It is a cold, clear, and quiet New Year's Day in Chevak. We had fireworks twice last nice - out on the lake. They were just beautiful - the whole place would light up. The first set of fireworks was around 9pm - a couple of teachers did those, I think mainly so the kids in teacher housing could see before they went to bed. The second set started at midnight. We heard the pop pop pops and went out on the porch to see. I told Tom, "I hear them but I can't see them." Tom laughed and said, "Those aren't fireworks honey, those are gunshots." Seems people all over the village were just shooting guns in the air - and it was obvious that there was at least one automatic weapon shooting rapid fire. Wow! Then the planned lighted fireworks started and people were running around on 4-wheelers and snow machines and I could see little kids with little fireworks going off all over the lake in addition to the Big Show and the gunshots. It was like a bizarre movie scene.

Happy New Year!