HOMER’S BEST BETS </MCC HEAD>

Story last updated at 7:43 PM on Wednesday, August 23, 2006

HOMER’S BEST BETS

“The kids! The kids! They expect enormous changes at the last minute,” writes Grace Paley in her short story, strangely titled “Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.” And so it is here at Latitude 59 degrees.

photo by Toni Jabas
A little off the top Carolyn Norton, Dali Frazier and Luis Cosio, from left to right, get their heads shaved by Catriona Lowe, Kellie DeKok and Ryan DeKok at the Breast Cancer Run last Saturday at the Homer Spit.

Trying to run a race in a howling rainstorm? Shazam! At the last minute, the clouds part and the sun roars down. Been casting your line at the fishin’ hole all summer, with nary a bite? On the last cast, a beautiful silver rises up and takes the bait.

Life sometimes happens like that. It’s not always magical thinking. Sometimes when you have settled down for a celebratory pity party, fate, the kindness of strangers or Your Friendly Local Higher Power alters the course of your local history.

Last minute, enormous changes. Hey, ya never know. The vagaries of fortune aren’t always bad. Sometimes when you’re sure it will rain, the sun comes out, if only long enough to finish that race.

“Last minute” is how we sometimes plan things here in Homer, which is why our social calendar can be fickle, like some of these Best Bets:

BEST HIKE! HIKE! BET: We’re not exactly Fairbanks, where you can’t drive down the Parks Highway without passing a sled dog truck, but Homer does have a dog team or two. Check out one of our local mushers this Friday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. when Howling Husky Homestead and owner Linda Chamberlain, out East End Road, sponsor this month’s Chamber of Commerce Mixer. Learn about the history and culture of dog sledding, and check out the homestead’s mushing museum. Call the Chamber at 235-7740 for details.

BEST GUNS AND GREENS BET: It sounds like one of those bizarre Hollywood story pitches: Antelope poachers in Tibet. The best stories are always the ones so strange they have to be true. At 8 p.m. Friday-Monday the Homer Theatre shows “Kekexili,” a film about a volunteer patrol protecting rare animals in a nature preserve. The Friday showing benefits the Boys and Girls Club.

BEST SUPER SIBLINGS BET: Big brothers, big sisters: they’re the super siblings for kids who need more adults in their lives. From noon-4 p.m. Sunday, learn about helping Big Brothers Big Sisters and enjoy a picnic with food, games, face painting, rock sculpture and music at Bishop’s Beach.

BEST MY MAN MAHATMA BET: Thoreau perfected the idea of civil disobedience, but Mahatma Gandhi made it an art form — and kicked out a foreign occupying power. Manu Raval, an Indian practitioner of satyagraha, Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent political action, speaks at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Anahata Center on East End Road. and the history of yoga.

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