CHAPTER TWO OF MY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SHORT STORIES

                                     FUN MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD IN ALASKA


                                                       Ed Cheverelle and The Hunt

Our family’s first real home of our own in Alaska was a barn. Literally!

We were living in downtown Anchorage – I was perhaps five – and needed to vacate the house we were house-sitting. My parents wanted to move out of town where they could be more independent: After all, in Anchorage at that time we might have had two or three other houses on our block and real gravel on our streets; there was running water for our taps and a sewer main for our toilets. This was far too structured an environment for my parents!

So, they purchased a piece of property some miles to the southwest of Anchorage in an area known as Spenard. In later years, Spenard Road would become the main highway from Anchorage to the new Anchorage International Airport.

But when we moved out there it was a muddy trail servicing some small number of homestead farms, an occasional grocery store and several trappers’ cabins. Across the road from one farm, and perhaps a half mile down the road from the Spenard Grocery, was a several hundred yard long, even muddier one lane trail without a name. On this trail were two houses: The first was about half-way from Spenard Road to the end of the lane; the second was at the very end. They were both on the south side of this trail. Not another building was visible from the woods surrounding the trail.

My parents purchased property directly across this little trail from the first house and had the barn from the farm across Spenard Road dragged on skids to a small clearing on the property. That barn, still sitting high above the ground on the logs used as skids, still reeking with the odor of cow dung and hay, still nothing more than timbers nailed together – that barn was home.

We named the trail Sunset Lane, an auspicious name for little more than a set of tire tracks through the grass and weeds. And we introduced ourselves to our neighbors: Ed Cheverelle and his wife directly across from us; Duane (Butch) Coomer, his mom and two younger siblings at the end of the car tracks.

This incident and the following ones are outstanding in my mind, highly memorable for a five year old.

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The first winter in Spenard, Ed Cheverelle boasted to my dad and oldest brother, who was then fifteen, what a great hunter and outdoorsman he was. In fact, he bragged, he could take them deep into the woods, shoot a moose and bring it back without taking anything more than a rifle and hatchet. No matches. No tent. No sleeping bag. No food. No other gear.

He was the ultimate woodsman. He would “live off the land”.

Now, neither my father nor oldest brother, Skip, was so naive that they believed this for one minute. Both had hunted deer in the mountains of Pennsylvania so they knew just a little about hunting, tracking, bagging and skinning a game animal, camping and keeping from getting lost in the woods. But they were certainly willing to let Ed, whose log house was filled with stuffed squirrels, mounted moose and caribou heads, racks of rifles and other hunting accoutrement, show them his stuff.

One day in late September 1947, just as fall hunting season opened, Ed took my father and brother on a hunting trip. True to his word, he carried only a jacket, a hatchet hanging from his belt, and a 30.06 rifle with scope. Our two representatives on this outing took full packs with waterproof matches, dried foods, extra clothes, sleeping bags, hatchet, knife, rifles and more. Ed told them to be prepared to spend anywhere from a couple days to a week “deep in the woods” while they stalked their prey.

For the trip into the wilds, Ed had them take the train a hundred miles or so north of Anchorage. There, in the middle of the woods, with snow starting to fall, Ed had the engineer stop the train to let them off. This, we knew, wasn’t unusual, as the Alaska Railroad was the only real access into the untamed country between Anchorage and the next largest city, Fairbanks, some 400 miles to the north. The train made the round trip every several days.

The engineer said he’d stop at this place exactly three days later and wait ten minutes. If they weren’t there, they’d have to catch him the following trip in seven days.

With that, our intrepid hunters disembarked and the train – we all called it the “Moose Gooser” for the oversized cow catcher on the front – chugged away.

Ed started them out by walking directly away from the tracks. “This is north,” he told them. “I know this because of the shadows.” Walking last in the single file formation they had agreed to use, my brother checked his compass.

Due east, it read.

“We’ll keep going ‘till we see something moving,” he continued. “This wood’s full of moose. And we’re the only ones out here according to the engineer, so we can take our pick. You fellas tell me if I’m going too fast for you. I don’t imagine you did much hiking when you were in California.”

During our several visits to his house our family had related the recent move to Alaska from Long Beach, but hadn’t really said much more. But Ed didn’t know that my brother was a Civil Air Patrol (CAP) cadet who had been going hunting since he was a pre-teen. Nor did Ed know that my father was a government civil engineer, responsible for mapping many of the wilderness areas between Anchorage and Fairbanks similar to this one. He was experienced and extremely resourceful in the woods.

But they never let on to Ed any of this.

They tramped a ways from the tracks, turning down this gully, trudging up this knoll, traipsing single file “so they wouldn’t leave too many tracks in the snow.”

As night fell, it was still lightly snowing and perhaps six inches had accumulated on the ground. Ed found a campsite spot next to a stream, began cutting live branches from the surrounding trees and stacking them.

“We’ll make ourselves a campfire,” he explained, “and I’ll show you how to start a fire without matches. I learned this from my pop in Tennessee.”

Dad and Skip exchanged glances: Is this guy serious?

Ed cut two spruce limbs that were about one inch in diameter and perhaps six inches long. He squatted beside the stack of green boughs and began sawing one limb across the other. Keeping this up for several minutes he was soon covered with sweat.

But no spark, no fire, no nothing.

After a quarter hour of futile effort he asked Skip if he wanted to learn how to do this. Skip declined.

My dad, meantime, had moved up the embankment and had cut a number of pine boughs, laying them under a large spruce whose limbs were heavy with needles and grew close to the ground. On these cut boughs he laid out his and Skip’s sleeping bags, then covered them with a deep layer of boughs. This would be their lean-to.

Having seen all that he wanted to see of Ed’s increasingly panicky efforts, Skip rounded up a number of dead and broken tree limbs. Making a fire pit out of the larger rocks on the stream bed, he laid the dead pine branches on the bottom, being careful not to knock off the dried needles. Then, he added other dead branches on top. Finally he took out his canister of Army surplus waterproof matches and lit the dried needles. With a satisfying crackle they ignited, bursting into a flame that quickly spread to the other dried wood on top. In minutes he had a nice fire going.

Ed watched in quiet envy.

“Since I’ve already got this one started, Ed, why don’t you help me get some more dead wood to put on it. You can show me your method tomorrow.”

Without a word Ed joined Skip in gathering branches. By now my dad had found a couple dead alders and began chopping them. They would burn much longer than the pine boughs, though they weren’t nearly so easy to light.

“I’m going to find me some berries to eat,” Ed told them. “I told you we can just travel light and live off the land.”

Dad and Skip declined again. “We’ve brought some K-rations, but thanks anyhow.” Army surplus stores were nearly as numerous in post-war Alaska as were bars; you could practically outfit an army for cents on the dollar. Anyone who didn’t take advantage of the gear offered by these stores wasn’t using very good judgment.

Soon Ed returned, thrashing and crashing through the tree limbs and underbrush in the dimming fall light. “Real good of you fellas to keep that fire burning,” he said. “I sorta had some trouble finding my way back.”

He hadn’t found any berries although he was certain there would be some near the creek. “I’ll have to stock up tomorrow when it’s light.”

My dad offered him a can of K-ration. Ed accepted it and mumbled his thanks.

“You all go ahead and sack out,” Ed told them. “I’ll just stay here by the fire. ‘Long as I have a fire at night I don’t need a sleeping bag. This is plenty warm.” With that he sat down on a pine bough, drew his legs up in front of him and closed his eyes.

Naturally, my dad and brother were extremely curious by now: Was this guy a real mountain man from the Tennessee woods as he claimed, or was he a certifiable nut case?

They hadn’t been in their bags very long when Ed came puffing up the stream bank to the lean-to. “You guys think there’s room in there for me? That fire’s gone plumb out and it’s starting to get cold.”

They looked through the boughs at him: The snow had been falling on his clothes and was an inch deep on the bill of his hat. He was shivering. The confident arrogance that had been his earlier demeanor had been replaced by self pity.

No, there really wasn’t much extra room under the lean-to and besides, there were only two sleeping bags. It seemed Ed would have to rough it just like he’d said he would do.

He mumbled some kind of plea; wouldn’t they try to share with him? Finally, dad and Skip unzipped one bag so it laid flat, then unzipped the other bag to lay on top. Skip and Ed got between these “covers” and my dad re-covered them with the small boughs. Then he slid between the two bags. With all their clothes on except their boots, and covered with the bag and boughs, they were somewhat warm and were able to get some sleep.

When they awoke they saw that the snow had stopped during the night. Perhaps a foot and a half white powder covered the ground.

The decided to make this their permanent camp, and took with them only what they needed for the day’s hunting.

Ed led them through the woods, whispering to them how he was locating where the moose were. Dad and Skip noticed that it seemed he was going in a big circle.

Suddenly he stopped. “Shush!” he said, holding up his hand. “We’ve got company.”

Sure enough, up ahead of them was a set of fresh footprints in the snow. “We’ll follow these to see if we can find out who else is out here,” Ed whispered. “Whoever it is must be pretty smart; looks like they’re going single file just like us!” He set out alongside, tramping though the snow and mumbling to himself.

Skip and my dad again glanced at each other. Is he for real? These footprints were theirs, laid down just hours before!

They followed Ed some distance, circling around the campsite as he followed the tracks in the snow.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed. “The first set of tracks have been joined by another set. Now there’s a whole bunch of hunters out here!”

He was serious. He didn’t seem to realize he had been following their own trail and had now come upon their own second set.

“Listen, Ed, with all these other hunters out here, we’d rather not take the chance of getting shot. We’re going to just go back to camp and wait until the train comes back from Fairbanks. You go ahead and bag a moose if you want to.”

With that, dad and my brother headed back to the lean-to.

Ed stomped around some more, all the while mumbling to himself in a loud whisper. When he finally arrived back at the camp he was again cold and hungry.

“Couldn’t find any berries. Moose must have eaten them all.” Again, he was offered and accepted with mumbled thanks the food from the packs of his fellow hunters.

On the third day they agreed it was time for all of them to head back to the tracks to catch the Anchorage-bound train. Ed had had enough being cold and hungry.

They caught the train and after they were settled into their seats my dad asked Ed about his hunting experience in Tennessee and Alaska. His answer was not wholly unexpected.

With his eyes downcast and his voice low, he told them his story. “Pop could do anything. He hunted and fished. He made fires by rubbing sticks or something and ate berries and things. I wasn’t too good at camping so I never went with him. But he’d always go, with his buddies, and always tell me about their trips. Mary and I never went hunting, but she thinks I’ve been going for a lot of years.

I bought all the heads and stuffed animals you seen at my place – she thinks I caught them all. I was so sure I could just do all the things Pop had done but none of it worked out.”

He was obviously distressed. My dad wondered if it had ever occurred to Ed that maybe his pop had never been hunting like he’d said, or started a fire without matches, or lived off the land.

Because that’s exactly what it seemed like.











(Photo from author’s collection)

c. 1954-55. Taken with my Kodak box camera, this is Wasilla Lake, as viewed from our

two lots. To left of the view, perhaps a mile away, is the town of Wasilla. To the right,

just several lots away, is the home of the Blacks.

THE ILLNESS CONTINUES

Monday; nearly 8 p.m.

I awoke and got up this morning without dizziness - but it quickly settled back in. So I called my doctor at Virginia Mason clinic in Bellevue and had to settle for seeing a different doctor tomorrow morning.

What could be causing this, I wonder? Seems I've read that being anemic can cause dizziness, as can an inner ear infection, or acute hunger. But I don't think I have any of those conditions.  So what else?

If the doc can figure it out and set me straight, then I'll be able to play again tomorrow afternoon. I'm hoping so - it's too late to find a sub now.  But if I'm still a little loopy, then I sure won't be playing. I'll be lying on my back watching the stars slowly spin around my head.

There is much yet to be read, but I can't stay focused.

And much I'd like to write on this blog, but I can't stay focused.

Damn! Can't even stay focused on a DVD movie. That sucks!

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SO MUCH WE STILL DON'T KNOW

Yesterday, about 11:30 a.m., as I began driving from my apartment in Newcastle to the rehearsal of the Sophisticated Swing big band in Redmond, I experienced a little dizziness and blurred vision. I attributed this to 'hunger pangs', as I had not eaten breakfast but had had two cups of coffee. My solution: eat a bite before rehearsal so I was no longer hungry.

This I did; I had a cinnamon pastry with coffee there, and proceeded to set up my horns, help set up chairs, get my music stand up and ready, then warm up the lips a little with some light blowing in the green room.

But by rehearsal time - 1:00 p.m. - I was visibly ill.  My skin was damp and clammy, my vision was blurred, I felt nauseous, and I headed to the bathroom .... just in case.

While in the bathroom nothing happened and I started to believe that I could play, so out to the bandstand I went.  On the way, though, I was really getting dizzy, so when I got to my seat I took leave of the others and laid down at the back of the stage.  Not a minute or so later and I needed to barf!

My friend and fellow trumpet instrumentalist, Dr. Elmer Green, was at my side and brought me a trashcan with a liner in it. Excellent!! I proceeded to attempt  to fill it to the brim with the continually souring intestinal fluids (what little there was, having not eaten much that day so far) that were in my stomach and insisting on coming out.

I had the presence of mind to dial my son's home and ask him to bring another driver and come get me.  Instead, Elmer had them call 911 and send an Aide Car for me.  That was a very good choice, as I'd have been continuously sick and barfing had I tried to just go home with Richard.

At Overlake ER, they diagnosed me with Vertigo (and yes, I had visions of Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart in my mind's eye!)  and began to feed me a saline solution to rehydrate me, along with some meds to calm the dizzying effect.

At five p.m. they released me and Richard took me to his home, where I ate some and we watched a series I like.

After arriving back at my apartment, I've slept since about 9:00 last evening until 1:00 today. Then I got up and took my morning meds and went promptly back to sleep.

It's now about 6:15 and I just ate a bite and am ready to lie on the sofa again and nap.  I'm so Very, Very tired! But no longer dizzy.

The part we don't know is: WHY did I suffer from vertigo?  What was the cause? How do I prevent it from  occurring again?  We know none of these answers.

But of one thing I am sure: I told the nurses in the ER repeatedly that my cremation already prepaid!

g

OOPS - MY MISTAKE. NO GOOGLE ACCOUNT REQUIRED; BUT READ ON: THERE'S MORE

I take full credit for the retraction I'm about to print in response to my erroneous advice that you need to open a Google account in order to view the blog; you don't. OK; I admitted it. You use the system to enter your email account and create a password for the blog site. No new email creation required.

But what does this whole event tell us? Well, for one, that even the most conscientious amongst us can be in error. And what an interesting word that is: con (with) scient (using science or logic / reason) ious (an attempt to use all the vowels in the English alphabet in one suffix). 

For another, that things are not always as they might first appear to be. So, going through the process of signing up to view my blog it appears that you need to set up a Google account. But in reality, you don't. It just seems that you do.

It follows, therefore, from the previous observation that instructions are not always as clear to the reader as they are to the writer; this brings up the issue of differing perspectives and their influence on what we deem necessary to make ourselves understood.

And this last point brings me to an observation I had recently when I asked a dear friend to not abstain from reading material I had posted just because it didn't agree with my friend's viewpoint. To me, the request was meant as a gesture of open mindedness - you know, that sensation we feel when we know we are right and want everyone else to see how clever we are in our 'rightness'.  But I observed that my friend could easily have taken it as less a request and more a challenge: read me and learn how silly your viewpoint is; marvel at my clearly superior argument, my perfectly focused logic.

How difficult it is, in truth, to convey our exact meaning with the written word, where we don't have the body language, the voice inflection, the non-verbal 'hooks' to persuade the other person to our opinion.

All of which may explain my fascination with reading, and writing. Oh yes, I enjoy a good debate, a challenging argument, the one-on-one, face-to-face discussion. But when you try to distill it all onto paper, and do it well enough to be both understood and then, agreed with ..... ah, that is another proposition entirely.

g

EARLY YEARS IN ANCHORAGE: COMPLETING THIS CHAPTER

((This is the final segment of the first chapter of my book of short stories. I will post a chapter at a time in future, instead of breaking it into smaller segments.))

Many Alaskans we knew were outdoors people - you had to enjoy the harsh weather and pioneer living conditions or you wouldn’t survive in the ‘olden’ days - and we were certainly no exception. Our family used these small aircraft much as the average family in the South 48 used their automobile: We took our weekend trips in a plane. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of trips we took in one or another of these vintage airplanes. We often went to the tide flats southwest of Anchorage where we fished for salmon using gill nets.


Since these craft were primarily two seaters, we made our way to and fro using the shuttle system: With my father at the rear seat’s controls he would fly my oldest brother and me to our destination, then return to pick up my mother. Lastly, he would make the final trip with the two middle boys. Skip, the oldest of us boys, was proficient with the rifle and he would take it with him on every trip. It was his responsibility to set up camp and watch over me until my mother arrived on site. He often went exploring after being relieved of his childcare duties, carrying the Winchester .32 caliber rifle over his shoulder as I later saw Daniel Boone do on the television show. What was he looking for? Often black bear would come down the steep cliffs to feed on fish that got left behind on the beach. He wanted to bag one for himself.

Our favorite fishing area was on Turnagain Arm. This is a broad body of water similar to the fjords of Scandinavia that, together with Cook Inlet, forms two of the boundaries of the triangle of land upon which sits the city of Anchorage. The third leg of this triangle is the Chugach Range of mountains some fifteen miles east of the confluence of these two bays. The Arm’s size and tidal flow misled its early explorer, Captain James Cook, who tried to navigate it in the 17th century as though it were a channel surrounding an island. Local legend has it that Captain Cook first sailed into the larger of the two inlets, which he later named after himself, believing he would be able to circumnavigate what he believed to be a large, low lying island. In fact, he sailed right up to the mouth of the Knik River and had to turn around and sail back down the inlet. The Knik River flows southwesterly from the Chugach Range, and is the northern side of the triangle.

When he reached the second bay he sailed southeast down it as well, again believing it to provide a means of circumnavigating what he thought was an island. When he reached the end of this waterway he was forced to turn around again, hence the name Turnagain Arm. In fact, this Arm is just a backwater for Cook Inlet. It has no river mouth at its end, as Cook Inlet has the Knik River, so tremendous tidal flows work up and down this basin with no place to go when they reach the end. These tidal flows create incredible undercurrents that can suck a person, or a small boat, under water instantly. And the tide created by these flows comes in to shore faster than a person can run. We often heard in the news of someone - usually a “cheechako” from the South 48 - who had been far out on the mudflats at low tide and was overtaken and drowned as the tide came rushing in.

The topography of the tidelands surrounding Anchorage is interesting and challenging. When the tide is out, both Cook Inlet and Turnagain Arm exhibit large mud flats that are cut deeply by streams. These stream beds may be six, eight or even ten feet deep, and usually have very shallow water draining down them. At low tide one can easily walk far out the flats, wading across these stream beds. The mud is firmly packed in most areas so you don’t sink into the muck more than several inches. The ease with which you can traverse this ground is fatally deceptive.

When the tide begins to come in - and the tides around Anchorage can measure twenty or more feet! - a huge undertow is created by the incoming water meeting the flow of Knik River’s water and the standing water of Turnagain Arm. This undertow creates a large wall of water rushing ahead of the tide, a wall we called a riptide. This riptide raced along the flats at amazing speed, catching and ensnaring anyone who was careless, or inexperienced, enough to be far out on the flats when the tide turned.

And while one could easily navigate the flats at low tide, once the water covered the stream beds a person was doomed to step into these deep, watery graves.

Well, putative genius that was my father, he decided that the best place to fish was on Turnagain Arm, and the way to do it was to fly to the beach just as the tide was going out, set up the gill nets several hundred yards out on the mudflats, then fly out before high tide. Hence, our frequent flights to the beaches.

These beaches, at low tide, might be a hundred or so feet wide. On one side was a high, vertical bluff with beautiful and intriguing strata of coal and shale visible. Close to the bluff the beach was sandy and much too soft to land our plane. The sand was littered with huge trees, branches and other flotsam deposited there by the tides. At the high water mark the sand would be wet but hard packed; it was upon this narrow strip of wet sand he would land. After shuttling the whole family from Merrill Field - some thirty minutes away - he and the older three boys would slog a quarter mile through the thick muck of the tidal flats and string the net. Then they would return to a picnic lunch my mother, with me distracting more than helping, had set up for them. As the tide started coming in you could hear the loud, low roar of the riptide. The sound sent chills up your spine even though you knew you would be long gone by the time the water got to you. Long before my dad heard the tide coming he would reverse the order of shuttle and take us all back to the airfield. Although the riptide itself never reached the beach where we landed, the water rose quickly as the tide came in, and there was no time to dally once we started shuttling back to the field.

On nearly every fishing trip his plan worked wonderfully. He read the tide tables and arrived with the first pair of us just as the tide had receded sufficiently to land. And he left the beach with the last two of us just as the tide had gotten within some yards of the plane.

Except on one trip. On this particular trip the tail wheel broke off as he took off from Merrill Field after having ferried the second of the three sets of passengers. With the tide coming in and no time to land and fix it, he flew back to the beach and made a two-point landing. Using the stick to keep the nose down and the tail in the air as he slowed the plane, he dropped the tail into the sand just as he applied the brakes. With the engine running, he opened the door and yelled at Skip to grab me and run to the plane as fast as he could. Skip threw me onto the front seat and squeezed himself in beside me, shouting to our dad to “get a move on” as he closed and latched the door. Waves were beginning to lap at the waterside wheel as our father raced the engine and tried to taxi on the hard packed mud. But the broken gear would not support the weight of all of us, and it stuck in the mud.

He raced the engine again, braked hard and tried to use the stick to raise the tail of the plane so the gear would come up out of the mud, but he had to abandon this effort. He was afraid that if the gear popped loose suddenly he could not react fast enough to keep the plane from nosing into the beach and breaking the propeller. If that happened, we’d all be drowned.

And we weren’t far from that, anyhow, as fast as the tide was coming in.

Finally, in desperation, he told Skip to get out of the plane, go to the back and lift up on the tail. Gunning the engine and keeping his feet hard on the brakes, he held the plane level until Skip climbed back in. Then he released the brakes and we started down the beach. By this time the water was several inches deep and we could not see any dry ground anywhere around us.

We plowed through the water for what seemed like hours until he gently pulled back on the stick and our wheels came up into the air. All of us inhaled deeply to make ourselves lighter as the little plane struggled to rise above the deepening water. Ever so gradually we climbed, with churning water underneath and beside us, and the sheer cliffs menacingly beside and in front of us.

At the last possible instant he banked hard to the left, out over the broiling tide, and leveled off. We were most likely a hundred feet up in the air. The engine was laboring loudly and Skip and I were sweating when from the back seat we heard our father arrogantly announce: “Just like I planned it!”

I wasn’t too keen to be in the last group to be picked up any more, and I began riding with my mom after that.

                                                               - - - - - - - - - -

I was perhaps nine when my oldest brother got married. He was in the Army, and had been stationed at Fort Richardson for most of his hitch before being transferred to the port town of Seward.

While at Fort Richardson he had undergone basic training - going for five mile runs through the deep snow in subzero temperatures while carrying his fifty pound backpack; as punishment for some minor infraction, doing pushups in the snow while wearing only his regulation tee shirt on his upper body: More than once he went to the infirmary with frostbite on his hands, arms and nose from this form of “training” - and having survived those torturous seven weeks, was made into a cook’s helper in the kitchen. He had always been an iconoclast, an independent spirit, a thinker, a hippie before there were hippies, at least in Alaska. This individualistic personality was considered a disorder in the military, and he definitely did not get along with the institution of warfare.

Once he was reprimanded severely for chasing the cook around the kitchen with a huge meat cleaver, threatening the poor bugger with decapitation for something he had said or done. How Skip had talked himself out of brig time I never learned, but he did have a gift of gab and I’m sure that helped.

The brass at Fort Richardson were happy to transfer him out of their command and Seward seemed as remote a station as any.

While in Seward he visited frequently at the children’s home run by the Methodist church, Jesse Lee Home. Having been a senior resident of the Home several years before, he was a welcome visitor. It was there he met a young schoolteacher from Boston with whom he shared visions of world change, and they decided to get married.

Came the big day and my father used one of the small planes - he no longer had the flying school but still had his pilot’s license - to shuttle the family on the several hour flight from Anchorage to Seward. To drive the distance would take a day, and besides, he preferred flying. He took my mom and second oldest brother, Dick, in the first trip. Dick was best man and mom was, well, Mom.

Then, with me and my next oldest brother, Ernie, all scrubbed and dressed in our finest wedding outfits, he loaded us into the front seat and took off. This should have been an uneventful flight since the wedding ceremony was just several hours hence and, as father of the groom, he had important things to do upon our arrival.

But my dad had a bit of British prankster in him which proved his undoing on this trip.

Flying along the Turnagain Arm he shouted above the roar of the engine to us, “Look at the Dahl sheep over on that hillside,” and banked the plane sharply to one side. It seemed he would crash us on the mountain as he buzzed the barren land where no sheep walked today nor had one walked, we were certain, at any time in history. “Look at the bear on that mountain,” he shouted again, and banked sharply the other way to zoom across the water for a look at the fauna of the other side of the Arm. Back and forth across the waters he jockeyed the plane, climbing and diving for a better look at these nonexistent animals, having the time of his life taking his two youngest children on the ride of their lives.

Then Ernie covered his mouth and we heard his muffled “I’m sick. I gotta barf.” My dad yelled something to him that sounded like “Hold it till we land.” Again Ernie shouted “I gotta barf NOW!” And with that he unlocked the door and folded it up. Leaning out the side of the plane he let loose a stream of vomit - right into the sixty mile an hour propwash. The wind blew the sticky mess straight into the back of the plane, covering my dad, his suit, and everything else in its path.

It was over in a minute or two: The fresh air helped and having emptied the sour contents of his stomach, Ernie sat back up and was ready to finish the flight. I hadn’t been in the ‘line of fire’, so to speak, so I was still fine. But our dad was dripping with disgusting droplets of regurgitation. He glowered and raged. He threatened and cursed. His humor had suddenly left him.

Silently we flew on to Seward.

When we touched down my mom was at the small field with Skip’s car, ready to take us to the church. When she saw Ernie get out of the plane she whimpered: She knew by his pale face and splattered jacket that something was wrong. Then when our father climbed out she cried: His face and suit told the story better than any of us could have.

She and father went to the small shack that served as the operations office, got some water and a rag and she wiped him as best she could. She grabbed my hand and led me purposefully to the car and put me in the back seat. “Sit,” she commanded. Ernie was standing by the plane, alone and sheepish, looking very sorrowful and forlorn.

But there was no sympathy for him that day. Father told him to scrub himself and scrub the inside of the plane until it “smelled like roses”. Then when he was done and cleaned up, he could walk the mile or so to the church downtown and “don’t be late for your brother’s wedding!”

Perhaps this incident was a harbinger of things to come: The wedding stunk, literally; we didn’t like Skip’s mother-in-law - she was, after all, Proper Bostonian! - and she certainly didn’t like her daughter marrying some Alaskan “Eskimo” whose father smelled foul; and Skip and his wife parted company after having six children faster than you could say “irresponsible.”

I have always dreamed of being a pilot, flying a small plane to quiet environs nearby. The remembrance of the good times I had around a Piper Cub warms my heart. But then I remember this trip and the odor of vomit fills my nose. And I can’t bring myself to get back inside one of these little planes.

                                                                          - - - - - - - - - -

Amongst the sad tales I can relate about my early years in Anchorage, the story of how our family lost the flying school is perhaps the most pathetic. And perhaps the most indicative of the kind of angst that was to beset us throughout the 1940s and ‘50s.

As with many, or most, small businesses then and now, the flying school business was aided greatly by the financial resources of the local bank: The National Bank of Alaska. The wealth and future of the territory of Alaska, as it was known until it achieved statehood on January 3, 1959, was personified in Elmer Rasmusen, president and owner of this prestigious landmark.

Even as a small child I remember him as being tall, wiry, and finely dressed. He had graying hair that was neatly trimmed and combed, and his facial features were aristocratic. His voice was always well modulated and his language cultured. He was the antithesis of what one would expect an Alaskan to look like, sound like and most likely, smell like.

(In my teenaged years I would have described my father as being tall, wiry and well dressed, with graying hair that was neatly trimmed and combed, with facial features that belied British aristocracy, a well modulated voice and a vocabulary that disguised his lack of formal education. And I have, since my teenaged years, wondered if my father knowingly or unconsciously tried to emulate Elmer Rasmusen.)

How indebted we were to the Rasmusen bank, I don’t know. Even my older brothers, who were more involved in the family business and remembered the after dinner discussions, could not tell me how much of the flying school was owned by the family and how much was owned by the bank. We believed that our parents had purchased the old Lars Larson flight school that had trained such famed bush pilots as Don Sheldon and others, and had most likely borrowed most of the cost of the flight school from the bank. But the National Bank of Alaska owned an order of pontoons, and that was sufficient.

Alaska has been known as a sportsman’s paradise for many decades. Part of the allure of this land is its many lakes and numerous broad rivers. Alaska has more lakes than Michigan which is known for its “10,000 Lakes.” It has more navigable rivers than any other state; claims the highest peak in North America - Mount McKinley, at 20,320 feet - and two more of the highest five North American peaks; is renowned for its lake trout and river salmon, and its incomparable elk, moose, reindeer and Kodiak brown bear. It is, without question, a hunter’s Valhalla. Since before Wiley Post crashed his plane in Nome, killing himself and Will Rogers, sportsmen have preferred airplanes as a means of travel in the area. Small planes like the Aeronca, Piper Cub, Taylorcraft or Aercoupe which our flying school used, could land on and take off from unimproved fields; fitted with skis they could use a level patch of snow as a runway; and fitted with pontoons, or floats as they were sometimes referred to, they could turn a lake or river into a private airport.

Not far from our first home in Spenard was the aptly named Lake Spenard and its larger sister lake, Lake Hood. Located near what later became the Anchorage International Airport, Lake Hood was home to the largest concentration of float planes in the United States. In fact, Alaska boasted, and perhaps can still boast, of having the highest number of float planes per capita of any state, or territory, in the Union.

After a couple years’ ownership of the flying school my parents decided that they would expand the business and offer more than just instruction. They would offer aircraft repair and parts. And the parts they decided would sell best were pontoons. For they knew that, parked at Merrill Field, were dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of planes whose owners would pay dearly for a set of pontoons so they could land on and take off from any body of water around the territory.

There was no supplier of pontoons in Alaska at that time. If you wanted pontoons, you ordered them from a “stateside” supplier and installed them yourself when they arrived. Or you flew your plane back to the manufacturer in the South 48 and had them installed. Then, you returned home. Since the pontoons had wheels attached, the planes could use both conventional runways and waterways on their return journeys. In fact, my father and a friend of his did just that in the fall of 1948, flying along the Alaska-Canada Highway - known to all of us as the Alcan - until they reached the South 48, heading to Ohio somewhere, and returning along that same route. They may have been going to see the pontoon manufacturer for all I know. I do remember the constant tension that seemed to surround my mother during this trip: It must have had some risk.

So, putting his genius to work, my father put in an order with a manufacturer and became the exclusive distributor in Alaska for a certain brand of pontoons. Not having the cash to pay for these - they cost something like $2,000 a set in 1949 - he set up a credit line at the National Bank of Alaska. The line was secured not just by the pontoons but by the assets of the flying school. Maybe even by the title to our Spenard house. Maybe even by the title to our vehicles. Certainly Mr. Rasmusen had a reputation for lending money at rates and on conditions that were most favorable to his bank. You don’t get to be the largest bank in the Territory by being kind and generous, right?

The terms of the note were simple: Without regard for any delays from any cause, or for the results of any “acts of God”, or anything else, the note was to be paid within one hundred eighty days from its inception. My father had contacted the supplier in early spring 1949 and was assured that if he placed an order by a certain date in April, they could ship his order of pontoons within thirty days. This would give us time to take orders, sell, install and collect funds for all the pontoons being ordered and pay the bank well before the term of the note came due.

Thus, the note was drawn up, the order was placed by the April cutoff date, ads were run on the radio and in the two local newspapers, the Anchorage Daily Times and the Anchorage News, orders were taken, deposits were banked and we waited for the arrival of the pontoons.

And we waited. And waited.

The thirty days passed and my parents called the manufacturer. “There is a temporary delay in manufacturing,” they were told. “Don’t worry, we’ll be shipping in a week or two.” So we waited.

June came and went without the arrival of the pontoons. We were now ninety days into the term of the promissory note and we couldn’t deliver the first pontoon.

July was hot, the mosquitoes were out in full battle dress and the flying school was busy. But the pontoons weren’t on this cargo plane or that one which landed at Merrill Field, just in front of the flying school’s front door. Nor were they on any of the cargo ships that docked at the port of Seward.

Came August and September, the hottest months of Alaska’s short summer, when bush pilots are the busiest ferrying their paying customers, hunters and fishermen alike, all around the wilderness, and we still waited for the pontoons to arrive.

By early October many of the customers who had made their deposits asked for a refund, as winter was upon us and they had never received the pontoons. Came the 180th day of the note and Mr. Rasmusen showed up at the door of the flying school.

“I’ve come for payment on the promissory note, Dave,” he said.

“You know I haven’t received the pontoons yet, Elmer,” my father replied. “Can we rewrite the note, since my deposit is still with the supplier, so I can take delivery of the floats next summer and sell them then? I can pay you the note and the extra interest next summer.”

“That’s not what we agreed to, Dave. I want payment now, or I’ll take all the collateral you put up.”

And with that we lost the flying school, the house in Spenard and much else that we owned at that time.

I know that we moved into a house in town that was owned by the parents of Kay Andresen, a schoolmate of mine and a girl that I thought was just perfect. Her parents went to the same Methodist church we attended, and they had decided to travel to the South 48 for the winter to visit relatives. We house-sat until they returned the following summer, whereupon we shared the house with them until moving to Seward the next year. I had my eighth birthday in that house, and while there my father got into the plumbing and heating business.

But he left his heart, and our family left its pride, in the small log cabin by the dusty gravel runways at Merrill Field.

A Piper SuperCub. Note the large front wheels.  This

is similar to the plane we used for collecting the salmon

from the gill nets.

My father playing the first Hammond B3 organ in

Anchorage, circa 1948.  He does look a little

British, doesn't he?

EARLY YEARS IN ANCHORAGE: THE THIRD INSTALLMENT

(In the last installment I introduced Mortimer "Moose" Moore, one of the flight instructors for my family's flying school.)

The story of how he obtained this bear cub is at once humorous and frightening. One afternoon in the summer of 1947, when I was 5 years old, he had gone hunting, flying the Cub alone onto one of the many meadows in the local mountains. He had circled the area to make sure there were no unseen boulders that would break off the landing gear or break the wooden propeller, and that there were no bear or moose lying in the meadow grass. He even buzzed the scrub alder trees at the edge of the clearing to scare away any critters that might want to investigate him and his conveyance before he was ready for them. Remember, getting out of a Cub was no small task for even a regular sized person; for a large man such as Moose, it was time consuming labor.

Then he landed, took his 30.06 rifle and binoculars, and set out to bag a moose or bear. In those days it was not unusual for a pilot to kill wild game, field strip and butcher it, wrap it in burlap, tie the quarters to the wing struts and fly his bounty back home. I have seen everything from moose, bear and caribou, tied in burlap bags, to fox and wolves hanging head down, tied to a plane’s wing struts as it flew across the school to land at Merrill Field.

He found a small bear cub alone at the clearing’s edge and carried it back to the waiting plane. Tying it in a large burlap bag, he placed in on the front seat and prepared to climb in the rear pilot’s seat when he heard the roar of the angry mother bear as it thrashed its way through the alder brush towards him. Having not seen the mother before, and knowing well of its very protective nature towards her young, he was now caught off guard by her sudden appearance. He closed the door on that side of the plane, ran around to the other side, opened the door and grabbed his rifle. No sooner did he have it in hand than she was nearly upon him, her sharp teeth ready to tear into his flesh and her razor sharp claws equally up to the task of shredding him.

“I didn’t want to shoot her,” he said, “as I was certain she had another cub to care for. But I didn’t have time to prime the engine and take off before she could damage the plane’s fabric.” Now, priming was necessary to the starting of these little planes, as they did not have electric starters. To facilitate a lone pilot taking off by himself, the plane was designed for one person operation. First, the pilot locked open the door, reached in and pulled out the choke and set the throttle forward a little bit. Then, he went to the front of the plane and turned the propeller several revolutions, pulling down on the upper shaft so it spun halfway around with a loud “thuppppt - thuppppt - thuppppt”, priming the engine. After the carburetor had filled sufficiently, he went back to the cockpit and turned the power on - “switch on” in pilot parlance - before going back to the propeller and giving it one or two last turns. This was the tricky part: The planes had no parking brakes and once the engine “caught” the plane started to taxi without the pilot in it. So, he had to run under the wing, around the side of the plane, being careful to avoid the spinning propeller and the low hanging wing struts, climb into the back seat through this little opening, then apply the brakes, adjust the choke and throttle and set the tabs before starting his takeoff roll.

Flying in the late 1940s was not for the faint of heart!

With little time to react, Moose shot the female bear as it came upon him. Tying his burlap bags around it, but not cutting it up, he started his plane and flew the cub back to the field and to the care of my parents. However, he didn’t tell anyone about the incident with the mother bear, but quickly left again to “find the cub’s mother.”

Several hours later Moose’s plane we seen flying erratically towards the airport, zigging and zagging, climbing and diving, rocking left and right, as though a drunk were at the controls. It passed in front of the tower several times so the air traffic controllers, themselves veterans of the military as was Moose, could look directly into the plane’s cockpit. And look they did, with binoculars to their eyes and disbelief on their faces. For Moose was nowhere in sight and sitting in the front seat of his plane was a black bear!

Once, twice, three times the plane careered towards the tower, each time coming so close the men in it dove for cover. Then, it banked sharply, flew erratically to the far end of the north/south runway and dropped to the gravel below, its engine alternately roaring and whispering as the plane and its astonishing pilot bounced along the gravel towards Fifth Avenue. Workers poured from the tower, the many hangers that bordered the street, from the flying school and even from cars that had stopped dead in the middle of Fifth Avenue - all running down the rocky runway to see what evil had befallen their friend.

Part way up the runway the plane’s engine quit and the yellow Cub rolled silently to a stop. The door did not open. There was no movement discernible inside. The men ran up to its doors and peered inside. They saw only the bear sitting upright in the seat, its huge paws tied to the front stick. A heap of bloody burlap was on the rear seat. Fearing the worst, and afraid to open the doors until they had armed themselves, they pushed the plane the rest of the way up the runway to the tower area. After one of them retrieved a handgun from his car, they cautiously opened one door. Suddenly the burlap shot up and a loud roar filled the plane. They fell back in fear and surprise, stumbling over each other in their panic. Then the panic turned to broad grins of relief: Moose sat up in the back seat, laughing heartily at the spectacle he had created.

As he told them all later, he had gone back to that meadow, loaded the bear in the plane, tying it in place, then flown back to town. As he approached the airfield he had scrunched down in the back seat - where he had put his long legs no one could figure out - and covered himself with the burlap sacks he had tied around the dead bear. He had been laughing till his stomach ached as he buzzed the tower and decided to land only after he became fearful they would try to shoot the bear while he was still in the air.

And while the grown men must have wondered how he squeezed his huge frame into the back seat, I was wondering how anybody could pick up a black bear by himself.

                                                                        - - - - - - - - - -

Here I am with the Black Bear

cub, at about age 5.

Now, isn't that just the 

cutest thing you've

ever seen???

YES - YOU NEED TO CREATE A GOOGLE ACCOUNT TO "SIGN IN"

But please, PLEASE!, do so. That way I can see all your happy, smiling faces every time I log onto the blog to add more nonsense. Er, I mean, share more immutable truths!

Like this one: I was writing a friend today to say that I had an eye appointment to get new glasses, and I also needed to get new music playing glasses. Yeah ... bet you never heard of glasses that play music. Most just sit on your face and silently allow you to see. But not mine: they sing, hum, fart and tell jokes all the time. When I look in the mirror with them on they even lie and say, "Hey, handsome, how's it going?"

Then I told her my other sad tale: my blowup plastic doll has a hole in her!

Oh! that's right .... it's MADE that way!!    (:->

Now, if you don't think that was funny, I'll refund your price of admission. Remember, this blog posts only immutable truths. And the little aside about the doll is just one of many that I can share.

Aren't you glad you checked it today?

Actually, I'll have more that's worth reading in the next post. So, please keep reading!

g

MY READING LIST

For any who may be interested; the following is my current reading list, meaning that they are actively on my bookshelf and I make use of them in my discussions on the three main topic headings listed. I also have an Expanded Reading List which includes my own synopsis of the book and a brief bio of the author - available for some, but not all, of the books on the main list.


                                                            READING LIST


The fundamental task of philosophy is the analysis of concepts and the criticism of beliefs.
(quoting the Dartmouth College Philosophy Department home page.)

The following reading list is but an introduction to questions posed by critical thinkers and hypothesized answers for those who are not afraid to be critical of their life of misinformation. You may not agree with all that you read here; but with an open mind and heart, it’s possible that you may learn from your quest – for the way to Truth does herein lie.

ANCIENT HISTORY / ARCHEOLOGY / HUMANITY’S BEGINNINGS (How are we to not question continually? gb)

Armstrong, Karen: A Short History of Myth
Bauval, Robert, & Gilbert, Adrian: The Orion Mystery
, & Hancock, Graham: The Message of The Sphinx; “A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of
Mankind”
: Fingerprints of the Gods
Bramley, William: The Gods of Eden
Brown, Courtney, Ph.D.: Cosmic Voyage **
Cannon, Dolores: Keepers of the Garden
Campbell, Joseph: The Masks of God (series): Primitive, Oriental, Occidental, & Creative Mythology
Dennett, Preston: UFO Healings: True accounts of people healed by extraterrestrials
Evans, Lorraine: Kingdom of the Ark; “The startling story of how the ancient British race is descended from the Pharaohs”
Friedman, Stanton T., MSc.: Flying Saucers and Science: Interstellar Travel, Crashed, and Government
Cover-ups **
Fuller, John G.: The Interrupted Journey (story of Betty & Barney Hill’s UFO sighting) **
Grun, Bernard: The Timetables of History: An Horizontal Linkage of People and Events
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen: Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience
Haisch, Dr. Bernard: The God Theory: Universes, Zero-Point Fields and What’s Behind It All
Hancock, Graham: Supernatural; “Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind”
Hamilton, Edith: Mythology
Hoagland, Richard C.: The Monuments of Mars: “A City on the Edge of Forever”
Hope, Murray: The Sirius Connection (and others by her authorship)
Horn, Dr. Arthur David: Humanity’s Extraterrestrial Origins
Jenkins, John Major: Maya Cosmogenesis 2012
Jones, Prof. Dr. Steve: Almost Like a Whale: Origin of Species UPDATED
Katz, Prof. Dr. Friedrich: The Ancient American Civilizations
Kolosimo, Peter: Spaceships in Pre-History**
Kramer, Dr. Samuel Noah: History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History
Lake, Gina: ET Contact; “Blueprint for a New World”**
: The Extraterrestrial Vision**
Mackenzie, Donald A.: Myths of China and Japan
Marciniak, Barbara: Bringers of the Dawn; “Teachings from the Pleiadians”
Moncrieff, A.R. Hope: Romance and Legend of Chivalry
Morehouse, David: Psychic Warrior: Inside the CIA’s Stargate Program: The True Story of a Soldier’s
Espionage and Awakening **
O’Brien, Christopher: Enter The Valley
: The Mysterious Valley
Oldenbourg, Zoe: Massacre at Montsegur; “A History of the Albigensian Crusade”
: The Crusades
Pennick, Nigel: Sacred Geometry
Picknett, Lynn, & Prince, Clive: The Templar Revelation
Randle, Kevin D., Capt. USAFR: Faces of the Visitors; “An Illustrated Reference to Alien Contact”**
: Project Mood Dust; “Beyond Roswell-Exposing the Government’s Continuing
Covert UFO Investigations & Cover-Ups”**
: UFO Crash at Roswell**
Royal, Lyssa & Priest, Keith: Visitors From Within
Sagan, Dr. Carl: Billions & Billions
: Contact**
: Cosmos
& Page, Dr. Thornton: UFO’S: A Scientific Debate **
Schlemmer, Phyllis, V.: The Only Planet of Choice; “Essential Briefings from Deep Space”
Schock, Dr. Robert: Voyages of the Pyramid Builders: the True Origins of the Pyramids from Lost Egypt
to Ancient America
Silva, Freddy: Secrets of the Fields: The Science and Mysticism of Crop Circles **
Sitchin, Zecharia: Genesis Revisited
: The Earth Chronicles (series): Book One: The 12th Planet; Book Two: The Stairway to Heaven;
Book Three: The Wars of Gods and Men; Book Four: The Lost Realms; Book Five: When Time Began; Book Six: The Cosmic Code; Final Book: The End of Days
: Divine Encounters
: God, The Extraterrestrial
: Journeys to the Mythical Past (Earth Chronicles Expeditions)
Steiger, Brad & Francie: The Star People
Story, Ronald D. Sightings; “UFOs and the Limits of Science”**
Streiber, Whitley: Communion; “A True Story” **
: Transformation; “The Breakthrough” **
Temple, Robert K.G.: The Sirius Mystery; “Was Earth Visited by Intelligent Beings from a Planet in the System of the Star of Sirius?”**
: Netherworld
von Daniken, Erich: Chariots of the Gods?
: Pathways of the Gods
: Gods from Outer Space
: The Eyes of The Sphinx; “The Newest Evidence of Extraterrestrial Contact in Ancient Egypt”
White, John: Pole Shift
Zapp, Ivar & Erikson, George: Atlantis In America; “Navigators of The Ancient World”

Legend: ** = Deals with Ufology, ETs &/or the research into our cosmic origins

RLIGION, BIBLE HISTORY & ITS INTERPRETATION (Belief in Ancient Mythologies is Degrading to the Rational Mind. gb)

Allegro, John: The Dead Sea Scrolls and The Christian Myth
Allen, Brooke: Moral Minority
Armstrong, Karen: A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
: The Battle for God
: The Bible: A Biography
: Beginning the World
: The Great Transformation; “The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions”
: The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity’s Creation of the Sex War in the West
: Holy War; “The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World”
: In The Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis
: Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths
: Through the Narrow Gate
Baigent, Michael: The Jesus Papers
Baigent, Michael & Leigh, Richard: The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
: The Temple and the Lodge
Baigent, Michael; Leigh, Richard; & Lincoln, Henry: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (Rev. 1996)
: The Messianic Legacy
Bechthold, Henry: Right Wing Politics and Religion: The Unholy Alliance Exposed
Cantor, Prof. Dr. Norman: The Sacred Chain
Dawkins, Prof. Dr. Richard: The God Delusion
Dennett, Prof. Dr. Daniel C: Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Dever, William G.: Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?
: What Did The Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It? (What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel)
Domke, Dr. David: God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the “War on Terror,” and
the Echoing Press
Ehrman, Dr. Barton D.: A Brief Introduction to the New Testament
: God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question –
Why We Suffer
: Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them)
: Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
: Peter, Paul & Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend
: Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know About
Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine
Eisenman, Dr. Robert: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians: Essays and Translations of the
Dead Sea Scrolls
: The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered
: James, the Brother of Jesus; “The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity
and the Dead Sea Scrolls”
Fiorenza, Dr. Elizabeth Schussler: In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins
Forrest, Prof. Dr. Barbara & Gross, Prof. Dr. Paul R.: Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
Freke, Timothy & Gandy, Peter: The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God?
: Jesus and the Lost Goddess
: The Gospel of the Second Coming: Jesus is back …. and this time he’s funny!!!
: The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs
: The Laughing Jesus: Religious Lies and Gnostic Wisdom
Gardner, Laurence: Bloodline of the Holy Grail
: Genesis of the Grail Kings
: Realm of the Ring Lords
Gilbert, Robert A.: Casting The First Stone; “The Hypocrisy of Religious Fundamentalism and its Threat to Society”
Godwin, Malcolm: The Holy Grail; “Its Origins, Secrets & Meaning Revealed”
Gordis, Daniel: Does the World Need the Jews?
Graham, Lloyd M.: Deceptions & Myths of the Bible
Greenberg, Dr. Gary: 101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History
: The Moses Mystery: The African origins of the Jewish People (a.k.a. The Bible Myth)
Haisch, Dr. Bernard: The God theory: universes, zero-point fields, and what’s behind it all
Harris, Sam: Letter to A Christian Nation
: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
Hecht, Jennifer Michael: Doubt: A History
Hitchens, Christopher: god is not Great; “How Religion Poisons Everything”
: the Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
Holmes, David L.: The Faiths of the Founding Fathers
Howarth, Stephen: The Knights Templar
Johnsen, Linda: The Living Goddess: Reclaiming the Tradition of the Mother of the Universe
Jonas, Hans: The Gnostic Religion; “The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity”
Josephus: The Jewish War “Bellum Judaicum”
Lash, John: The Seeker’s Handbook; “The Complete Guide to Spiritual Pathfinding”
Kimball, Dr. Charles: When Religion Becomes Evil
Knight, Christopher & Lomas, Robert: The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons & the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
: The Second Messiah; “Templars, The Turin Shroud and the Great Secret of Freemasonry”
Mack, Dr. Burton L.: Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth
M.C.: Light on the Path
Mills, David: Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism
Murphy, Cullen: The Word According To Eve (Women and the Bible in Ancient Times and Our Own)
O’Faolain, Julia and Martines, Lauro: Not In God’s Image; “Women in History from the Greeks to the Victorians”
Pagels, Dr. Elaine: Adam, Eve & The Serpent : The Gnostic Paul
: The Gnostic Gospels
: Beyond Belief; “The Secret Gospel of Thomas”
: The Origin of Satan
Patterson, Dr. Linda J.: Hate Thy Neighbor: How the Bible is Misused to Condemn Homosexuality
Picknett, Lynn & Prince, Clive: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ
Ridley, Jasper: The Freemasons: A History of the World’s Most Powerful Secret Society
Rinpoche, Bokar: Tara, The Feminine Divine
Rogerson, John: Chronicles of the Bible Lands; “A History of The Holy Land”
Saranam, Sankara: God Without Religion: Questioning Centuries of Accepted Truths
Schaberg, Dr. Jane: Mary Magdalene Understood
: The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament
Sharlet, Jeff: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
Spong, Bishop John Shelby: Born of A Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus
: Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks the Human Sexuality
: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning
Of Scripture
: The Sins of Scripture
Stenger, Dr. Victor J.: GOD: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
Stone, Merlin: When God Was A Woman
Thiering, Dr. Barbara: The Book that Jesus Wrote; “John’s Gospel”
: Jesus, The Man
Unknown mystics: The Holy Bible (King James or any other version)
Voillarme: Faith & Contemplation
Wells, Prof. G. A.: The Jesus Legend
White, Mel: Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of The Christian Right
Wilson, Ian: Jesus: The Evidence
Yadin, Dr. Yigael: Masada; “The Momentous Archaeological Discovery Revealing the Heroic Life & Struggle of the Jewish Zealots”

PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRIES & TREATISES (To Think is To Be. gb)

Anshen, Ruth Nanda: Morals Equals Manners
Armstrong, Karen: The Spiral Staircase – My Climb Out of Darkness
Bach, Richard: Biplane
: Illusions; “The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”
: Johathan Livingston Seagull
: One
: The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story
: There’s No Such Place As Far Away
Bergson, Henri: Creative Evolution
Berne, Dr. Eric: Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
Bolen, Jean Shimoda, M.D.: Gods In Everyman
: Goddesses in Everywoman
: Goddesses in Older Women
Brill, Dr. A. A.: Lectures on Psychoanalytic Psychiatry
Brockway, Laurie Sue: A Goddess is a Girl’s Best Friend; “A Divine Guide to Finding Love, Success, and Happiness”
Buscaglia, Leo F., Ph.D.: Love
: The Way of the Bull
Campbell, David, Ph.D.: If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’ll Probably End Up Somewhere Else
Carse, Dr. James P.: The Religious Case Against Belief
Doi, Takeo: The anatomy of dependence; “The key analysis of Japanese behavior”
Durant, Will: The Story of Philosophy
Eisler, Riane: The Chalice and the Blade
Ferm, Vergilius: A History of Philosophical Systems
Fisher, Joe: The Case for Reincarnation
Fromm, Dr. Erich.: The Art of Loving
Gibran, Kahlil: The Prophet
Hood, Prof. Dr. Bruce M.: Supersense
Kahane, Howard: Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life
Hillman, James: The Soul’s Code
Minkoff, Harvey & Melamed, Evelyn B.: Visions and Revisions; “Critical Reading and Writing”
Montgomery, Ruth: Herald of the New Age (and others by the same author)
Morgan, Marlo: Mutant Message Down Under
Morehouse, David: Psychic Warrior
Paine, Thomas: Age of Reason
Redfield, James: Book One: The Celestine Prophecy
: Book Two: The Tenth Insight
: Book Three: The Celestine Vision
: Book Four: The Celestine Prophecy: An Experiential Guide
Russell, Dr. Bertrand: An Outline of Philosophy
: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, including the essay “Why I Am Not a Christian”
Scheffer, Victor B.: A Biologist Looks At Religion
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter: Morality Without God?
Suzuki, Edward: beyond the CLOUDS
Van Doren, Charles: A History of Knowledge: The Pivotal Events, People, and Achievements of World History
Walsch, Neale Donald: Conversations with God * an uncommon dialogue * Book 1
Wylie, Philip: An Essay on Morals
: Night Unto Night
: Generation of Vipers

Rev: Monday, August 23, 2010

EARLY YEARS IN ANCHORAGE - THE CONTINUING STORY

Together, my dad and uncle concluded that good money could be made in Alaska, decided to “give it a try for a year”, and sent for their respective families. Uncle Vernon’s wife emphatically said no: She would not drag her children to the godforsaken tundra of Alaska and that was it. But my mother dutifully packed what belongings could fit into several suit cases, gathered together her four children, aged 14 to four, and rode a bus from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington. There, she found a small, converted Liberty ship, the Denali, and booked passage to Anchorage. We arrived in late summer, unsuspecting that in Alaska, winter sets in early, stays late, and makes you wish you had never experienced it first hand.

My father was a self-recognized genius, a master jack of all trades, and conceived of himself as able, by dint of his superior intellect, charm and good looks, to overcome any situation and come out ahead. Hence, he rarely planned ahead, worried about the ramifications of his actions on himself or his family, nor recognized any real objections to his plans. Well do I remember hearing about his career with the War Department at Wright Field (now known as the Department of Defense, and now known as Wright-Patterson Field) during the early years of World War II; in my imagination as helped along by his tales, he, alone, won the war due to his logic and brilliance: He invented the Norden Bombsight and the “one-man pickup”; and conceived other military technical breakthroughs.

Thus, when his family arrived in Anchorage he had no job, no house into which we could move, and no financial backing for this enterprise. But he did convince a couple who needed to move temporarily from Alaska back to the states for the winter that if they would let his family live rent-free in their house he would dig a basement under their house and do other work on it in trade. They agreed, and we moved in.

As a very young child - I was the four year old - I remember little about this first house. I suspect that it’s my fear of certain of its conditions that helps me remember just those conditions: Plastic sheets stapled to the windows to keep the blowing snow out of the bedroom; the 2x12 “gangplank” that spanned the excavation at the front door and across which we all had to walk, through rain or snow or freezing wind, in order to enter or exit this little place; the dark depths that could be seen beneath the floorboards of the house as my father and older brothers labored at night to dig the basement and pour the cement foundation.

My mother and father obtained jobs in the government Civil Service. She worked in an office in Anchorage and he did Civil Engineering around the territory of Alaska, had a military jeep and an Army driver at his disposal, and apparently kept us in food and clothing. (His exploits with the Corps of Civil Engineers make yet another story.)

In later years I would remember my mother complaining bitterly about the “despicable living conditions” that first winter in Anchorage, but I remember not much else about it.

We then moved to the barn in Spenard - about which I write later on - my parents left their Civil Service jobs and purchased the Larsen Alaskan Distributors flying school and local Piper Aircraft dealership. They owned and operated this enterprise from 1947 to 1949 while I was between the ages of 5 and 7 years old.

Where my father had ever learned to fly, I don’t know. But I do know that he flew around Alaska for years after owning this school and the pilots on Alaska Airlines and Reeve Aleutian Airways were always happy to have him fly the ‘right seat’ of their DC-3s or other commercial planes on these trips. Many times he recounted harrowing trips to Bethel on the Kuskokwim River delta, to Bristol Bay or out to one of the Aleutian islands where fog, high winds, lack of radio communications and periodic mechanical failures all did their best to down the craft.

Apparently my mother was good at office management and bookkeeping, as she assumed these functions at the flying school (and at later family-run businesses, as well.)

On several occasions my dad and another pilot from the school would go back to Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, where Piper Aircraft had their factory, and ferry a couple of planes back up to Alaska. These were long, slow trips that had them flying low under the clouds to follow the highways and often landing in fields to service and refuel their planes. As a youngster I could not appreciate the dangers they faced; to me it just sounded so exciting! At other times a ferry pilot from Piper would bring a plane up to us. One of these pilots was Juanita Pritchard Bailey, a Civil Air Patrol pilot during the war. She went on to be a Life Member of The Ninety-Nines, a member of the “Silver Wings Fraternity” and a member of OX5 which awarded her the Pioneer Woman of the Year award in 1995.

My recollection of the flying school is that it was a small log building situated on the north side of Fifth Avenue on the eastern side of Anchorage, across the street from the north end of the north/south runway of Merrill Field. Merrill was the only airport at Anchorage in the late 1940’s: It had a gravel north/south runway and a gravel main east/west runway. The north/south runway was at the far western end of the east/west runway, putting the flying school at the northwest corner of the “L” formed by the intersection of the two runways. The control tower was just east of the “L” and just to the south of Fifth Avenue, perhaps two or three dusty, graveled blocks from the flying school.

The air field was named for Russell Merrill, an early pioneer in Alaskan aviation who disappeared while enroute from Anchorage to Bethel, Alaska, in 1929. The field could accommodate all the little, single engine, single wing and bi-wing airplanes of the era as well as the larger Army Air Corps planes. I remember seeing several huge bombers and some transport planes; in retrospect I was most likely seeing Mitchell B-25s, some Boeing B-17s, Douglas DC-3s and the like. While not large by today’s standards, to a five year old these were indeed ‘huge’.

Behind the school, perhaps ten or fifteen yards, was the embankment that dropped sharply down to the tideflats that housed, and perhaps still house, the city’s water and electric departments. The city’s principal main street, Fourth Avenue, followed the lower part of the hill down and across these flats and up the other side to Government Housing. Fifth Avenue, following the crest of the hill, took you towards the Chugach Range and the two military bases, Fort Richardson Army Base and Elmendorf Air Force Base.

Sitting nestled under the small trees that lined this embankment were three or four hulks of vintage Air Corps planes. Their engines had been taken from them long ago, their instrument panels gutted, turrets emptied and several years of litter had been deposited on their interior floorboards. But to me, they were new, pristine and ready to fly. Years before I had ever heard of Walter Mitty, I heard the roar of their 16 cylinder Lycoming engines and saw the spit of fire from their monstrous 12 cylinder radial engines. They were my first glimpse of heaven, and I spent many hours talking on their lifeless intercom systems, pushing and pulling on their yokes to make the disabled flaps and disconnected ailerons move up and down, and hearing the cough, sputter and rumble of their mighty power plants as I pushed their throttles forward.

The flying school had, or had access to, a number of small, single engine planes that were either owned by the school, by the several instructors at the school or by whomever else that I don’t know. I do know that I saw and rode in many of the popular aircraft of that era, including Aeronca, Piper Cub (the PA-11 of military parlance), Taylorcraft, Aercoupe and others. Most of these small planes had several traits in common: Tubular construction with painted fabric “skin”, small in-line Continental engine that produced under 100 horsepower (most likely under 60 hp, if truth be known), tandem seating for two, wooden “fixed pitch” propeller, two struts under the forward passenger compartment that held the main landing gear and a drag bar or small drag wheel under the tail - hence, the name “taildragger” for this type of plane. The school’s planes were parked on a partly grassy, partly graveled lot in front of and beside the school, and had to be taxied across Fifth Avenue in order to take off.

In all of these small planes, as I would soon learn, the pilot many times preferred to sit in the rear seat nearest the center of balance. He stowed his luggage either on the front seat or in the small, open area directly behind the back seat. While instruments and full controls were provided to the front seat, the rear seat had only a stick, rudder and brake pedals. These planes did not have conventional doors on hinges that opened ‘out’; instead, they usually had a door that was hinged at the top and had a long, horizontal hinge so it folded in the middle, with the handle at the bottom of the door at about the pilot seat’s cushion level. The door covered an area from the forward edge of the front seat cushion to about the middle of the rear seat cushion. Thus, to enter or exit, you would twist the handle, pull the door up so it folded at the middle hinge, duck down and climb in or step out.

The fabric skin of these planes was subject to tearing and was constantly being patched in the shop area at the rear of the school. Many times I would become intoxicated by the fumes emanating from the nitrate dope glue used to hold the fabric to the tubular frames, and the butyrate dope sprayed on the fabric to seal and stiffen it prior to painting: My olfactory senses still love that overpowering smell.

Most, if not all, of the instructors were young men who were veterans of the Army Air Corps and had more grit and daring than good sense, as some of their ensuing tales will demonstrate. One of the instructor pilots preferred to fly the Aercoupe which was more stubby than the Cub or Taylorcraft. Often he would come in for a landing to the south on the north/south runway, flying at 20 feet or less altitude across the log school building and busy (for 1947, at least!) Fifth Avenue, his plane turned to the side so he was actually coming in sideways (side slipping his landing, they called it), and plopping down in a storm of dust and a shower of loose gravel. He’d quickly turn around, gun the engine and taxi back across the street to park in front of the school doorway. Such was his affinity for the Aercoupe that, whenever he could not be located or accounted for we always checked first to see what plane was missing, as this pilot always flew de coupe!

Another pilot was Mortimer Moore, nicknamed Moose. While to a 5 year old all adults are tall, this guy was towering! Later I was told he was over 6 foot 8 inches tall and weighed in at nearly three hundred pounds. Yet he loved flying these small aircraft and was, by all reputes, an excellent pilot. He and his family lived far out of Anchorage in the foothills of the Chugach mountains, barely reachable by motor vehicle and miles too far away for telephone service. If he had a student who wanted a lesson that would keep him from being home at the time he had told her previously, he would swoop low over their house and drop messages tied to pipe wrenches, screw drivers, rocks or whatever else he had at hand while his long suffering wife - usually with their newest child on her hip - would wave to him and blow kisses from the ground just yards below.

It was from Moose Moore that I received my first, and only, black bear cub. I have a picture of me standing in front of the school’s door: Bundled up in my wool coat, a short stocking cap pulled low over my ears, I had been patting a small bear cub on the head with gentleness of hand and stoutness of heart.

                                                                - - - - - - - - - -

WHEN YOU KNOW IT'S FEELING RIGHT

We don't always know
when it's actually 'right';
Oh, we get a feeling
that won't go away;
But we still don't know
that it's actually right.

Then that little voice
that's deep inside - the
one we sometimes
try to hide.
That little voice will
talk to us:

And what it says we
should listen to. For
it's whispering what
we should really know.
Is it whispering now?
Am I listening to it?

It's talking to me now
and telling me: Yes.
Yes, it's OK to listen;
To feel what you feel;
To relax and enjoy;
To know that you know.

That's when you know
that it's feeling right.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: TRUMAN BOYD MANOR IN LONG BEACH

(Excerpted from my book of short stories: The Undisciplined Years [working title])

                                                      EARLY YEARS IN ANCHORAGE


In the summer of 1946 my father and his brother-in-law, uncle Vernon, traveled to Alaska to see about opening some kind of business together. The war had recently ended and my father could not live any longer in the congested government housing of Long Beach, California where we had been for the past three years while he worked in a Civil Service position at the Naval Shipyard.

Even though our family was from the coal mining area of western Pennsylvania my mother sniffed that she did not like having to live beside the ‘Tennessee hillbilly’ family who occupied the small apartment next door. The mom of that family looked like a typical country hick as she habitually tromped barefooted around the grassy play yard in thin floral print dresses, her hair looking like it had not seen a brush since antediluvian days, a wad of ‘chawin’ tobaccie’ stuffed in her cheek and a lighted cigarette dangling from her unpainted lips. I never saw her when one eye wasn’t squinted from the smoke curling up from that omnipresent cigarette. Her voice was louder than the freight trains that ran along the set of tracks next to the apartments.

Truman Boyd Manor, as our squat, two story Long Beach hovels were known, was comprised of some number of off-white painted apartment buildings running perpendicular to the main tracks of the military supply railroad which serviced the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. Most of the residents of the Manor had someone who worked at the shipyard. Our homes were no better or worse than the military enlisted housing units nearby – they just weren’t painted battleship gray. In between these rows of apartment buildings were small grassy open areas that were used by the mothers to hang their wash; by the children as a playground; by the men for their bull sessions; and on really hot, humid nights, by us all as a place to lay a blanket and try to catch some shut-eye.

On the other side of the tracks was a huge oil storage area. We could see the oil tanks looming larger than life and always wondered what would happen if somebody bombed that area – would hot burning oil would wash across the tracks and catch our homes on fire?

One clear, hot afternoon we found out.

We children were playing outside and looked up over the oil tanks to see a military fighter plane that looked like it was in trouble. It would fly straight for a moment, then plunge downward, then back up, then plunge again, all the while its engine was making the strangest coughing sound we had ever heard.

Suddenly the sound stopped and the plane plunged straight down into one of the large tanks. When it hit, there was a huge roar, louder than anything we’d ever heard, including the steam engines and our neighbor’s voice! The tank erupted into flames and we felt like the sun had just turned the heat up another fifty degrees. We kids stood transfixed by the sight of the flames shooting high up into the air. The sky was turned black from the smoke. Our eyes watered from the pungent smell of burning crude.

Soon we heard the wailing of fire truck sirens and the ominous sound of the air raid sirens. Instantly we scattered, each of us running back into our respective homes to the safety of our moms.

The image of that little plane vanishing into the top of the oil tank is forever etched in my memory, and I have always wondered whose son was aboard that day.

But as a four year old I mostly had a happy time playing with the three little girls who lived in that apartment next door. Marie was the eldest – perhaps seven or eight. Then came Crystal and Roberta who were closer to my age. Roberta was known as ‘Birdie’ to all of us back then. We played outside together every day, sometimes in the hot sun or in the soft, infrequent, warm rain that fell in Long Beach. A favorite game of ours was to stand on one rail of the tracks and dare each other to be the last to run away as a huge smoking steam engine would chug by. I guess we were lucky that we never tripped and fell in front of one of these behemoths. No matter how many times our mothers scolded us about playing on the tracks we were addicted to it and played the game over and over again throughout each day.

The most memorable event of that era, though, was when their mom would stand on the stoop and call the girls for lunch. Bellowing out into the common area so loud my ears still ache she’d scream in her best southern drawl, “Mawreee! Y’all brang Cryshtal an’ Birdie an’ come own,” Ptooey ! and spit a juicy brown slug of tobacco juice onto the cement walkway before slamming the screen door behind her.

                                                                     - - - - - - - - - -

THOUGHTS ON AN ESSAY BY DR. ELIZABETH ANDERSON

I found the essay "If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?" in the book "The Portable Atheist", compiled and edited by Christopher Hitchens. Dr. Anderson is a professor at the University of Michigan.

Per Dr. Anderson's homepage: "I am Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Rawls Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies. I teach courses in ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of the social sciences, and feminist theory. Within these fields, my research has focused on democratic theory, equality in political philosophy and American law, racial integration, the ethical limits of markets, theories of value and rational choice (alternatives to consequentialism and economic theories of rational choice), the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, and feminist epistemology and philosophy of science."

Here follows her synopsis of this article (yes, I would love to post the whole article but you might tire before reading it all, and it truly deserves to be read in its entirity):

"Many people object to atheism because they believe that if there is no God, then morality lacks authority. The worry is that "if God is dead, then everything is permitted." We know that not everything is permitted--and in particular, that practices such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery, torture, plunder, rape, punishing people for the sins of others, and punishing people for blameless error are not permitted. It follows that any doctrine that entails that such things are permitted is false. I accept the logic of this argument. But I deny that atheism entails that such things are permitted. This charge is better made against the evidence for theism. The main evidence for theism is scripture. If we take this evidence with the utmost seriousness, as inerrant, then the evidence entails that the evil practices listed above are permitted, since the God of the Old and New Testaments and the Koran either commits these deeds himself, is prophecied to commit them in the future, or commands humans to commit them. Since these practices are not permitted, the evidence for theism is systematically unreliable--so unreliable, that it cannot be trusted to advance the case for theism at all. I consider theistic replies to this argument, and go on to consider independent evidence for the incorrigible unreliability of all the types of extraordinary evidence offered for the existence of God: testimonies of miracles, revelations in dreams or what people take to be direct encounters with God, experiences of divine presence, and prophecies that have been subject to test. These types of evidence are equally available to all religions, including pagan religions. There is no independent natural evidence that supports the extraordinary evidence for one sort of God or gods more than another. Nor do we have other noncircular tests for determining the reliability of extraordinary evidence. It follows that these purported types of evidence make no proposition about the divine more probable than any other contradictory proposition about the divine. Such "evidence" is no evidence at all. In other words, there is no evidence for the existence of a theistic (personal) God."

Her thinking is thus: if the moral pursuasion for truly moral conduct is from religion, then from whence do we derive the repulsion for the worst that humanity can do, even when these are permitted by a religion? It must be a part of our unconscious, our built-in, human 'moral compass' that finds genocide, or mutilation of babies' sex organs, the rape of young women, the slaughter of innocents in war, or torture to obtain a confession of 'sins' as repugnant as we do. Yet the holy books of Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam all permit and even exhort these unconscionable acts. So if the religious texts "permit all things", as they do, then it is religion itself that teaches and preaches immorality. It is contrary to our basic human nature to embrace these conducts, yet our major religions teach us that, when directed by their version of God, it is right and good to do so.

Religion, then, teaches that it, alone, can provide the basis for morality; yet it is religion that has shown us the greatest immoralities of history. In our gullibility, our unthinking, unquestioning, uncritical state of mind, we accept this dichotomy without question. And echo in unison that without religion the world would be bereft of morality and any code of ethics.

But with the words of Dr. Anderson in front of us, we can be assured that only the rational mind of a person as yet unspoilt by religious belief will be able to resist the "Godly" leadership that has dragged humanity into its deepest cesspools of despicable conduct; and only the rational mind of the 'unbeliever' can plot the course necessary for us to rid our planet of the disease of "Godly" morality.

This essay, amongst others, reinforces my personal dictum: "Reliance on Ancient Mythologies is Degrading to the Rational Mind."

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WHY THE "ADULT CONTENT" WARNING, YOU MIGHT ASK ...

This blog-making template allows one to pretty much configure the blog in any possible way. Including the warning that you all see and must pass thru in order to read my blog.

And you might rightly ask, why is the warning necessary? Am I going to see 'adult entertainment' photos and the like?

The answer is a blunt 'NO'.

But adult content may include - as in the intended case of this blog - discussions about matters young eyes may not be ready to read. I would include under this heading matters dealing with religion, religious-inspired body mutilation (all for the Glory of God, you understand), adult emotions, family rejection and other such topics. Not that I wouldn't want children to learn that rational thinking and questioning mythologies isn't right and pertinent; on the contrary, that's the point to my whole life: getting people to think and thereby question the myths they've been taught to believe blindly.  But I also understand that not all parents wish to raise their children to think; they actually prefer to indoctrinate their children at an early age to follow, yes, as sheep follow the shepherd (funny how many religions use this analogy!), the flawed storied they themselves were misled to believe at an early age when rational thought was not available.

So the warning, and the pause, are for the children of parents who deem it right and just to brainwash their children so they are always fighting the uphill battle towards sanity when it comes to religion; so these children who listen to the Bible stories will indoctrinate their children through endless generational cycles, ever growing the rolls of the church faithful, the blind followers, the unquestioning sheep.

That pause and warning are not for the skeptics, the freethinkers, the humanists, the agnostics and the atheists, for already we are hungering for discourse and seeking logical discussion.

And it is just such discourse and just such discussion I hope to bring to these pages.

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