Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994 On my mother’s recent visit, she asked me when the mail would arrive at the apartment. “We don’t have home delivery,” I said. “No home delivery?” she said, as if I had said Nome had no food or water. “You mean you have to go down and […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 I’d like to think that Captain James Cook was the kind of guy who gave some serious thought to the names he gave Alaskan geographical features on his voyage here in 1778. I’d like to picture him considering the ambience, the weather, and the personality of the […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 You take a lot of things for granted in this life and I found out recently that Nome was one of them. When I first read about those annual “Nome Picnics” down south and how people in the Lower 48 subscribed to this little rag of a […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 “Why don’t they just put the land bridge back?” This was my five-year-old talking. We’d been standing around the National Park Service office here in Nome and we were looking at the Bering Land Bridge Preserve maps. He was confused about this ancient “bridge” talk and I’ll […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994 It is a special thing to live by the sea. I have often taken it for granted, and I am always drawn back. The changes in the color, the waves, the smell, and the animals all put us human beings in touch with the most basic of […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 Three weeks of pampering wasn’t the real reason I went to Hawaii last December (although that was okay). I really went so I could swim in the bay where Captain James Cook was murdered 216 years ago.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 It was a cool summer evening in the valley of Serpentine Hot Springs Creek as the 402 Cessna dropped us onto the dirt strip near the National Park Service cabin and bathhouse. We’d planned this trip even before we arrived in Nome last spring. Looking at the […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 There’s something about a Carhartts man that sets my heart aflutter; Is it the cloth or is it that color of mustard and peanut butter? Be he a carpenter, musher, or cook, or a man crushing rusty fuel drums; If he’s cloaked in the hues of mustard […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 I miss having toddlers in the house. Active, noisy, obstinate, and sometimes downright destructive, they’re also loving, enthusiastic and delightful. A toddler’s energy level also brings out the active, noisy, obstinate nature of a lot of adults, too. Just ask someone who has just returned from grocery […]
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994 My father loved trains. Oh, he put pennies on the track in Ohio for the Nickel Plate to crush and he set up a Lionel train under the Christmas tree every year like a lot of other kids. But then he got serious.
