July 18, 2005

• Pics ‘n’ Thoughts

  Am I naive?  I haven’t thought of myself as innocent or naive
  since I was a teenaged single mother and convicted felon more than four
  decades ago.  But like everything else in this finite observable
  universe, naivete is relative.  As time passed, I began seeing my
  earlier, younger self as quite naive, even though that self hadn’t seen
  it at the time.  Every time some obvious fact jumps up and catches
  me by surprise, I marvel at how obtuse and/or naive and/or blind I’ve
  been.

  
  While I ponder on that for a while, let me show you some more of those
  pictures I took during the eleven weeks we were without a home
  computer.  The bunch today were all taken in mid-May, which is
  early spring here.  Traditionally, the last spring frost comes
  around Memorial Day at the end of May.  This year was wet and warm
  and I don’t think we had any more frost after these shots were taken.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Above, behind Doug as he fills a water jug from the spring at mile 89
  of the Parks Highway, where we and many of our neighbors get all our
  water, the expanse of water in which you can see those rocks reflected
  is a sign of how wet the season was this year.  That’s a puddle of
  run-off from the roadside ditch.  In shadow below that reflecting
  puddle is a waterfall, flowing down around the pipe that carries the
  clean water from the spring into the pool and down the little unnamed
  stream into the big muskeg along Sheep Creek.
  
  
  
  That nameless stream that carries the run-off from our spring is shown
  below.  Don’t be impressed by the green there, if you have any
  temptation in that direction.  Remember, this was early spring,
  right after the last frosts.  On our most recent water run, when
  I’d left the camera home because I had barely enough energy to fetch
  water and none to spare for documentary or artistic photography, the
  green was a deeper richer shade and the shade from those trees and
  bushes was dense.  The grasses and weeds now arch over the stream
  and the sun barely penetrates.  I’ll try to remember the camera
  next time we get water, so I can show you. 

  

  To get back to those thoughts on my continuing failure to notice the
  obvious, I recently was made aware of how larcenous, dishonest a bunch
  of scofflaws my fellow humans are.  I’ve known for three quarters
  of my life that I’m an outlaw, a maverick, occasionally a fugitive and
  usually open to some illegal game or drug or profitable venture. 
  I endeavor to conform to a fairly stringent code of conduct, but it
  doesn’t conform to the letter of the law sometimes.  However, I’ve
  always thought that my personal code was much more at odds with the
  social mores of my culture than it really is.

  You may recall Captain Louis in the Bogart classic Casablanca,
  accepting bribes to look the other way as he feigned being shocked by
  the thieves and gamblers he was supposed to arrest.  My shock
  wasn’t feigned.  But then I gave it a second thought and laughed
  at myself.  On some level, I knew it all along.  When I drive
  on the highway, I often have trouble keeping up with the flow of
  traffic because my car shimmies at 75 MPH.  The speed limit is
  65.  Meth labs operate in my neighborhood and people occasionally
  approach Greyfox at his stand, trying to sell him merchandise that is
  apparently stolen.  I observe crime wherever I go, don’t need the
  news to clue me in.  I dunno, I guess I just wanted to think of
  myself as some kind of a maverick instead of just an ordinary scofflaw
  like everyone else.

  
  The next pic, below, was taken at the edge of the big expanse of muskeg
  across the highway from the spring.  I took some overviews, but in
  long shots it just looked like a lawn, a big grassy field.  It’s
  all horsetail and by now has branched out and begun putting on a bronze
  tone.  I put the camera on the ground to get this closeup. 
  Imagine a field of that stretching to the horizon.  It extends
  that far.  The Susitna River is over a mile west of that point and
  the muskeg goes all the way, with just a few islands of trees here and
  there.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The next picture was taken about 1 AM on May 19.  It’s
  Kashwitna Lake, one of my favorite local roadside attractions.  LuckyStars
  will recognize that light on the opposite shore.  Someone lives
  over there.  I’m not sure there’s even a road to that place. 
  Access may be by float plane (ski plane in the winter).  There
  used to be an air taxi service based on the highway side of the lake,
  but Susitna Air moved into Willow and their land, cabins, boathouses,
  piers, etc., are for sale.  Maybe not a great business
  opportunity, but who needs money in a place like this?

  

  If you’re wondering what series of events recently got me to thinking
  about what a lawless culture I live in, that’s okay.  Go on and
  wonder.  Let’s just say that a bunch of criminals even more naive
  than I am had revealed their nefarious machinations to me.  They
  were so blatantly up-front about it all that I was reminded of some of
  the rules I was taught in the 1960s, the rules for a successful life of
  crime, such as this one:  “If you’re going to do the crime, don’t
  talk about it.  If you talk about it, don’t do it.”
  

  • 11:34 pm
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