April 19, 2003

• Springtime in Talkeetna

  
  

  A week or so ago, I got an email from Sephiroth, one of Doug’s friends who is now in the Army.  He has some leave time and would be here whenever he got here by military standby flights.  A couple of nights ago, he phoned to say he was nearby.  We arranged to pick him up the next morning (yesterday), and since then I’ve been enjoying the visit with one of my favorite “boys” and not getting any further work done on KaiOaty’s site.

  
  

  One of the things Seph wanted to do was get his six-foot nodachi sword sharpened.  Dancing Bear, the knifemaker in Talkeetna, has sharpened it before, at a reasonable price, so we headed up the road.  Greyfox, here with his new red roadside stand, was already in Talkeetna, it being a nice sunny day with some prospect for business.

  
  

  The first thing I noticed as we turned onto Main Street was a bass fiddle in the park.  I parked our car close to Greyfox’s stand and wandered across the street to the park as the string quartet was tuning up.  Bob Durr (at left in this shot), one of my favorite local musicians and humorists (quirky, dry humor and GOOOD music) left the Fairview Inn about the same time I started across the street, headed in the same direction.

  
  

  I was hoping that Bob would join the jam, but he just schmoozed a while and went back to the bar.  The unconventional string quartet did fine without him.  After I got a few shots of them, I went back over to Greyfox’s stand, because I could hear the music just fine from there.

  
  

  The highlight for me of the trip to Talkeetna was when a stranger, pretty obviously a local resident (on the right, in red hat, here, sitting on the edge of the Tomb of the Unknown Hippie) walked up and asked “Aren’t you SuSu?”  I gave a startled gasp, a little jump and said, “You’re Jim, aren’t you?!”  It had to be my cyber-friend Jim Kloss of WholeWheatRadio.org.  No one else there knows me as SuSu.  I’m Kathy to the ones I know, of whom there were quite a few wandering around on that sunny day in mud season. 

  
  

  Nobody calls this season ”spring”.  The spring is where we get our water, winter or summer.  This time of year is “breakup” as the ice is breaking up on the lakes and rivers.  Wherever the snow and ice have melted, the mud has taken over.

  
  

  I hung around and persisted long enough for Seph to get used to my camera eye so I could get some unposed shots.  Doug had wandered off toward the river, down at the far end of Main Street, so we just hung around some more until he came back.  Meanwhile several of our friends and neighbors wandered by and shot the breeze before wandering on.  An audience had begun to gather around the quartet in the park.

  
  

  When the first half-rack of beer showed up, it had obviously turned into a party.  When Greyfox got home last night, he said the party had gone on throughout the day.  And the weekend doesn’t start until today.  And no, that isn’t me there on the tomb, but another woman wearing my hair.  We’re strangers to each other, but there were some of those secret redhead grins exchanged between us.  It’s a redhead thing; you wouldn’t understand.

  
  

  When we got home, the boys carried sword, boken and broomstick, and I carried my camera, out to the end of the cul de sac, where Seph taught Doug some new disarming moves.

  
  

  Looking at the images later, Doug said they look like scenes from The Ninja versus The Hippie.  I think he nailed it.

  
  

  Dancing Bear wasn’t around yesterday, so we didn’t get the sword sharpened.  I think we’re going to head up that way again today.  Seeya later, all.

  
  

  

  • 5:47 pm
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