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Entries in moon (7)

Monday
Feb062012

The full moon: over a gray whale, 23.5 years ago; over Wasilla late this afternoon; when memory fools; tomorrow, the series will continue

One night,  the full moon hung over the rescue site. It was a cold night and almost everybody had left the ice, a fact that I kind of enjoyed. But this is getting ahead of my story. I did get home from Anchorage this afternoon in time to finish my preliminary edit of my gray whale rescue take - or at least all of what I have so far found. Afterward, in my mind I selected certain images from that edit that I thought I would run in tonight's post, as they seemed to be images that would pick up the story from where I left it two nights ago, so that I could begin to move it forward again.

But I changed my mind and decided to hold off one more night to give myself a chance to gather information to refresh my memory a bit before moving on. Here is why: last night, I was googling about and I came to a story in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, one of a number here and there aimed at telling the "real-life" story - kind of like I'm trying to do.

In the diaglogue section, I found two commentors debating about who had been first to photograph the gray whales, the primary candidates being Oran Caudle, who had videotaped the whales, and myself, a still photographer. One of the commentors used this blog to argue that I had been first. To argue that it had been Caudle, the other countered with two sources of information - Tom Rose's book, Freeing the Whales, which was the starting point but thankfully not the finishing point for the movie, Big Miracle. His other source was my book, Gift of the Whale. The commentor pointed to page 112, where he said that I had written that I had gone out shortly after Caudle.

I decided that I must set him straight and point out that he had somehow misinterpeted my words. So I turned to page 112 to find whatever passage he had misinterpreted so that I could point out what it really said. Guess what? He was right.

This is what I wrote, in my own book, published thirteen-and-a-half years ago:

"On October 12, Geoff and Craig took Oran Caudle from the North Slope Borough TV studio out to videotape the whales... I headed out shortly afterward, following hunter Billy Adams..."

Yet, I had written here that I had gone out to the whales before Oran. When I wrote those words here, I wrote from memory, but my own earlier writings contradict me. My earlier writing must be correct, as the memory was fresher then. I don't know why my memory changed, but it did. This worries me a bit, for more reasons than one.

My basic premise was true - I was the only photographer of any kind to cover the rescue from beginning to end. Once the national media arrived, Oran spent most of his time working in the TV studio to support the national TV media.

Still, I do not like to make a mistake like that. If I had taken the time to read my own story first, I wouldn't have - but I didn't want to take the time. I wanted to get the blog post up. My story was in my memory. Why did I need to read it, anyway?

The idea to blog the gray whale rescue came to me as soon as I learned the movie was being made, but I envisioned going at it in a very different manner than I actually am. I had always wanted to tell the full story - in the single chapter that I devoted to the rescue in Gift of the Whale, I only had the space to tell an abbreviated version.

So I thought that if I blogged it over the same number of days that it actually took the rescue to unfold, I could tell a comprehensive story. To really do it right, I figured that I would need to spend some real time at it - two months at least, maybe three. I would need to track down as many of the key people involved, both inside and outside the Iñupiat community and interview them. I knew that the movie's Malik was going to be a very different person than the real life Malik, so I wanted to spend time with those who knew him best so that I could put his life back together and flesh out his character.

I did not have the financial resources to undertake such a project, but there is a certain grant award that I thought would be just perfect. I contacted the point person for that grant and told her what I wanted to do. She thought it was a good project - but not for the blog. She said I should publish it in another vehicle. But I did not want to tell the story in another vehicle. I wanted to build my blog up and I wanted my comprehensive story to appear blog style in my blog before it appeared anywhere else. I did not want to put it in a vehicle that would compete against my own blog.

So I decided I would find another way - but I never did. Then, as I heard about the pending release of the movie, I knew that it had become impossible to do what I wanted to do. I decided it was a lost cause and that I would just let it go. Then I saw the movie with Margie. When we walked out of the theatre, I knew I had to blog something.

I decided I would just pull up negatives and my memory, read a few little things and blast through the process as quickly as possible. But after making the mistake I wrote about in the above section, I know that while it is now impossible for me to carry out my original plan, I must take the time to be certain I get basic things right.

Starting tomorrow night, I am confident I can pick up where I left off and carry it through to the end, which I will make happen by this weekend - so that I can do what must be done before I leave for Arizona/India on February 27.

So please bear with me for 24 more hours and then we roll with those graywhales. 

 

This moonshot, by the way, is from late afternoon/early evening today, when I was out on my walk.

Think of that - the very same moon that was reflecting down upon the gray whale above twenty-three-and-half years ago near Barrow was reflecting down upon me today as I walked through my neighborhood here in Wasilla.

 

Wednesday
Jan182012

I take a break from the Loft to take Margie to town and to eat at Abby's

Yesterday, I had to drive Margie to Anchorage so she could babysit the boys. Thanks to the Martin Luther King holiday, I was able to keep her for an extra day this week. She had to be there no later than 9:30 AM, so we were headed out of Wasilla by 8:30 AM.

Crews were busy cleaning snow from the roads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We followed the waning moon toward Anchorage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found Kalib and Lynx studying each other as Al Sharpton pontificated in the background.

I lingered through much of the day to nap and take care of some things, then I began the drive out of Anchorage. I stopped for gas with one mile to go before empty.

A moose ran alongside the freeway.

This cop had pulled someone over. Now he was getting out of his car to go talk to the driver. Maybe he was going to write a ticket. I don't know. Perhaps he just wanted someone to talk to. Perhaps he wanted to make a bet on who would win the Super Bowl this year.

Maybe he wrote the driver a ticket, or gave the driver a warning and said, "don't do that again!"

Whatever "that" was.

Speeding, I would suspect.

But I don't know.

Things are not always as they appear.

Whatever it was, the driver probably did not think it was fair. "Unmarked car!" the driver probaby muttered to the driver. "Is this what I pay my taxes for, so cops can prowl around in unmarked cars and ticket people who would not even have been speeding if the cop had been in a marked car? Unfair! Unfair!"

I'm pretty sure that's what the driver muttered to the driver.

Come dinner time, I could find nothing handy to eat. So I went to Abby's, where I discovered that I, the camera man, was on camera. And see that aloe vera plant in the window? What I did not know when I took this picture is that it was gift for Margie and me, from Arlene Warrior.

When we visited her just before Christmas to pick up the atikluks, we admired her aloe vera plants. And now she had given us one.

This morning, I did not want to cook oatmeal and Caleb was watching TV, which was OK, because I had planned to go to breakfast at Abby's anyway. Here is Shelly, reflected in the window, just before she cooked an omelette for me.

Abby was not there.

I took a walk. This dog came and barked at me. I don't know this dog. I don't know why he would bark at me. I am good to all dogs.

A C-130 Hercules flew over.

When I went to the post office to check my mail and get Visa photos taken for my upcoming trip to India, I found a bill from my doctor for the visit that I had made in early November when I was diagnosed with shingles. I decided that I had better go pay it right away before I forgot again and while I still had some money left.

Along the way, I got to photograph two school buses at once.

It was a terribly exciting day here in Wasilla.

So exciting I damn near had a heart attack.

The doctor's office is just ahead. 

Now that I have updated the near-present a bit, I will return to working on my David Alan Harvey Loft series. 

 

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