In my back pocket

In my back pocket is a list of things I want to blog about.
Today there are two things, I will try to get to both of them.
First off, flying my dad's plane and how it relates to C. and Northern Exposure.
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C. and I were big Twin Peaks fans; we loved the show. It was a huge let-down when it went off the air but along came Northern Exposure and that sufficed. It was a weekly ritual to get together with a beer or two and watch the show; of special interest was Maggie the bush pilot. I remember C. saying she wished she was Maggie, up flying planes in Alaska. We thought the show indicative of life in Alaska. In fact it wasn't that far off.
My dad lives in Cordova which is a lot like Cicely in the show. Yes, there are times when a moose will walk down the street and stop and stare at you, and yes there are crusty old folks and young opinionated bush pilots and weird goings-on.
What hurt about going to Alaska was not having C. to share my adventures with, the whole time I was there I felt that C. should be at my side seeing and doing what I was seeing and doing.
My first day in Alaska my dad took me up in his P-11 float plane.
He'd just come back from work at the weather station located at the airport. (The Cordova Airport is named after "Mudhole Smith"... ) My first time in one of his two planes. It was his last day of the season salmon-spotting so we flew over Prince William Sound looking for salmon for the fishing boats he stayed in contact with by radio.
After a couple hours of not finding significant fish to report, we got hungry so he landed the plane at the base of an amazing waterfall in order to have a bite to eat: moose sandwiches and various chips/chocolate bars.
Upon landing and cutting off the engine, he opened the doors and told me had to pee. I said I did as well, and he said, "I'm going to pee off this end of the float, you go to the front. Hold on to the propeller."
I did. As I was peeing off the float, he yelled over the crashing waterfall. "LOOK DOWN!"
I did.
I saw hundreds of silver flashes swimming around down there just below the floats... salmon. They were all waiting to try their luck at swimming up the waterfall. Mind you this was a straight up and down waterfall and the cliff the water was coming from was very high, perhaps six stories up.
Yet the fish were jumping up into the waterfall, attempting the impossible. I was dumbfounded and thought immediately of C. She should have been there with me.
It was beautiful and marred only by my father's disinterest. To him it was like pulling over the car on the side of the highway, in order to take a piss.
To me it was the most beautiful sight I'd seen in a long time.
At any rate, eventually we got back in and ate and left to go back to his house in Cordova.
I spent the night on the internet writing my friends about my day: peeing off the float of the plane, and also using a pitchfork to toss dead salmon off my dad's float plane dock back into Eyak lake.
The next day we packed up my duffle bag and got in his P-14 (which did not have floats on at that time) and flew from Cordova to his homestead near McCarthy. During this flight he turned the controls over to me.
At that time I was REALLY wishing I could tell C.
I imagined myself as Maggie, flying a little bush plane. I flew it for about twenty minutes following the Copper River. We headed into a mountain pass at which point my dad took over. I removed the joystick from the passenger side and placed it along side the seat after he put his joystick back in and took over.
It's a small plane and the gas guage consists of being able to see the gas level through some clear plastic tubing with felt marker hash marks on it.
My dad had supplied me with ear plugs and some gum to chew. It was nothing and it was everything.
Upon landing at the homestead I was amazed because he has his own landing strip there, and it's really nice. Well maintained, grassy, but the grass is cut just right. Level with no bumps or potholes.
At the end of the runway is a lake... Long Lake. It's on some maps. Not all.
He circled the homestead so I could get a good look and finally landed, taxiing to a stop in front of a small house that sits right on the lake.
There was no activity near the house but we were greeted by a young man in a huge pickup that we had watched bounce down the driveway from 'up the hill'... my nephew.
He'd come to pick us up and take us up the hill. We unloaded the plane which had supplies as well as my duffle; supplies from the store in Cordova.
All loaded in the pickup, my nephew drove us up the hill.
It's a long twisting driveway with a steep grade bordered on either side by thin trees that form a canopy over the road.
At the top of the hill, there is a log home. It's beautiful and the plaque says ASPENGLOW.
My dad told me to go on in and when I opened the door I saw a house full of people I didn't know. There must have been twenty five people in there, some sitting and some gathering around me.
I met my sister, my brother, my grandmother, my grandfather. I met family friends, neighbors and people from my dad's church. I also met my niece and my brother's wife and my sister's husband. And my dad's wife.
Quite overwhelmed, and after much hugging, we all sat down at the huge table or on couches to eat. My grandfather had prepared his famous salmon.
Soon I was stuffed and eventually pressed into doing dishes, women's work of course.
All those people were there not to meet me, although that was the highlight of their evening... they were there to help my dad rebuild his outbuildings which had burned down just days before due to an unfortunate incident where my nephew had been filling the generator and it caught fire.
The tool shed, outhouse and generator shed had all burned. My dad's church is a self-contained church that makes and sells its own lumber. The lumber had been arriving and people were there to see it get put up asap.
The next day early we went down to work and I got put to use notching rafters. I notched all the rafters in one day and each day there was a new task: paint the floors, build the doors, put on hardware, dig the new outhouse hole.
We flew to Cordova every week and I got on the internet to keep in touch with my friends from Technodyke and my love interest who was living in Pittsburgh .
But after a day or so there we'd go back to the homestead and work. Also included in the chores was harvesting the garden... hundreds of carrots, potatos, etc.
I spent six weeks there. I put blood sweat and tears into the making of that group of outbuildings.
To this day if you go look at the front door of the tool shed you will see that the one on the right does not match the one on the left. You can see the right door was built too short and had to have a patch put on.
That is because my grandfather was starting to decline in mental health (he was , I think, 94 or so) and told me the wrong measurements for the door. I did not want to doubt him and make him feel bad so I cut the lumber against my better judgement.
One of the church carpenters fixed the patch on after I'd built the door too short. I like it now, as a reminder of my part in the building, and my time dealing with my poor aging grandfather.
I did not deal well with him, as he was a huggy fellow and smelled of urine. Grizzled and smelly and huggy.
I feel bad but at least I got to know him some before he passed on. We did some building together.
I cut a lot of trees with a chainsaw, I got to drive an antique bulldozer (ran over some trees to make a new road through the woods), counted salmon at the weir, slipped in bear scat while gathering firewood...
had pizza in McCarthy. Got to know my dad's wife. Got to know my sister and brother some.
Spent a lot of time in that plane thinking of C. and thinking of how I wished I could share it all with her.
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The other thing I wanted to write about, I think I'll put in a seperate post.