HAINES -- There is so much to do in Haines that it is hard to choose, especially when the sun comes out and a head cold moves in. I should have been in bed, but I took a gentle ski under the bright blue sky at the golf course. After a nap, I went to the high school boys' basketball game. I missed the fourth grade's pancake breakfast, but I did attend the Arts Council's Northern Lights Showcase, an all-star night of local talent.
I have heard, and have no reason to believe it is not true, that Haines has more artists per capita than any town in America. If this evening is any indication, the Haines Borough is among the largest employers of artsy types, with the lounge-singing borough clerk Julie Cozzi; poet Pizza Joe, the assistant harbormaster; and pianist and borough project coordinator Debra Schnabel, who played a lovely Beethoven duet with the violinist Dr. Charlotte from the clinic, all on the program.
The news director from KHNS was on the bill too, playing Neil Young songs on the autoharp and trombone. And my neighbor Sylvia sang ancient Italian songs and played her bassoon.
Other highlights (there were no lowlights) of the evening were Pizza Joe's pithy and unexpectedly moving poems. One was about "all the stuff you need" until you die and don't need anything, and another included the verse, "I really, really love you, but I'd like to adjust you a little bit."
Mime Vaughn Avery talked about "San Francisco back in the '70s," and how important what he called "the habit" of practicing art is. Then he dazzled with his juggling and made the children (and grown-ups) laugh when he became a human cartoon, puffing up his chest like Superman, and then, somehow, making it fall into a belly as round as a basketball. I am so grateful that the police chief didn't shoot him that time Vaughn temporarily lost his mind and brandished a terrible sword. It is nice to know that when you have a gun you don't always use it. It is also nice to know that Vaughn is still making us smile.
Tony Tengs, a native son who lives in Juneau now, closed the show with a song he wrote for his mother, Helen.
I wasn't sure Tony would be performing, because on Saturday afternoon, on the way to ski with my daughter, there was an ambulance call at the Bamboo Room and Pioneer Bar, which the Tengs family has owned for decades. Now Tony's sister Christy and her husband own it. My daughter is on the ambulance crew, so when her pager went off we detoured to the scene. While Eliza never tells who the calls are for, everyone on the block knew an 82-year-old in the apartment above the Bamboo had to be Helen, since she lives there. (Tony was visiting for the weekend.)
Last week I wrote an obituary for one of Christy's former waitresses. Christy said she had fired her "about five times" but that she was a great person. Christy also said the Bamboo staff was like "one big dysfunctional family."
Really, all of Haines could be described that way. We know each well enough to know our flaws, and well enough not to mind them. (Well, most of the time.) Clyde Bell came out of his store and lit a cigarette while we both squinted in the sunshine across the snow-packed road at the idling ambulance. "I hope the old gal's all right," Clyde said. He had just lost his mother, Jane, and so I asked a few questions about the obituary that I had to do for this week's paper. Clyde said he planned on writing a book about her. I believe he will. Jane Bell was one the few Haines residents who was ever on TV. She won some money on "The Price Is Right." Anyway, turns out Helen was fine. It was just a dizzy spell. She was able to hear Tony sing the next evening.
Before Tony performed he said he had brand-new guitar strings. They broke after the store was closed, so Tony called Clyde at home and Clyde opened his place just for Tony. "You can't do that in Juneau," Tony said. Then he played a sweet song about his mother teaching him to love music and how to sing. Helen held her hands up to her lips and looked so pleased she might cry. Those of us who don't have mothers anymore did cry, those who are mothers vowed to sing more, those who might be mothers someday silently pledged to encourage those dream babies to make all the music they can, and those who will never be mothers thought about teaching someone else's child to love music. That's the way this small town, and the world, goes 'round.
Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com
HEATHER LENDE
AROUND ALASKA