Monday, May 16, 2005

Signs That You've Lived in Fairbanks Too Long

Do You See Signs? May 12,2005
Fairbanks Daily News Minor
Letter to the Editor, By David A. James
Clifications for non-Alaskan reader placedc in ( ) by me

Here's more signs that you've lived in Fairbanks too long for your own good:

You miss Wally Hickel (right wing radical governor). You still haven't pulled the (left wing) "Fran Ulmer for Governor" bumper sticker off the back end of your Subaru. You read in the News-Miner that North Pole is a town full of "red-necks, renegades and religious fanatics" and think, "Hot damn! Here I come! You used to worry about those people out in Ester; now you live there. You're a right-wing conspiracy theorist. You're a left-wing conspiracy theorist.

You drive out of your way to see what the sign at Bible Baptist Church says. You find yourself agreeing with the sign. The last work you did on your Alaska dream home was when you wrapped it in Tyvek and slapped plywood over the floor joists and then moved in and that was 22 years, two wives, and three live-in girlfriends ago.


The term "getting your meat" which once meant moose hunting in the fall, now means grabbing a pound of chicken strips at Fred Meyer. The only thing you own that's larger than your truck is the NRA sticker affixed to it. Your long hair just can't cover up your redneck...or your potbelly.

While rummaging through a dumpster at the transfer station, you stop to answer your cell phone. You walk into Lowe's without realizing its a new store, you just assume Home Depot has changed from orange to blue. You don't mind the long lines at Alaska Coffee since the wait gives you time to ponder the tattoos on the baristas. The highlight of your day is reading the letters to the News-Miner.

You think "planned parenthood" means having more kids so you can collect their PFDs (Permanent Fund Dividend checks). You didn't know that PFD is also a term for life jacket. You can't get out on the river because your air-boat broke down in 1987 and ever since then has been sitting on a dilapidated trailer in the front yard of your unfinished Alaska dream home.

If any or the above applies to you, congratulations. You are now one of us.

David A. James
Fairbanks

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Springtime In Alaska and it's 40 below---not quite

The bright orb of the sun punctuates ocean blue sky fabric and pushes the mercury past the seventy degree mark. Amid Sandhill cranes basking in sun drenched fields, tree swallows dive in love sick spirals and Morning Cloak butterflies stretch hibernation stiff wings. Humans scurry about fueled by anxiety...anxiety about the possibility missing a single moment of this precious gift called summer. Boats buzz like mosquitoes along the river as engines are tested for soundness. Rakes rattle through the winter dry grasses emerging from rotting snow-pile corpses. Children with rubber boots sloshing at their knees stomp through mud-puddle seas. Smiling parents look on in envy, too bedazzled by the new found sun to care about mud stained clothing.


Here I sit in the bed of my pick-up truck, surrounded in all directions by spruce forests dripping on soggy carpets of snow. Mosquitos pester the snout of Scrub, the aged Golden Retriever resting at my feet. Sipping my pint of Guinness I conemplate the river 30 yards ahead, its coils meandering westward towards Fairbanks some 20 miles distant. I squint at a dimple spreading across its surface...."Can it be? Is an Arctic Grayling already arriving for its summer feeding banquet of crunchy insects?" Instinctively I reach where my fly rod should be stowed, but then I remember my purpose for being here on this fine day. I take another swig of Guiness and pull my eyes back into focus on the text book of Spanish lying on my lap. Final exams are in two days and many verb conjugates remain to be crammed into my head before I can become a danger to that Grayling calling me to river's edge.