And yet more Ice

 I know, I know way too many posts and pictures of ice skating at Abercrombie.  But the ice is so beautiful and the kids are having so much fun.  The reflections and light, and color that just pops.  I just can't stop taking pictures.

Yesterday we went with their friend Liam and it started with me doing a lot of towing of them in and behind the sled.  But later Stuey and Liam started to tow on their own.  Another crowd of skaters showed up and Liam and Stuey gave their younger children tows.  Squeals of delight above the roar of the plastic sled sliding across the ice.  Patrick

Ice to Ourselves

A Currier and Ives afternoon in the 21rst Century

Yesterday the kids had 'early release' from St Mary's - or, as I call it, 'they got out on parole'.  In any case, no school and a glorious afternoon.  So I took them ice skating on the lake in the park.

We and a lot of other people have been going here a lot and by a couple of days ago the ice was looking a little 'chopped' and covered with hoarfrost. But Thursday's warm temperatures and wind acted like 'nature's Zamboni' and melted and smoothed out the ice surface.  The ice was fantastic!  And best of all we had it entirely to ourselves.

We had brought a sled and I used it to tow the kids around on the ice.  Stuey also gave Nora and I tows.  I think we'll be bringing the sled skating from now on.  Patrick

Go Go Go Stuey Go

Speed - and hey are you watching where you are going?

Nora's pretty heavy there Stuey!

I caught Stuey towing Nora all set up on their own

Nice Ice

The sled tows were a HUGE hit

Ice Ice Baby

Pyramid mountain yesterday afternoon

It's icy up on the mountain, and it does not look like anything is going to change for at least a week.  However, while ice on the mountain is considered 'battle' ski conditions it means great ice skating when it covers a local lake. 

Yesterday Stuey wanted to go ice skating after school.  I was very happy to take him to Abercrombie for a spin around the lake.  His skating is improving by leaps and bounds.  He has basically learned to skate in 3 days.  Patrick

Sunset ice skate with Stuey after school

More Skating

Yesterday we went skating at Abercrombie again.  This time Stuey tried hockey skates but it turned out he prefers the long blade skates instead.  He ended up skating for 4 hours and by the end he was getting pretty good.  Nora improved dramatically as well.

I found a pair of 'garage sale' figure skates in my barn and used them after Stuey took back the long blades.  I was pleasantly surprised to actually like the figure skates.  20 years ago when I last tried figure skates I remember that I was constantly catching the tip and falling down.  But I think that since I have been using the long blades so much that I am used to not 'dragging the tip'. I no longer catch the tips anyway.

What I really like about the figure skates is that they are FAST.  I like the long, non-rockered blade.  With hockey skates the skate always wants to turn - not so with the figure skates.  It is easy to ride each blade for a long ways - they are much more like my 'long blades' than like hockey skates.  I think they are my new ice skates!

Patrick

Black ice

Stuey used my 'long blade' skate that fit with nordic ski boots

Yesterday I took the kids to Lake Gertrude at Fort Abercrombie State Park to go ice skating.  I think it is the first time in 3 years that the lake there has frozen solid enough for skating.  The ice is well over 6 inches thick.  I do know that I had not gone skating in so long that I could not find my ice skates.  A big group of us met at the lake and shared skates and gear.  There was hot cocoa and soup.  An ice skating picnic. 

Around town the ice seems to be good everywhere, and yet I have seen practically nobody out ice skating.  And even at Fort Abercrombie the common refrain from people seeing us out skating was that we were crazy to go out on such 'thin ice'. When I first moved to Kodiak in the 1990s ice skating  parties were pretty common, and with such good conditions every lake would have had a crowd of ice skaters. I think the skating rink and years of no ice have had their effect.  People just don't think of ice skating outside as an entertainment option anymore.

But maybe today there will be more people out there.  Perfectly smooth black ice and screams of entertained kids is its own advertisement.  Patrick

I borrowed some figure skates!

Nora in the background fit into her mom's old skates!

New Year's Bonfire

Last night I attended a New Year's Eve bonfire, and it got exciting a little before midnight when some fireworks landed in a dead spruce tree and lit it on fire!  Wow was that exciting.  Jeremy raced up the tree and knocked the burning moss to the ground where another New year's reveler put out everything with a chemical fire extinguisher.  I felt like I was getting gassed in a WWI trench, but was happy someone had thought to really make sure the fire went out.  I was also super impressed with how quickly Jeremy got up that tree!

The ironic thing is that I drove home and there was a burning firework in the spruce trees by my house.  I was thinking, 'oh no - no way I can climb that spruce tree'.  I watched it for a while and it eventually went out and the tree did not ignite.  I gather it was spectacular enough that people even noticed the flames in the tree from the beach.

Happy New Year's - here's to 2017!

Patrick

Fire on the branch!

Getting ready to knock the moss off the branch

Gassed!

Rule of the Pack

The family dog pack - they know without question where they are happiest

When I was in my 20's and 30's I wanted to remain single forever.  I wanted to ski, travel, and never to be stuck on a fixed schedule.  I wanted to be Peter Pan - an individual forever young and free.  But then the option arose - did I also want the benefits of marriage?  I chose to sacrifice individual freedom to create a family.  And so the pack was born.

Once married I took it seriously.  The family pack was my new identity - 'through sickness, and in health, till death do us part'.  I made individual sacrifices to keep the pack together.

I've been thinking about the role of the individual versus the good of the group a lot lately because in the end the marriage did fail. What is the role of individual the within a group?  Are we like ants in a colony or more like great white sharks roaming the ocean as individuals?

In biology class I learned about biological fitness and that natural selection acts on the individual.  It is the individual who passes on his/her genes through their offspring.  And yet an individual benefits as a member of a group.  He/she is more likely to reproduce as a member of a group. And it is important to add here that my marriage did not fail biologically - I do have 2 wonderful children.

Humans evolved as pack animals.  For millions of years our ancestors wandered across the landscape as a pack in search of food.  In that world an individual human on their own did not stand a chance - he/she would not survive to maturity and pass on their genes.  The individual had to be a member of a pack to survive.  The pack took care of you when you were sick or injured, protected the gravid females and infants, and most importantly acted as a store of knowledge on exactly how to survive in a particular landscape.  Another word for this 'store of knowledge' is culture.

Life as an individual within a pack was not always pretty.  Genetic evidence suggests that incest was rampant in the Pleistocene. Beatings were a fact of life. Yet there was no choice but to remain within the pack.

It is only in the last 10,000 years that humans have begun to have viable choices as individuals.  And really only very recently - in the last 250 years or so, as members of industrial societies, that some humans have begun to view themselves more as an individual than as a member of a group (Vive Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!).  And even today all around the world the vast majority of humans still view their status within a group or family as more important than their individuality.

Of course in 21rst century America the individual reigns supreme.  Life has become all about personal choices and achieving personal happiness.  We see this as a human right (what ever happened to Fraternite?).  Everybody uses social media to show everybody else what they are up to as individuals. What no one seems to realize is that this is a very weird and completely new concept, and I am not even sure if it is leading individuals to greater personal happiness.  I think that as Americans we have sacrificed the good of the group for that of the individual.

So to get back to where I started in this essay - on marriage.  Is the marital bond even the same as a tribal bond?  There is a difference, but I would argue that there is still the same dynamic between the role of the individual versus the good of the group.  On the one hand what does it mean to be 'selfish', and, on the other what does it mean to sacrifice your individuality to that of the group?  And is there a happy medium? Is there an obligation to support the pack?

I would argue that as a member of a group or family you are forced to make sacrifices that absolutely effect your personal happiness.  And yet, as a member of a group or family you tend to be more happy over the longer haul.  There may not be the individual highs, but neither are there the individual lows.  When times are hard the pack takes care of its own. And just to be a member of a group confers a subtle sense of pride - a sense of 'being' that all on its own brings a feeling of individual satisfaction and, dare I say it, happiness.

So where does happiness lie? Is it better to totally subsume your individuality and live like an ant within a colony?  After all, they do say that ignorance is bliss.  Or are we better off as an individual swimming like a shark through the ocean?

I really do not know the exact answer to this question. I do know that sometimes it is hard to sacrifice some happiness for the good of the pack. But I also know that I am better off making such sacrifices because a happier group means happier individuals within that group, and over the long haul a happier me.

Clearly someone is better off leaving a relationship if they are getting abused, and more freedom can mean a happier individual.  And yet, I believe that we as Americans are not making enough personal sacrifices for the good of our families and communities. Rather than concentrating on short term personal needs perhaps we should be persevering and making longer term sacrifices for the good of the pack.

Patrick