How ironic that I found this while doing some “computer ‘housekeeping'”
I wrote this Oct 28, 2011, but it got lost.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As one dismantles a home, emptying closets, bringing boxes down from the attic, finding the things stored behind the books in the bookshelves, one often finds surprises.
Oh, THERE is the other sock, or the High School Year Book. There are some mysteries. What in the world is that? All sorts of varied experiences.
We have done this several times, including Janet’s folks home in 2004. Helping my mom move to a Senior Apartment, Independent Living complex a year ago. Emptying and selling her home of 13 years last Summer, and now disposing of the last items from that apartment.
There have been may memorable moments, but a few days ago, while we were putting books on eBay, we ran across an inscription in a book about King Island. given to my dad by a friend of his, the anthropologist Sergei Bogojavlensky, who got his PhD at Harvard and later was at Yale, and University of Alaska Anchorage but I have lost track of him.
The Frank Ellana mentioned was one of many close Eskimo friends of John’s from King Island, AK. (I appreciate that Inuit is more common now, but I was told that that was the eastern term. That many Eskimo/Inuit people in Alaska much prefer Eskimo and I have so much respect for this amazing group, that I will happily call them anything they want me to. Just tell me what you want.)
Back in the 1960s Alaskan Airlines had a group of King Islanders that did demonstrations of traditional King Island dancing. They often came through Seattle because it was the “Gateway to Alaska”. As I mention elsewhere, they were among the first Eskimos that my dad had met and he asked them thousands of questions over many years. They were among the last to live in the older ways. Among the last who’s lives depended on kayaks, how and why they were built the way they were, and so on. Canneries, diesel powered fishing boats, etc were taking over.
This is my favorite recent ‘discovery’ as we go through these Time Capsules. The inscription reads like this:
>>>>>>>
2/4/94
For John Heath with admiration.
(According to Frank Ellana, the only “naluaRmiu” (white man) who knows anything about kayaks.)
Sergei Bogojavlensky
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It makes me very happy to find this quote. Thanks Sergei.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
28 Jan 2015
I am working on some photos that I can post soon.
Dave & Robn
Alegria1976's Blog 