Nostalgia Addendum...

Thank you Rants of the Scooby for reminding me of the Captain's Keg. The owner's daughter was very beautiful and one of the nicest people you'd ever met. Her name was Heidi, they moved and shut down shortly before or just following Mr. Forester's death.

I did remember a few more faded memories in the process.

• Beryl's Sweet Shop. (Commented this one back to myself... but figured it needed to be properly documented). Instead of waiting in line at the concessions stand inside the Orpheum, we would run around the corner to Beryl's and stock up on gummy coke bottles and fireballs. Rusty used to have a 25-cent popcorn vending machine as well. The sign that reads This is a 3B theatre... B-Good, B-Quiet, or B-Gone has been in existence since my earliest memories.
  
  
• How in the world could I forget Wodlinger's Drug & Photo! Upstairs was pre-Wal-mart, pre-Grand Slam toy heaven. I remember going with my parents and buying the Weeble Wobble Treehouse from there when I was approximately 3-and-a-half. (They made very good play hand-grenades later during our neighborhood fort wars.) Downstairs was the drugstore, candy aisle, and of course the magazine stand in the back. They had nudie mags. We sneaked peeks.
  
  
• There was a chicken buffet place called the Golden Skillet that served KFC-esque food that was on the opposite corner of the Subway building before Cross-Fox inhabited it.
  
  
• El Chicano's wasn't always downtown. This memory is completely fuzzy, but I'm thinking it was either inside the metal building where Joanie's Dog Groomer's is on Mill Bay... or in a building that has long since been torn down right next to it.
  
  
• The bakery mall was a wonderful place to hang. The *only* place for a person to aquire anything resembling real music was located on the left of the entrance. If you couldn't find it, the owner was more than willing to order it for you. I have a slight memory of comic books in that vicinity. There was an awesome deli that is where ElChicano's is now.
  
  
• Skip forward several years for a second on the mention of Deli's gone past. Mimi's Deli (KANA Wellness Center) was awesome. Her Rosemary Chicken Salad sandwich was inspired, that and a sampling of Quiche always made for a great lunch date. * now back to the even further past ...
  
• There was a feature article newspaper printed on 11x17" folded white paper called the Kadiak Times. I don't really remember much except some photographs by Roger Page, who later was accused of really bad things... but in my kindergarten years I made the front page sitting with our gym teacher.
  
  
• The KVOK logo had a graphic of a mouth for the letter O, and there were bumper stickers of that everywhere. The radio personality at the time was Keith Beaver. They had a wonderful program on called "Chicken Man". Come on, you know you want to say it... "Brooock Brooock Broooock... Chiiicken Maaaan...." I think I had a t-shirt. The radio station has gone through so many ownerships, I wonder if they still have the masters of that series. It was classic.
  
  
• When my parents finally signed us up for cable after only recieving the antennae'd version of RATNET (Channel 9), we got two channels: 2 and 4. They had Bugs Bunny & Roadrunner and the Flintstones on in the morning.
  
  
• Back to Baranof Park... (The track used to be all gravel!) I need to make a map of this to truly explain, but I don't have the patience to illustrate it. Where the ice rink is to the end of the skating area / tennis area was located a volleyball area, basketball hoops, and a couple of backboards for tennis practice or hand ball. On the other side was three tennis courts. We used to rollerskate the heck out of that area in our orange giant wheeled 70s disco-style skates... then later, skateboard it to death with our boards decorated with an obligatory DK and Misfits skull.
  
  On the playground side the only thing that still exists from back in the day, is the same Merry-Go-Round. I wonder if you touch it now and have any psychic vibes at all if you feel all of the children spun to the ground and run over by the kids pushing. There was a small section set aside for little kids on the left (near where the office is now), the baby swings, a small slide and a small half-sphere climbing toy was there. Out in front was the big swings, the tall slide, hanging bars, and monkey bars. Following back to the right there was a giant mirrory triangle thing with bars on the upper edges meant for climbing, then the merry-go-round, then the large barred jungle-gym that used to be up at the elementary school with the parallel bars and very unsturdy feeling sliding poles off the top of the monkey bars.
  
  Then there were metal teeter totters, a barred covered slide that was shaped like a witch, and in the middle of everything a giant yellow metal dome for climbing. There was a bunch of sawdust underneath it, as it was so tall... it disappeared fairly early though. I never climbed to the top, someone must have though.

Fading out here again as far as memory lane's paths criss-cross between the real and imagined.

You know you've been here too long....

Nostalgia kicked in watching pavement applied, and re-applied, and mourning trees that are being clearcut from our old "Outsider's" hangout. (Behind the high school... it the place where a pack of Kool and a sixer of Bud snagged from the parent's cooler were exchanged over testing the sound of new curse words burning off our tongues).

This little town sure has evolved in my lifetime here. I wonder how many people really remember:

• Main Elementary used to be where the Community Schools Offices are, and on the gravel playground near the building was a sandbox, one of those springy ride-on toys, a swingset, hanging bars and a jungle gym that was relocated to Baranof park, and then East Elementary (or they bought two).

• The Junior High gym had a stage and was the auditorium before there was an auditorium. The cafeteria above the gym (art room in the middle school) had an opening where you could look down onto the gym floor.

• East Addition park didn't exist. It was a swamp with a creek that ran through it with a culvert that ran underneath the street until it escaped into Potatopatch.

• The roads were mostly gravel... aside from downtown, the Aleutian Homes and Rezanof. Provided for maximum skiddage slamming the back breaks on my California Mongoose with yellow mag wheels and custom ergonomic grips purchased with lawnmower money from Elkay's bike shop (a small bike shop that was in a dug-out basement of a house on the other side of the park).
  
  
• The big bunker at the top of Fort Abercrombie was open, and you could run through and echo your voice while reading up on decades of spraypainted "I was here's".
  
  
• There was no Safeway, no McDonalds, no Pizza Hut... that area was all trees. (As well as the entire Woodless Acres development, and much of the property behind where Mill Bay Coffee is).
  
  
• Spenard's used to be where Warner is, and where Spenards is now used to be Waldo's supermarket a division of Krafts (downtown where Food For Less is now). In the entry way of Waldo's used to be a brown horse that you could put a dime in and it would give you a rocking ride. City Market was a mini-store where Mack's is now.
  
  
• We had a store called Mark-It-Foods. (Underneath where Total Interiors is now). For some reason they thought it would pass on the savings if they didn't have to price the product, so you were given a wax crayon and hand-wrote the price from the shelf onto your cans or cereal boxes or whatever.
  
  
• The hot place to go was Blairville Laser Station. I curse the Centipede that kicked off the beginning of my carpal tunnel syndrome.
  
  
• The Credit Union used to be a refurbished Dairy Queen before they tore it down and rebuilt it. I really miss Peanut Buster Parfaits.
  
  
• Beachcombers was a bar/nightclub (where Salvation Army is now). Before it moved into that building it was in a boat that was either washed ashore during the tsunami, or just permanently dry docked there.
  
  
• The post office used to be where the old KANA building was that is now replaced by the KNWR Visitor Center.
  

That is just the tip of the iceburg, I'm sure I will think of more that I should have added! Let me know if I missed anything!

Other acts of randomness

The squirrels in my backyard have jumped on the miniature species bandwagon. Two of our regular rascal's mini-me's appeared this morning rolling around on the back deck. If it wasn't in the midst of downpour, I could have caught a real picture instead of grabbing this one off the 'net. They are late this year too, last year the babies appeared in the beginning of June.

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We watched some Apocolyptic show on the History Channel and then the Berlin Speech this morning. My significant other, also known as S.O., is now convinced that Obama is the Anti-Christ and is leading us to Armageddon in 2012. (S.O. has many points to back that up, of which I will not qualify by speaking of). I on the other hand, truly appreciated his delivery, and he has some great speech writers. It was nice to listen to true discussion of global concerns not filled with the same "make no mistake"... blah blah blah droning on of empty incoherant phrases from the Bushmeister. No wonder I've always said for the most part, "politics bore me". At least this election season is nowhere near stagnant.

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According to HealthDay News, Soy is linked to male infertility. A half serving a day lowers sperm concentration. The theory is that isoflavones boost estrogen, and if you already are in a state of estrogen overproduction (obesity causes this) this tips the hormone scale and quarters your swimmers. Soy is in pretty much everything these days, just read any product label... and even though they say don't stop eating it, I wonder what affect it has on our children. Is this why our girls our hitting puberty at 8 now, and there is a major problem with man boobs in our country? I suppose it is still multi-factoral between diet, environmental issues, and our self-imploding genes. My only question now, how in the heck do vegans reproduce?

Who was Carl Coon? The answer...

Picture snagged from the KoKon.

I thought I had the answer to Kodiak Konfidential's query the other day about who Coon Field was named after. But, thinking about it, I wasn't certain whether I was meshing stories that were drilled into us as children warning of dangerous places to play in Kodiak. I thought it was the ice, as there have been a few that fell through in Lilly Lake. I was off a bit, but it was based on another parental warning I've personally had my butt smacked for getting too close to.

Out of extreme curiousity, I had to ask one of our esteemed pioneers. She tells me that Carl Coon was the adopted son of Louise and Merrill Coon. Merrill Coon owned a fuel company, was the president of the Chamber of Commerce and apparently the Mayor for a bit in the late 50s-early 60s. Carl died in an accident, falling off of a cliff at Fort Abercrombie. She said he must have played ball in that field, as it was named for him fairly early.

So there is your answer and my curiosity is quenched.

The new medians

I have to admit it, after balking about the lack of necessity for them to be installed in the first place the new medians downtown are kind of nice. Aesthetically, it makes the intersection look like a real city thoroughfare, not a random old Russian road meeting up with a cowpath turned road because the tidal wave washed the real one away. Not sure if they were planning on it, but if they plant grass in the center, it will surely brighten up the grey down there anyway.

Operationally, (with the lines being painted as I speak) they do the job of easing up on the confusion of what lane goes where, and I notice less of a chance of playing chicken with someone in the turn lanes. There is a bit of a confusion for the turn lane to enter the Food For Less parking lot, and curiosity how to get back to the Credit Union from that direction. This is only because I am a pure Kodiak driver, and really do not know road rules in the real world unless it was on MTV (sorry I know that was bad). I'm not sure how I even passed my drivers test when they started asking about lane changes and when you can and cannot cross the yellow lines. Back then, you were considered a safe driver if you were driving Mill Bay zigzagging from shoulder to shoulder the whole way to avoid the crevasses.

It is yet to be seen how well they shall fare in plowing season, whether they survive, or we end up having to send a few grader scoops to the shop to be straightened out, but yeah... they look pretty.

As far as having a traffic light installed there though, I really don't think we need one aside from everybody escaping downtown after the fireworks. Maybe one coming out of Safeway... or that intersection between Ole Johnson and Mill Bay Road where Ed Randolph gets to witness firsthand claims in the process.

Where are the bees?

We rarely go to the theater anymore. It has to be something special and something that my children sans attention spans can fixate on for more five minutes. Aside from some talking back to the screen, and several shhushes... our last trip to the Orpheum went well. We watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull, which in my opinion was just as good as Raiders. Slightly on the predictable side of things, but other than that a great flick.

The previews on that day had a promo for The Happening, M. Night Shamalamadamadang's lastest paranoid thriller. It starts out with all the bees leaving, and then apparently humankind begins to be eradicated. (Not too far off of all the dolphins leaving from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

I notice there are no bees here in Kodiak this year, well few I should say. There have been two that have managed to enter the screenless windows all summer, where any other year there are usually three or four a day buzzing around if you leave the window open for more than five minutes. Possibly our late winter killed them off? The salmonberries seem to have managed to fruit, and look to be a better crop than last year, but without the bees what was pollinating them?

Hmm. Things to ponder... do we have any entomologists out here?

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Three seconds later I realize there was a news report on KMXT that kind of scooped and answered that question. It says there is no discernible drop in our native pollinators. There it is again the factual versus the anecdotal.

Might as well post something...

Realizing after I signed in to create the blog and wrote and deleted a few posts... I don't really have much to say (that would be of interest to anyone else, that is). I'm not much into politics, or sports, or a super-environmentalist-recyclist, or a rampant overachieving activist of any sort.

That stupid song "Do you have an opinion...." rattles through my brain. My answer, nope. I could talk your ear off about funny things my kids say, share mindless tidbits of random celebrity gossip. But to get down to a true opinion you have to be able to make up your mind about one thing or another... and usually I try to look at things from so many multiple angles, I get lost in my own contradictions.

So, there probably won't be anything of true interest on these pages, if I ever manage to find the time to post anything.