Thank God for Weekends

The week of August 20th was like some kind of crazy “hell week” with 9, 10, and 11 year olds doing the hazing. By Wednesday night I was sick of being a teacher and the thought of buying a plane ticket buzzed through my head. Bright and early Thursday morning I changed their world. They usually like to start trickling into the classroom about 8:00 a.m. after breakfast. Not today boys and girls! I kept the door closed and turned on only the lights that I needed to do my preparation work. When they opened the door, I said “stay out until I invite you in” and they knew that something was different. Class begins at 8:45 so at 8:35 I invited into the classroom. Instead of unstructured play time, (which they have none of during the day) I had desk work for them to do. They entered the classroom quietly and went to their desks. I introduced the busy work to them and they began. We have no bells so at 8:45 I told them to hand in their work and you should have seen their faces. The ones who chose to goof off during their work time began to plead for just a few more minutes. I refused and collected the work. We stood and did the pledge of allegiance, then I handed the work back to them and we discussed each item. The kids that were goofing off before were no longer goofing. They got busy and copied everything that was said. I remained emotionless for the rest of the day and through Friday.

By Friday night I was ready to kick back and party. I decided to whoop-it-up by going to the store and buying something I didn’t need. I bought some Olive Oil and Pringles. My party lasted fifteen minutes and I was at home again. I sure wanted a beer or something stronger to help me unwind. Keep in mind that we are in a dry community and any form of alcohol is strictly forbidden. I was wound tighter than a three-day clock and I had no idea what I was going to do.

Just then someone knocked at the door. My neighbor Virginia wanted to know if I would like to buy some of her excess perishable produce. One of the things she mentioned on her list of fresh goodies was garlic. It just so happens that I had been without any garlic since I left home and I sure wanted some. I ransacked her pantry to the tune of $6.00, including the appropriate shipping fees and stayed for tea. She had another treat for me… toast. Since her husband, Moses is a man who loves his toast and I have been without toast since I left home, we enjoyed honeyed toast with our tea. While we visited we kept hearing this horrible racket outside, but we couldn’t see the source.

When I left the neighbor’s house, I walked outside to investigate the noise. It was our principal, Larry cutting the tops out of 55 gallon drums with a Sawz-All. He was working on a solution to our cable TV problem. Curious and bored, I volunteered to help him. His plan was to put the post that would hold the 6 foot satellite dish in a barrel and set it with gravel. Then put more barrels around that one to keep it from tipping in the wind. It sounded good to me so we made some more cuts and took the four-wheeler and trailer with the barrels to fill them. After we filled the first barrel with gravel, we noticed that the high flotation tires on the trailer were quite squat and that we should curb our enthusiasm to fill the other barrels until later. We came home with one barrel and a lazy-man’s solution for getting it to the proper location for good reception. We decided to drive the rig over the surface laid fuel pipes and across the tundra muck and end up in the right place. That seemed a much better idea than emptying the dirt and carrying it over a bunch of stuff and more muck. After a quick prayer, Larry gave ‘er hell and aimed it true. IT WORKED! He only almost got stuck. We wrestled the barrel off of the trailer and got it into position. By then it was already 10:30 p.m. and we were just getting started. It didn’t take long for both of us to agree that we would quit for the night. Bruce, a fellow teacher, and I filled two more barrels over the weekend but we are still a long way from watching TV.

At our Friday staff meeting, Larry introduced an idea to save the school money and provide the students with some lunches more in keeping with their traditional food. He suggested catching salmon and using them for lunches. Everyone thought it was a great idea. It falls within the subsistence fishing laws and the Silver Salmon were still running. Besides, the school owns nets for the native education program and they were dry. The Yup’ik teachers knew just the man for the job; Joe. Joe is one of our janitors. He is a hard working quiet man with an unassuming demeanor.

I volunteered to help Joe and to help clean whatever was caught. The other new teachers volunteered to help as well. I waited until midnight on Friday to hear if I could go fishing with Joe. I woke early anticipating a knock on the door; but, just like Christmas, Santa never came; maybe next time.

Joe caught 16 silvers at the place where the Johnson River flows into the Kuskokwim River. He went alone and didn’t get home until 10:30 Saturday night. Sunday afternoon I rounded up the teachers and we went to the school’s kitchen for a fish cleaning party. One of the Yup’ik teachers, Olinka had some time so she came over to help. Help heck, Olinka is a one woman fish cleaning crew. Of the new teachers, I was the only one who had ever filleted a fish before. I hadn’t done it in better than twenty years, but at least I have done it. Our knife selection was pretty poor. We had some dull boning knives and a dull Ulu which Olinka snatched immediately. We hit the knives with the steel a few times, but it did little in the way of sharpening. I filleted a couple fish then I watched Olinka work her magic. I noticed that she left a lot more meat on the carcass than I do. As I am not one to pass up a learning opportunity, I asked “why do you leave so much meat on the bones? She simply said “You gotta leave somthin’ for da soup.” DING, DING, DING, Jerry, fish soup… hello. I have eaten fish soup and the fish came from somewhere… off the bones. I also learned that Larry saved the guts and head when he field dressed them on Saturday night. I talked about the cooked fish heads before; remember? I think we will be having more of them in the future.

The salmon skeletons were divvied up between those who wanted them so I took a few. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with them, but I had them none the less. I also had a few nice salmon steaks that were from the pectoral fin region of the fish. I cut the skeletons and fins down to soup pot size and put them on low heat. Then, I fried the pure meat that I was hoarding for myself. I ended up with a plate FULL of perfectly golden crisp salmon. I feasted! The bones simmered and I ate. Salmon is a rich meat so I may have eaten a third of that plate full. Stuffed to the gills, (< ha, ha, that was a pun) I put the rest in the soup pot.

I put the cooked salmon in the refrigerator to cool over night. Later Monday night, I picked all of the skin and bones and fins out of the meat and stock and then I thought about making some soup. When I was a little boy at my Grandpa’s Deer Camp in Dublin, Michigan, I took an ass whipping because I wouldn’t eat the Salmon Soup that my Grandmother, Dorothy White lovingly prepared for us. I’m sure it was a fine soup but this six year old boy thought that it smelled bad and therefore, it must be bad. This memory popped into my head as I started to make my fish soup. The thing that killed me about Grandma’s soup was the milk or cream; like you would use in chowder. I quickly decided against chowder. I decided on boring simple ingredients like potatoes, carrots, and, of course, garlic. Using my Food Network culinary skills, I dumped the ingredient in the pot. Put it over low heat and went for a walk around the village. When I returned home it was ready to eat. Now, you can ask my wife and kids and they’ll tell you that I CAN COOK. Sometimes I even stumble over a masterpiece. This soup was one of those times. In fact, it turned out so well that I had it for two meals and froze four quarts for later. Sadly, the only people to enjoy it was King Jerry the Magnificent (me) and me. I can't promise that there will be any when Pam comes up in December but, if she's lucky she'll get some.

I’m sorry that I have blabbed for so long about so little. Thanks for sticking with me. To my friends at Ball State, I miss you and I wish you were here. To my family, I miss you and I wish you were here. To anyone reading this that I don’t know; you should spend your time better, get a job or a hobby.