There are just some things that folks from the South take for granted. One of them is: we don’t think we will be in freezing weather in the summertime. Another is: our bad colds/sore throats will take place in the winter. Make sense? Of course it does.
Well, with the whole world changing in regard to our weather – and you folks down South really sweltering with the heat – Bob and Ruthine came to a different sort of world when they came up here to Alaska. Friends, it IS cold up here in the summertime. And bad colds/sore throats are in style, too, at least for Bob and Ruthine. We have been sick for the last two weeks. First it was Bob who was sick; then it was the two of us, but Bob was sort of better; then it was Ruthine who was sick. Now it’s sort of the two of us who are sick again.
And what do we do when we’re sick? Well, we try to not go outside too much. And we stay in bed and rest. And we take Theraflu Max-D (which has to be one of the nastiest medicines the pharmaceuticals ever put together). And we look outside at the Alaskans, who really believe it when they greet us on the cloudy, windy, drizzly, cold (40s or so) days with the words, “Isn’t it a beautiful day today?!” We watch them play with their little kids – some just toddlers – who are bundled so tightly in their warm woolen winter coats and hats that if they fell over surely they would just rock back and pop up on their feet once more like the “Tippy Tommy” our kids played with when they were toddlers. And we watch the adults wading in the water with their rubber clothes on and their fishing poles in their hands. And we wonder if those rubber clothes are really doing them any good in this slow, cold drizzle that’s coming down; but it must. And they are rewarded for their hardiness by the wonderful aromas of grilling fish on their campfires at night. Then they get to eat it.
We haven’t yet – nor do we expect to – fallen under the spell of fishing. But there is a certain beauty to the days, even when the sun doesn’t shine. The awareness of the rugged beauty is especially prevalent when we remember that the darkness of the real winter days up here lasts 20 hours every day.
We were reminded of the differences of the days/nights up here in Alaska last night as people got ready to fish the creek at midnight for the King Salmon. We are camped at the mouth of Deep Creek where it opens to the salt water of Cook’s Inlet. Here, King Salmon season lasts for three days on three weekends ONLY. The season starts at midnight on Friday night and ends at midnight on Monday night on Memorial Day weekend and on each of the two subsequent weekends.
Quiet time in the campground here at Deep Creek lasts from 11:00 PM until 6:00 AM – even on these important weekends. We had been asleep for a couple of hours when the sound of music on the radio aroused us. So at 11:30 last night, Bob was seen trudging forth, his Park uniform on and his mighty scepter in hand (that’s the park radio – which is the only real symbol of authority we have). As he got outside, though, he realized that the entire campground was buzzing with excitement. So across the park he went, joining their excitement and speaking to the groups of campers as they prepared for their big moment of midnight fishing. The radio quieted down (as it should have) but the excited voices remained. By 12:30 all was quiet. When we looked out the windows, we could clearly see the folks in the cloudy, windy, drizzly, cold twilight of day (night?) lined up along the bank of the creek – all hoping to catch the really big one. By 3:30 AM when we looked out, no one was around. It was truly quiet. And it was still twilight, a red glow shining in the distant sky, telling us that we weren’t in Texas anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment