Alaska, a.k.a. The Seventh Ring of Hell

Moving to Alaska was no one’s first choice. Okay, maybe Mom, but still I doubt it. Mom was trying to move as far away from dad
as possible and we were just along for the ride.
I believe I was in first grade when they got divorced, all
the proceedings, etc. and by the time I was in second grade, the divorce was
final. Mom was selling the house, back
to my dad and high-tailing it for Alaska.
She would start her own business in Alaska, be her own woman, “hear me
ROAR”, etc. it was the end of the 70’s.
To start off this “wonderful” journey mom would leave ahead
of us kids (Renee, Eric and Me – Daphne was long gone, already out on her own). Leaving us behind with a young family from
the church left in charge of our safe keeping, until she was settled and/or I’m
assuming until the school year was finished, we move.
Please keep in mind, up until this point in time I had a
pretty good life. I was healthy, had
good friends, lived next door to my grandma, walked to school every day, played
with neighborhood friends, had a nice house, I had to share a room with my
brother, but I adored him so that was okay.
Life was “normal”.
Our first residence in Alaska was far from a “home”. As I remember it, it was an apartment on
and/or near the army base in Anchorage.
It was a Class A SHIT HOLE!
Small, dark, dirty, nasty. I don’t
remember that we were there long; however this is what I have to say about it
now. If our mom traveled ahead of to get
a “home” set up before the kids moved and followed her, leaving her children,
with the presumed expectation that she was setting up a suitable residence for
us. Uuhhhh – where the hell was our “home”? Before we were all consumed by cockroaches we
did finally move. To a house, with a
yard, within walking distance of my school, with neighborhood friends, etc.
Here is what I remember of my life in Alaska, in no
particular order:
I had a friend across the street who would have me over and
we would eat SPAM sandwiches (what did I care, I was a little kid), that and
fried egg sandwiches. I had another
friend who was only allowed to watch Little House on the Prairie, as per her
parents it was the only show suitable for children. And yet another friend whose father or
step-father was a complete pervert.
When we moved to Alaska, mom had a boyfriend. A real tool from what my brother and sister
tell me. However, I didn’t like him
because one day I stayed home sick from school and he made me feel like an inconvenience
to him. Which I probably was, but if
that is how he felt then he shouldn’t have been dating a single-mom. After yelling at me, he took me to a café for
lunch and taught me how to tell time.
Mom joined a group called PWP (Parents without Partners); it
was a way for single parents to meet other single parents. She would throw parties and there were new
people to meet, games to play, etc. it was a good time.
There was a mother in our neighborhood that had two little
kids. They would come over and
play. However one day they just weren’t
their anymore. My mom told me she couldn’t
afford to have her kids anymore. What
the hell does that mean? I’m assuming
they became wards of the state, due to some sort of either diminished mental
capacity or drug use, or…. Who knows! But
more than anything I think that this speaks to the economic status of the
neighborhood that we were living in.
My mom did start her own business (along with two other
partners). One lady named Judy, who was
short with fuzzy blond hair, along with another lady, I cannot remember her
name but she was tall, lean and from what I can remember very eloquent, moving
like the wind. They started, of all
things an African Boutique. Whose brainiac
idea that was, I’ll never know. She not
only had her own business, she also worked full time. She was a cook at the Captain Cook hotel. She had a great work ethic.
I got a bicycle for either my birthday or Christmas. I can remember, knowing I was getting a bike. I can hear someone putting it together in the
other room, the day before I received it.
It was the coolest bike you would have ever seen. Long streamers that hung from the handle bars
a seat that was decorated with a rainbow.
It was fantastic.
My brother and sister put my hand in warm water one night to
make me pee the bed (loving family).
We had to put tinfoil on the bedroom windows to keep the
light out in the summer. In the summer
it was light when you woke up, light when you went to bed and light while you
were sleeping. And, for about 9 months
out of the year it was dark and fricken cold!
Miserable, beautiful in retrospect, but FREEZING. For a family that didn’t have a lot of money,
staying warm was at a premium. You know
the movie “A Christmas Story” when the little boy is getting ready to walk to
school; he had to get so bundled up he could hardly move. It was that, times 10. When your mother has to tell you “don’t cry
when go outside or your eyes will freeze”, it’s too damn cold! After walking to school, I actually had to
peel off my artic wear to go sit down in class, boots, parkas, etc. RIDICULOUS!
One year, hot air balloons landed right in our front
yard. It was an amazing spectacle.
One evening we were all sitting around the table, mom’s
boyfriend was playing the guitar and singing.
I was singing along with him, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”. I don’t think that I knew the words; I think
I was more repeating them as he sang them.
He sang “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, baddest man in the whole Damn town,” and
I sang right along after him. However
when the word “Damn” slipped out of my mouth, I gasped, I was mortified, my
mother gasped. I don’t know if she was
mad or not. I just knew that I was not
to say such words.
We would travel home during the summer to visit dad and our
house. Oddly, it will always be “the
house I grew up in” even though I didn’t live there for very long. It’s too bad none of us will ever live in it
again.
Well, that’s what I remember. In summary Alaska is hell, it’s cold, your
siblings make you wet the bed, you can’t go outside with wet hair or your
eyelashes will break off, people eat “meat” from a can, and hot air balloons
randomly fall from the sky.