Icewind's Ramblings

I started this around Winters Solstice and as the Christmas season came and went the process of thought and clarity at the time was lost to finish this until recently. From darkness comes light and from silence comes sound For most people there is something a bit intimidating about darkness and silence. Be it a dark room that you hesitate to enter . . . for what awaits you is unknown or the stark silence of a long moment where sound is absent which I have found out in the wilds of an Alaskan adventure a time or two. Each of these brings with them their own feelings of apprehension. In the midst of darkness and silence we cry out for light, for sound, for anything to break the emptiness of what we are experiencing. The ironic thing is that darkness and silence often weave in and out of our lives on a daily basis bringing both fear and peace. But that peace only comes when we know that the darkness and silence are not eternal, are not our destiny. We can appreciate what...

I make my drive to and from work everyday and during that 20 to 30 minute commute I am constantly bombarded by the radio ads for Cal Worthington Ford. He has been an Alaska icon for his zany television and radio ads over the years but he drives me crazy. Anybody over 25 who grew up in Southern California or Alaska knows this guy . . . Its Cal Worthington . . . normally ‘with’ his dog Spot as the ads featured his "Dog Spot", except that "Spot" was never a dog. Often, “Spot” was a tiger or an elephant or even a bear. Now Cal has been at this game appearing in his own television and radio commercials for over 50 years now and I believe he has gotten so old now that when he farts he only blows dust now. What drives me totally nuts lately is all of the ads for 4x4 vehicles. In one thirty second ad, Cal says the words ‘4x4’ nineteen times. That’s almost one every two seconds and he still has time to give brief details of about 10 vehicles. It’s...

I’ve mentioned several times now about Levi, my golden retriever who is getting on up there in age . . . kinda like me. So much has gone on here lately with a cold winter, much snow, and all of those little instances that get under your skin during our long winter nights. Recently a winter gale was plastering the snow horizontally against the large prow windows of our home in Anchorage . It was one of the bigger storms to arrive in Alaska this year and many times big storms bring with it high winds. The howling of the wind was punctuated by the snores of Levi sleeping in front of the fireplace. I was finishing my blog post for the night so I could settle down for a night of much needed sleep. My wife was ‘watching’ a program on HGTV which meant she was asleep on the sofa. It was a peaceful domestic scene in Alaska on a stormy winter night. Suddenly the peace was shattered by a prolonged scream of sheer terror. I jumped up from my desk at the sudden noise my heart ...

Alaskan perspective It seems somewhat strange that this good ole born Southern Boy is sitting here in the arctic reaches of Alaska watching the snowfall as the start of the historic 50 th Anniversary running of the Daytona 500 gets underway. There was the familiar pre-race activities going on with the interviews . . . the glimpses of the different drivers or crewmembers waiting for the prayer and the Star Spangled Banner to be sung by Trisha Yearwood (it was beautiful) as the USAF Thunderbirds over flew the grandstands. There was the countdown by Darrell Walltrip to ‘Gentleman . . . Start your engines!’ Daytona . . . Five hundred miles of left turns. The mind and body wanting to be in a position to win but the boredom in the beginning that comes from everyone getting into a groove of a long race wanting to stay out of any trouble or catastrophes by not hitting anyone or anything. But as time wore on the excitement of those trying to stay in the front with those w...