It's Safe! Come on Down!

Gosh, I was ever so pleased to hear the First Vacationers tell the world the water in the Gulf of Mexico is safe, the beaches are safe, the seafood is safe, I’m safe, you’re safe, everybody’s safe-safe.

I was driving along the highway when I heard how safe we all are, and suddenly my cranial Rolodex started flipping madly back through the years, and sure ‘nuff, there it was—another government official telling us everyone is safe, safe, safe.

The year where the Rolodex stopped was 1986, early March. This is the month when the sun actually has some warmth to it. The days are sprinting towards all night daylight. This is the month to really enjoy winter. And, I was.

Saturday was a sun-sparkled miracle, a perfect day for running my dog team. I loaded them up in the truck and drove twelve miles to the far end of the Crown Point railroad siding. Harnesses on, neck and tug lines snapped, and we were off. Along the railroad siding we flew.

Shortly before hitting the trail at the end of the siding, we passed a railroad tank car that was parked on the siding. I noticed some vapor coming from the top, but since it was such a warm day, I figured it might be a pressure relief vent. There was an odor in the air that I recognized but couldn’t put a name to.

No matter then as my fresh team flashed by the tank car and down the trail to the lake. A couple hours later we returned, passing the tank car. It was still venting whatever it was, which I thought odd because it was now late afternoon, the sun was down behind the mountain ridge, and the temperature had dropped substantially.

I mentioned it at a gathering of neighbors that evening, but nobody seemed concerned. Must be okay, we all thought.

Sunday wasn’t as nice—overcast and cool. I was taking my stepdaughter for a ride today, along the same trail. When we passed the tank car, she commented on the plume of steam rising from it. It was venting even more on this cold day. I glanced to my right and saw Monte coming towards us with her dog team.

Suddenly her dogs stopped and refused to go any farther. We were ripping past the tank car, close enough to lean over and touch it if we wanted, and the last I saw of Monte that day, she was fussing with her dogs trying to get them to go.

Two and a half hours after we returned from our run, all hell broke loose. That tank car erupted in a volcano of vapor, vomiting a blanket of thick white mist over Crown Point that drifted south towards Seward. A State Trooper named Rod, a good friend of ours, went door to door urging people to evacuate. Some did; some didn’t.

Whatever the stuff was, it smelled bad but didn’t seem to be doing any immediate harm.

Turns out, it was harmful. The tank car was full of formaldehyde, destined for a fertilizer plant down the peninsula. This being winter, while the tank car was still in the railroad terminal yards in Anchorage, it was hooked up to a steam heating system that warmed the contents. Trouble was, it was warmed twice accidentally and the over-heating caused a chemical reaction. It morphed into several known injurious and/or cancer-causing components.

The railroad got the thing out of Anchorage and left it at the Crown Point siding. The noxious vapor saturated homes in the Crown Point and Lawing area, and drifted as far as Seward, twenty-five miles away. Then the railroad towed it farther north into uninhabited mountains and left it at a remote siding until it cooled off. The odor, though, reached Moose Pass.

Then ensued months and months of dither-dather with the various businesses and agencies involved in the whole mess. The chemical company that originally shipped it said it wasn’t harmful. Then they said, “Stay the hell away from it.”

Those of us who lived here couldn’t get a straight story because no one knew exactly what was going on inside that witch's cauldron. It even took a while before the railroad fessed up to heating it twice. I suspect they were awfully glad they’d gotten the thing out of downtown Anchorage before it began to spew its mystery mix there.

Long story short, teams arrived in Crown Point with huge heaters, meant for super-heating homes to burn off the chemicals. Then guys with Rainbow vacuum cleaners went in, vacuuming and wiping everything.

After that, they said at a town meeting in the elementary school gymnasium, "It’s safe." Your homes are safe, the air is safe, your stuff is safe, I’m safe, you’re safe, everybody’s safe- safe. Come on down!

Then why, we asked, are the dudes doing the heating and vacuuming and wiping wearing space suits and breathing masks?

Bingo.

Click once or twice to enlarge the photo. Upper left article shows tanker car spewing its noxious vapor. Lower left shows guy in anti-contamination suit and breathing device. Upper right notes how close Anchorage came to having this problem in its front yard.

Some folks became so sensitized to anything with formaldehyde in it—new carpet, new upholstery, auto interiors, plywood, paneling, etc.—they had to leave permanently. Some developed rashes, some had streaks on their lungs in X-rays, some claimed they weren’t affected. Many had to destroy all clothing, papers, photos, books, etc. Anything porous that the formaldehyde could attach to.

The trooper who warned everyone that first night was vilified by the then mayor of Seward, who claimed the cop was crying “the sky is falling.” We all considered him a hero. Still do. He’s retired from the force and has multiple medical problems because of that spill.

As for me, I worked in Seward for about three months that spring, driving through the area twice a day, five or six days a week. I began having ear infections for the first time in my life.

As the years went by, medical claims were settled one way or another. Some had insurance for life because of it. We lost a few good neighbors who could no longer live there. Nowadays, you’d never know anything had happened.

The company that hauled formaldehyde from the siding to the fertilizer plant a hundred miles away hired a guy named John to drive the truck when the shipments resumed. We called him Formaldehyde John and he took it with good humor. He lived here quite a few years before moving to Louisiana. He’s still a good friend.

Lots of folks from around here worked on the clean-up after the Exxon Valdez belched oil into Prince William Sound. Some had breathing problems afterward.

Some years back I noticed a trend. Down the road in that area where formaldehyde had been transported for years, there seemed to be an abnormal number of cancer cases compared with Moose Pass proper. I wrote down all the names of those stricken with cancer that I’d heard of over the years. The result was about fifteen from that area to one in Moose Pass, and that one was someone who traveled through there frequently. Not saying it’s the chemical or any other environmental cause for so many cases of cancer in an area of low population. Just weird, that’s all.

Anyway, whenever I hear someone—even the First Vacationers— tell me I’m safe, go ahead and move back into your home, or swim in the ocean, or eat the seafood, because it’s really all quite safe, I still wonder about those clean-up guys all decked out with their anti-contamination suits and breathing devices.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

My dad was a nice guy.

Quiet, hard-working, funny in a roll-your-eyes-and-groan kind of way, he had eyebrows that ratcheted up in proportion to the outlandishness of the tale he was telling--and telling with a straight face.

He could keep the straight face, all right. What he couldn't control were the eyebrows and the twinkle in his eyes when he was telling a whopper. That was my dad.

One of my most indelible memories of him was in the summer of 1948, a couple months after we'd moved to Anchorage, Alaska. I was six years old. Dad and I were walking along Fourth Avenue, which is the main street. I have no idea why it was just the two of us, but there we were, strolling along the concrete walk in the sunshine.

Dad would say "Hello" to everyone who approached. Sometimes he called the person by name; sometimes not.

After we passed, I'd ask who that was. He always gave me a name.

I was utterly amazed that my dad had met and knew so many people during the short time we'd been in Alaska. He seemed to know everyone and everyone was his friend because everyone spoke to him.

I was pretty impressed for a six year old because, gosh, there were almost thirty thousand people living in Anchorage then.

Not until many, many years later did it occur to me that that's the way Alaska was. You said "hello" to everybody. It also dawned on me that Dad might have been making up names for some of them. I guess I should have been watching his eyebrows, but, I didn't know about that tell then so I was in awe of my dad.

Nonetheless, as friendly as he was, no one pushed my dad around.

And I do mean no one. Especially when he was all likkered-up.....



... and armed with BOTH of my cap guns.

Just Wondering...

How come no one had anything to say about the four dead bats? I thought that would stir up at least a "ew-w-w-w-w-w-w."

The Real Estate Market According to Fungi

Classical.



Victorian.


Avant-garde.

Geodesic dome.

Duplex.

Multi-family.


Baroque.

A-frame.

Bi-level.

Starter homes.

Cliff dwelling.

Row housing.

Xeriscaping.

Four-plex.

Bomb shelter.

Shared landscaping.

Prow-front cabins.

Waterfront mansion.

Strip mall.

Abandoned tenement.

Apartment building.

High rises.

Farmstead.

Lodge with cabins.

Minimal de-vegetation.

Suburban sprawl.

Highway frontage.

Add ons.

Zero lot line.

Cul de sac.

I think I'll stay in the house today...

Today, in case you hadn't realized it, is Friday the 13th, not that I'm superstitious or anything.

However.



I bought this mirror when I was in Anchorage a couple days ago. It had a big sticker label right on the glass, of course. After a day of intermittent scraping with my thumbnails, I had a zillion infinitesimal wads of sticky paper, but most of the label remained intact.

Time for the big guns.

So I poured a generous amount of Goof Off on the label and it disappeared in a puff of green smoke. In a manner of speaking. (The truth is so colorless.)

Anyway, the label was easily removed. And the plastic holding the glass mirror? Well, it was almost removed too. Go look at the handle in the picture. See how it's been texturized?


Then, I was walking around on the lawn this morning and taking photos of mushrooms before I mowed the grass. Alongside a former chicken coop now morphed into a mini greenhouse, I saw something dark on the grass that didn't look anything like a mushroom.

Looking closely.... Yikes! It's a bat. And there were more next to it. Four little dead bats.

Here, artfully arranged for your viewing pleasure, are the four bats. All very dead.

I think.

They don't sleep this soundly, do they?




And then there was the evidence of a cat scratching in my flower bed and there's only one cat in the neighborhood that I know of and it doesn't cross the highway to come over here....

As I said, I think I'll stay in the house today.

Life Paths

Some people know at an early age what path they will take in life. They know if they want to be doctors or lawyers or commercial fishermen, say.

Some people, like me, wander around doing a bit of everything and never do find out which path was meant for them.

And some people, like my little brother in particular, should have known at a very early age which path was marked for him. But, no, he got a bachelor's degree in geology, then had a full career in the military, then worked another full career for a military defense contractor.

Finally his elder son Joel pointed him in the right direction.

That's when he started a third career with his wife and Joel. They own and operate CAVU winery in Walla Walla, Washington. The son, Joel, is the vintner and has produced several award-winning wines.

(Here's where to find an earlier post about CAVU--http://gullible-gulliblestravels.blogspot.com/2009/05/ceiling-and-visibility-unlimited.html. I don't know how to make that an active link, so you'll have to copy and paste. But, there is an actiive link over on the right side, under Come Visit my Family.)

My brother Jim is delighting (I'm told) in holding forth in the tasting room, chatting it up with wine tasters about bouquet and aroma and blending and the subtleties of this grape and that grape.

That's Jim pouring in the tasting room. See that rose'? OMG!!!

Well, I could have told you several decades ago which path he should follow, had he asked, although I do seem to recall leading him down the road to ROTC when he was in college. But back to his present career.

I mean, anyone would have known.

Anyone (him in particular) SHOULD have known:



That's my little brother pouring KoolAde, shown with cousin Don, neighbor kid, and me. He even charged me!! Probably double--and I probably deserved it.

You'll notice even back in the 1950s, the rose' was a favorite.

We've Lost Our Uncle Ted

Uncle Ted, 86, died in a small plane crash Monday afternoon in southwestern Alaska while on his way to go salmon fishing.

He was the longest serving Republican in the US Senate at the end of his last term in office, 2009. Originally appointed to fill Sen. Bob Bartlett's term in office, Uncle Ted represented Alaska for more than forty years in the US Congress.

No one, absolutely no one, has done more for Alaska than Uncle Ted. He touched every aspect of this state in his many decades of public service.

I would wish for you to rest in peace, Mr. Stevens, but knowing your boundless energy and remembering your Hulk tie, I have no doubt that resting in peace is not on your new agenda.

Would you, though, speak with whomever is in charge of weather and have them send some sunshine this way before it snows? I know you can do it.

We'll miss you, Uncle Ted.