Sorting through my father’s personal affects following his death, I came across a small bible and inside, a lock of black hair, tied with a ribbon. The bible once belonged to my grandmother, but there were no clues to the origin of the lock. Was it hers? Had she sent it off with my grandfather, inside the bible, as he…
Life imitates art, they say. Take the Jan. 22 story in the Anchorage Daily News headlined, “Handgun Fired Accidentally in Coffee Shop Injures Woman.” The story said a group of friends met at a Kaladi Brothers coffee shop in Soldotna Jan. 20 and one of them, a 76-year-old man, pulled out a 9-millimeter pistol he’d brought inside, for reasons the…
“Yes and through this life I’ve wandered, I’ve seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.” Woody Guthrie, “Pretty Boy Floyd,” 1939. It’s ironic that 40 years ago, when Earth First! was being vilified for sabotaging development projects, a small group of wealthy people were getting to work…
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy created a ruckus last week with his draconian budget proposal, neatly sparing the oil industry while proposing to decimate Alaska’s public institutions and rain down hell on schools and municipalities. You can call Dunleavy a lot of things – Gov. Mongo, Caribou Trumpie, Wasilla’s Revenge – but don’t call him a liar. Dunleavy promised bigger…
I chatted up former Haines city administrator Tom Healy during a chance meeting on the ferry a couple years back and he got to reminiscing about things he appreciated about Haines. Healy had gone on to work many years as the municipal manager of Palmer, Alaska. The Haines barter economy, Healy said, was one of the interesting facets about the…
After five weeks out, I returned to Alaska with a pocketful of Cape May diamonds* and a new appreciation for family and the people from my childhood. We are patching things back together following the death of my father, as all families do. Siblings take on new roles to fill the gap. Life goes on. My dad was good, a…
I’m back in Media, Pa., my hometown, promoted without irony as “Everybody’s Hometown.” Media has a picturesque main street lined with storefronts, featuring a trolley car and a grand theater and few stone buildings any one of which, placed in Haines, Alaska, would be crowned as an architectural wonder. Miniaturized in plastic, it’s the kind of place assembled alongside toy…
The state Division of Parks, which had about $600,000 in hand for improving the bear-people situation along the Chilkoot River, just received another $1.5 million for its project. That should be good news, but it could be the opposite, depending on what Parks does with the dough. The Chilkoot desperately needs a fix. Condemned by some longtime visitors as a…
You have to give Lisa Murkowski credit. No, not for voting against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. That was a no-brainer. But for the stellar performance she gave making her decision appear difficult. Notify the Academy for a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Murkowski, to all the world, agonized about this decision. Fretted over it. Lost sleep. Put her seat in…
“The Sinking of the Princess Sophia” hits some high notes for drama in Haines, including timeliness, a tight, locally produced script, strong casting and clever use of the Chilkat Center’s new, multi-media effects. The trajectory of the play-and-slide-show tableau borrows generously from Ken Coates and Bill Morrison’s 1991 classic, “The Sinking of the Princess Sophia: Taking the North Down with…