Tucson Gem Show --- Day Four

It was a nice slow day at the show. It was windy today with gusts up to 30mph (48 km/hr) and the temp was around 59F (15C). The weather is decent for me, but terrible for the Gem Show people, or customers. I’m not certain why they don’t show up; because 95% of the vendors/buyers are from cold climates… their homes are socked in with three feet (meter) of snow. That’s all right; I made a bunch of little polar bears out of soapstone, and sold one of them. I enjoyed the ‘summer breezes’, let my mind wander, thinking of times growing up in Alaska.

James Fendenheim & Terry Williams

When I was a teenager in Juneau, on really hot days (70’s F or 20’s C), a bunch of us Tlingit’s would go to the dock and jump off into the Gastineau Channel, much to the delight of the tourist. Back then only the Princess ships would come to Juneau in the summer, a throng of them would be on the dock taking photos of us. The water felt good at 42F (5C), because the sun would warm up the top layer, but if you dove in, you felt this intense cold, that would almost suck the life out of you, and you shot back to the surface.  I remember walking along Sandy Beach just south of the town of Douglas, across from Juneau, about a half mile (0,7 km) was the ‘glory hole’ and near there on the beach was a hole… in the water, about the size of a hot tub, and the Kaatzeek brothers where sitting there, in that hole, like they were enjoying a hot tub, except this is sea water. I went in and joined them, it was all right, but after awhile, you would get cold, but you didn’t want to show anyone that you were cold, you had to be a ‘tough bastard’ … a real Tlingit! Long time ago the Tlingit men would run in the water naked and sit in it for 15 minutes, then run back out. They did this to gain strength. In the 1800’s the guards at the Russian Sitka fort, often witness the Kitsadi Tlingit’s run naked, yelling, and diving into the water, and stay there for some time before running back to the clans houses, this happened in the middle of the winter some dark mornings.  It kind of made the guards uneasy when they saw the Tlingit’s not affected by the winter. When I was in High School, a bunch of us Tlingit’s spent Christmas in Los Angeles, we went to Disneyland, Magic Mountain, went on the Queen Mary, walked on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and then we ended up at Huntington Beach, just south of Anaheim. We just love it, the waves were huge, the beach is long, and there were only a few people there. We took off our shoes/socks and stepped into the Pacific Ocean ‘Ahh, it’s really warm!’ So we all put on our swimsuits and jumped in! We were splashing, swimming, body surfing, and just having a blast! We were the only people in all of Los Angeles bowl that was swimming. Other people were jogging, walking their dogs, or just having a romantic walk along the ocean. They all stopped to watch a bunch of Tlingit’s splashing around in the ocean, just days away from New Years! Yah… what’s cold for me would kill most people! Most Alaskans I know, even the weak ones, can outlast anyone else in tolerating cold. Tucsonites & gem show folks are such a docile, over-weight little creatures who need an extra blanket, or to turn up the heat a little, but I still love them… I like their bank accounts. It was slow today because, God forbid, the temperatures were in the high 50’s. I don’t think those folks will survive the next ice age… the Tlingit’s will, so will the Athabaskans, the Inupiaks, the Yupiks, the Aleuts, the Haidas and other native Alaskans.

James Fendenheim, Sonny, and Alex Streeter

We all met at Terry’s & Bua, hanging out, watching TV and watching the events happening in Egypt, then we decided to eat out, go to Pho’s #1… a Vietnamese restaurant on Stone Avenue. Terry said, “it’s on the intersection of Grant & Stone, just a little south…” Well, I told him I knew where it was; I have eaten there the last gem show, so I thought I could find it. Terrence and myself left and told them we’ll ‘meet you there!’ We arrived in a short time, but we couldn’t find the restaurant. The restaurant business card that Terry gave me was not on my ‘person.’ I looked in all my pockets, in my wallet, and even around the truck, but could not find it. We drove all over Grant, and up/down Stone Avenue. This restaurant disappeared off the face of the earth! Terry doesn’t have a cell phone, so we just kept driving, trying to find Pho’s #1! We found two other Vietnamese Restaurants… Terry & Bua was not there… but still no Pho’s #1. After an hour of driving up and down Stone Avenue, we headed downtown and ate at the ‘Grill’… an all night diner with good food, opened 24 hours a day... since 1938. We headed back to Terry & Bua’s house and we chucked about our ‘tour’ of Tucson. It turns out, the neon sign for Pho’s #1 was out, and it was full of Gem Show vendors… kind of hidden from Grant/Stone. As I left, Terry said, “at least you spent an hour on Get-Stoned Avenue,” a Tucson nickname for Stone Avenue. Tomorrow is day five for the Tucson Show… let the sales begin!