Mookie Moo

A friend of mine just finished a 9 month wood-working program called Inside Passage in Canada. He made this beautiful cabinet there. In Canada. The friend, however, is from Alaska. Homer, Alaska. People from that far North are weird. But in a good way! In a “it’s really cold here, so I think I’ll build a cabinet or a clock or a house” sort of way.

In college, I think it took a while for us to appreciate the Alaskan weirdness. There was a great game we used to play called “Hit the Alaskan”. This game always started out as an innocent game of basketball and then at any given moment someone, usually not the Alaskan, would yell, “Hit the Alaskan!” And whoever had the ball would launch it at the Alaskan (there was only one, the Homer one) as hard as they could and we would laugh until we couldn’t stand up anymore. The Alaskan didn’t totally dig this game, but he played along and probably thought to himself, “You fools, you’ll see! Someday I will make the most beautiful cabinets in all the land (of Alaska) and where will you be?! Hunched at your silly desks, staring at your silly computers, writing on your silly blogs. I’ll show you!”

So, he did.