Old men and restored guns.

Top of the morning gents,

I sure enjoy chatting with older gentlemen. I try to get into the minds of old Vietnam Vets, and even real old Korean War vets. Some of my classmates served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Desert Storm and conflict theaters best described as off the books odd-jobs. I'm not diminishing our younger soldiers' stories over bourbon, beer, coffee and bong hits, I just don't have younger grunts, jar heads nor cannon fodder bullet dumps living close by.

Meaning living here in the Senior Centers popping up all over the Old Farts Borough (Kenai Crispy Biddies Peninsula). When you punks grow up you'll likely move down here and find "it's nice to be surrounded by a bunch of fucking fossils" (David Bowie). Another aspect of senior center living is no family can camp on yer sofa, so tell yer retarded nate-quart nigras that they gotta find their own lodging. Growing up is sweet punishment for kids that won't work, pay their own bills and insist on sucking on their dads' titties. As posted before, the stories I rewrite from my old fart comrades, evaporate into thin air as fast as my cellmates, hall mates and dorm mates become transparent, then fade away to non-existence. Like all of us, dirt is calling, these old fuckers are dying faster'n shit.

At the Sterling Senior Center, I moved in at the the minimum age of 55 to get my foot in the door, get adjusted to Boomer living and get an inside peek at independent living versus assisted living and rest home care. Don't ever listen to assholes and bitches that won't accept the fact that they are aging, farting dust and shooting blanks. We're all getting older at the same rate: one day at a time. It's what we achieve that counts, and then our seeds dry up and we die. I fucking hate vain cunt bait that think we can't see their dried up fly traps, sagging bellies and titties that scare children. I'm talking about both men and women.

Our ho from Idaho, divorced mother of gimplets and retards, Sara Palin will be 59 years old this summer and she's had all the treatments money can buy. She no longer has that cute/pretty look to her. Her battle with sag has given her fish lips and trout pout, goofy eyes and more make-up than a leaking old diesel engine: shit ain't working. Her true hair color would terrify the shit out of the witches still trying to pull out Octuck's IUD's. Some folks are cute when young, some are handsome when older. If I have to remind you of the Ugly Duckling tale, we're fucked and I bet on morons. Youth and beauty are often wasted upon the young, and handsome can last a lifetime, as long as you follow the doctors orders. I know, nobody wants to hear shit like that, especially our worm bait coworkers and corpse buddies.

I got crap for being too young to be allowed to live there, like buying beer in high school I had to produce fake ID to party with my geezer dudes and dudettes. Women live on average to 77 and men live to 72, but that demo-graph is heavily weighted with tobacco and alcohol consumers. Oh shit, we're fucked. Some of our coworkers won't make it more than a few more years. Maybe months.

I'll be turning 61 this summer and the years fly by just as fast as they do for you coppers. Hell, the seconds of a day tick by at the same speed as new-born babies, teenagers humping tampons and trainer bras and cranky menopausal women stuck in the dry vagina years 40+. If yer busy as shit, you don't have time to count the minutes that make up a lifetime. Time waits for no man. Or angry woman.

I've pissed off folks sharing stories from my great grandfather's generation. I watched jaws drop and frowns explode into rage recalling his tales of buying boatloads of children from the orphanages in the Pacific Northwest and shipping them to be sold at the Alaskan brothel towns of Ketchikan, Skagway and Nome. New dildo Alaskans scoff and deny my historical recitations how Wyatt Earp and Soapy Smith were the best customers and paid premium top dollar fer little girl and little boy pussy, liquor and dope. We're talking old stool version of sex, drugs and rock and roll: the young pussy and heroin are still viable markets in Alaska today, the music you'll hear on KOTZ or KBRW.

My gramps also told some knee slapping funny tales about slave auctions in Missouri and Cooley (Chinese) slave auctions in Washington, Oregon and California. Other tales induced the taste of bile when he'd chuckle and describe public hangings in Edmonds, Washington where niggers, gooks and Irish motherfuckers fleeing slave labor, or union activists, ended up dancing a jig at the end of a rope. The whole town turned out to party and crowds from surrounding counties assembled like spontaneous combustion flash mobs of stinky hillbillies. Public hangings were kick-ass carnivals with cotton candy and live bands rocked all over the lynching fairgrounds. I can see Van Halen or Led Zeppelin shredding their stages as trap doors were triggered. Grandpa told me that you didn't want a front row seat at lynchings cuz you'd get splashed with piss and shit, and occasionally puke from the audience. That's show biz right there.

Don't whine like a pussy, God loves a good Pacific Northwest hanging picnic. The origin of the phrase "shootin' the shit" evolved from the moment a person fell to the "end of his rope" and a violent gush of poop and pee blasted down a hanged man's pants and out his ankles and boots leaving shit on his heels. If you have a chance, fly to Ryiahd, Saudi Arabia and catch the show every Saturday evening. Yer guaranteed a roster of at least 50 public be-headings via broadsword with a poop, pee and blood fest that'd make any of yer menstruating grand-daughters proud. I laugh now, but I doubt I got the stomach to witness a stoning. That's real gross, seeing a promiscuous girl roped and bashed apart as the villagers hurl rocks at her. Too Christian for my tastes.

Here at the Senior Center, I was telling an old man about my grandfather, and he was mad at me for repeating such mean-spirited yet accurate old fart sentiments from Alaska and American history. Ya see, my gramps was the equivalent of a native elder. Or better yet, he was a meaner version of Archie Bunker and after Alaska's brief period of civility, we'll swing back to religious and political violence. We'll all have to be tougher and meaner to survive: much like our grandparents.

Despite his age and no education, he was smart, clever and lived to over a hundred years old. He could make money in this century and the previous century, albeit not in ways we'd view as kind or enlightened. In previous centuries, and centuries in the future our grandparents would thrive and succeed. Today we'd say and think our gramps and grams were ignorant and racist, but our grandparents would ignore the good in other colored motherfuckers and hold race and church as the gold standard in a person's virtue.

My mom was pissed off when gramps (her father-in-law) commented that Karl's wife was "a little dark." I thought his sentiment humorous, hell, after my doing so much laundry, dishes and vacuum cleaning, my wife thinks I'm too white. I can interface geological time context and understand how humans treated other heathen buttfuckers from other races. Just like your wives' gramps and grams. They fucking hated white people and thought them to be invading virus spreading shit-heels from outside.

I can't hop in a time machine and repair race relations between native dildos and white dipshits that are now long dead, mostly dirt and not around to argue the merits of their views. But I can read authors like Robert Penn Warren, and writers like Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain you clods). Powerful wordsmiths that used common yet foul language of their centuries to express uncommonly brilliant thought and insight. Their period word usage will echo for centuries after their deaths. That's fucking cool, whereas our life's work instantly becomes non-existent and good as gone the second we clock out, slip out of our uniforms and go 10-100 bone yard.

I used to spend a lot of time at the Kotzebue Rec Center lifting weights with a crew of older men: Carlos Salazar, Wilford Lane, Richard Erlich and Lynn Johnson. Those poor old men, I'd wear them down with persistent questions, then rewrite their responses decades later in my compositions. Like right now fuck-heads.

I was amazed with Carlos Salazar's tales from the mean streets of Los Angeles. What a fucking douche bag Methican. He ran with a pack of illegal wet-backs robbing good white folks who worked, saved and built houses. Mr. Salazar claimed he'd climb in windows, beat old women and yank their jewelry off, running to the nearest pawn shop or drug fronts, take the cash and buy china white, cartel powder and cheap liquor. Carlos admitted to waking up behind dumpsters, parking lots and frequently, jails. His Mexploits continued into Anchorage eventually landing him a long stretch behind bars. When he sobered up, washed up, scraped crust and served his time, he wanted to move out to rural Alaska, namely Spikiktagruk. Fucking great, there goes the neighborhood.

Mr. Salazar fancied himself a good candidate to apply for a job as a patrolman. Oops, felony convicts are like assault convicts, neither can work for public safety nor public health. Carlos was barred employment for cop-werk and also forbidden to work for Manillaq. With a complete pardon and commutation of all crimes committed while he was a stinky beaner, the governor granted Mr. Salazar the chance to pursue work at both the cop-shop and Manillaq. How pleasant.

Looking back, Carlos Salazar never repeated his crimes and did a pretty good job serving the NANA region, even so far as raising a family. Okay, an abbreviated family with psycho mex-upiaq girls that suffered immensely. Like genius, mental retardation may visit both father and children. Carlos Salazar had twin daughters, then a single daughter who bounced in and out of jail, finally moving to Anchorage. She battled legally prescribed drug abuse, eventually committing suicide by overdose with her baby clinging to her. No friends or family came to check on her and she passed away. So did her infant child. What a heartbreak to discover that pair of deaths. Mom dead from overdose and baby clinging to mommy dying of thirst and hunger. The demons haunting Mr. Salazar sure as shit launched into his little girl. In spades.

Wilford Lane was another of my Rec Ctr weight room and sauna mates. He would think about my questions, take a deep breath of scaulding hot sauna steam, then proceeded to tell me what it was like to be mixed breed round eye growing up in Point Hope surrounded by chink-nates that viewed themselves the true human beings. But not Chinese Mongoloids, that's not funny. Point Hope is the oldest inhabited town site on all of North America with origins estimated near 13,000 years ago. It's also the most traditional and backwards. Rampant sexual abuse, chronic domestic violence and blatant racism towards mixed breed children descending from Russian and European whalers, fur traders, seal hunters and walrus ivory harvesters.

Inupiaq Uchuk Attigignik means Eskimo pussy politics and Point Hope women are treated worse than a dog team. Its traditional to notch the nose of a permiscuous Eskimo woman to mark her, or simply tossing her out in subzero temps to freeze her solid like Solveig Naylor. Nothing like brutal traditional values to teach women their place in Inuit households. All of Bun's aunts and great-aunts fled Point Hope to escape the rapes, beatings and incest. Not one of them returned to experience again what they all confided in their stories they told me. I fucking listen to folks from all over the world, then post strident compositions that you coppers get sick reading. Missing a worldwide religious and educational rennaisance and industrial revolution: Inupiaq equals Taliban.

Because Wilford Lane was Eskimo and Russian, he took a ration of crap from his ice monkey village mates in Pt. Hope. He knew they'd eventually take him out hunting and come back alone, so Wilford accumulated a big pile of caribou and traded with Lester Gallahorn for a ride out of town all the way south to Camp Kikiktagruk and seasonal trading post. He was migrating to the promised island of misfits inhabited with mixed-breeds just like him. Kikiktagruk was the old name of a brutal village that was later named Kotzebue after the famous German playwright and rock star of his century. New name, same shit.

Many regions of Alaska were named after famous people who were loved by all of America at the time. Wade Hampton was a noteworthy figure the US Government bestowed his name upon the Bethel Region. Hampton was a hero from the Civil War, fighting with the Confederate South and 100's of years later he is denounced as a racist. Sheldon Point was another Civil War hero title, later changed to Nunum Iqua. Barrow was the family name of kick-ass English whaling captain, later named Utqiagvik, after a Presbyterian Church where children learned all about child molestation, rape and early burial. But shit, back then, niggers and children were tool animals to be harnessed and natives were scabby little stinky rodents and vermin, chased off or exterminated so as not get in the way of progress. Progress like mining, agriculture and the beef industry.

In Alaska, natives were sure the fuck in the way of oil and gold extraction and were handsomely bribed to book back to their own kind and keep to themselves. That plan didn't work. Native women were infatuated with taller white men with bigger dicks and our junk looked so huge in their little mouths, hands and cooters.

The newfangled Christian thing made white folks immune to stupid curses and silly hexes aimed at us by backwards tribal doctors with puny brown brains and puny brown dicks. I can just hear Manillaq telling y'all, "Fucking Eskimo retards, I told you so." "Next time you Nordic giants invade Alaska, butt-rape the tribal doctors first. They fucking deserve it." "Shit, banishment for my genius. I hope my fortune telling came true and y'all breed our women taller and smarter."

Hard to believe old Manillaq is batting 100. Tall white men overwhelmed the aboriginal dwarf-pukes, Nome became Alaska's largest city (40,000 by 1900), we walked on the moon and Ambler holds the world's biggest gold seam. I fucking love this guy. Piss on stupid Inuit voodoo bullshit, I'd like to shake his hand, except Manillaq is now Nuvruk cannibal stool pie.

Wilford Lane knew opportunity only knocked once, booked Point Hopeless, landed Nigruk, and jumped at all the BIA training he could get. He attended Voc-Tec for Electrical and Construction, then went on for training as a Heavy Equipment Operator. He knew old man Art Fields, so joined him and worked the gold deposits in Candle and the North side of the Seward Peninsula.

Speaking of tribal elders, Roy Fields was the son of Art Fields, and would always compliment these articles with a smile and a chuckle telling me, "Karl, I sure enjoy your postings. You don't bullshit and sure tell it like it is." Ya see, Roy Fields was a tall good looking dude and a real chick magnet, drawing the affection of my wife. I'm cool with that, she got good taste. If I could dance half as good as Mr. Fields, all yer kids would look Finnish, instead of retarded. The battlefield in Alaska is racial, cultural and genetic, with all the fighting happening inside native pussy and our sperm are the soldiers. Fuck rifles, I got a fine handsome penis. Soldiers march!

Speaking of my wife again, I treat her like I own her. Lots of expensive jewelry, clothing and frequent washings. If I could, I'd hold her hand and walk her through the car wash. That's why God invented FInns like me, so we could wash all them Eskimos of the most ugly things clinging to them: their own brothers and funny uncles. I also treat her like all my guns I've restored and sold. Scrub off the black parts and polish the wood toned parts: WD-40, toothbrushes and cloth. Makes a fine firearm and finer Eskimo wife.

On the last big dental mish, I layed out pert near $14K (after insurance and IHS) out of pocket from the money I inherited from my grandfather. Money from the same grandfather that sold laudanum, liquor, slaves and child prostitutes to Alaskan mining and brothel towns. Ironic that it ended up back in the expensive caps, crowns, laminates and veneers my wife blinds us with when she smiles and laughs. Just like her daughter Sara. I take Eskimo girls needing Hollywood cosmetic dental work, and finance major smile overhauls. I must be retarded, I set the slaves on cruise-control, and take my girls to fucking dental and hair appointments.

Back to Kotzebue, Lynn Johnson attended our early morning appointments at the Rec Ctr. Him and Erlich would open the doors for the rest of us, then book over to the racquetball courts and whale the shit outa each other. I had a hard time understanding Mr. Johnson. He didn't smile much, didn't laugh much, so my shitty KPD and VPSO humor fell flat its face.

After workout, Lynn Johnson approached me and asked about the old M1 Carbine I had for sale on the radio. He wanted to look at it to make sure it was military spec, with all the right stamps and dorky wood stock and butt. I showed it to him, he liked it and offered me a price about $50 below my ask. I sold it to him with the hope of greasing future biz. Mr. Johnson was restoring an old Jeep in his garage and needed an accurate M1 Carbine for the officer's boot mounted along the side fender. Describing his Jeep project, the gun boot and its new contents, he smiled slightly. Fuck yeah, he totally dug it.

One morning a few months after we did this trade, he told me he was buying a batch of used, returned and restored Glock 9mm pistols that all the police departments were dumping for the larger caliber/smaller capacity Glock pistols like the 40 cal, 45's and 10mm. I told Lynn that I'd be a player for a few at the right price, so he said $200 each, if I bought 6 of 'em. I smiled at him and told him "hook a nigger up." He ordered the batch, keeping a couple for himself, other pals that wanted dibs and I bought the 6. When I brought my WHOLE fucking paycheck and scrap dineros from home to him, he adjusted his price down to a grand for all 6 of 'em. Damn cool.

I sold one of 'em to Blanchard, 2 to the gooks, sent one to my dad and kept 2 on hand for trades and barters. Joe Garoutte eventually snagged one in trade, demanding just one Glock insisting I add an old Browning Hi-Power NAZI German issue pistol I bought from Neal Sager. Joe was trading me a Ruger Mini 14 and Ruger Mini 30: both all maxed out and militarized to beat shit.

I sold the Ruger Mini 14 to Gumby and the Ruger Mini 30 I gave to Pete Lambert in trade for a bunch of electrical work on house #369 on 2nd avenue. Lambert hooked up the power line from the pole and installed a meter with a cluster of outlets on the inside for my saws and shit. I also threw in some curiously strong LSD and Everclear to reach the $1100.00 tab I owed him.

Billy Lee was there when I presented the Mini 30 to Pete and he fucking went ballistic drooling on the rifle. He told Pete to shut the fuck up and take the trade, holding the Ruger like a new born baby: grinning and cheesing, happy shit.

Sol Scott had a marker that I owed him for cab fare all over fucking hell. Probably a little over a couple hundo, so I took a 30.06 rifle and unscrewed all the wood off it, scrubbed the metal down, carefully painted on blueing to bring back that kick ass new gun look. I did the sanding and varnish on the woods, then assembled the whole rifle, clicked on a strap and stowed it in a new plastic gun box I used for air travel.

I grabbed Dopey the doberman and booked over to Sol's and knocked on the door. When he opened the door, I apologized for being slow paying my cab fare bills I charged, then told him I had a treasure for him, if he was interested. He smiled and asked what I had in mind, so I went inside, set the new gun tote on his dining table and opened the lid showing him the rifle. You never knew that old man could smile so fucking big. Mr. Scott picked up the rifle, examined my restoration work, then reached across and shook my hand. One happy old subsistence hunter with dreams of blasting caribou to Kingdom Come.

I still had a bill across town to pay. I owed a little over a hunnert dollars to old man Charlie Reich for a bill I needed paying to Midnight Sun Cabs, so I went home and did the same cleaning and varnishing to a fine dandy 243 bolt action rifle. When the bluing and varnish were looking spiffy, I assembled it, hooked on a strap and fetched another plastic air travel gun tote. I put the rifle inside and added a couple boxes of shiny brass cartridges, making the package look like a hunting trip all in one fucking unit.

Old man Charlie Reich was home having coffee and cigarettes when I knocked on the door. I announced that I owed his cab company a few dineros and inquired if I could settle the tab with a nice looking treasure. He smiled even bigger than Sol Scott, invited me in for coffee and a smoke, then stated he was curious what I had in the gun case. I told him that I don't do any seal hunting, so I never had a use for a mid-size high velocity rifle. I opened the gun box and handed the rifle to Charlie, whereupon he chuckled and looked over the gun with shiny eyes and shit eating grin. He threw the bolt, looked at the bright workmanship, looked at the 2 boxes of ammo and did the same thing as Sol, he just shook my hand right there on the spot.

It must be an old Eskimo tradition to seal the deal when buying nigger shooters, no do-overs, no Indian givers. Also like Sol, his hands were gnarled, knobby and callused like a horses hoof. Charlie thanked me profusely and told me the 243 (24 caliber) bullet with a big ass cartridge packed full of powder was a real flat shooter and he used to have rifle just like it years ago. Charlie looked like he was ready to go seal hunting and blow the bleeding snot outa sea mammals right fucking now!

You boys are likely smiling just like these old shooters. After my long haul contract with Mat-Su Narcs, I returned home to Kotzebue and set up the Arctic Sounder upstairs at KOTZ 720 AM. After I got all the filing cabinets, desks and chairs hauled in and plugged in the Apple Macs, modems and printers, I insisted that Len Anderson fill the ashtrays and empty the liquor bottles I stashed in the lower drawers. He liked the idea of typing and posting his articles right in the same building as the radio station. He also liked the Jim Beam half gallons I stowed: good bourbon to wash down his pipe tobacco.

His wife Ningie (Doris) ran a tight ship and kept the place organized and sure enjoyed sorting local news and events for publication in the paper. In fact, she was the best in town to know what was important and interesting to elder and middle aged Eskimo citizens of Tagrukville. We all know when It's time to get the fuck out of the way and let yer betters run with it. Len and Ningie became a husband and wife journalism and drinking team, with the Arctic Sounder mere steps away from the desks they worked from at KOTZ radio.

I didn't need to hang around the Arctic Sounder or KOTZ radio any longer. With Ningie and Len Anderson ruling the roost, Bud Dial coerced me into covering the vacant VPSO posts both upriver, downriver and the Candle, Buckland and Deering slots. I rotated throughout Spring, Summer and Fall, when Chief Nolton recommended I apply at KPD and increase my wage from $9.78 an hour to $16.00. With Blue Cross/Blue Shield and PERS added in, I jumped from the brown shirts to the blue.

I always gave gifts to my bosses. Some supervisors get cigars, jars of codeine pills for hangovers or sore backs, and liquor. Even at UAF and overseas I dumped goodies on my benefactors and supervisors as appreciation for hiring a special needs Finn. Okay, retarded, actually. It's funny thinking that I almost never had a lapse in employment: from KPD to Narc werk in OTZ, narc werk in Mat-Su, then VPSO in greater NANA, then back to KPD with a long stretch of contact odd jobs in Fairbanks, Barrow and overseas. Oh, I also got to sit in jail for most of a year just to improve my Russian, lose a hunnert pounds and tenderize my dumb ass.

One boss I sure got support from was Victor Karmun. He trained me at KIC Lumber and Hardware, covering the NW MotorSports counter when that cripple Ferguson boy or Frank Tippleman Jr. was out sick, on break or off duty. When the Palmer Courthouse requested my appearance, I told Mr. Karmun about my previous job. He sure grinned and told me that he'd heard of the bootleg bust in Kotzebue and the whispered stories yonder Wasilla, Willow and Talkeetna. I filled him in all my scores and told him that I'd have to fly out for court and he just chuckled and said, "You bet, no problem."

He even added encouragement and told me to "Give 'em hell." So on my return trips, I always remembered to bring him his favorite distillates, vints and varietals. Code words for drinky poo. Ya see, I never knew old man Victor Karmun was NAVY all the way to retirement. He explained that when he was a much younger man, the service called him, and he went. When I asked him where he served, he just said, "Conflict regions all over. Same shit, different day." Boy do we know that duty roster. The man has scars that'll never heal, but he sure grinned when I handed him his taped and sealed boxes upon my returns from Valley Trashville. Mr. Karmun would weigh the box in his hand and state, "This feels like a good one. Thanks buddy!"

I could never get close to Judge Erlich, but I showed great deference and respect when I escorted inmates into his court. When Mr. Erlich ordered me to take off all the cuffs, get water or coffee, I fucking jumped and served the inmates as per King Richard's orders. If he needed papers from the filing cabinets or copies made from the front desk, I booked like a fresh Marine recruit. Erlich don't fuck around, so I didn't either. Even if he wasn't running court and I was in the jury pool, he'd phone in, or walk in and whisper to the presiding judge, who would then order me to leave the court. I tried to serve as a juror in Palmer, Kotzebue, Kenai and Barrow and the results were the same, "Mr. Ewing, you're excused." What the fuck?

When Erlich was a public defender or private attorney visiting the old and new jail, I'd set up an ashtray, a lighter and numerous packs of cigarettes, informing him that some high grade coffee was brewing. That old man could smoke a pile of cigarettes and a hunnert pots of coffee while interviewing inmates all damn day. He'd go so far as to ask me to go to Hanson's and grab a box of donuts for him. Kathy would look at me and order me to get my butt in gear and do as he asked.

Years later I ran into him at the Anchorage Airport. I was enroute to Europe for the International Student Program, so I'd be suited and jacketed up. Mr. Erlich asked how my studies were going and where I was heading on that particular day. I told him of the job, the travels and my career thoughts. He'd smile and inform me that I was better suited to be a military advisor, attache or a General's Steward. He enjoyed sending me all over his court and the cigarette and good coffee service I provided in the jail was a real treat. He chuckled and asked who paid for all these "unsolicited gifts." So I told him. I said my bosses did.

When you make your bosses look good, we all look pretty fucking good. I don't mind spreading money, cigarettes, cigars, liquor nor top shelf coffee around if it helps my employers tolerate my mental retardation, forked tongue and Torette's disorderly shitty humor. Judge Erlich told me to let the Chiefs Of Police know that he really appreciated the service, so I'm doing that now. Thank you for letting me be of service.

I have yet to tell you coppers how much I dropped on my bosses in Barrow and my UAF professors for scholarships and travel expenses, but fucking A, I must've dropped a hunnert Alaskan dimes (C-notes) looking after all these men.

As you've already surmised, I spoil elderly gents I worked for, did business with, and the men I served with.

That means you guys.

Karl.