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…
When the machine-gun was invented, people said it meant the end of war because such an efficient killing machine would be inhumane to use, even on soldiers. When the airplane was invented, people said it meant an end to war because aerial bombing would kill too many innocent civilians. When the atom bomb was invented, people said it meant the…
(PHONE CALL INTERCEPT, SANTORINI, Greece) – “Vlad, Vlad, pick up. I’m schvitzing over here. The cops changed the locks on the yacht and they took my rugby team and Olga – remember her, the gymnast with the great caboose – she left me for some punk flanker who plays for Manchester.” “Sorry, Boris, I’m kind of tied up with Kiev…
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…
“I didn’t expect civilization to collapse quite so quickly.” – popular Facebook meme Quite frankly, neither did I. History tells us no one ever does: Empires and civilizations just kind of bumble along as they slowly degrade into depravity, lawlessness, authoritarianism, vice and barbarity. Eventually, Vandals breach the castle walls and we’re all eating gruel for 1,000 years before…
I was a freak for the Olympic Games from the moment I first saw them. An early memory was dragging a mattress outside and using some boards and nails and mom’s clothesline pole to fashion a high-jump pit in our backyard. Fortunately, I married a fellow fan, a former women’s hockey player who was paid real money to teach cross-country…
“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…
The climate people say the Winter Olympics may go away for lack of snow. In Beijing, skiers complain about surfaces of man-made snow that diminish their performances. In the Alps, reflective tarps are used to preserve glaciers, huge tourist attractions that are melting away. In Haines, a half-dozen or more skiers leave every winter for trips to Washington or Colorado,…
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…