Jobe waters the flowers – where are we?

When we loaded the boys into the car to bring them home on the day that Lavina went into surgery, I felt the heat and smelled the air and it reminded me of being a boy in summertime, living in the Lower 48. The weather this summer has just been unreal. It has not been like living in South-central Alaska at all. There were those 90° days in June and now for at least eight days running, maybe more, we have had temperatures either in the upper 70s or 80s. Our summers are just not like this. Yes, in a normal year we will get maybe five or six days in the 70s over the course of the whole summer, some summers not that much, some summers a bit more – but this? Where are we?

Jobe is right at home, watering flowers in the heat of summer. If he were to turn around, and walk to that gathering of bushes behind him, he could smell the roses. Alaska wild roses.

My chair gets taken away from me

I get out of my chair to eat a blueberry, I turn around and Jobe has taken my chair away. Where am I supposed to sit now?

Airplanes and Mormons in one afternoon

It was a static airshow. The only times the planes flew were when they came in to land and when they took off and departed. We were only there for the take off and departure. As they watched the planes fly away, I wondered if my grandsons felt the same awe and magic I always did - and still do.

When we got back to the house, they had their grandmother get these toy planes out for them and then they made a runway and started to play. I had my answer. Then some Mormon missionaries showed up. As unreligious and, from their outlook, fallen, as I have become, I never turn them away. I used to be one, that's why. I know the trials they face.

I have been dabbling at a book made up of the pictures of Mormon missionaries I take wherever I happen to come across them, coupled with stories from my own mission. I already know which story I will match up with this picture. As they always do, they asked if there was anything they could do for us. They had already done it. They had placed themselves in my picture.

So there you have it, two facets of my complex and tortured heritage and history encountered and photographed in one single day – aviation and Mormons.

Airplanes, my dad, me, my wife and grandsons…

Can I tell you how much I love airplanes? I can't! I can't! You know already. Or you don't know. Nothing I can say can add to or subtract from your knowledge of the subject. But why? Why did I make that bad landing and put my airplane into the black spruce of Mentasta? When will I be able to get another? And what foolishness has overcome me that I would leave my Canon 5D Mark III hanging from my shoulder and shoot this rare instant with my iPhone? Just so I can Instagram it and post it quickly to my blog? One frame shot in the time I could've got off eight? Seven megapixels when I could have had 20? A flimsy, shallow, JPEG when I could've had a deep, resonant, CR2 RAW? I will probably regret it – no I already do regret it – but either way, these boys will know what their great-grandpa did.

The plane their great grandfather learn to fly in

Here my grandsons are, just moments ago with my wife, alongside the airplane my dad learned to fly in. Well, not this exact plane I am sure but the make and model. In preparation to go out and fight a war. Goddamn I'm choking up and getting all teary-eyed just thinking about it.