Hi there! I am Don Martin, occasionally but not regularly a serious person. I am in the midst of writing an ebook, A Tour of Duty, based loosely on a photo album I kept during 1957 while climbing telephone poles in Alaska and elsewhere for the U.S. Army. Usually the poles were thicker and wooden: the support pipe at the right was about the only recreational equipment the Tok bachelor's quarters had to offer¹. Before getting the Army job, I had spent 4 years in a print shop (the Silverdale Breeze of Silverdale, Washington); after my discharge I majored in English literature, and at present I work as a writer/editor for the VA², so I am used to putting words on paper. The photo album contained words as well as pictures, both, at times, pretty dreadful, but I got better. The book was lost to me for 35 years, only coming back in the fall of '05, and this present work started as a way to leave a piece of my past to the grandkids. I scanned the fading, reddening photos and tried to restore them to some semblance of their original selves with PhotoShop, and since there was also text, I strung everything together in HTML so it could be passed on via CDs. As I went along, the book began to take on a life of its own: I defy anyone to look at pictures of himself half a century ago without their prompting memories, reflections, sordid admissions, and all sorts of vanished schemes to spring from his teeming brain (I trust, Gentle Reader, that thy brain teems, too³). The project has grown to the point that I cannot see any other format than electronic for it: afterthoughts, sidebars, sidebars to the sidebars, essays on the draft, etc., all live in a nexus of hyperlinks and would be infuriating on paper. I am hoping to have the whole sprawl ready to ooze out the door by the fall of 2007; meanwhile, a sample or three here should let you know whether you are interested in waiting for it.

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Some Links

One of the delights of research is the discovery of people and places one never would have found otherwise. Considering that my first Alaska outfit, 505th Signal Company, was decommissioned in 1958 (the ebook has a sidebar on that decommissioning), I never expected to find it had a website http://groups.msn.com/AlaskaComm505thSigReunion/, much less one run by a guy I crewed with a lot, Jim Hensley. The ACS itself also has a web presence: http://groups.msn.com/AlaskaAcsVets/shoebox.msnw. Both of these sites seem to be devoted to much older people than I can remember working with, but some of the names are the same. Many pictures of the "old days" can be found on each site.

Another site devoted to military experiences in Alaska is the Aleutians, begun by George Smith who was on the islands in the 70s and happened to discover a trove of photographs dating back to WWII. To this are added the albums of a number of other people. I had not even begun to explore this one when the site vanished. I am sorry for the loss.

The excursion into Canada in 1957 was along what is quite possibly the most scenic railroad in the world, The White Pass & Yukon Route. It was built from Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory during the Klondike gold rush, and is still alive, kicking, and on the internet at http://www.wpyr.com. For a great source of images as it (and the gold rush) was in the old days, the Yukon Archives Images Database http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/digitization/public/search_subjects.php would be hard to beat.

For a broader view of cold, an interesting site, Explore North, http://www.explorenorth.com/index.html covers 360° of longitude at high latitudes.

After the decommissioning of the 505th, I ended up in Tok, Alaska, a place I have always felt to be my home town in the north. How can you fall in love with a place the sole claim to fame of which is the fact that the highway south to Anchorage meets the Alcan Highway there? That question is perhaps best answered by Donna Blasor-Bernhardt who spent her first winter in Tok (with temperatures down to -70°F) in a tent, cutting (and burning) a cord of wood a day to do so (even the Chamber of Commerce proclaims the place "The coldest inhabited community on the North American Continent"). She now has a bed and breakfast and a website: http://www.alaska-wintercabin.com/index.html. Ms Blasor-Bernhardt is a writer and photographer, Poet Laureate of Tok and the Alcan, and contributor to papers and journals. Her site shows you how lovable the place can be.

And speaking of Tok, my favorite thing to do with books I no longer need is send them to the library there. It was going 50 years ago and is still in business, receiving a magnificent ~$6000 per year from the state by way of budget and running entirely through the efforts of volunteers. Obviously, they cannot afford to buy books at that rate, but thrive on donations. Books and DVDs in good condition may be sent to Tok Community Library, Box 227, Tok, AK 99780-0227. Duplicates will be traded with other community libraries, sold, or given to patrons.

It's ______ o'clock: do you know what your favorite volcano is up to? Click on the Mount St. Helens Volcano Cam to find out. Even at night, there may be something to see--but not when its foggy.

The Showtine Singers is the chorus I sing with, usually to people in retirement homes in Maryland. I am learning a lot here, including songs I was too much of a snob to listen to when they were hits (they are more fun to sing, anyway). I have sung in musicals, and now I am discovering how very much easier a solo act is than cooperation.

And if you like really old music, you might try Cylinder of the Month, where you can audition such greats as the Edison Symphony Orchestra whooping it up as the Spanish-American War impends. Considering that the microphone was yet to be invented, you are hearing the actual vibrations of their voices and instruments physically carving the groove.

If you have never encountered Edward Tufte, you have a treat coming. The man is a student of data presentation and will make you a disbeliever in PowerPoint presentations that you formerly only found dreadfully boring.

Another interest of mine is wood carving, for which one does well to have really good chisels. The best source I have found for these and a myriad of other woodworking, gardening, and cooking tools and hardware is Lee Valley Tools. They not only carry the best, they design and manufacture new devices for special applications. They are not, incidentally, paying me to say this. I expect that any of their customers would say the same.

It bills itself as "A Directory of Wonderful Things," and it certainly seems to cover the weird with energy and gusto. I found Boingboing while searching for illustrations for a sidebar on tattoos. I expect one could stumble into it looking for all sorts of thngs, but it seems well worth plain browsing for its own sake.

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¹1958: Martin meditates aloft while Don Wing (now two sorts of engineer and an attorney) climbs the wall behind. (Photo by Dick Nyhus, an Old Salt now, but then a carrier specialist.)

²My retirement plan is to drop dead at the keyboard. In the United Kingdom, the phrase "died on the job" has much racier connotations than it does in the U.S., but I'll settle for our paler version: it beats by a mile gasping one's last in a retirement home. Dying on the job in the U.K. beats it by five miles, but it is best not to set one's hopes too high.

³If thy brain teems not, thou shalt probably not remain my Gentle Reader very long.