20060604 A Roy And His Dog

You may not see a post every day for the next few days. My first program presentation, an evening program entitled "The Name's the Thing", will be Friday night and I still have a great deal to do. The concept has been marinating since before leaving California. Tia and I talked in over. The plan is to reveal a bit of the history and significance of Katmai through place names.

Hamlet believed his father the king to have been murdered by his evil uncle Claudius, now the king. In an effort to have Claudius reveal himself, Hamlet stages a play for the entertainment of the court. Claudius does not know that the scene is to be a reenactment of the murder. Hamlet muses, "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

"The Name's the Thing" attempts to catch a bit of the conscience of Katmai. Or will attempt. I must finish the writing and gather appropriate images. Then there is the all-day tour of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and the Katmai cluster of volcanoes to write.

Who is responsible for this mountain of work that has led me to invite you to my pity party? Ultimately of course, that would be me. I made the choice to move from the relative comfort of ten season's experience in Sequoia National Park to the new world of Alaska and Katmai. It reminds me of the fall from the top of the 6th-grade hill in elementary school to the abyss of junior high as a 7th-grade peagreen.

But surely this is not all my fault. I must spread the blame around. Who can I cast as the villain, the locker room bully? That would be Roy Wood, my former Everglades supervisor and now the Chief of Interpretation here at Katmai. It was he who shoved me when I was deciding, "To go, or not to go?"