Backwoods Rambles: 'De Bait

Backwoods Rambles: 'De Bait

Construction Continues

CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES; Road work on the Information Superhighway.
I think everything is working now; but most articles are not yet linked to the menu [until they are, the index tree at the bottom of the page still works]. Thank you for your patience.

Alaska - Fifty Years on the Flag

ALASKA - 50 YEARS ON THE FLAG
1959 - 2009

"Alaska is a state of mind."
-- Someone famous

Alaska is also a state of the union.
-- Geography 101

But what it is not, is 50 years old.

(To all those who keep saying that it is ... what was here 51 years ago??? :-)

We are celebrating this year!!!

It is the 50th anniversary of Alaska's statehood ... sort of its marriage to the Union after a long engagement (~92 years give or take ... about the length of time I suggest to my daughter would be appropriate in her life :-)

It is amazing to me that we've been a state for 50 years. If I did my math right ... let's see, add the addendums, subtract the mistatements, carry the burdens, divide the sheep and goats ... yep ... that's almost a half of a century! :-)

I remember it well. Well, I remember it. I guess there is a difference. I was a bit young to be aware of all the issues. But I certainly remember spirited debates as to whether we should join up or not.

But this is an anniversary celebration, not a birthday party as (too) many people have called it. This isn't Alaska's 50th birthday.

The village I grew up in had a sign at the edge of town that said "Founded in 1791". We've been around awhile. Just took us some time to decide to formalize things. We'd been living together since Seward's folly. In any event, it was time to get hitched.

We'll be spending some time this year looking back ... over the last 50 and earlier. It is a great excuse to introduce many of you to Alaska through the eyes of those who live here now ... and as best we can, through the eyes of those who built the State, many of whom are still kickin'!

CONSTRUCTION

Thank you all for your patience as I rework the format of this blog.

I am (hopefully) changing from a standard two column chronologically indexed format (like about half or more of the blogs you see :-) to a three column blog organized by subject rather than chronology. Breaking news, or broken news and even totally shattered news, will still appear on the main page. But after that, it will be moved to a subject matter directory which seems to make infinitely more sense than a chronological organization, unless the post was a one-time comment on a one-time news issue and then it probably has no point in continued existence.

I still see no reason for tree view.

I started to use drop-down menus and list all posts in each topic under the menu button, but quickly realized that it would be incredibly intrusive even now; and much more so as articles accumulate (I checked out a bunch of these during this process. Only a few had it done elegantly enough that it "worked" and those were with essentially static subheadings.

But ... I think you'll like the new layout as soon as I get it finished. Please keep checking back
(or subscribe). It won't be long now!

Thanks again.