The Golden Years (The 50th Reunion of the AHS Class of 1960)

Ever wondered where frequently-published fiction writers get their ideas for all those stories?

Think of the many books written by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Sue Grafton and others. You’d think they’d run out of ideas after a dozen or so, wouldn’t you?

Charlaine Harris, the author of the fabulously successful Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire series (the inspiration for the HBO series True Blood), answered that question at a writer’s conference I attended a couple years ago in Anchorage.

Harris said something like this:

I was at one of my kid’s school basketball games when a player broke for the basket, scored, then kept running—right out of the gym and down the hall. And I thought, ‘What if (he/she) doesn’t come back?’ That was the basis for one of my books.

Thus, the answer is “what if?” Applied frequently and liberally.

So today we’re going to play “What If?” right here at Gullible’s Travels, originating from Muskeg Manor.

***

First, let’s set the scene.

In 1960 there was one high school in Anchorage—Anchorage High School (AHS).

The new school had opened 1953 and already the student population had increased so much that quonset huts behind the school were used as classrooms.

Jackie and her school newspaper co-editor Gullible discussing the next issue of the Eagle's Cry.

A new school on the east side of town was not yet finished The students were divided into East and West student bodies and double-shifted at AHS. The Westies attended school in the morning and the Easties in the afternoon. There were almost five hundred students in the 1960 graduating class.

World War II hero Dwight Eisenhower was president. Richard Nixon was vice president, but running for the office of president. A young US Senator from Massachusetts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was making a name for himself during the campaign. Religion was a big issue in the campaign, because no Catholic had ever been elected president. Voters were concerned about how much influence the Vatican would have if Kennedy won.

For the first time, Alaskans would be able to vote in the presidential election, as statehood had been granted the previous year. Our parents could vote—we could not, even though many of us would turn eighteen that final year of school.

The voting age was twenty-one, the drinking age was twenty-one, but young men could die for their country at eighteen. Military service was mandatory for all young men eighteen and older under the Selective Service draft.

Cuba and Fidel Castro were an issue, as was the Cold War and a fearsome Soviet Union. The potential for nuclear war hung like a black cloud over the world.

In 1955, Bill Haley and the Comets recorded a song called “Rock around the Clock.” It didn’t do well until the next year when it was included in a movie called, “Blackboard Jungle” starring Glenn Ford. Teens danced in the aisles of movie theaters across the country. Parents were aghast. Then, all hell broke loose.

Youths all over the country ran head long at the walls of a rigid society with rigid mores and made them bend.

A sleepy-eyed youth from the deep south with the weird name of Elvis Presley completed the jail break, and millions of teens ran in pursuit. Parents were apoplectic. Kids cast aside their parents’s favorites--Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, and Doris Day, and so on.

They preferred (after Elvis, of course), Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. And scores of others— rock and roll, R&B, blues—whatever, so long as it had a dancing beat to it, and their parents didn’t like it, didn’t consider it music.

And if the lyrics were "Wemoweh, wemoweh, wemoweh, wemoweh,” or "Oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang?” Well, so much the better.

So, with all that in play, it's time for WHAT IF.

What if you were a radio disc jockey during the late 1950s?

What if you had the mega-economic power of Coco-Cola as your sponsor?

What if you and that mega-power won, if not the heart, then certainly the mind of Ernie Spink, the station manager of KFQD radio?

What if you, Ron Moore aka The Royal Coachman, brought rock and roll to teenagers seeking their own generation’s identity?

The Royal Coachman in shades, DJ SCoty Ferguson standing at right, classmate Dick (seated) at the controls.

What if you were remembered so fondly by those long ago teenagers that they invited you to attend their 50^th high school class reunion, even though you now lived and worked in Texas?

And….

What if your flight to Anchorage was rescheduled the very day….

Anchorage Hillside, nearing midnight in late June, 2010.

…and rescheduled again……

….and when you finally arrived in Anchorage and walked through the security gates…..

….you saw this...

and this...

or (OMG!) this???

Would you run?

No, you would not, because that’s you right there in the center right of these oddly-costumed senior citizens, the very group that had been amusing others-in-waiting at the gates, the ones who had joined in the welcoming applause.

And waiting outside the luggage area was this:

…waiting to transport you to the ultra-ritzy (for Alaska) Captain Cook Hotel.

“Fasten your seatbelt,” reminded Gullible as you sat in the back seat of the shiny Chevy Bel Air.

“There aren’t any,” you laughed.

Indeed, boys and girls, no one had ever heard of automobile seat belts back then. We are definitely talking the dark ages here.

(To be continued)

PS to the Yakutat Journals

I mentioned early on in the Yakutat Journals that JJ intended the trip to be more than exploration of new country. She'd had knee surgery the year before after rupturing the ACL in one knee. This trip was to help condition the knee. She had difficulty carrying heavy loads, wearing heavy hip waders, etc., and occasionally had to wear a brace on that knee.

I spoke with her a couple weeks ago. She had hiked to Bench Lake and back in one day--nineteen miles.

I'd say the knee was doing well.

The Yakutat Journals, Chapter Fourteen Minus One

(NOTE: No, I didn't skip a chapter and you didn't miss a chapter. I finally figured out how to write the final chapter of this Yakutat saga and not have it numbered thirteen.)

Chapter Fourteen Minus One: In which we leave Yakutat on a high note--except for my sleeping bag


JJ is the kind of person who loves to explore unnamed back roads. As a result, we found this place a little ways out of Yakutat. Besides the beautiful water, the first thing that caught our attention were all the bald eagles soaring around in the sky or perched in the trees and on the rocks.

An immature bald eagle. The head and tail turn white at three or four years.

A little investigation led us to a dock with this view:


That curving black line is a school of herring.



In this picture, the fish are swirling around.


And guess who's trying to catch dinner?



Hit and run...er...hit and fly.




Shucks. Next time I'll catch one.

We watched the eagles for a long time, then headed off to Chris's lodge to check into our room.




JJ chose to sleep downstairs to give her surgically repaired knee a break. I went upstairs. This place could have slept a dozen people. It also appears my Big Agnes sleeping bag has taken up permanent residence there because it wasn't with my gear when I boarded the ferry for the trip home. E-mail her, you suggest? Yakutat has neither cell phones nor internet service. I did call, though, to no avail so far.



Next morning we were at the ferry dock at 7 a.m, but had watched the ferry come right by our room earlier.



On board, the deck crew tied down all the vehicles.



We checked into our rooms and this time had to carry our sheets and blankies to our rooms by ourselves. All the smart stewards were out of sight.




Our room was the farthest to the left, just before the shed roof woodshed.


Part way across the Gulf of Alaska, we approached Kayak Island and this is where history jumped up in my face again. Today Kayak Island has an unmanned, automated lighthouse. The island is twenty miles long and averages two miles wide.



In 1741, Peter the Great of Russia selected Vitus Bering to chart the Siberian Coast and search for a land bridge to America. Bering's voyage led to the coast near Yakutat, where he spotted and named Mt. Saint Elias. Traveling north, they saw Kayak Island, and sent a landing party.


On the landing party was a zoologist named Georg Stellar. He collected plants and birds not seen in Asia or Russia. Named after Stellar were a variety of sea lion, the Stellar Jay, as well as eiders and eagles. He also made the first sighting of what became known as the Stellar sea cow, a relative of the manatee, which became extinct several decades later due to over-hunting.

(Those little white spots in the large area of forest, right center, is the lighthouse location. Click to enlarge the photo.)

Bering's name is applied to the Bering Sea, where the Discover Channel's series about crab fishing there is filmed. And, the Bering Strait, which separates Asia from North America also is named after the captain.

British explorer Capt. James Cook recorded seeing Kayak Island in 1778.

Eventually, though, it was bedtime for us latter-day explorers and this time I didn't have nightmares about seizures throwing me to the floor. We arrived in Whittier about 6 a.m., and it was raining.

But, I think I mentioned that in the first chapter, didn't I? Because it always rains in Whittier.

The End of the Yakutat Journals.

Saved by Incompetence

When today arrived and seemed to promise the fourth day in a row without significant rainfall, I could no longer use the weather as an excuse for continuing to avoid a necessary chore.

See this huge deck? What was I thinking when I determined the size to be constructed? Actually, it's obvious I wasn't considering maintenance of same. Today I needed to put a coat of stain on this expanse.

I gathered up all the stuff I'd need, and resigned myself to an afternoon of pushing a paint pad back and forth forever and ever, amen. The deck goes around the far side of the house, then widens again in front.




First, though, I had to clean up the mess the magpies made having a puff ball (mushroom) picnic on the steps. How do I know it was magpies?

Whenever there's mischief afoot, magpies are involved. Always.


I emptied the quarter can of stain into a painter's tray, then opened the last full gallon to mix with it.

Well, well, well.


The paint person at Home Depot had neglected to put tinting pigment in the can! Golly, gee. Too bad I had only enough stain to paint the rim facia.





Ah, saved by incompetence. Gotta love it.

It's Different Now

Heartache came into my small community recently, came in and walloped the bejesus out of us. Its cold fingers reached from one person to the next, squeezing so hard the tears came directly from our hearts.

The unspeakable, unthinkable rumor crept from one person to another, unlike the way other kinds of rumors fly with the speed of light. One feared to mention this one, as if by not saying it aloud, it we could deny it veracity: one of our own was lost in a distant land. Lost in the violence of warfare, lost while working to protect his fellow Marines.

No, I thought. Not Chris. Not that darling young lad with the sprinkling of freckles and the wonderful smile. No. Not him.

I didn’t want to watch the TV news that evening but I was compelled. I started offering deals. If it isn’t on the news, it isn’t real. If it isn’t on the news, it’s a mistake—a bad rumor. Maybe he’s only hurt—that would be bad enough. Maybe they got the name wrong—maybe it’s someone else—oh, no, I can’t go there, can’t trade one of our own for someone else’s own, but ohmygod the temptation was mighty.

Yet, there it was on the five and six o’clock news. The 28-year-old son of my good friend, killed in a bomb explosion, apparently detonated by remote control as he was approaching to dismantle it.

The next morning. A large photograph on the front page of the newspaper. Dover AFB, Maryland. Soldiers carrying a flag-shrouded casket down the ramp of a large airplane. I was offended, not by the photo, but by the words in the cutline: “…the remains of…”

Those aren’t remains, I fumed. That’s the sunny lad who, with his brothers, shoveled snow off my roof and those of many others after a heavy storm. That’s Chris. Not “remains”. The horrid irony is that I had written similar words when I was a practicing journalist. But, it’s different when it’s one of your own.

I ache for his mother, my good friend. I ache for this woman who had raised her own and several foster children, and when they were grown, had adopted four young boys, one of whom was Chris. She, a single mother, taught them honesty and a hard work ethic by example.

Chris had pledged his service to the Marines while still in high school. A good student, a good athlete, a good kid, he knew his path at a young age.

I ache for his young wife and his toddler daughter. I ache for the unborn baby in its last trimester that will never know it dad.

And I ache for Chris, one of our own. I have always tried to believe my government knows ever so much more about world situations that I do, tried to believe it is doing the right thing.

It’s different now, when it’s one of your own. My heart cries, “Get out of there—get out now!” Yet, I wonder if such a plea disrespects Chris and his fellow soldiers and their sacrifices.

The American flag still flies from my balcony, but not at half staff. That would be impossible with a four-foot high flag on a five foot staff. No, this flag flies in all its red, white and blue glory for Chris. For Chris the lad, Chris the son, Chris the man, Chris the husband, Chris the father, Chris the friend, Chris the Marine.