We learned to make balloon animals at the Kid’s Stage of the Southeast Alaska State Fair this year, the secret being a small plastic pump to inflate those long balloons that defy most everyone’s blowing capacity. So some knowledge was gained amid the chaos that results from combining sugar-addled youngsters with tempera paint, glitter, and hot glue. Also, my apologies…
It’s no big surprise that garbage rates are going up again. Like utility charges and taxes, the cost of getting rid of stuff never goes down. During a proposed doubling of garbage rates in the mid-1990s, one lifetime resident told the Chilkat Valley News, “Whatever I can’t burn, I’m flushing down the toilet.” And so it goes. Local waste handler…
Under police chief Heath Scott, you will never be safe enough and you will never stop paying more for it. Now the police are into the pot of money that pays for the public library, Chilkat Center Haines Museum and swimming pool for $177,000 and more each year. That’s right. If you can’t get into the pool or museum, it’s…
The Haines Borough manager is again pushing to close the pool three months, May 8 to Aug. 1. The Haines Borough School District has given $12,500 to keep the pool open, so the borough would only be funding eight months of pool operation. The pool would be closed nearly four months of the current fiscal year. Ironically, the pool is…
About a month ago, 40 Juneau residents boarded the state ferry and traveled to Skagway for the Buckwheat Ski Classic, a decades-old event that attracts visitors from Haines, Juneau, Whitehorse and other towns. For two days, those 40 Juneau folks ate at local restaurants, slept in Skagway lodges, drank in the town’s watering holes and likely deposited about $15,000 into…
In Juneau, a 59-year-old man pushed a 54-year-old man through a second-story window, killing him. In Sitka, a drunk school bus driver steered into the opposite lane, smashed into a car and drove up on a sidewalk, with 21 students aboard. In Haines, large, pro-Russia placards were erected on Main Street, saying “Russia De-Nazify Ukraine” and “Disband Nato.” Then they…
“Don’t wanna be buried in debt or in sin so we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto Cause there ain’t but two ways we can change tomorrow.” Songwriter Brandy Clark, from “Pray to Jesus” At public meetings I’ve attended for the last 35 years, some jackass will always stand up and say, “This town is dying.”…
Around 11 p.m. Saturday, a car full of teen-agers drove into a highway pull-out at 26 Mile and parked just long enough for the kids inside to get out and dance around to some loud music in the parking lot. Cheap thrills, for sure, but small-town kids understand that even cheap thrills beat no thrills at all. Adults are no…
It was a Sunday 33 years ago almost to the day, and we spent all of it at the Harbor Bar, a dozen bachelors, cheechakoes, alcoholics and the like, sipping drinks, telling stories and shooting pool. No one got drunk but that wasn’t the point. We were there sponging up heat from Jack Martin’s furnace. The thermometer on the bank…
If any more COVID money drops into this town unexpected, or some worldwide cataclysm causes a surge in the oil prices or even if neither of those happens, the Haines Borough should consider painting the place. It would be an easy way to improve our look. In Southeast Alaska, our dominant color is gray. Gray comes at us for days…