Best Bets

By Michael Armstrong • February 15, 2018 10:31 am
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Jay Green, second from left, and Andrew Hodnik, second from right, hold up Quilts of Valor given to them and made by Dana Moore, far left, and Connie Isenhour, far right. The quilts are a project of Faith Friday Friends, a group at Faith Lutheran Church. Under the national program volutneers make quilts to honor service members and veterans touched by war. Green flew 196 combat missions in Vietnam as a U.S. Navy pilot from 1967-68 and Hodnik served in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer from 1989-93, including tours in Operation Desert Storm and Somalia. In the middle is Hodnik’s mother, Dr. Vicky Hodnik. The quilts were presented at Hodnik’s dental office on Feb. 6 in Homer, Alaska. (Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News)
Jay Green, second from left, and Andrew Hodnik, second from right, hold up Quilts of Valor given to them and made by Dana Moore, far left, and Connie Isenhour, far right. The quilts are a project of Faith Friday Friends, a group at Faith Lutheran Church. Under the national program volutneers make quilts to honor service members and veterans touched by war. Green flew 196 combat missions in Vietnam as a U.S. Navy pilot from 1967-68 and Hodnik served in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer from 1989-93, including tours in Operation Desert Storm and Somalia. In the middle is Hodnik’s mother, Dr. Vicky Hodnik. The quilts were presented at Hodnik’s dental office on Feb. 6 in Homer, Alaska. (Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News)

At Monday’s Homer City Council meeting, council member Shelly Erickson suggested a little snow jujitsu.

“I’m just thinking we need to change the Winter Carnival to a different name,” she said — like the Homer Banana Belt Carnival. “Maybe if we did something different, it might switch and we would have winter.”

Holy Pineapple Express! Could that work? Could trying to fake out whichever deity turns the precipitation dial from rain to snow cause Her/Him/It to give us the weather we want? The ways of the Divine are a mystery to the Betster, but you know the old joke. How do you make God laugh? Make plans.

Old timers might recall a time when a time when it got cold after Labor Day, gradually ramped up to freezing around Halloween and stayed that way through Easter, providing reliable, consistent weather with just enough snow. Right, and everyone had a good job, no one went hungry and nations played well with each other.

Let’s suppose we did have a Banana Belt Carnival, with the expectation that the Bossy Pants Marching Band would march in hip boots and we really, truly wanted rain. We would get rain, oh yeah, buckets of it, like that time Woodard Creek bubbled out of culverts and you could kayak on the Bypass. Be careful what you ask for.

Face it, we live in a transitional maritime climate, on the cusp between the sea and mountains. Add in global climate change, and you might as well get used to damp winter weather. Why do you think we get so grumpy in February? It will be dark. It will be wet. It will be icy. It will be a time when people pawn jewelry for tropical vacations and those left behind stir up trouble for the sport of it.

Or, you could look on the bright side and see that we’re gaining minutes of daylight daily, well past eight hours and rounding the corner to double-digits on the front page daylight chart. Bring it on, (insert personal deity here). We can roll with it. We’re tough, we’re resilient and we know how to cheer ourselves up, like with these Best Bets:

BEST FOREVER YOUNG BET: OK, with some of the Young Dubliners going a bit gray, perhaps they should be called The Middle-aged Dubliners, but they’ve got some new blood and buckets of energy. Catch the Dubs at 7 p.m. today at the Down East Saloon. Tickets are $15.

BEST WALK THE TALK BET: The new South Peninsula Athletics and Recreation Complex, or SPARC, exists because of crummy weather. If you can’t stand the rain, go inside and take a stroll, like Walk with a Doc at 9 a.m. Saturday with Sonja Martin-Young. There will be free blood pressure screenings, prizes and refreshments.

BEST TELL IT BET: Skywalker Payne has been spinning yarns for years, and she’s on a mission to expand the art of storytelling. She leads the monthly Homer Storytelling Circle from 3-5 p.m. Saturday at the Homer Public Library.

BEST HE DID IT BET: Speaking of stories, through his music Atz Kilcher has been sharing thoughts about life. Now he’s joined the ranks of Homer’s literary stars with his memoir, “Son of a Midnight Land.” Join him for his local book launch at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Homer Public Library. Oh, and he brings his guitar, so expect a little singing.

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