Time For Another Foray Into Various & Sundry

My blog posts don't have to be so very meaningful and relevant, do they?  Hip?  Or evocative, informative or thought-provoking, necessarily, either, right?  Can they just be pretty?  Because that's what I like.  Not vacuous, really.  Maybe a little unusual wouldn't hurt. 

But whatever.  I just like to look at stuff, sometimes, and I always prefer showing it to keeping it to myself. 

Hat pins.  Not to mention the hat, itself. 

 

Last night--and yes it was night even though a big sunhat was a good thing wear--I joined a tour of the Alaska Memorial cemetery.  I like history.  Neither the hat nor the following markers were designations on the tour, but I found them to be worth my spending time taking pictures of and making up stories in my head about them. 

For several reasons, this one gave me pause, not the least of which is this young man's name.  Elliot is his first name, but further down in the narrative, he is referred to by his middle name, "Joy." I'm used to that being a rather common girl's name.  Simply on the evidence of this name, I can really believe that he was indeed "beloved by parents."   You would only a name a boy "Joy" if you really meant it, right?

I looked up a few things about this young man and I think I will do some more research, maybe read a book that tells about the Cache Creek murders, which, from what I can tell so far, are as yet unsolved, but revolve around GOLD! 


I was impressed by this simple statement, too, on Mr. Wells' headstone.  Just that.  He loved Alaska.
Foremost.

This one below was the only wooden marker I saw at the cemetery.  It was very humble and rustic.  That's a pharmacist's emblem in the corner, isn't it?  A while after I took these pictures a man on the tour asked me if I knew this family.  He thought I might because why else would I be standing there taking the picture?  He said he was trying to get in touch with the family but was unable to reach them.  They live in the Valley.  I could have asked him questions to make this story more interesting, like was he from out of town and just hoping to meet with some old friends or had he been trying for a very long time.  

"Dad."  Dad was born, died and got buried.  That's all we know.  

Except that he must have had at least one offspring who called him "Dad" and he was a "Pioneer of Alaska."

These are lights in the Performing Arts Center in Anchorage.

 I think this next picture is left over from my trip to Dutch Harbor.  I have taken so many pictures of sea-worthy vessels I can barely keep track.

Here are some pictures from my second favorite neighborhood in Anchorage, my first being downtown where I used to live, although, technically, I think this is also considered "downtown," as well, but it's more residential.

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be an ungulate, but doesn't it look kind of like an insect?  A mosquito, perhaps?  Which reminds me, as if I need to be reminded, it's mosquito season here now.  BIG suckers.  Big ones, I say.  And prolific.  I heard weird little noises while on the cemetery tour and no it wasn't ghosts.  It was those gol-darn skeeters sniggering at the bountiful banquet laid out for them, of which I was a part, naturally.  Oooh, they were happy!