Moving On...Ya don't know, until ya go

Even after 40 years in Alaska I'll never get used to the transient nature of the people here. You forge new friendships...and they leave for the 48, of all the people I started with in Alaska I can only name a few that are still here. Some came with a plan, make their North Slope money and then buy that ranch in the states or retire to Arizona. Some people just have to move on, they 've been in Alaska too long, they wonder what its like in the real world....that's the case I guess with that guy right there, my youngest son Samuel John.

Having grown up in the military I wanted my kids to have the kind of community continuity that I never had. To live in one place and to have known people there entire lives. I think that's part of this deal, part of this Alaska love-hate-gotta go-be right back syndrome. My oldest son Maxwell Steven is already in the 48, Sams leaving next week for the Seattle area, which to me is way better than the first plan that was to go to Los Angeles. While going to college he did several semesters at Northern Arizona in Flagstaff and that was just enough taste of it that he never forgot that he wanted more, like my first summer working the cannery in Kenai I guess. So after working different jobs and getting his degree from UAA he's out of here, wander lust at work and I understand entirely, after all, theres a big old interesting world out there and Sam needs to challenge it and himself. But Alaska is a special place, its hard to get started here and for some harder to leave. Let me tell you what I've learned about that whole deal.....

Personally I figure that I haven't really lived here as much as I've accomplished it. When I came to Soldotna I jokingly told people "ya better get used to me cause I ain't leavin". The sacrifice and hard work, not to mention the heart ache that it took to work through our youth and land here at Mile 14 is way too much to gamble away with the notion I could live somewhere else....but for Sam, its perfect, the right time in his life to find things out just as me and MP did when we moved here.

I think Alaskans, born and bred like Samuel John sometimes don't do so well in the 48, it is different you know. Looking around my old home State  of Montana I think of the hunting and fishing opportunities and I see all the fences  it feels like you'd be fishing in somebodies yard . I'm in town and I look around and instead of seeing nothing that man has made I see only what he has.  I look around the city and I wonder what are the chances of running into somebody I might know like happens so routinely here in Slowdotna. I guess I'm also a bit naive, I've never really seen poverty or even poorness of spirit, it bothers me and I see it in the city..... I'm always amused at how the city boundaries are delineated by only a sign, before it and after it looks the same but its new town, new school district, new politics, new social order, new issues....here in Alaska all that is so much easier to spot. In the city you go for walks, here its a hike.

So we're doing all we can to help make this transition as 'seamless' as possible as they say in the white collar world . We talked Sam into shipping his car rather than drive the Alcan as winter approaches but it occurred to me that deprived him of some of the adventure. That was his concession to me, so I wouldn't be so nervous about the trip. His old store manager has house in Tacoma where he'll hang his hat and find a job and follow his passion for micro brews. We have family and many good friends like Dick and Lorreta in the area so thats a comfort as well.....but jeez....we're going to miss that bi-yearly drive to Soldotna to get his oil changed by the old man. We're going to miss Turkey Day. We're going to miss....him. Oh, did I tell you he plays a pretty darn good lead guitar and well, that I'm going to miss....

So being a musician and a little consumer orientated Sam has some pretty cool stuff that I get temporary custody of like a Fender Strat and this Line 6 amp. Its Line FlexTone 3 which is as cool as it gets. A lot of musicians favor the old 'tube type' amps for sound quality and effects. Well this amp has a computer in it that mimics any and all of the 'classic' sounds, if you want it to sound like an old Fender Princeton from my Jr. High days or a Marshall Stack from my last rock concert you just turn it to it...walla. The dogs scared of it and I think MP hates it but me....I'm liking that real good...  In a godda divida baby....Well, I'll take good care of it Sam, happy trails and I'd bet you'll still get that alcan drive in, if not soon, someday. I've seen that part of the syndrome many times to.