ALASKA PROLOGUE: I'M GOING BACK! ALSO, I DIDN'T DIE

Well, the title tells the first part. I have one more week in Kenai, in January.

The second part was slightly more interesting. I did sit slack-jawed in the Kenai airport for two hours,  and after that, my flight still didn't take off because of wind and snow. I rebooked my flight back home for the following night and finally boarded a plane to Anchorage at about 8:00 pm, and reserved a hotel for the night and most of the next day.

My plane was a Dash 8, which I have come to call "the big one," in contrast to the Beechcraft 1900, which is "the small one." Ravn only flies these two types of aircraft, and both are terrifying in their own right. The boarding and takeoff process was about as normal as possible, except for the flight attendant, who was an older native woman named Diane Ross. She was quite a quipster, that Diane. She said that despite her name, she can't sing and so she has to work doing this job. She slipped in some other bon mots during the safety briefing, such as "There shall be no tampering with the lavatory smoke detector, or we will push the eject button and you'll go out with the toilet. No, that's not true. We have no eject button, plus, we like our toilet."

After the customary twenty minutes that the flight is scheduled, I started looking for the lights of Anchorage, but about all I could see was blowing snow and a darkness as black as Donald Trump's soul. It also occurred to me that the gear wasn't down. Usually, the plane starts descending, the gear is deployed about 2 minutes out, and then we land, but none of this was happening and there was no sign that it would. Finally about 30 minutes in, Diane, no longer her convivial self, gravely announced over the PA, "I've been informed that the landing gear will not go down. The pilots say that they will continue to work on it, and we'll keep you updated." Uh, ok. I ran through several scenarios in my head at that point, most of which ended with "I don't want to die, especially not in FUCKING ALASKA!" If they couldn't get the gear down, I figured they would try a belly landing, which would be dicey at best in this weather and with the giant propellers on either side suddenly turning into sausage grinders if the maneuver was not executed perfectly. I checked my phone for a signal to send at least a text back to my wife, but that particular technology was as operable as whatever was keeping the gear stuck. She would have to take it on faith that I loved her. Fun stuff!

Finally, about 10 minutes later and with no warning, the gear deployed. And I'm here writing this a few weeks later. Also, I spent the day lounging in a king size bed at the Anchorage airport Courtyard Marriott, and I went and got some banana cream pie at the nearby Village Inn. I earned that pie, dammit.

More about Alaska later, Ravn willing.

FAREWELL, FORTY-NINE

I write this on the occasion of what may very well be my last few hours in the Large State Of Alaska. It feels like it might be, anyway or at least the last time I come up here on someone else's dime. I've traveled here for the fifth time this year and I am typing this in the cafe of the Kenai Safeway while I wait for my plane to Anchorage. It seems as appropriate a place to part with this land mass as any. I've come in here mostly to get distilled water for my CPAP machine and quarters for laundry, but also groceries, terrible ready-made meals at the deli, and candy bars. This time, I decided to buy an iced latte at the sort-of "Seattle's Best" sort-of coffee bar, and the young sideburned tweaker who took my order made the drink in a paper cup, like an animal. An animal, I tell you!

What have I learned on my many journeys? Alaska is a place for desperate people, living desperate lives, with guns. Alaska is a place for moose, not knowing they are living desperate lives and getting hit by pickup trucks, when not being shot by guns. Alaska is a spectacularly gorgeous place, with oil, and the oil is quickly running out. I read today that the state is grappling with budget cuts and low revenue from the dwindling oil leases, and the populace has taken a particularly self-serving approach to these problems that defies all political labels: we want our Permanent Fund Dividend checks every year, and we don't want to pay higher taxes! So, socialism and conservatism, as it suits them. This is completely understandable. As I mentioned, they are desperate. And they ALL have guns, so they will probably get both of these things, at least until all the oil runs out, and then they certainly won't get one of them.

I've also learned, or rather re-learned, that small cars and snow don't mix. I'm not sure why it never occurred to me to get an SUV on this trip, but I didn't. I suppose it was an altruistic attempt to save the French conglomerate I work for a few euros, but frankly, and Frankly, fuck them. The excellent AirBnB I've been staying at has one disadvantage, that being the driveway that sits perched on a precipice off a sloping unpaved road. This is normally negotiable when not covered by feet of snow, but this morning, this was not the case. As I backed out with my Nissan Sentra, a car that should definitely be banned in this state and probably most others, it slid to the left and almost caused me to plummet the six feet off a terrace down to the parking area below. I tried going in reverse but could not due to a) gravity and b) said feet of snow. Forward was a non-starter, although at least the car itself did start. I called Avis to send me a tow truck, and the tower (and his wife, dog, and almost definitely, his gun) extricated me from my arctic predicament. On past trips, I've slid into snow banks with a Toyota Corrolla and Nissan Altima. Next time, if there is one, I shall heed Denis Leary's many warnings and go American.

I have two hours until the plane departs for Anchorage. The local commuter airline has changed names from Era to Ravn (they dropped the 'e' to save money, undoubtedly). The trip to Anchorage is 20 minutes of what it must have felt like shortly after the Wright brothers incorporated. The pilots do everything themselves except load the luggage. I do enjoy seeing them turn for home with the nose pointed down, and you can see the runway lights through the cockpit window. It's one of the only thrilling things left in air travel, an industry that has removed all romanticism from flying and checked it to the final destination of "Never Again".

Well, that shall be it. I need to gas up the rental car and sit slack-jawed in the Kenai airport for a couple more hours. May we meet again under more auspicious circumstances, Land Of The Midnight Sun!

ALL WE HAVE TO FEAR

Wait...if that is the real reason, how the hell did the Dow ever become a positive number in the first place?

HIGH LATITUDE, LOW POINT

I'm in Alaska, the state we most regret. I'm here as a contractor working at the plant where I used to work as an employee. It took me over a week to get a badge, even though I am in the system, because they couldn't figure out that my new company changed names last year. When I did get the badge, it identified me as still working for my old company, so go figure. Ah, The Last Frontier!

When I got here, the steaming pile of excrement with whom I made my lodging reservations informed me that he didn't have a place for me for the full month, and that he would be moving me sight unseen to a cabin across the river. I wasn't happy, but I was exhausted and needed to sleep, so I went with it. The next night, I was in bed at 9:30 pm, and this same lovely human shitstorm banged on my door. I didn't answer, so he called me and asked if he could come in and take photos of the furniture because the last renter damaged it. Again, I was tired and relented. The next morning, I found a room at a hotel and packed up my stuff. I called the corporate credit card company and had the charges removed.

The hotel only had a room for a week, so I made another reservation for a hotel further from work for the remainder of the time. The new hotel doesn't have a cooking plate, so I have to eat out every meal. They do have a restaurant on the property, but it only opens at 7 am and I have to be at work by then, so I have to cook oatmeal in a paper bowl instead. To top it off, I picked the exact week that they are remodeling the guest laundry, and I am writing this from a nearby laundromat, where America's Most Likely Meth Addict Children are playing nearby.

Other than that, Emperor Hirohito, Nagasaki and Hiroshima are doing well (to put a Pacific Ocean spin on it). I'm at least getting to charge my 40 hours per week to a customer, and the worst part of the commute is having to worry about moose pedestrians.

WHY, YES, I WAS BORED

JE SUIS NOT BEING READ, AS USUAL

My thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, tossed to the void.

Let's say that you had a next door neighbor whom you had on good authority to be a homicidal maniac. He has threatened his family, say, and you hear he has posted nonsensical rants on a foreign web site in a language you don't understand that if he ever sees a person riding a bicycle on the sidewalk past his house, he would take out an assault rifle and kill that person. For whatever reason, the police can't trace his IP address well enough to connect him to the rants, and the threats to his family were vague enough that they couldn't intervene, and he is free to live next door to you.

Do you ride your bicycle on the sidewalk in front of his house? What if someone else in the neighborhood decided that this usurpation of freedom was beyond their tolerance, and they rode their bike on the sidewalk past his house, thumbing their nose at him, and your next door neighbor, as promised, bolted out of the house with an assault rifle and shot and killed them? Since this would finally gave the police the ability to arrest and haul off your next door neighbor, isn't your other neighbor a hero?

In that situation, I personally wouldn't ride my bike on the sidewalk past my next door neighbor's house. I rarely ride a bike, and when I do, it's of no consequence to ride in the street for a few feet to avoid the sidewalk in front of his house. Does that make me a coward? I suppose, but I'm not sure. Of course the other neighbor certainly is a hero. He or she gave his or her life so that the rest of us in the neighborhood could be free. But should he or she have done that? What if he or she had a spouse and kids who needed his or her income, and now they are destitute?

These are all difficult questions. The Charlie Hebdo case has important parallels with this admittedly low-value hypothetical. The Hebdo cartoonists did not have to depict the prophet Mohammed, but they felt compelled to do so to protect the idea of intellectual freedom in the light of an irrational and monstrously violence-inducing taboo. They suffered the ultimate consequence, one they knew was very real, and of course are heroes to all of us who value freedom. However, I can't say that I would do the same. If I were a satirical cartoonist, I could imagine that it would be easy to make a cogent point about intellectual freedom in regard to Islam without depicting Mohammed. Cartoonists do it every day, and are not being cowardly for it, in my opinion. Still, the victims of the Hebdo tragedy are heroes nonetheless, because they allowed the authorities to remove these particular terrorists from the face of the Earth, they strengthened the rest of our resolves and they brought widespread attention to their ideals. Of course, none of that makes them any less dead, or their loved ones any less bereft.

Thomas Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It was relatively easy for him to say in 1787. The revolution he advocated had already been prosecuted successfully by others, he was filthy rich, and his chances of being in personal danger had passed. That doesn't make it any less true, but it does make it less brave. Today, it is regular folks. some with a bravery I will never understand, that must live Jefferson's truth, and this brand of Islamic extremists are the worst kind of tyrants - tyrants without borders. As in 1787, the only effective countermeasure is the willingness of those who stand for freedom to spill their blood. This is a duty to which I hope I am not called, nor for which I would volunteer, but if called, I hope I will serve.