Breaking Up Is Hard To Do...

Neil Sedaka's signature song is one of my favorites. I fondly remember propping my feet up on the 8-track player and listening to a compilation album of #1 hits from the '50's and '60's. This particular 8-track cassette also includes my favorite song of all time "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" by Jimmie Rodgers! Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne recorded a nice cover of "Kisses" as well. But I digress...

The ice covering Kuskokwim River officially broke this morning just before 9am. This is exciting news for most of the Y-K Delta as it means the beginning of subsistence fishing and summer recreation. For me, it means getting to experience another side of the surprisingly complex world that is Bethel and her people.



This year's "Breakup" has been fairly anti-climatic as we had an unusually cold winter, but precipitation totals were significantly lower than in previous years. About a week ago, a large area of open water was visible on the far bank of the river, but the ice on the city side (and the tripod marking the official break-up for the "Ice Classic") remained relatively intact.

It was interesting to visit the river in the days leading up to the break up. It seemed everyone was waiting in eager anticipation of the break. People were lining up trailers loaded with watercraft for the first chance to get out on the water and even at midnight, there were people walking and cars driving along the riverbank to check on the river's status.



Last night Bethel celebrated the river's break with the big Breakup Bash! A free BBQ was provided (Kid1 treated us beforehand to Subway with her Talent Show winnings!) and some decent live music was performed. It seemed like nearly everyone I knew in town was there! The kids were running around with their friends and J and I were able to socialize with ours. Unfortunately, the ice wasn't cooperating as the tripod was still sitting downriver about 200 yards and little, if any, ice could be seen moving. We all had a great time and we're looking forward to exploring more of our new home!

A Trip Down Memory Lane...Blog Style

This post was from 2007 in a place far, far away from Bethel...seems like it needed to be retold!

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The other day, J and the boys joined me for lunch at the local cafe. Nothing is particularly amazing about this place, but it generally provides at least a little space for dining in peace. About halfway through our meal, a gentleman enters the cafe and saunters to a bench right next to our table and just sorta sat there waiting for service. There were plenty of tables available, so I'm not sure if we were invading on "his" table or if he just felt the need to be near us. Anyway, this gentleman was none other than the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis! I mean it. He's a downright spittin' image of the King. It was awesome!

J was doing her best to force down her food without bursting with laughter and neither boy was even phased by the impersonator. I, however, couldn't resist speaking up. I asked what anybody would ask, "Excuse me, did you used to sell cars?" I thought J was going to choke!

At this point, I can see J start herding the boys toward the door as I'm certain she was ready to leave out of sheer embarrassment, but she abruptly stopped when Elvis began a lengthy conversation with us.

His reply, in a decidedly un-Elvis-esque voice, "Why, yeah, I did!"



See, years ago, I bought a car from Elvis (aka David "Jesse" Moore). It turned out to be a total beater (You can't spell "Beretta" without "beater"), but it served it's intended purpose and lasted nearly 200,000 miles. The paint would fall off in large chunks. The driver's seat was broken on one side, so I always looked like I was cruisin' down the strip gangsta-style instead of just going to work. A friend once told me that he wouldn't follow me, for fear of paint flying off my car and landing on his new truck. I told him not to worry because the paint wouldn't stick to anything!

Anyway, Elvis is doing okay. He's having some trouble these days with his weight, cholesterol, both hips, and one knee. I felt pretty guilty chomping down a bacon-cheeseburger and fries right in front of him, but he didn't seem to even notice. Probably because there weren't bananas and peanut butter on it! Surprisingly, he only ordered a small side salad for lunch, which he willingly informed us was because he needed to lose weight before having hip surgery.

I'll bet you didn't know that Elvis was an "over-sharer". We learned all sorts of stuff about him (particularly his many ailments), from his job history to details about his marriage. It was all very interesting, but a bit overwhelming. Apparently, he's no longer selling cars, but he's an avid car collector, particularly the Chevy Camaro and, of course, the Corvette. I'm not a "car" guy, so I can't remember what his most recent acquisition was, but it sounded cool enough.

On a side note...One of my oldest friends used to drive a 'Vette! In high school even! It was pretty cool for a 1980 Chevrolet Chevette!




Back to Elvis... Over-sharers are good people and they mean no offense (They'll often say, "No offense..." before starting into something that is offensive!), but they really ought to learn some discretion before just telling everyone about everything, particularly when their audience is trying desperately to finish their meals. I have found that pre-teens and the elderly are both notorious over-sharers and devoid of the "stop-talking-now" filter that the rest of us have developed.

So, if you're an over-sharer, learn to read the non-verbal communication of your intended audience. Watch out for your un-intended audience and maybe save the explicit details of your surgery for doctors and close family members only!

I should also point out that Elvis is aging just like the rest of us. Not as well as we'd all dreamed about when we were young. But, despite all that, the man is in great spirits and still dons the sequined jump suit for appearances throughout the States. So, suck it up people. If Elvis can still do it...so can you!

Excuses...

"It has been said by people who should know better that Eskimos treat their children well only so the children will in turn treat their parents well when old age is upon them and their time of usefulness is at an end. In point of fact, the People treat their children with great sympathy and forbearance because they know so much of humanity."

-From People of the Deer by Farley Mowat



One of the first things we heard after moving to Bethel was that the Native Alaskans won't discipline their children because they wanted to be treated well when their children were taking care of them in old age. It made sense at the time, as we had quickly noticed that many Native kids seemed to behave as though there were no rules or consequences. At first, seeing this was troubling and we were offered this rote "excuse" by many non-native friends. In fact, I even repeated it to more than one person as a simple way to dismiss the differences in parenting styles, although deep down I didn't believe this to be anything more than a lame excuse.

So, when I came across this passage in Mowat's book, I was startled by how directly it spoke to me and I proceeded to dog-ear and reread it literally dozens of times. I also repeated this to anyone that would listen and even to people that didn't want to.

How is it that Mowat so succinctly named this 60+ years ago when we still say this same thing today?

Just prior to the earlier quote, Mowat says, "In the camps of the People the child is king, for childhood is short and tragedy often comes after. [. . .] so the early years of a child are made free of compulsion and of hard labors, for these years must always remain in the child's memory to alleviate the agonies which come with mature years."

I think this issue definitely crosses cultural bounds, with both non-native and native families being wrought by this. My concern is that as we have matured as a society and relieved some of the "agonies" that maturity traditionally brought, we have also allowed our children a longer childhood to be without consequence. Granted, today's children are subject to a hyperspeed version of youth that few of us can comprehend, however, one would think that the result would be a hyper-maturing of our youth instead of the other way around.

Mowat tells of his first encounter with Franz and his "family" of adopted Eskimo children, where the four-year-old daughter readied tea for the men and was quickly embracing the roles of the woman. Not many four-year-olds I've known could be entrusted with such a task!

Yet, here we are in the 21st Century and we let our children be unaccountable well into their teen and young adult years. And, instead of teaching our kids how to be adults, we let them off the hook and say we don't want them to be cruel to us when we are old and no longer useful. This seems to counter the original purpose of giving children an easier early life. Instead, now we foster laziness and rude behavior as though it is some God-given right of childhood.

In today's world, where cultures have merged and technology has connected us in a way few could have ever imagined, we actually have accomplished the opposite of the original "native" rules for children. We have, in fact, just given our children a free pass, not to have some fond memory of the greatness of youth or to give them some wonderful memory of easier times, but rather to learn how to take the easy way out of most things.

Unfortunately, the ultimate cost to humanity of raising our children in this manner will not be fully known until these youth are adults with no work ethic, no cultural heritage, no knowledge of anything but how to take advantage of the system.

Special Election...

Bethel is having a Special Election today to decide if we want to reverse our "wet" alcohol status, which voters last October passed by an underwhelming margin of 52% to 48%. For at least 30 years prior, Bethel's alcohol status has been "damp". Wet and damp. Hilarious. Coming from the state of Oregon where it pretty much is always either damp or wet, I can't help but think that neither is an ideal state of being. Unfortunately, I'm not able to vote as I'm not yet an Alaska resident. I have heard most of the arguments on both sides, but I'm still torn as to how I would vote...even if I could.

As newcomers to Bethel, we're not as up to speed on the historical issues surrounding the alcohol issue in the Y-K Delta as we would prefer to be. Much of the history of the issue extends back 30 or more years when Bethel was under no restrictions on alcohol, so for us the community's status of "damp" or "wet" was only noticeable since it changed between our site visit and our arrival in January.

I had the good fortune to have a few people bring me some alcohol that was purchased in Anchorage on my behalf. In fact, last weekend I had my first Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale (My favorite brewery...BTW) in 100 days and it tasted so good I nearly wept. Ask J...she'll tell you! I can only imagine how amazing it would be to be able to drive down to the AC and pick up a six-pack...even at the inflated prices they would inevitably charge!

On the flip side of this issue, the same weekend I enjoyed my beer, I had an encounter at the previously mentioned AC that I will never forget. As I was running in to use the ATM, I heard one drunk say to another, "That's just who I am. Just who I am. F***ed in the pants."

Yep. The pants. I don't even know what that means. But I feel fairly confident that I've never been that drunk. Yes, this individual was native and, no, I don't believe that our alcohol problem in Bethel is exclusive to the native population.

Our alcohol problem is all of our concern. We've heard from law enforcement who say they haven't seen any significant increase in crime since our change in status...yet. Medical personnel have said there has been an slight increase in the number of alcohol-related injuries and there seems to have been an uptick in the number of deaths likely attributed to alcohol, including at least one shooting. I am certain that there likely hasn't been enough time to evaluate the true impact on our community since the change in status.

So, our dilemma in Bethel will again be addressed by voters and some people will be happy, some people will be upset. It's likely that until people are accountable for their actions we probably won't see any significant change in any of our alcohol issues regardless of the outcome of the election. Unfortunately for us, we may all be "F***ed in the pants"!

In The Doghouse...With Munchkins...

A few months ago our neighbors brought an adorable black puppy with short legs home and promptly tied it up in their front yard and forgot about it. I'm not sure if it is one of Bethel's notorious "Village Dogs", but it definitely isn't a "pure" anything. (Nature be damned...all the feral dogs in Bethel have super short legs despite our annual snowfalls!) Only once in the puppy's first month at its new home, did I see any of its "owners" try to interact with it. Naturally, the puppy acted so excited to be having any kind of interaction that the kid quickly gave up trying to convince it to "sit" and went back inside. I haven't seen anyone make any attempts to be near the dog since.

Within days of its arrival to the neighborhood, we had sub-zero nighttime temperatures with daytime temps only slightly better, and yet, there huddled this tiny, forgotten dog without any shelter. I was devastated. I'd stare out the window at the freezing puppy and scheme ways to dognap it and bring it home into the warmth of our house...even if only for the night. Once, I called the non-emergency police number, only to find out that there aren't any laws dealing with cruelty to animals in Bethel unless there are obvious signs of abuse, but that dognapping would be a crime! I still am not sure how my concerns didn't at least warrant a check by local law enforcement, but apparently they had more important stuff to do.

Of course, if they chose to deal with my dog problem, they'd have to deal with the hundreds of others around town. Dogs in Bethel are second-class citizens and there's even the threat from the PD that they will shoot loose dogs. Not dogs that are being aggressive or threatening or are a danger to the public, traffic, themselves, or livestock. Any loose dog...period. PETA would seriously go nuts up here.

When we lived in North Dakota, I had similar problems with how people treated cats. It was almost as if most people viewed felines as a farm implement, whose sole function was to catch mice.

One late night, I was drawn to our garage where a hugely pregnant black "munchkin" cat was struggling to even walk. She had no ID or collar, so we called her "Gypsy". Within days, J and I spent hours helping her deliver her litter of seven. Four of the kittens were "munchkins", one was somewhere in between and two looked like normal cats. It was truly a wonderful experience for us and the kids enjoyed getting to experience the miracle of birth!



Sadly, when it came time to find homes for most of these kittens, nobody in North Dakota wanted them simply because they weren't likely to be good hunters because of their diminutive stature. I couldn't believe it. So, we literally paid to fly four of them to Oregon where my mom had been able to find people that wanted to care for them.

At another of our stops, the feral cat population was so out of control, cats were being born under the church, the church office and behind the old English Rose next to the parsonage. We'd rescue the kittens after the feral moms would abandon them and do our best to raise them and find homes for the kittens before they followed in their mom's footsteps or managed to get run over on the rural highway that ran through town. Often our only choice was to give them to the Feral Cat Coalition of SW Portland.

Our local Friend of the FCC was an alcoholic, crazy cat lady, little person that always managed to take two cats but convince us to take a different one that she couldn't find a home for! At one point, I wouldn't let J answer the phone when she called for fear we'd be adopting another cat! As I tried, mostly in vain, to capture the feral cats, I found little support from the community that apparently didn't mind seeing hordes of cats roaming around the neighborhood or scraping road kill off the side of the road.

So, here I am again, doing my best to understand attitudes and cultural norms, despite my own desire to "rescue" every animal I can. I guess I just don't understand why people would even want a dog (especially at the cost of keeping a dog here) if they aren't going to let it become a part of their family.

I finally had enough of seeing the little black dog curled up without any shelter, so I hired the wood shop class at the high school to build my neighbor-dog a house! I figured it's as much of a win/win as I can get with this situation. The kids will get some real-world woodworking experience (Not that the trivet below doesn't have any "real-world" application!) and with any luck the dog will have a safe place to protect it from the elements. I also hope the neighbor will realize the error of his ways...



Well, I'm proud to say that the doghouse is complete and has been delivered! I didn't make any ceremony about giving the house to the dog. I just pulled up, carried the dog house near the dog and left it. Honestly, I'm not sure anyone at the house has even noticed. For the first few days, I never actually saw the dog inside the house only sniffing around it. Honestly, I was a little upset that he didn't run right in and start sleeping inside, until I realized that up until then neighbor-dog had little reason to trust humans at all. This thought devastated me even more.

Last night, however, as I was walking Tracker, neighbor-dog was watching us from the comfort of the doorway of his new house! Enjoy your new "home" neighbor-dog!

Culture & Giving Thanks!

Friday we had the extreme pleasure of taking Kid1 and Kid2 to a concert sponsored by the Bethel Council on the Arts. Recording artist Erin McKeown ended her recent tour with at stop at Bethel's Cultural Center and delighted the crowd with an energetic, yet very intimate show!



Kid1 received some education advice from McKeown (Who has an Ethnomusicology degree from Brown University) as well as a little music advice from Traci Buckle. Nice!

Kid1 has also booked a spot in the lineup for the BCA's annual "Break-Up Concert" held at the river when the ice finally decides to leave! Date and Time TBA, since nobody really knows when that's going to happen! My guess is we'll be pushing back the date as we woke up this morning to a few inches of snow...but we'll keep you posted and hopefully get a little video of her performing!

Speaking of Break Up...every year, there's a 50/50 contest to guess the date and time of the break up. We didn't get any tickets this year, although my guess of Cinco de Mayo isn't looking very good right now! My next guess is May 18th at 8:32am. We'll see! Here's a calendar of the historic dates of the Break Up!



Oh...here's a video from the 2009 Break-Up!

Saturday, we had our first annual "Fakesgiving" celebration with some friends that are preparing to leave for the summer! It was a delight and we are certainly going to miss those dear friends while they are away!

We had yet another wonderfully full weekend in our new home and we are surprised daily with all of the opportunity here! Thanks BCA, Erin, Traci, friends, family and everyone else that made this weekend possible!