Nightshift

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Is there such wisdom for those who watch the sun rise after working the night? 

Across America people wake up to work the nightshift.  It is not the sole domain of the blue collar or unskilled laborer. Professionals prowl the hours between 11 pm to seven in the morning.  Doctors make their residencies in ER, airline pilots trek coast to coast on the red eyes.  International business people speak to call centers a dozen time zones away.   IT geeks tweak code; the independent writers type out 500 word articles; DJs on local and national air waves stir tired imaginations with spooky ramblings of international espionages, government conspiracies, UFO kidnappings, the miracle of vitamin power and  the spoils of  Franken foods. With them are the traditional over night workers – the factory employees make, shape and build America.  The nocturnal long-haul truck driver rolls down the center line,  the janitor swabs bathrooms and restocks the paper towels, the garbage collector clangs metal cans at the street-side curb,  the cab driver delivers passengers and the security guard patrols long hallways, and the dark stairways of warehouses, sky scrappers, office buildings, schools, wharfs and barns. (Some barns have hallways and stairways.)

There is a whole industry of night beyond the making of donuts and the printing of newspapers. It is of shipping and hauling product and produce, of unpacking and stocking merchandise, of staging and positioning packages for morning deliveries.  These activities ready the economy for the upcoming day.  Nights make days and it is done by an estimated three million Americans.

   

I’ve never worked a graveyard shift.  I was in sweet dreamland long before the moon rose and red traffic signals glared across the cityscapes with angry fiery eyes like the devil himself.  No one should see creepy shadows run across open fields or lurk at the edges of forest. No one should have to venture into poorly lit alleys or cross a street in the echoes of their own foot steps.  After all, we know the story of Ichabod Crane.  

As a teen I rose early. This might have had something to do with my mom whose trigger finger on a light switch was faster than a bolt of lightening on a golf course. It didn’t matter if it was a 6 am on a school day or a weekend. When the slim thread of light stitched its pattern across the horizon to reveal the green mountains of Vermont it was time to rise and shine. Time to up and at’em. Time to make hay. And at the other end of the day I got between the sheets early too. Even in the summer before the sun sank below the crown of pine on the hill I “hit the hay”.  To go to bed with the chickens.  And chickens never worked the nightshift.

I love the morning. Full of promise.  Long sun rays enrich the landscapes with golden tones first caught on hill tops, then tree crowns and finally open fields. The sounds of crickets and katydids fall silent to the birds’ song that seems to coax the sun into splendor..  In the dips and valleys cooler air settles as if it slept the night away.  There is an anticipation of the morning lingering in the faded shadows of night. Mornings are fresh starts.  They are daily do-overs.

Now I am on nightshift and lost.  My mind and body are confused. It is like having the “sleeping” me on Hawaii Time, but the “waking” me on Eastern.  I wake at ten pm feeling the night, so aware that what is ahead are more hours of darkness.  The crickets’ chirps sound like “sucker, sucker.”  The moths dance in the yellow hues of tungsten. Watching their futile flutter exhausts me. Kamikaze June bugs dive bomb into the side of the guard shack.   The whispered rustling of invisible trees is unsettling.  I feel the burden of summer humidity sink in the low lands – damp and chilled.  There are faint odors of disturbed circumstances: a distant thunderstorm, a nest of skunk, the musky smell of horse and tilled earth on a silent track.

This is where I chose to be.  I traded the fevered excitement of the crowds gathered in the grandstands clutching winning hopes on horses that breezed easily in the soft blue light of dawn two days ago.  Requests to know the whereabouts of the nearest bathroom or ATM have been replaced with friendly “good mornings” exchanged with grooms and exercise riders or semi-polite nods from trainers and owners who flash ID cards with slight annoyance.  The post parade has become a frenzied coordination of horses, bicycles, golf carts, cars, vans and trucks across a busy street.  

And four days on the nightshift and I have not smelled one cheap cigar.  Just one more thing I don’t miss about working days at the Saratoga Race Course.  Wise move.

Whittier

Am I already forgetting? Did I hike the Crow Creek Trail on the same day we also went to Whittier? July 3rd? What a packed day in Alaska!  So let’s recap a bit here, including some photos for those of you who manage to stay off my FaceBook. And new ones for those who are on FaceBook.

I’ve been to Whittier three times before this trip.Twice by train and once by sea. Back in the day the only other way to arrive would have been to fly.  Since 2000, Whittier has been connected to the world by car when the 2.5 mile long train tunnel was resurfaced to accommodate vehicular traffic. The tunnel is a straight shot through the massive mountain that confines Whittier to a narrow seaside strip of land on the west side of the Prince William Sound. This makes the tunnel the longest car-rail tunnel in the US.

Finally someone got the brilliant idea to let cars drive through the tunnel and so autos, buses, campers and even tractor-trailers alternate between westbound and eastbound flows every half hour except when a train is scheduled. Then the traffic cues at the entrances to wait out the train and the clearing of smoke in the tunnel. Easier access makes Whittier a hot spot for tourists who wish to see a town where the entire population lives in one large ex-military bunker that once was the largest building in Alaska. (1940 time frame) I know, weird.  It’s a big building. 

Where everyone lives. One floor use to have a bowling alley. 

  There is a long pedestrian tunnel underneath the train yard that connects the residents with "downtown."  Because everyone lives in one high rise structure few roads need to be plowed in the winter.  Good thing.  Winter doesn't forget Whittier and in the summer it gets over 120 inches of rain.

So, it was rainy when I showed up 39 years after I first came here when I took my scuba certification dive in mid-January. It was 18 degrees on that day. The water was warmer than the air.  The best time to dive in Alaska is January.  Little glacier runoff to muddy the waters.

 

The third time I came to Whittier I rode my bike from Glennallen to Valdez.  Then I jumped a ferry to Whittier where I caught the train back to Alaska. That trip was awesome. 

I am still struck by the uniqueness of the little port that hosts some of the finest halibut fishing. I never expected to return there on this trip but when my friend, Mike, told me the tunnel was open to cars, and he had never been there…well, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to get there.   

We kicked around “town” because if you are not taking a cruise or going fishing there isn’t a whole lot to do. You can rent a kayak and have an ice cream cone, but it was 52 degrees and raining. That had hypothermia written all over it.

On the way back to Anchorage we stopped in Girdwood and drove up to the Crow Creek Trail head.  It was about 3 pm and I never hit the trail in late afternoon. But the sun wasn't setting until almost never, and this hike was the only thing I wanted to do while visiting Alaska.  Thirty-five years ago, on July 4^th I had hiked this very same trail with Mike and his buddy Dan. We hiked on snow.  I wanted to duplicate the hike. I thought hiking in snow in July was just as unique as, well... Whittier. Mike and I duplicated the hike, minus Dan, but we remembered him.

Since Alaska had been experiencing 80 to 100 degree temperatures prior to my arrival, there wasn’t much snow on the trail. We made it to the old abandoned mine, a good climb. Since Mike and I are both photographers it was easy to have the excuse to stop and catch our breaths while snapping the incredible vistas.  Actually, I am in better shape now than I was then. So the trail wasn’t hard. I got my feet into snow. This is all I will say about that.  

 

No bear sightings. However here’s a link to an article posted five days after my hike.

By Chris Klint
Channel 2 News

July 8 2013, 4:58 PM AKDT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Chugach State Park rangers have closed three miles of a trail within the park, after reports of a hiker being charged by a brown bear and a possible moose carcass seen in the area after the weekend incident.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.ktuu.com/news/chugach-state-park-trail-closed-after-bear-charging-incident-070813,0,2129152.story

PS: If you go to Whittier on foot or on bike, you still have to catch a ride or jump the train. 

Like the Mountains

Arrival 5:45 am. After a six hour flight from Honolulu I was back in Alaska after a 35 year absence. Back then I had spent the summer working at Castleton’s Photo Lab. It was a transitional time, the summer when I moved from the back waters of Louisiana to the booming town of Atlanta. I stayed with a friend who also had been in the Army and worked in the same photo lab. 

Even before I got off the plane and walked through the Ted Stevens International Airport I recognized the changes that had occurred in the past years. From the plane’s window on the approach to Anchorage I saw Earthquake Park - full of trees. No longer was the angulated ground caused by the devastating 1964 quake visible for the thick green canopy hid the once broken earth. Afterall, It had only been nine years since that damage occurred.  In the distance I recognized a few building in the Anchorage skyline. Only the Chugach Mountains resting on the eastern horizon seemed unchanged.

This had been the place I grew up. Not in the sense of new born to adulthood. But here I had my first experiences away from home. At eighteen I had joined the Army. Spring of 1973, the end of Viet Nam. After completing basic training and my Advanced Individual Training (AIT) as a Photo Lab Tech my orders came down for Alaska. I was a bit bummed about this for most of my new Army friends were headed to Germany and they ribbed me about my assignment. “Dog sleds and mukluks are standard issue.”   

In the wee hours of the morning I boarded a bus at Ft Lewis to catch a military transport to Ft Richardson/Elmendorf.  I stared beyond my reflection out the window into the darkness at silhouettes of barracks and other undistinguished government buildings on base.  Home sickness overwhelmed me. The most lonely, isolated feeling struck my gut.  I longed for something familiar. I wanted to cry. I wanted to go home.  There was nothing adventurous about this trip. The next two and a half years of my life lay ahead of me. The rest of my life was beginning and I saw nothing but the reflection of a young soldier who was headed north to Alaska all alone.

When the plane landed the pilot announced it was fifteen degrees outside. I thought he said fifty.  I wouldn’t feel that until next summer. One of 30 women on base I was soon making friends and having a good time doing stupid things, things that are curiously all part of growing up. When I left the Army and Alaska, I was married, headed off to college and happy. That Alaska experience wasn’t so bad after all.  

Now I was back. My Army buddy, Mike was still here and so were 200,000 more people added to the town that was approximately 150,000 in the seventies. Dirt roads were now paved. The Glen Highway had additional lanes. The boonies now covered with strip malls. Here was Target, WalMart, Olive Garden and Bed, Bath and Beyond. We crossed North Lights Boulevard. Tudor Ave. C Ave. Nothing was familiar but the names. The bars and strip joints on 4^th Ave were gone.  Some things do change for the better.

As Mike took me around the city I had a faint feeling of a dream. I remembered bits and pieces of that dream, but nothing coherently ran together. It was as jumbled as the city after the ’64 quake.  I was sure I had done this before, been here once upon a time, but everything was different. Like hearing a movie score but not being able to recall the movie. Like smelling a certain fragrance, but not recalling from where. Like tasting a spice but not being able to identify it.  I knew this place and yet I knew little about it.

Except one thing.  I came down the airport concourse and immediately saw Mike, a friend who had kept in touch when keeping in touch was not as easy as a FaceBook post, a Google search, Twitter account or hitting send on an email. A friendship that lasted pretty much unchanged, picked right back up much like it was when we met for the first time in October 1973, forty years ago. Some things change. We might have more wrinkles, less hair, grayer hair, more weight and a few aches and pains of age, but the best things don’t change.  They last like the mountains.