Folks I met in Homer today

Here’s a chronological list of folks whom I talked to in Homer yesterday…

• Mike, the Buddhist from New Hampshire who runs the Good Karma Inn dog-friendly bed and breakfast, an expert on the Vietnam War in which he served
  
• the guy down the street who was packing up his venerable Volvo station wagon for a drive north to the Kenai River where he, his girlfriend, and their 13-year-old Husky would dip-net all night for salmon (limit of six per Alaska resident per day) on which they would subsist; he works all winter on the Alaska Marine Highway ferries that ply the sometimes horrifically rough water between Homer, Kodiak, etc.
  
• the folks in line at the Post Office who were complaining about how beastly hot it was down in Seattle last week when they were visiting
  
• the young folks who had been working at a hotel at the entrance to Denali National Park but hated the manager so they’d all quit four days ago and had come down to Homer and set up a tent city on the Spit; all had instantly become gainfully employed in various hotels and restaurants
  
• a nice guy from Mexico City who was here working illegally; he had hoped to get a job on a crab boat but couldn’t find one.  Fortunately the U.S. Air Force had hired him, indirectly one supposes, for a $32/hour job doing some construction at a base near Fairbanks.  He was planning to move to Hawaii in October and get a job.  “I have lost a lot of jobs because I don’t have papers but there is always work.”
  
• Arlee (sp?), a massage therapist working on the Spit who had majored in massage at University of Alaska Anchorage and plans to return to medical school.  She fed Alex and me homemade cookies, peaches, and water.
  
• Chelsea, a cute 10-year-old girl from Anchorage who is a mixture of Indian, Eskimo, Mexican, and some general European.  Her mom, half Indian and half Eskimo, comes to the Spit every summer to run a native crafts shop.  During the school year she teaches native crafts in the Anchorage schools.  I asked Chelsea what she wanted to be when she grew up.  “A teacher.”  We agreed that this was ideal.  A union job.  A government job.  Summers off.  Admonished to read lots of books and study hard Chelsea said “No.  I only want to watch TV.”
  
• A young kayak guide and her boyfriend who were soon moving to the Olympic Peninsula so that he could attend a school for building wooden boats (not too far from where Ahmed Ressam entered the U.S. with his trunk full of explosives intended for LAX).
  
• Vince, a pilot for the big cargo ships that sail up the Cook Inlet and dock in Anchorage.  During his off days he has managed to build a couple of kit airplanes, the latest of which is an almost finished Glasair Sportsman 2+2. 
  
• Some folks at Maritime Helicopters who had just ferried a brand new Bell 407 helicopter back from the factory in Montreal.  “Be careful taking tourists up and landing them on glaciers; they tend to fall into crevasses.”
  
• Brad Feld and his wife Amy, a traditional MIT/Wellesley couple who come up here from Boulder, Colorado every summer.  Our dinner table was probably the only one in Homer that contained no hunters or fishermen/women.
  
• Doug Epps, bush pilot and his wife and inlaws.  Brad and Amy had flown with Doug last season.  I had flown with Doug on Monday morning in his Cessna 172 on floats.  We flew across the bay, landed in some pristine lakes, flew down a glacier, and then spotted a humpback whale swimming in the middle of the bay on the way back to Homer’s downtown float plane lake.
  
• A guy at the Petro who was paying $260 to fill up his motorhome and boat at the same time.  “Goddamn Bush.  He isn’t doing a single thing for us.  He should have bombed all of those people in Iraq and gotten out.”

Today:  biking, drive to Girdwood, and a helicopter lesson.  Saturday:  the Merrill Field 75th anniversary party.