THOUGHTS: One Big Non-Sequitor

You may be thinking, because of the title, that I'm going to whine about things in my life that I haven't accomplished. Well, I was thinking more along the lines of simply talking about how I keep forgetting my dreams, that usually they're vivid and I can at least remember a big chunk of them and how I felt about them. Lately, though, I only remember bits and peices, scenes, and don't even have a feel for the context. Maybe it's just because my sleep patterns have been slightly altered. I don't really know.

It's cool in Ketchikan this morning. Forty-five degrees and rainy. Fall is settling in, and bringing along its honesty, a toolkit of autumn weather, and with those tools, will engineer a way to keep people inside with their families and good food, or, tragically, cold and wet and hungry before the gluttonous holiday season.

I know that was a non-sequitor, but that's my mood this morning.

THOUGHTS: Moving Beyond The Past

When I was in high school, I had several odd jobs. I washed dishes at a Chinese restaurant. I pulled weeds at an outdoor lab school. I sold popcorn and ran ancient projectors at an ancient movie theater. Everyone in my generation knew that theater, too.

The Unique was, well, unique. Built as the Salida Opera House in 1890, the theatre had dressing rooms, room for an orchestra, and, with the balcony, seated over six hundred people. As the place changed hands and went through various incarnations over the years, it found itself in the hands of the Groy family. When I worked there, John Groy owned it. He also owned a small theater in nearby Buena Vista called "The Pearl", and the only drive-in for almost 100 miles around, "The Commanche".

The Unique was a magnificent place. The ceiling was huge, and a sound system which featured "surround sound" didn't really do it justice. There was no heating system, other than the huge propane "jet engines" that John would put in the very front, just in front of the old stage. The running joke was that you always had to go in the winter with sleeping bags and blankets.

At some point, after I left Salida, the Unique was shut down by the people who eforced fire codes. I don't know details of what happened next, except that it was sold by John to a gentleman who couldn't pay the city for it (how the city of Salida came about it is a mystery to me, although an old friend and co-worker said it was practically robbery). Well, as opposed to trying to procure funds to save the building, the practical solution, unfortunately, was to tear the auditorium down.

A few days ago, my dad sent me a picture of the pile of rubble. As saddening as it is, I've found myself involved here in Ketchikan with a theatre company diligently raising money to build a performing arts complex. It's a circle, and it shows me that the past is past for a reason, that it was a tremendous experience, full of fond memories and happiness associated with my teenage years. Kind of an obvious metaphor, I suppose, but at least I'm writing about it instead of just thinking to myself, "wow, how weird is that?"

CHRONICLE: A Quick Walk Across the Street

I live off a road locally referred to as "Tongass". It's actually Alaska State Highway 7, which is ridiculous because it doesn't go anywhere. It's also officially called Tongass Highway in honor of the surrounding rainforest and marine channels.

At any rate, I crossed Tongass and walked up the hill in Refuge Court, where they're developing land for houses. At the very top was a lot for over $67,000, almost 20,000 square feet. The view was petty neat.

THOUGHTS: The Other Side

Malcolm has a strange gift, it seems. Maybe it's not a gift as much as it's an awareness that all children have, that we lose as we get older through sociological growth and regression.

In our front hall, we have a large, framed picture of Malcolm's brother Tiberius. Tibbs would have been five years old next month, yet he didn't see his first birthday. The other day, Lyss was getting ready to leave the house and Malcolm saw the picture. He looked at it, and his perception was very plain. "Bye," he said. "Bye," like he knew that he wasn't going to see Tibbs again.

A day or two later, we went to a gathering at a friends house. On her wall were vintage pictures from a collection her grandparents had. Malcolm looked at one of these pictures, one with three men and a toy airplane. His response was the same. "Bye."

What is it about children that we don't understand as adults? Obviously, we must have understood it at some point when we were children ourselves. Somehow we get programmd to believe that these things aren't possible.

I've heard and read stories where children have been able to see ghosts, to pedict their own deaths, to predict the deaths of others. In a way, I'm envious, but I choose to be more blissfully ignorant of such things, maybe it's because life is simpler without such paranormal and taboo things in it. Still, I remain in awe of the concept, and I will continue looking on with a reverene and fascination.

CHRONICLES: A Dark and Rainy Evening

Ketchikan is a very unique place. The other day, through my job, I had to do a walk-through of the local Trident Seafoods cannery. The place is a powerhouse. They have the capabilities of canning one and a half million cans of salmon every week. I can't remember all of the statistics the guy giving me the tour was rattling off, but it was pretty amazing. It putsinto perspective how much of the local economy is based on fishing.

The days have been getting shorter. In Colorado, they seemed to lose a minute or two every day. Here, because of our latitude, it seems as though we lose five or ten minutes a day. It's almost as if you ca actually feel the tilt of the Earth swinging away from the sun. (Yes, I know that the angle stays relative to itself and the position of Earth changes as I circumnavigates the sun...) Still, it's a little unsettling that it feels like a month ago, it was light an hour or two later than it is now, and it's been dark for an hour or two already. We haven't even fallen back into standard time yet.

Last month, Ketchikan received almost thirty inches of rain. When I spoke with my dad on the phone, he made the point that we had three or four years worth of the rain they receive in his part of Colorado. It would be interesting to see what would happen if our precipitation switched places for a year. They would have floods and mudslides and overgrowth of grass and no fires. We would have dirty clothes, empty salmon spawning streams, lots of fires, and lots of shipping water up here.

Still, it's very calming being so near the ocean. Every day I spend here helps me understand the attraction the ocean has to so many people. As we're on the Inside Passage, we don't really hear the constant breaking of waves and the like. Still, it's quaint to see the gentle rise and fall of tides as your day slowly moves on, as the Alaskan worker keeps on task diligently.

THOUGHTS: The Line Between Peaceful Resignation and Defiance

My whole life, for the most part, has lent my confrontational abilities to be quiet, contemplative, and secure. I've convinced myself that doing so makes me the better person, stronger for having the maturity to not instigate or fight back. This has done volumes in serving me well to a degree. Situations tha could have become fights, brawls, friendship-ending knock-down, drag-out battles rooted in misunderstandings and miscommunications have been calmly placed on a back-burner, while the real issues have been addressed with resolve.

The caveat to this train of thought is that in doing so, one could constue the actions here as avoidance, cowardice, and pensievity. The truth is, in certain situations, this assessment is true. There are times when the truth must be sought through the heat of battle, when it cannot be obtained by taking the road around such infernos of emotions. These are times when that fine line between deciphering which road is the higher one is almost impossible to see.

Erring on the side of caution is a wonderful idea, but I have to question it. If one is to always err on the side of caution, are they not liable to err too much, to err themselves into a complacency where the risk involved with standing up to an issue has the potential to reward you even more?

Next time you're in a situation where you feel like youe more noble for sitting it out, for thinking about it and returning with a response when the seas have calmed a bit, consider this: you may be adding fuel to a fire by refusing to jump into that fire and plug the leak. Sometimes we have to immerse ourself in our conflicts to really address and correct them, and there is nothing less noble by taking this path.

Went outside in a hard rain, and then suddenly the rain stopped. Literaly like someone flipped a switch. Bizarre!