The Jordan Harold Update
January 1998
905 Richardson Vista Road #96 Anchorage, Alaska

Well, there has been a long pause in the circulation of the Jordan updates hasn't there. It isn't that lot hasn't been happening. In fact, quite the opposite it true; I kept thinking, "okay, after this happens I'll write the next update and it can have this new event in it". As it has come to be though, so much has gone on, that I've probably lost more than half the information that I wanted everyone to know.

So now I'll cobble together from bits and parts a road to get you all to where we are now. There will be pieces that may be retelling to many of you but I ask that you bare with me and read it as a whole. That said, let me begin.
We are in Anchorage Alaska now; yes, I think all of you know that. Our home is up the Hill(Government Hill, the Air Force Base is a noisy neighbor but what are you going to do? The rent is cheap and the shared grounds are large and safe to play in!) We're about five minutes from downtown and about twenty minutes from nowhere. I like that mix and I think Louis does as well.

The seasons keep on changing (I did miss the seasons those last four years in California land!).
The summer was wild. The days went on and on and finally faded into a strange twilight for a few hours until the sun rose again. The jiggle of the ice cream truck wasn't heard till late at night (ten or eleven sometimes) and the hordes of small ones coming out at that hour was amazing and surreal. It seems that many folks gave up on sleep all together. In such an amazing place as Alaska in the summer, it can be understood why!

We are encircled on three sides by a majestic mountain range, who's very nearness seems to turn the mundane to magic, but we are kept away from the closed in feeling that many mountain cities have by the fourth side opening up to the Cook Inlet. Far beyond that, on clear days we can see another range that turns the most lovely shade of gold and pink with the sunrise!

The autumn too passed. The green of the mountainside turned to gold, dropped and flew away, leaving the tall pale birch ladies bare armed and white. The sentinel green of the spruce still stands but covered by winter cloak now. The bright red shock of the mountain ash berries and the fireweed leaves lingered on awhile longer.

We had out first snow fall late, but "WHAM" came a blizzard left five or six inches of snow. Gone were the roads and slip sliding away were all us silly humans in our four wheeled metal contraptions...beautiful though! Far better to enjoy on foot then by road. The roads are better now and it seems that the drivers have remembered how to handle the winter driving. Perhaps it is the overpowering sun, all summer long, that makes them forget so completely. I don't know.

The winter days have turned now that solstice has past and they have begun to get longer already! The Jordan Bear and I still have the pleasure of catching both sunrise and sunset everyday. There is still a lot of winter to go. The ravens have flown in from their summer haunts in the wilds to play on the warm updrafts and get easy pickings from the humans. They bring in new gossip and old tales for the telling. They make me smile.

The SCA folk up here are great! We have found welcome and lots of good stuff to do. The Jordan Bear is a heck of a good single swordsman (with soft boffer weapons) for someone his age and enjoys the music, the dancing, and the large population of kids about his size to play with as well!

The Bear is three now and does so much! We spent the summer exploring and hiking and getting to know as much as we could about our new home. Now we ski together and with new friends and spend hours finding out what changes this season has brought to places we played in and knew so well during the summer.

The Bear loves puzzles, the snow, dinosaurs, Robin Hood, and books best, I think; there is a lot else he does, those are a few of the favorites for now...

He has a number of "classes" that we go to each week. There is a kids' gym with things to climb and places to run and to jump, an art and crafty type class, music and dance (Kindermusick is what it calls itself), and swimming.
We also go to the library for story time once a week. He loves that so much that he has decided he needs his own library card. To do that he needs to be able to write his name. He is trying and I learn to teach as he asks to learn new things.

He has kept in touch with a couple of his friends from Davis with letters scribed down from the smalls by the parents, and with photos, as well as arty projects sent as gifts. I think the continuity is really good for him as we continue to move about.

Our next port of call will be Seattle. Lou continues to love his job, both the work he does and the people that he works with, but it was only a one year clerkship so the latest job hunt has gotten him a position with a Seattle based firm by the name of Bogle and Gates. Our next trek will be a long and beautiful (with luck and Jordan's help, FUN!) road trip down through Alaska, Canada, and into Washington. This should take place at the end of August or beginning of September.

We are all doing research of one sort of another about out next home. Jordan was kind of shook up about moving again but we are talking more and more about it with him and reminding him about his other visits there. I've gotten him several children's books about the city and its state and we are planing a mini vacation down there next month to celebrate Louis taking his bar. I have hopes that these things will help ease the move for all of us by giving us a better feel for where we are going.

We are happy up here and we hope this note finds you the same and sheds
light on what we've been up to as of late.
I will leave you with a few of Jordan's poems written just today.

"Winter
right now about winter,
the ponds are freezing,
the ducks are almost but not all gone
and the waxwings too!
The ravens are here. They play in the air and skip on the snow.
I play in the snow!
The flowers are not blooming,
the trees are beautiful because the pines are still green;
the others don't have any leaves.
Yes the trees are sleeping.
Sleeping!"

"What are they dreaming about? Leaves? Summer rain? Yah! Us! Spring
Tell me about when the leaves are back and when the snow is gone;
melts down underground to streams and goes far far away from us.
When it is spring time we'll go hiking to Thunder Bird Falls!
Waters won't be frozen and the flowers will be yellow, blue, and white,"