Grammies Requiem

You taught me the love of a grandparent,

            And the meaning of being a true friend.

You showed me the passion that came in serving others,

            Opening your heart to never shutting the door.

You taught me the meaning of a veterans memorial,

            And the honor in a bugles last call.

You’ve shown me the strength to prevail,

            Even as the world went out of focus around you.

You taught me big things come in small packages,

            And to look for the moments that make up a day.           

You showed us the power of partnership,

            In the never ceasing love of a spouse.

In repose you left an unfillable void,

            Yet I know you look into the eyes of our creator.

But what will I teach my children, the ones you won’t get to meet-

           

To never loose your dignity,

            And always, always leave a legacy. 

by Samuel Cain Chamberlain

Life Begins Again And Again

This is a piece written by my grandmother, Better Tarbell Barten.  It was published in Flutterbyes, a compilation of prose and poetry from the East Aurora Writers Guild.

Does life begin when the doctor grabs you by the heels and whacks you on the back­side? Or, as some believe, at the time of conception? Or did it start eons ago and will it go from here into eternity?

If the beginning is the living and breathing as we earthlings know it, doesn't it start when the body and mind are able to feel joys, heartache, sorrow and happiness? Or on some special day, marked by an occur­rence that changes our whole life, our thinking -- maybe an occurrence over which we have no control.

For a person to travel through this world and not have life begin again and again is a sad commentary for use of the heart.

In looking back fifty years or more, I feel life begins all over for me whenever I hear the laughter of little children, or hold a squirming puppy. Or when I waken from a nap and hear a kitten purring at my feet.

As my mind wanders down lanes of the past, I recall my 16th birthday. I returned from the store, turned on the light and twenty people hollered, "Surprise."

The world was my 'oyster' then, making each day a new beginning. I had that first date with the "unattainable guy" -- so through the years I have come to know the love of a very good man.

Even the hard times made life begin again -- like when the anesthetic wore off and I heard the doctor say, "Everything is fine, the lump was benign.

Then, as I held each of our children for the first time, I knew God had given treasures beyond description and the s shone gloriously on all our days.

Each child slipped into a place of his or her own -- their first smiles, their firs steps, their first days at school.

And family camping! Every day a new beginning there as the coffee perked, the bacon fried and the kids rolled out of their sleeping bags. Many happy hours were spent this way as the years raced into yesterdays.

The high school graduations came rapidly into focus and went on to the college ones, the weddings and then the delightful grand­children snuggling contentedly on my shoulder.

When my husband is two hours late coming from work, then walks in unharmed from his day in the city, life starts anew.

It keeps on its beginning course when, only half awake in the early morn, the sun­beams dance across my bed, bounce off the wall and come to rest on my eyelids.

I hear a bird belting out a song after a spring rain as I walk down the streets of our village, suddenly realizing I know so many friendly people just from living here so long.

Hope is always a beginning and it is hope that makes me think my rainbow is near and I will be profiting from all the showers.

Finally, life begins again when I real­ize I am the "older" generation and it doesn't bother me a bit. I’ve made those longed-for trips to far-away places. I have stopped fighting myself, knowing deep down of my own insignificance in this vast universe of souls.

ME isn't the important part of living, even living isn't the most important thing.

As I talk to God, life begins again in my heart. It makes me know that when this life ends, I will be leaving the world a better place. And, for the next step into eternity,

that is a good beginning^.

Fragile is the Night

Grab-a-line fast write activity from Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

Our feet crunched over the crisp snow, like Styrofoam being cracked and crumbled under the weight of my stride. In the Arctic, the air is dry, sucking every ounce of moisture from the snow like a vampire needing the sustenance to survive. Ice crystals growing on everything as the dark days wore on. November the sun starts to disappear below the horizon longer and longer each day (hibernating somewhere near Fiji or Tahiti, I think). Only to return bright eyed in February, refreshed and ready to warm the Arctic. But in this cold, there is life. Snowshoe rabbits hop about striping the bark off the thickets and alders in which they make a home. Ravens swooping in quietly to pick from the over turned smoldering trash barrels. Caribou graze, looking for the few exposed rocks still bearing unpicked lichen. Wolves hunt and scavenge, taking Marten, Rabbit, and sometimes Caribou to share with the pack. Below the ice, fish lie unfrozen, yet in a cryogenic state of slow motion, available for anyone brave enough to bare the cold to catch. And Man, he lives here to. Making his home in the Arctic, somehow surviving for thousands of years. Banding together and surviving as a tribe. Yes, it was cold, but tonight was no different from last night. Is thirty below really that different from forty below, or fifty below- no, not really. Cold is cold. Is it a dry cold? The Elders tell me it used to get really cold. Like sixty and seventy below kind of cold. I would suppose the difference between thirty and seventy below is forty degrees. Growing up in Virginia I could surely tell the difference between ninety and fifty degrees (above that is), also a forty degree difference. But those temperature differences occur in totally different seasons. Does that mean when it rises from seventy below to thirty below everyone is pulling out their silk Hawaiian shirts? How many more layers of fleece, polypro and Carhartt could I possibly wear? To think the slightest tilt of the Earth and I would be digging for my flip-flops in the boxes of summer vacation cloths stashed way in the back of my closet. And in the summer this frozen tundra becomes a soaked sponge, home to thousands of microorganisms, but not today. Today it was cold.

Tonight wasn’t any different from last night. Yes, the cold was mundanely repetitive- but oh the spectacle when you look up. Banners, curtains, streams of green light danced across the sky. From North West to South East one flowing beam of color waved under some unforeseen current of magic. I awoke shortly after 3am as I do nearly every evening now- stoking and adding wood to our stove. Peeking out side, hoping for a sight like this. Quickly I shook Gretchen awake, telling her the Aurora was out again, and better then ever. She grudgingly said I said the same thing last night as the night before that, rolling over and quickly falling back asleep. I donned my warmest parka and shut the door on the way out. Standing for what seemed like hours, but merely minutes- watching the show. God’s good time I like to call it. A psychedelic spectacle redressing the night sky from something dark and dreary into something unique, beautiful. On a clear night stars and galaxies hold your attention for a moment. Quickly picking out my favorite constellations before retreating to my cabin, out of the cold. Yet tonight the evening has awoken. Ooo’s and Ahh’s barely make it off my cold lips into the night, but hang suspended in my mind for eternity. I set out my tripod and begin my best to capture what my eye sees. Taking off my gloves for only seconds at a time to work the aperture, shutter speed, and remote trigger to fire off shots. Quickly putting my gloves back on I wait thirty seconds as the digital eye records what I see. I hear the shutter close and remove my glove, repeating the same steps, slightly tilting the tripod in another direction as a new more vibrant banner of green has shot of in another direction. I know I have to get up and teach school in the morning, but I become lost in the work of capturing the northern lights. Mesmerized and unwillingly to leave for fear the light will become greater, changing color, making a new shape I have never seen before. Until finally the cold begins to eat away at my mind. Some how slowing even the very thoughts inside my head. I know the lights will be back tomorrow night, as they were last night, and the night before that. And the price of a ticket only the constant threat of frostbite and neck cramps.

Mini-Memoir: Seeing Caribou

The third cross country ski of the year, only a few days after Halloween. It wasn’t like Anchorage, that’s for sure. The temperatures quickly dropped, while the snow took its time blanketing the ground a little more every couple days. Though we missed the big dumps of south central Alaska, the new sights, sounds, and smells of the interior excited us. Gretchen dressed for the cold, putting on a thick fleece- pulling her extra thick mittens out of the box they had been shipped in. Still taped shut with packing tape, Eagle River return address labels across the top. I gave her the usual “ don’t wear so many layers, you’re going to be skiing hard”, banter. Jack, our four-year-old husky noticed the change out of school clothes into ski jackets and started spinning in excitement. After lacing up my boots I moved to the arctic entry to grab my skis and harness Jack.

The snow wasn’t great, but it was skiing and even a bad day skiing is better then anything else. We gingerly glided around some of the rocks still exposed in the unpacked snow. Making our way past the store and council several kids cheered to Jack, effortlessly pulling Gretchen along in ski jour fashion. I was struggling to keep up, but enjoyed the challenge of racing Jack. As I settled into the push-glide motion we cruised out the road to the airport. About a mile from town we quickly passed someone on a 4-wheeler shouting about something on the runway. “It sounded like he said Caribou”, I asked Gretchen. As we crested the last rising hill to the airport we spotted several animals moving in the distance. At first they looked like ants scurrying around an anthill. We slowed our pace and flanked behind the airport weather station to get a better view. Quickly thousands of Caribou came into focus. This was it; the Porcupine Caribou herd was migrating south through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, across the Brooks Range, and into the Yukon Flats. Arctic Village lies right in the path of this migration. And on this specific day we were the first people to meet the herd’s arrival. For nearly two hours we sat counting and watching the Caribou. It was amazing to think this one days life experience had been occurring every year, year after year. Full grown adult males, mothers and yearlings, they were all there, grazing and moving. It was a process you could tell had been happening for thousands of years. An intrinsic feeling, imbedded in the Caribou’s soul. Generation upon generation of Caribou being born on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Then migrating back and forth to the bountiful flats along the Yukon River. As we sat these ideas of mortality, life, and instinct came to mind. A slight chill began to set in as we tried to disguise ourselves in the snow. Not the bitter cold we were soon about to face. But that small chill that begins in your cheeks and finger tips, slowly working its way to your core. Cold enough to form tiny mustachesicles with the perspiration of your breath. Gretchen started counting to stay warm. First individually, then she lost count after reaching 154, she decided to start guesstimating how many there were, using precise calculations to count groups of Caribou, again, loosing count after several hundred. I thought briefly about the implications of drilling in ANWR, of the even the remote possibility of impacting or altering this profound event. After four months of teaching in Arctic Village I knew these people survived off this herd, and had done so for hundreds of years. The subsistence life style, though recently becoming subsidized with the help of rotary airplanes and native corporations- was still dependent upon the precious meats and materials found in the Caribou. Suddenly we heard a loud clicking sound, looking right to witness two large males in combat. Antlers clanking against one another, heads bumping and legs thrusting as they struggled for superiority. What were they fighting over? In the background several newborn yearlings picked at lichen and other delicious pieces of vegetation on the ground. It’s hard to believe such a basic, unappetizing life form could serve as their main source of food. I wondered why more people in town hadn’t been alerted to their arrival. Why more hunters hadn’t shown up with their .223’s or .308’s to shoot a couple. Having the herd this close to town wasn’t rare, but wasn’t normal. Typically the herd crosses the Chandalar River from a valley just south of the village and moves into the flats. Today they were swimming across the semi-frozen river right near our village. In a dog paddle like stroke we saw hundreds of Caribou struggling to cross the open water. Ice beginning to glaze near the edges of the shore, leaving the middle open to flowing water.

How are these Caribou called to make this monumental journey? What internal idea is driving them, forcing them to walk and risk survival across such great distances? Wolves, bears, and hunters constantly picking off brothers and sisters in the herd. What internal apprise is telling them to make this pilgrimage? I found my way to the classroom after five years of military service. To me it seemed the thing to do. Turn a passion for Alaska and a calling to serve into something unique. Making the decision to work in the bush I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Various friends gave me snippets of life working in the bush. My family didn’t totally understand, the distance from home and the life we knew becoming even greater. But while sitting their watching thousands of Caribou do what they are supposed to do, it seemed I was where I was supposed to be. I knew at that moment that despite the ugliness and cultural differences, that place was where I was supposed to be. Challenges and struggles had tried to stop me. Certain moments our light felt as if it were shinning alone, providing the dimmest illumination in an ever growing abyss. Keeping me from reaching my migratory destination, but I prevailed. My own intrinsic spirit had played a similar tune to that of the Caribou. Life is not without challenges. As we scale mountains, cross-frozen rivers, and struggle to find food- it shapes who we are, as a pack, pair, and individual. Gretchen and I had traveled a great distance to reach this point and time. Making decisions wrecking the emotional stability we had built around us. Breaking down the physical barriers that defined normal. Not only for the better of those around us, but for the sanctity of our own being. Because to ignore the tune would be denying a piece of our soul.

Bio Sketch: Andrea

assignment- interview a classmate from the Homer Open, write a biographical sketch

Mentally preparing for the Homer Writing Consortium I knew I would have the privilege of collaborating with other professional teachers. Little did I know I would be dissecting part of their lives and writing about it. Each person I’ve met at the consortium fascinates me. They have my utmost respect as professional educators and experienced Alaskan teachers. If only we had the opportunity to fully know one another, the way I know my closest friends, the way I know my wife. To extrasensorily perceive one another with just a glance would be astounding. In writing we must first know our subject. Through deep brainstorming and critical thinking we develop an understanding of our subject, then capture it to the best of our abilities. In a sense this is the metamorphosis we witness as writers of our subject. This is how Andrea has grown as a teacher, and the subject of my biographical writing. She’s lived several lives within a life. Interweaving one within the next finally ending up in the Matanuska Susitna School District, and ultimately in a chair at the Alaska State Writers Consortium Homer Open sitting beside me. “Would you like to be biography partner,” she asks me? You seem new to teaching and I’ve been teaching for a while, we might be able to learn something from one another.

Serving others, always. This is the motto I feel Andrea has come to simply live by, though she is very humble about it. Whether loyally teaching students in the Mat- Su School District as a Special Education Teacher, or faithfully standing by her husband through health issues- how many people can say they’ve given an organ for someone they love? For sixteen years Andrea has spent her career helping students in Alaska learn to read, write and develop life skills essential in school. Starting in Seward as a teacher before moving to Palmer, Andrea has spent the last three years serving as a high school resource teacher.

Part of being a teacher is being a life long learner. A bibliophile at heart, Andrea has adapted to the digital revolution, armed with her iPad loaded with wonderful ebooks. Constantly looking for new teaching manuals and professional development texts available to download, she is driving the digital train of education into the 21^st century. Despite this innovative technological wonder, she still saves boxes of books for the day batteries won’t bring the glow of her screen to life. Her genre is non-fiction, though she enjoys fiction. Andrea loves to learn and does so through constant inquiry and intellectual curiosity of the non-fiction genre.

Few people have experienced some of the sights Andrea has. Humpback whales breaching off the bow of her glacial tour boat. Peregrine falcons swooping across the sky, snatching baby chic’s of the rookeries Resurrection Bay cliff walls. Sea Otters buoyantly bouncing on the surface of the water. Orca’s stealthily cutting the surface, obscuring their black and white stripes in the chilly gulf waters. Andrea served as a conduit to this aquatic Eden working six years in Seward as a Park Ranger. Sharing, not only these experiences but knowledge and information about these wonders. A testament to her cheerful attitude toward others and eagerness to teach.

Whether rescuing and raising four beautiful German shepherds or faithfully supporting her sick husband, Andrea cares about others. In the classroom she engages with students and strives to teach them the skills necessary for life. Only when you have lived your life to the fullest can you teach others what life is. This is what I have learned from Andrea.

My Boots

taken from a Fastwrite, June 7th

I’m made of full grain leather with the toughest vibram soles. Draped in gore-tex and stitched together in Romania. As a young boot I was stored on the top shelf, as all size 13’s are stored on the top shelf, of the Adventure’s Edge backroom in Morgantown, West Virginia. It was a normal day, like any other day, spent discussing the meaning of life with that cute little silica packet stuck inside my left foot. When suddenly I was pulled from the top shelf and brought out into the shoe department. “I’ve always worn Asolo boots”, I could hear him say. “But my last pair is just falling apart, I tried to have the leather shop on High Street mend them for me, but that half grain leather just doesn’t last… anyway, I read in backpacking magazine these are the best boots to buy this season?”. “Sure are”, Jan the shop owner, responded. As I was removed from the packaging and laced up I could see a humongous man sitting at the bench, waiting to try me on. After pulling up his thick wool hiking socks, he carefully slipped his right then left foot inside me. Gently lacing each boot up before taking our first steps together around the carpeted aisle of the camping gear section. “Wow, these feel great”, he said. I could tell from the way his high arched feet and narrow toe box fit, we were a perfect match.

I would come to call him Sam, and for the next several years we spent many days hiking around the hills of West Virginia. Dolly Sods, New River Gorge, Shenandoah and Blue Ridge Mountains, Seneca Rocks, and Cranberry Glades were just a few of our favorite places together. Never once did he make me walk the congested, noisy, teeming streets of a concrete city. I made a nest for myself in the back of his closet spending the days dreaming of our next adventure. On a couple special occasions I got to explore the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and dusty deserts of Utah and New Mexico, before returning to my safe home in West Virginia. Then, to my surprise, I was thrown into a duffel one day and spent countless hours heading North. When I was finally removed from my temporary home and placed on the feet of my faithful master something had changed. The air felt crisper and cleaner, the ground felt foreign, but friendlier. Where was I? “A-l-a-s-k-a”! I could hear Gretchen say, his most recent and frequent trail companion. Alaska? I think I’m going to like Alaska, I thought to myself. And for the last five years we’ve spent our time fording icy rivers, climbing the steepest peaks, and sliding across slippery glaciers.

Photo Story 3 for Windows: My Tutka Adventure

Today we learned about using Photo Story 3 for windows. This is a PC based software used for creating slide show stories with images imported into the program. It is very similar to iMovie. I think I prefer iMovie, but all in all Photo Story is a little easier to use. Enjoy.

Mixed Media Nature Writing

Can you guess by subject?

Blowing in the breeze

Always doing as we please

I can make you sneeze

I only come green

A colorful carpeting

Softly comforting

Turf or sod or lawn

So Many varieties

We can all play ball

Neither here nor there

Growing almost everywhere

Except in my yard

Staining my knees green

What fun to lay in the sun

Then hearing Mom scream

I never understood why Les spent countless hours grooming, fertilizing, massaging, and talking to his grass. Is it not the simplest most mundane of all plant life? Does it not naturally sprout from the ground wherever and whenever it pleases. What is this preferential treatment he gives his lawn over all over flora? Segregating our property with his more visually pleasing garden of grass. In places like Arizona we foolishly waste thousands of gallons of water just to paint the deserts green. And for what, so Richey Rich can play through a par 4? In Alaska our precious grass is buried beneath a beautiful layer of white wonder. Snow blankets the ground the majority of the year, why then invest so much time and energy into perfecting this organism just to contrast the white with green for merely a few months of the year. Death to the sod, cover the world with gravel. Crushed rock is so much more resilient to the wear and tear of everyday life.

Oh how I love to walk barefoot in the grass. To feel its suppleness under my feet. Providing a free blanket to lay and waste the day. Life flourishing throughout its microscopic jungles. Zoom in and see every blade flutter in the lightest of breeze. Zoom out and watch it unfold upon the surface of the Earth. On a hot summer day it cools the air. There are so many shapes and sizes. Kentucky blue grass, buffalo blend, perennial rye, tall or fine fescue, and Bermuda grass. All varieties covering my yard, protecting the precious earthen soil from eroding away in the rain. In days spent wasting away in concrete cages I yearn for grass. Months spent swallowed by the tundra I beg for an acre of green lawn to sprint across. That smell on a warm summers eve, like a freshly cut salad, chopped and minced to mulch.

I Am From

I am the eldest and only son,

sweating away in the August sun.

From parents whom enjoyed one another’s company

a decade, before I was born.

We are generations built upon generations, upon generations.

Seeking freedom, new beginnings, new roots- from what did they come for?

From sons of old I stand alone, carrying the guidon though there be only one.

I am my ancestors.

I am Confederate by day and Yankee by night,

crossing the Mason-Dixon line to meet the school bus.

From one accent to another,

I still can’t spell i before e.

I am Kraft macaroni & cheese,

blended with chunks of mechanically separated beef, poultry, and pork-

only the finest hot dogs Food Lion had to offer with a coupon clipped that week.

I am Sunday night pepperoni & cheese, 1 can of soda (pop), and Walt Disney.

From a family of service, both God & Country I grew,

following Baden Powell & Jesus Christ I blossomed.

I chose my own adventure with Verne, Stevenson, and Cooper- but never had time for homework.

I am a graduate. From country roads, and craggy hills.

I am a partner, a husband, a friend. She was willing to follow me- anywhere.

Into the service I marched. Hearing the call my ancestors cried

both past and present.

Essayons! My new masters grunted. Let Us Try!

Castle walls became roadside bombs. Sappers in the breach.

I am a survivor- baptized by fire and born anew under armed conflict- a veteran.

I am an Alaskan now. Searching its peaks, valleys, and rivers.

From its glacial expanses I am an Arctic Phoenix.

Spreading my wings throughout the tundra.

From my being I can become,

appeased, pacified, and reforged to forgive the past.

Dreams become reality in this limitless state.

Transcendentally transcending a crib cliché,

as the midnight sun lights my path.