A Saturday night at home (I wrote this one a few weeks ago)

16 August 2014

                  It's a wild Saturday night here in Kotlik, Alaska.  I'm listening to Olivia Newton John beg someone not to play D17.  The AM radio station, KNOM out of Nome plays old Kasey Kassem's "America's Top 40" shows.  Olivia is number three on the charts for this show.  I don't pick up any FM stations on my little shortwave radio.  I do get some Russian broadcasts.  I can't actually see Russia from here, but I can listen to it. 

                  I spent the morning in my classroom getting things situated. There are so many old books and papers to throw away or relocate.  I think every teacher must have that hoarder disease.  We are so afraid to throw something away for fear we will need it some future day.  Sometimes you just have to let it go. I did today.

                  Kasey just announced that "The Eagles" made it to number two on the charts with "One of These Nights"

                  After lunch me and Tim took Hobart out to the old airstrip on the southwest end of town.  We had to trudge through some pretty wet bog to get to it so I wore my knee high rubber boots.  If you look at old pictures of Kotlik on Google Earth this is the airstrip you see.  It's not used anymore after they built a much wider and longer one on the opposite end of town.  The new airstrip can accommodate much bigger planes if the need ever arises.

                  Now Kasey is telling his listeners the number-one best selling single this week is "Jive Talkin'" by The BeeGees.  When the song was over he ended his show with the classic sign-off "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars".  This was a broadcast from August 16th, 1975.

                  Back when we were in North Carolina, Hobart had a big fenced-in back yard he could play in all day.  He has to stay inside now unless I take him out on a leash.  There are some mean dogs in the area that could really hurt him.  My Principle told us that once, a teacher tied his dog up outside the school building and some wild dogs attacked it and killed it.  Also, townspeople are allowed to shoot stray dogs and can even get a bounty for them.  So, I take Hobart on several walks a day but unfortunately we are confined to the boardwalks or else we get all muddy.  Every few days I take him out in the bog and let him off of the leash.  Today, out on the old airstrip, Hobart got to run all he wanted.  He did some swimming too.  I saw a fox off in the distance.  Things will be better when the bog freezes so the mud will not be such a problem.  Whenever I let Hobart run loose I have to give him a bath as soon as we get back home.

                  On the way home we stopped to pick raspberries.  I don't save any. I just eat them as I go.  The tundra is full of berries this time of year.  I have eaten fresh picked cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and salmonberries.  All of them are good except for the salmonberries.  They taste like axle grease to me but I've been told they have more vitamin C than several oranges.

                  It's neat listening to the weather report on KNOM.  They cover the Kuskokwim delta, the lower Yukon river, the Diomede islands, the Seward Peninsula and all sorts of places I had only read about or seen on a map.  By the way, Seward, Alaska is not on the Seward Peninsula.  The town of Seward is on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage.  For most of the broadcast area the weather tomorrow will be scattered showers and high's in the low 70's and nightly lows in the 50's.  People on the Diomedes will see temperatures in the 50's and 40's.  I think winter comes early out there.