HEATHER LENDE
The other night just about everyone was home for dinner -- the two teenage girls, my married daughter and her husband, and my oldest daughter (our son is in college in Colorado but should be home today for the summer).
HEATHER LENDE
HAINES -- The theme of my life lately is that the best days are those with the most complications -- like Tuesday, when I was supposed to write an obituary in time for our weekly paper's deadline.
AROUND ALASKA
HAINES -- Snow in April is discouraging but not unusual. The surprise is that the town is full of visitors who want more of it.
HEATHER LENDE
New citizens find the beautiful in America
HAINES -- For one day, I pretended to be a jet-setter and flew to Juneau and back for a party.
HEATHER LENDE
Hope and mercury are on the rise
HAINES -- The day of the first Democratic caucus ever held in Haines, or at least the first one that Tlingit elder and caucus official Barbara Lewis, who has connections to this place back before there were Democrats or Republicans, can remember, it was about zero with a northerly gale steaming off nine-foot swells on Lynn Canal. It'd been freezing for weeks.
HEATHER LENDE
HAINES -- I have been writing my Christmas cards -- or, I should say, New Year's cards -- a little late, but I figure better late than never.
HEATHER LENDE
Back home with a gift of friendship
HAINES -- After a week in Los Angeles, I finally got the tune "If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway without getting killed or caught ..." out of my head -- once I was safely home. Technically, I wasn't home yet, but I was on the famil
HEATHER LENDE
There's comfort in being prepared
There's no snow on the ground in town yet, but I'm ready for it. There's firewood in the shed and meat in the freezer. I don't live in the wilderness, but I'm surrounded by enough of it that I like to keep my place in order.
HEATHER LENDE
This letter didn't make deadline
HAINES -- The last time I saw former Haines Mayor Frank Wallace was this summer. It must have been around the Fourth of July. It could've even been at the parade. He could've been driving his red 1952 Chevy pickup with the flag waving on the ant
HEATHER LENDE
HAINES -- I think I know what the poet meant when he wrote, "So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens."
HEATHER LENDE
Busted but not hunting for excuses
One of my friends says that to be a real Alaskan, you have to commit at least one crime (preferably with a firearm) and be canned from at least one job (preferably while singing "Take this job and shove it./ I ain"t workin" here no more
HEATHER LENDE
Life's course winds through sunshine and shadows
HAINES -- One of my favorite columnists was Dr. George Sheehan. The cardiologist and marathoner wrote about running with such passion that critics accused him of turning the sport into a religion. He responded, "Running isn
HEATHER LENDE
Eldred Rock Lighthouse a source of ferry tales
HAINES -- Cruising up Lynn Canal on the ferry from Juneau on Sunday morning, we passed the Eldred Rock Lighthouse. The handsome white and red octagonal lighthouse on a tiny island 30 miles from Haines was activated in 1906 and is the oldest original light
HEATHER LENDE
Hunting for moose but finding home
HAINES -- I went moose hunting Sunday, and please don't tell my husband this, but it wouldn't have been the same at all if we had actually shot a moose.
HEATHER LENDE
'Gunalcheesh' -- Tlingit for 'thank you' -- says volumes
By the time I was handed the thermal blanket, I was out of room on the table, my lap and the floor for any more gifts. I already had a bag of fruit and cans of Vienna sausages, pork and beans, fruit cocktail and corn.
HEATHER LENDE
Slow voyage to fast race enlightening
HAINES -- I am a little sore from the second high school cross-country meet of the season. I could also use a nap. I didn't run in the 5-kilometer race on Saturday. I'm a coach, and my workout was herding 17 teenagers from Haines to Wrangell and
HEATHER LENDE
Inspirational adults, motivated children
HAINES -- Nineteen years ago, I took my first child to kindergarten. On that late-August morning, I was thankful that my daughter already knew Teacher Nancy and Teacher Sandy. (That's how they introduced themselves, and is what the youngest students
HEATHER LENDE
Pickin' and jammin' are such sweet labor
HAINES -- This is the season when there are piles of freshly split firewood in driveways, when pressure canners full of salmon are hissing on stoves and jam jars are cooling on counters.
HEATHER LENDE
Townsfolk wide-eyed over $18 million school
Sometimes things really do work out. Sometimes we use our collective talent and money to do great things, like build new public schools. Sometimes we even manage to build them on time and under budget and make sure that they look like a million bucks -- o
HEATHER LENDE
Filmmaker speaks to animals -- and tourists
HAINES -- When my neighbor said a brown bear had been eating her strawberries, my dad, who was visiting from New York, lit up. "A bear? Right across the road?" Then she said it was gone.
HEATHER LENDE
Wedding day fancy, plain and perfect
HAINES -- There is still a flower pot in my driveway with a sign stuck in it that says "wedding this way" and another sign on the back door that says to stay out of the house because the bride is dressing, which didn't really work, since ab
SLIDE SHOW
LaDonna Russell, who suffers from dementia, participates in the "Museum Memories" art therapy program.
CONTEST
Enter a teen with talent in music, dance, theater, or visual arts and they could win a Nintendo DS Lite or iPod.
Aggravated, reassured by crows
Good marriages need sturdy foundations
Tugboat Lucy gives lessons in boating, fear
Karmic soil holds seeds of change
Sounds of spring melt away snow, dark memories
Kids may be on track to saving world
Eating locally may require violence
A command performance for parents
Quirky town needs special schools chief
Learning about dying and living
A 'force' that won't be forgotten
Student failure tests schools, communities
A wedding and a ballot question
Marching for peace was worth the worry
What's in a name? Social insecurity
The pleasures of horrendous weather
Roses grab attention in isolated town
Wacky winter celebration animates a fishing town
Sled dogs power a ride to remember
Soothing words ease rough times
Save a cheer for school cheerleaders
Snow bridges gap between generations
Holiday flu provides chance for reflection and release
Family is the reason for the season
Finding calm amid season's commotion
New governor needs a few first ladies
Women fret at home while men hunt for fun
Frigid Thanksgiving tale doesn't need exaggeration
Wanted: Music Men who make kids yearn to learn
Let 'Andy' decide who is odd and who isn't
Airport security rouses urge to question authority