy, does it? It isn’t.
So what I would do on these “adventures” of mine, (my boss, Larry Fanning, referred to them as Slim’s tin-cup trips because of all the scrounging I had to do) is go to neat places and interview great people, and write stuff. My column in the Anchorage Daily News was called … brace yourself … “Slim’s Column.”
Truth in advertising.
So I arrived in Chicken, Alaska, only to find I’d nearly doubled the local population. In the far-distant past, Chicken was a ghost town. When the gold gave out, so did Chicken.
So what was left was “the business” consisting of a gas pump, a coffee pot, some postage stamps and a couple of nice folks. But there was something else, too.
There was not only an outhouse there, but it was electrically lighted. So where should I write my column? In an electrically lighted outhouse in Chicken, Alaska.
Naturally.
The raising of poultry this far north is uncommon; too many local varmints, including any resident sled dogs, eat them. So how did this gold camp get its name? Ahh … the very reason for that column typed on the wooden “desk” beneath that 20-watt bulb.
Chicken, Alaska, got its name because none of the miners there knew how to spell ptarmigan.
—————
Beat the holiday rush! “Strange Tales of Alaska” by Slim Randles now available on Amazon.com.
The sign in front of the gas station says “Unleaded, 3.39, special on Colt .357 Magnum, six-inch barrel.”
Visitors here in the valley do a double take when they see Vince’s sign there at what we all know as “the gas station gun shop.” That’s because Vince doesn’t believe in being deprived of his passion while earning a living. His passion: guns. His living: pumping gas.
“I think it’s disgusting and weird and unnatural and it should be outlawed!” the tall cowboy said, coming to rest at the philosophy counter of the Mule Barn truck stop.
“Aw Steve,” said Doc, “the coffee isn’t that bad.”
“Coffee? Nay, I say unto you, Doc. It ain’t the coffee … it’s them award shows on the television. You see them? All them good-looking women Scotch-taping themselves into those dresses so they almost stay on? Those weird guys they’re with who only shave on Tuesdays?”
“And this makes you angry?”
“Sure does, Doc. Those folks make a lot more money than I do and all they have to do is dress up and talk to those red carpet camera guys.”
“Well, Steve,” said Dud, “we can do just as good as they can. Stand up.”
Steve looked around and then stood slowly. Dud picked up a bottle of Tabasco sauce and, using it as a microphone, turned to the breakfast crowd in the Mule Barn.
“Good morning, folks, and we’re so happy you could join us here on KRUD this morning to welcome our list of celebrities. Oh, look, it’s Steve, the pride of farrier life and heavy anvils. Steve, wherever did you get that outfit?”
“Well,” said Steve, grinning, “it’s a creation of Levi Strauss, and please note the genuine brass rivets.”
“Give us a twirl there, cowboy.” And he did, to great applause.
“And your headwear today, Steve, that would be what … Stetson?”
“Yessir. A genuine John B. Stetson original. Five ex beaver fur felt.”
“The sweat stains?”
“Those were added later, actually, Dudley. A genuine cow pen fillip to offset the otherwise stunning look of my entire ensemble.”
“So as not to overwhelm the onlookers, I suppose?”
“Precisely. We don’t want ordinary people to think they’ll never achieve this look, you see.”
“An admirable pursuit,” Dud said.
“Noblesse oblige, I believe,” said Steve.
“Not until lunch,” said Loretta, topping off the coffee mugs. “Breakfast special is bacon and a short stack.”
The Jones kid, Randy, was out in the Mule Barn coffee shop parking lot with the hood up on his car. He was staring down into it the way a first-time parachutist would look out the airplane door. You never quite knew for sure what lay ahead.
“Looks like Randy’s got problems,” said Steve.
“Let’s have a look,” said Dud.
So coffee was left to get cold and the entire Supreme Court of All Things Mechanical – Steve, Dud, Doc, Herb and Dewey – trooped out to see what was going on.
They formed a powerful semi-circle of wisdom around the youth and his engine with folded arms and facial expressions that said, “It’s okay, Kid. We’re here.”
Dewey spoke first. “Having trouble, Randy?”
“Won’t start.”
Doc, who has the most initials after his name, said, “Give it a try.”
Randy ground the engine, but it wouldn’t kick over.
“Stop! Stop!” Doc yelled. “Don’t want to flood it.”
All Doc knows about flooding is that the animals went on board, two by two.
“Randy, I think it’s the solenoid,” said Steve, looking wise. And of course he pronounced it sell-a-noid.
“Doesn’t have one, Steve,” Randy said.
“Sure it does. All cars have solenoids.”
“Not the new ones. Haven’t made solenoids in years.”
Steve’s expression said, “Young punks, what do they know?” But his voice said, “Well, what do you know about that?”
“Need a jump?” Dewey asked.
“Got plenty of spark,” Randy said.
Randy looked at the older men and then bent to the engine and smiled. His voice came floating up over the radiator. “Might be the junction fibrillator. Or it could be a malfunction of the Johnson switch. If I rerun the wire from the organ housing to the pump by-pass, that might get it done.”
When Randy looked up, all the men had gone back in for coffee. He smile and called Triple A on his cell phone.
= –
Brought to you by the new novella “Whimsy Castle” by Slim Randles. Contains plenty of words and laughs. Cheap, too.
