Plenty for Everyone
Dip-Netting For Sockeye Draws
Crowds in the Thousands

Creative Juices Are Flowing
Authors Are Popping Up Like
Toadstools in a Meadow

   I just received a new publication of a memoir from Bob Borden, an old friend from high school and currently retired and domiciled in Kalispell, Montana.  This epistle called "Ya Cant Eat the View" consists of 400 some pages of experiences he and his wife Mary Lou have endured along with their hunting and fishing experiences and the tribulations of raising five kids.  I have gotten through about half of this great read so far and have remarked to myself that the publishing bug must be in the air for this is not the first of our friends who have turned scribes.
   At last count, we have two other of our friends who originated  somewhere back in the 30's and have decided to either memorialize their life experiences or contribute to the current crop of fiction efforts. 
   Bob and Toni Michel retired a few years ago from the Alaska State Troopers and moved back to Pennsylvania where he could spend some time with his twin brother and ultimately became a tour guide at Gettysburg.  Bob just this year published his work of fiction in the Vampire genre called  Feratu.  Bob was working on this manuscript when we used to get together on weekends and bored our wives to distraction while we critiqued each other with our deathless prose, enhanced somewhat by the subtlety of Courvoisier Brandy.  Bob has gone the merchandising route with his book and it is currently available in bookstores and Amazon is coming. 
   John Cogan, an old fishing partner from about twenty years ago and a retired Seattle attorney, has contributed  a rather cerebral work dealing with an extensive research project that he embarked upon gathering evidence of a gigantic cataclysm by an errant meteor that landed in the Yucatan some 15,000 years ago.  I believe that this theory has since been ratified by other research.  But John was first with his "New Order of Man's History."   
   And, of course, McKay has done his part in this revolution of latter-day literati with my memoir "Life In the Crass Lane" and our recent diary of our Alaska sojourn called "Footloose in Alaska."
   In each of these cases, there are some similarities.  They are each published and available and in all cases we have finally gotten around to writing at a latter stage of our lives, which is when we have been retired and have the time to dedicate the time necessary to be creative.  And curiously enough, after talking with each of these guys, we can count on all of them to be forthcoming with some more creations. So please stand by.     
   

   With a Sockeye Salmon run numbering  over 5 million fish in the Upper Cook Inlet section of Alaska, the state residents with strong backs and arms are sharing in the harvest.  About 95% of the harvest goes to the commercial fishermen manning beach set-nets and boats with drift nets, allowing the private fishermen the opportunity to take home a fairly healthy number of fish for the family larders.  Each resident is allowed 25 fish and the other members of the family are allowed 10 each.  This amounts to about 250,000 sockeye salmon caught by this method and the estimate of the number of dippers participating to be about 20,000.  This contributes to a carnival atmosphere at the mouth of the Kenai River where they all congregate. 
   The City of Kenai has set up a fee schedule and this small license fee is used to pay for the cleanup of the beaches and a multitude of port-a-potties and dumpsters.  This has contributed to a sizeable impetus to the economy of this little burg (pop. 5000) and has helped countless state residents with their annual food budget, a not unwelcome phenomena in these troubled times.  The sport fishermen (hook and line) take a large number as well and is estimated at around 100,000 fish.  Not every year is a bumper year, but 2010 is one that will be remembered with fond memories.