Discovered the challenge through Clew’s Blues blog and thought I might try it. Doing it unofficially because there are over 1000 people doing it and I choose not to do a linky-log thingy with that many links to it. So, each day I write for this challenge I will simply give you a link to the A to Z home and let you choose whether or not to go there to read. Deal? Deal.
🙂
The idea is to write something every day but Sundays (see I’ve already broken a rule) thus writing 26 days on the letters of the alphabet. I need to catch up on some days: A and B (Friday and Saturday)
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A: Alaska
Hubby and I moved to Alaska in 1978 – we were not yet 30, had two young daughters (3 and 8) and needed to get away from the BIG city of Columbus, Ohio. His mother had moved to the Atlanta, GA area and my mother had passed away five years previously.
We still had some kin around – cousins and such – but it was time for us to move on to become adults.
We attended a small church there – which hosted “home missionaries” from Alaska often. One of them sold us – hook, line and sinker – on Alaska. He always brought gorgeous pictures of scenery, including shots of water, mountains, fishing, wildlife . . . ALASKA with all capital letters.
We knew it was the right move to make when we were able to sell our moderately large home,all of the furnishings and two vehicles with little to no advertising . . . in TWO WEEKS!
It was a GOD thang!
A job as winter caretakers for a Kenai fish packing company was arranged for hubby by the missionary pastor. Hubby was hired over the phone without an in-person meeting. The owner even purchased hubby’s airplane ticket because we hadn’t closed on the Columbus house yet and had no money.
Daughters and I flew up two weeks later after emptying and closing on the house. Our last night there was spent sleeping on the floor using borrowed sleeping bags.
My first introduction to Alaska was at the Anchorage airport – we arrived late (a pretty normal occurrence back then) and the girls and I ran for the gate to the small commuter plane we would take to Kenai.
A man discerned we were newbies – cheechakos – and said something to the effect of AAI (now defunct, but with a tagline by locals of “the only way to die”) having brought out the GOOD plane – it only had ONE square wheel.
Gee, thanks, buddy. I had just gotten the 3 year old quiet after that long first ever flight to Alaska. Sigh.
No, sweetie, the man was kidding. It’s a very safe plane. We’ll see daddy soon.
Half an hour later after a bumpy flight over Cook Inlet we arrived in Kenai. Not just to hubby, however. He was accompanied by the pastor and his wife and an older man (who later came to be known as “Grandpa” and who lived with us for about 10 years). Grandpa greeted us in a big booming voice “I had to come meet the mail order bride – heh, heh, heh.”
We’ve been here over 30 years now and Alaska is our home. Our girls grew up, got married, and gave us grandbabies. We have moved on from the original church, but have many of the same friends – and plenty more -that we had while there.
We no longer live at the fish plant (thank, heavens!).
Alaska brought out the adventurers in us – sort of – we are sorta city folk – that is, we live in town and have running water and utilities. But the area is small enough that we know many of the residents by face if not by name. We sit in bleachers with the same people time after time. Used to be we were all the parents of the kids participating in sports, band and choir. Now we are the grandparents.
I find myself cracking up and the least little thing – causing me to smile and remark to those around me: I live in Alaska – I make my own fun.
Come join us, won’t you?