Vern

There’s a Man here, his name is Vern. I know he’s a Man because that’s what comprises him.  Man, and only man is what Vern is.  I want to tell you about Vern.  Vern is a 62 years old he is 5’9” and roughly 145 lbs of bear, moose, and salmon meat. 
I am going to a Ham radio festival with Vern.  The grizzle bear claws around his neck rattle with excitement as he tells of Alaska, his home. He is a trapper he built his cabin 10 miles up the Yukon river from Fort Yukon, a small athabaskan village above the arctic circle.  Vern has killed 26 bears since completing his 16-40ft cabin a mere 15 years ago.

"Tongue and grooved the whole thing by hand” he says.

There are no roads to the 40 acres spruce forest from which Vern’s cabin is cut.  Vern has left his cabin for the first time in 15 years to visit Hawaii and escape the cold.   Since turning 62 his income has more than tripled.  He now collects a social security.  He is humble and eager to learn about anything.    I notice his back, it seems to large for his body.  How far he must have dragged his trappings. At 62 years of age he has never learned to swim, but his shoulders put any surfer on the big island to shame.  

He is remarkably approachable for someone who hasn’t left his cabin in 15 years. 

"182 days, longest I’ve ever been without seeing anyone” he exclaims.

182 days in the dark trapped up the Yukon River by the spring breakup.  

Vern is explaining to me what he calls 'The Fire Dragon' a chines effort to block citizens with long range Ham radios from hearing specific channels deemed “inappropriate" by the government.  There is no way to block a frequency, so the Chinese government bombards the channels with traditional Chinese music.

His bright green eyes shine through his weathered face as he explains why mores code is still very much a living language, a constant reminder that he is engaged, living moment by moment.  Less than a hundred wispy hairs dance on atop his head as the story comes full circle 

“And that wasn’t the last time I had to shoot a bear off my porch.”

His green felt hat rests on the back of his neck atop the tattered leather bomber jacket that seems to be held together by only a few remaining threads.  He puffs his cigar and smiles.

Chapter 2: Dinosaurs

    
  Well it’s been about a month and it is just beginning to feel like home here.  Strange how quickly we accept new realities isn’t it?  

In some senses I feel that my world has become considerably smaller, it is an island after all.  I can drive clear to the other side in 2 hrs however I have still not scratched the surface of the exhaustive adventure options.  But more overwhelming than that I feel that I have stepped back in time.  Not far just only about 20 years.  It’s hard not to feel like a child here. The obstacles are so concrete.  "there’s a wave; I need to ride that, there’s a mountain; I need to climb that.”  There is a peace that comes with the simplicity of a physical challenges.  Not in the sense that they are easy tasks but rather that they require all of ones attention.  It’s me and a board vs. the ocean, my mind has no room for anything else.   

      At the same time I spend a considerable amount of my time pensively pondering the self-important “why’s" of the world.  I spend a lot of time looking at the night sky.  It’s is indescribable here, you simply must to see it.  To give you some perspective we are at 19 degrees north of the equator as such we are able to see 100% of the stars in the Northern Hemisphere and 80% of the stars in the lower hemisphere, we are above 40% of atmosphere so the stars literally don’t even twinkle.  I often find myself visiting the Nasa and Keck headquarters in Hilo just to stare at the photos of the Universe.  The Milky Way galaxy is home to 100 billion stars.  Keck just found that each one of those stars on average has from 1 to 10 planets orbiting it.  25% of those planets are earth-like planets… 25,000,000,000 earths… in the MilkyWay… there are roughly 100 billion galaxies.. we are not alone.  It is a struggle to wrap my mind around the implications but it is a wonderful place in thought.  

      There is a certain point at which the intensity of thought becomes overwhelming and I must clear my head so I go to the Keiki pool (Hawaiian for child), a shallow man made tidal pool, to swim laps and let my mind wonder and eventually settle. 

I swim along undisturbed for a time looking at the ocean floor and the micro-colenies on each tiny reef and then BAM DINOSAUR! Six inches from my face there is a giant prehistoric reptilian head.  I curse harshly underwater reeling furiously.  I have almost run head long into a hundred year old sea turtle.  I stand in the shallow water my heart racing.  Looking down at the altogether apathetic creature who only alters its course slightly to avoid my knees, I wonder if it would have taken noticed if I had run into it.  The smell of teriyaki and sound of children playing come wafting through the air to bring me back to the present.  

      "Children" now there’s a thought, I’d like some of those one day, and wouldn’t this be the best place to raise them..  But for now I should find food. It’s lunch time..

Chapter 1: Altitude Sickness

So I guess this is it, the part where I just suffer.  Needlessly, hopelessly, suffering for no reason other than a decision I made not to pick up pain medication.  A situation I will never find myself in again if I can help it.  I have tried tea, yoga, two hot showers, cold rags, hot rags, I even brought my thermarest into the shower to try and sleep on the undoubtable diseased  shower floor of room 1A in Arrnott’s Lodge, nothing has worked.  So now here I sit, 2:51 in the morning five more hrs before the relief of morning cursing my decisions.  Not two days ago I was in the pharmacy isle of Walmart staring my would be relief right in the face and the thought came; “I’ll get it next time when I have a paycheck.”  curses..  I whence in pain as my eyes begin to tear and then it comes; the question, "what am I doing?"   It has become a slogan, often pair with “and why am I bleeding?”  Two questions that seem to be a constant wherever I go. 

      The answer: I am reeling from the searing pain of a migraine that comes from sever altitude sickness.  The type of altitude sickness that only comes from ascending 14,000 vertical feet from sea level to the top of Muana Kea, a dormant volcano on the big island of Hawaii, only to turn around at the top after a mere 30 minutes and ride the treacherous dirt road back down again.  For a week I have been at this, training for constellation tours for the aforementioned youth hostel.  To tell the story of how I ended up here would take quite some time but the draw of the island is undeniable and for good reason.  So much is happening here, everything is new, seconds old in some spaces, 22 miles from my lodge sits Puna on the brink of disaster, any day now the lava flows will cross the road and cut Puna off from civilization houses have already burned and I am hearing the stories first hand and second hand.  The president has declared a state of emergency and deployed the national guard. And amidst it all  here I sit, weeping on the bathroom floor in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I hug the toilet as the nausea sets in.  

I am spent, I am fetal, but this new struggle is home and I am honored.