A Paddler's Life: Part Two

Part Two (If you haven't read part one first, it is immediately below this post. This one won't make much sense if you haven't read the first part.)

            The next morning the old man loaded his boat and shoved off into the river. Paddling through a wide placid section of the stream he thought about other rivers he had paddled, trips he'd made to remote places filled with beautiful mountains and ribbons of white water trailing through them.

            "Trips," he muttered.

"That's all life is," he thought. “Everything is a trip. Getting up in the morning, going to work, falling in love, raising kids, finishing jobs. They are all trips. Some are long, some short, some are wonderful, some not much fun, but they all take you somewhere."

            That afternoon and the next three days, in the calm spots between deadly rapids and while camped, he brooded over the trip that had been his life. He had roamed over the entire damn continent as a young man, looking for adventure, coming to Alaska to strike it rich in the oil fields, finishing college, then starting a geological consulting business. With new computer technology he'd made a fortune, then sold his share of the business to his partner; so he’d have more time to paddle with his family, to write, to adventure.

            They had hit the road the summer the girls were 12 and 13. The paddling had been grand. Camping and canoeing through Mexico, Costa Rica, California, Colorado, the Great Plains, the Deep South, Newfoundland, Boundary Waters, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. Finally after three years they were back in Fairbanks for the girls to attend high school.

            Jan was ready for college at 16, but he and her mother had insisted on a couple of years of high school to let her mature a bit. Liz, however, never settled down after the three years of tramping. That first trip on the Susitna, followed by their roaming years, had been just the beginning for her.

All through high school Liz chafed at the structure of town life and organized studies. Eventually she dropped out of school at 17 to paddle on a newly developing white water rodeo circuit.

            Liz was great. Her enthusiasm, lack of fear, and natural beauty made her a hit with the fans, the corporate sponsors, and with the boys. As she traveled and competed postcards from West Virginia, Scotland, Zaire, New Zealand, Chile, Oregon, India, and other spots found their way to the mailbox at the family cabin back near Fairbanks.

            The old man smiled as he remembered how angry he'd been at her for quitting school, but how proud he'd been of her independence and success as a vagabond paddler. He remembered when she'd called from Southern Oregon crying, saying she needed money. He wired her twice what she'd asked for and a week later she was home with a beat up kayak, two duffle bags of gear and a broken heart. The boy friend had split after the abortion and the old man swore if he ever found the jerk he'd wring his neck. He would have too.

            Liz spent the next two years guiding trips on several rivers and working odd jobs around Fairbanks. She never seemed content unless she was on a river. Father and daughter canoed together a few times, but her skill had grown so great that she kept wanting to run bigger and wilder rivers than he was capable of. She became obsessed with first descents of steep creeks and with big water. Several times she'd almost been killed in huge rapids with sharp undercut rocks or frothing holes that kept boat and paddler pinned beneath the turbulent water far too long. Her mother believed that she had a death wish. The old man knew she didn't, but feared she'd never be able to control the desire for wildness. He knew the need all too well.

            The old man's writing hadn't gone so well. He'd written some stuff, but never tried more than couple of times to find a publisher. His poetry had been pretty good, and his wife and the girls professed to like the novels, but as much as he loved creating with words he just wasn't into doing the work to get published. He still loved the magic of putting words to paper, and he wrote every day. “Being a writer was both a long and a short trip,” he thought.

            Jan liked the academic life. She'd done well in college and law school. She gravitated to environmental law with a special interest in causes related to rivers. The man smiled to think of his tall red headed daughter. She was always intense, but full of fun too. He was proud of what she'd accomplished with the Seattle firm she worked at.

            He paddled on, reminiscing and feeling good to be on the river, feeling alive, almost young again. He had made slow work of this trip, taking time to work his way back and forth across the river to play in as many rapids as possible. He'd spent afternoons napping, walking up hills near the river and reading from the books he'd packed along. The normal five day trip was turning into ten or more days. It was a good thing he’d packed extra food.

            At camp one night, thinking of his girls, he wondered aloud to the rocks and trees "How is it that two sisters could be so different when they'd had the same upbringing? The mysteries of nature versus nurture," he muttered. “Does our biology determine anything more than the physical form. Perhaps. Perhaps not”

            A meteor shot across the sky and he thought of Liz, blazing through life, burning up in glorious splendor.

            The river had grown wider, deeper, and more powerful over the course of his trip. The late spring run off from the glaciers and snow fields in the surrounding mountains had swelled the water; so that the river roiled and rolled between its banks, crashing off piles of rocks at the base of frequent cliffs.

            The man recognized a tight bend a quarter mile down stream, which hid from view the beginning of the steep walls and narrowing gorge that formed Hell's Canyon. He pulled over on the riverbank between some rocks and climbed out of his canoe. He walked a hundred yards up an open slope along a path, turned and looked back at his canoe, the river, the impossibly blue sky, and down stream toward the mouth of the canyon. He stretched in the morning sun then lay down on a patch of moss and grass. The sun felt good on his tanned, bearded face. He closed his eyes, listened to the sound of the moving water, felt the breeze swirl through his hair. The paddling, the camping, the solitude had all combined to drain the tension and grief from his body. For the first time in a long while the world felt right, almost. In a few minutes he was dozing.           

            The man dreamed during his nap. He dreamed of his wife, dreamed that she had returned from wherever it was she'd gone five years ago. It was a good dream and he smiled while he slept. He dreamed of his daughters when they were young and life was carefree.

             Dreaming more, his mind's eye saw young Liz paddling into a giant hole in the middle of a frothing, rock filled, maelstrom of a rapid. He saw her kayak pop up out of the hole and go bobbing down miles of the most horrifying water a paddler could imagine. Liz never reappeared. Tears rolled down his checks as he fitfully napped. 

            Suddenly, he was startled from his nap by the sound of voices. He sat up and looked toward his canoe.  There were three large rubber rafts on the sand bar just below the rocks where he had beached his canoe. People were climbing out of the rafts and dragging them up the shore. There must have been 14 or 15 brightly clad, noisy customers and guides of Alaska Wild River Outfitters.

            "Damn," he swore softly. He'd been hoping to avoid seeing anyone on this trip. "You just can't get away from the tourists, even in remote Alaska," he said to himself.

            He sat on the slope watching the paddlers mill about. They were talking and laughing, unloading, their gear and deflating the rafts. Obviously they'd had a fun trip. Within a few minutes they began to portage their gear up the hill toward the man. There was an old grass airstrip on a flat ridge less than a mile further up the hill behind the man's napping spot. He guessed they had a couple of planes chartered to pick them up there. There were no roads, no ATV tracks, accessing this part of the river. Actually there were no roads within a hundred in any direction from where he sat.

            Two young men came puffing up the hill carrying a large waterproof box between them.

            "Hi," they sang out as they walked by.

            "Hi," the man replied with a friendly smile.

            A young woman with a dry suit open enough to reveal that she had nothing on underneath came by next carrying a pack and a smaller box. She stopped and stared at the man.

            "Is that your canoe?" she asked, tipping her head back toward the river.

            "Yes, it is," he answered trying not to look at her heaving chest and the breast that kept threatening to slip into the unzipped opening of her paddling suit. Failing miserably he stared anyway.

            She grinned as she turned her head back and noticed his gaze. "These damn suits get so hot when the sun comes out, and every piece of clothing I have is soaking wet. Nearly naked seems better than boiled in the suit," she flirted.

            "I agree," he replied with a sly smile.

            "How long have you been on the river?" she asked.

            "I put in ten days ago at Grub Stake Creek.”

            "Nice trip!"

            "Did you portage the big rapids?"

            "One of them," he said.

            Her eyebrows raised. "That's some darn big water for a canoe, even with the deck covered. And you're paddling solo?"

            "It is exciting," he said as he smiled and stood stretching his long arms to the sky.

            "Do you have a plane coming?" she asked.

            "No," he muttered, picking his hat up from the ground.

            "Surely you aren't going to hike out of here. Why it would take a week to reach the nearest road."

            "At least that long," he agreed.

            "So?"

            "Nice talking with you mam," he smiled again and turned to walk down the hill.

            "So, where are you going?"

            "Down river," he called over his shoulder.

            She stood still, staring after him as he ambled down the trail.

            The old man nodded and exchanged greetings with the rafters as they passed each other. He paused at his canoe and began putting his paddling jacket and life vest back on. He looked up the hill. The woman was talking with one of the river guides and pointing at the man by his canoe.

            "Oh, great, a do-gooder," he whispered to himself.

            The young guide set his pack down and trotted back down the slope to the beach, then over to the rocks where the old man was fastening his paddling helmet.

            "Pardon me, mister," the guide said.

            The man said nothing, but fixed the youngster with a steely, blue-eyed stare.

            "Are you going down stream?" asked the young guide.

            "Planning to."

            "Do you know what's down in that canyon? It's class five and six water with un-runnable falls. It’s ten miles of river hell!"

            "Yes it is." he replied as he stepped into his canoe with one foot and shoved off from the river rocks with the other. He quickly settled in to his canoe saddle, adjusted the thigh straps and picked up his paddle.

            "Man there are monster waves, big as houses, and giant holes down there! The walls are too steep to portage out and the river rocks are undercut. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. With the water this high there's no way anyone can make it through. A couple of folks have died trying," the guide extolled.

            The old man nodded and lifted his hand carved paddle in salute to the young guide.

            "I know," he finally answered, drifting away from the shore, about to be swept up in the quickening current.

            "Do you really know what's down there?" the guide yelled frantically.

            "Dreams and ghosts," the old man shouted back. "That's all there ever is."

            His paddle flashed once, twice. Quickly he was in the channel lining up the entrance to the canyon -- a curling wave between two large rocks. A few more stokes and he was gliding up the face of the wave and plunging down the other side out of sight.

A Paddler's Life: Part One

    The red canoe rocked gently on the gravel beach. Six feet of stern floated in the ripples of the swiftly moving river. The boat was half full of gear; dry bags with tent, sleeping bag, food, clothing, and first aid supplies were all strapped into the bottom of the canoe. Spare paddles were wedged under the webbing holding the floatation bags in place. A few maps, a couple of books, bug spray, all in water proof containers, and water bottles were all secured by Velcro, close to hand. There was even a shotgun in its own water proof case, also within close reach. Like all of Alaska this was bear country. The rest of the boat, save for a spot in the middle where the tall, broad shouldered man would sit and kneel to paddle, was filled by the floatation bags whose purpose was to displace splash from standing waves in the rapids downstream. 

         The man unrolled a piece of plastic, a deck cover to keep water off the gear and hopefully out of the boat. He spread this over the canoe and snapped the caps on the sides down to studs placed every few inches just under the gunwales on the outside of the canoe. After securing the cover he stood upright, stretched his sore lower back and turned his bearded face to the morning sun. He walked down the rock beach running fingers through his long gray hair, picked up an old Filson hat from the boulder where he'd lain it while he washed his hair in the calm pool behind some rocks.

         He walked back up the trail, a full half mile to his old four wheel drive truck. He took three envelopes from the pocket of his down vest and placed them on the front seat of the truck, locked the doors, turned, and strolled back down to the river, alternately eating a peanut butter sandwich and whistling part of Beethoven's Ninth.

         A waterproof paddling jacket went over his fleece jacket, then the life vest. He pushed the canoe into shallow water and shook the sand and rocks from his boots as he stepped gingerly to the center of the craft. A quick swig of water from a bottle hanging by his seat, a straightening of the broad brimmed hat and he was ready.

         He leaned out into the river and with his muscular arms pulled the hand carved wood paddle through the water toward himself in a strong and steady draw stroke. The boat awkwardly slid sideways in the water, then, in response to his powerful stroke, turned upstream into the river. The paddle gracefully parted the water beside the canoe propelling it further from shore and angled it into the rushing water.

         Ten quick strokes pushed the canoe through a cross-stream ferry that sliced the eddy line behind a boulder in mid stream. As the back flow of the eddy held the boat upstream behind the rock the man turned in his seat and looked down stream toward the frothing, boulder strewn, wave filled, cold water. This first rapid was only two hundred yards away and it had eaten many a canoe over the years. It was a long rapid, nearly half a mile in length, not too difficult if you knew what you were doing, but with the water high like today the waves could swamp an open canoe.

         The man grinned to think of the first time he'd brought his daughters here. His oldest, Jan, had just about panicked, digging frantically at the water with her paddle and her 12 year old strength. He'd called out strokes to her, then guided the boat through the rocks, holes, and waves. By the end of the five day trip, when they took out above Hell's Canyon, she was a confident determined young paddler. That was twenty years ago and she still paddled once or twice a summer, but only on lakes or slow streams now, with her own children.

         His younger child, Liz's reaction had been completely different. A year later on her first big water trip, when she was also twelve, she had squealed and laughed with delight from the first rapid to the last. Not as gifted athletically as her older sister she made up for it with enthusiasm and fearlessness. Each rapid was a mini adventure for her. Each bend of the river hid a new wonder of moving water, rocks, swaying trees, and the occasional moose or bear.          

       That trip had done it. She became an avid paddler of both canoes and kayaks. Every spare moment of her teen years  and young adult life was devoted to paddling. When she wasn't on the river she was lifting weights, shopping for gear, ordering maps for future trips, and practicing rolls in the community pool during the winter months. In high school she guided for a couple of wilderness companies, taking eco tourists with lots of money into the Alaskan wilds, working enough to pay her bills and finance her own next paddling adventure.

         As the vision of his daughters' young faces vanished before his mind's eye the man dug his paddle into the water, shot his canoe across the eddy line and peeled out into the mainstream of the big river. The water jerked at his boat straightening it into a down stream trajectory. He held the paddle lightly using it to steer like a side rudder. A flick of the wrists and he lined the bow up with a strong V between two under water rocks. A sudden lean to the side and a powerful draw stroke shifted the boat from its collision path with a couch sized boulder. Around the boulder he cut across the eddy line to rest in the upstream flow behind the rock and scout the river ahead.

         Downstream the river narrowed from over a hundred yards to less then thirty as it  squeezed between massive outcroppings of quartzite on either side of the channel. A six foot standing wave guarded the entrance of a short drop. Thank goodness for the spray cover he thought. 

         A twist of the body, a glance down stream and he was back in the current, cresting the wave, dropping from a four foot ledge into a frothy hole of aerated water with large boulders on either side. Upon hitting the hole he dug through the foam, found the water underneath and stoked mightily. Once, twice, three times his mighty back, shoulders, and arms commanded the canoe to move, but the power of the hole at this high water level kept him. Quickly he shifted his weight far forward, leaned almost parallel to the covered deck and dug once more at the water alongside the canoe. The exaggerated stroke worked, prying the boat from the keeper hole.

         The remainder of the rapid was easy. A few small ledges to drop over, a couple of eddy turns to line up narrow chutes, and then he picked his way through the rock garden at the end of the rapid as the river widened back out.

         The rest of the morning he spent joyfully paddling down the river, working his way through small rapids and occasionally stopping to look at some interesting rocks or animal tracks on the shore. Once he rounded a bend and saw a small grizzly sunning himself on a grassy piece of the river bank. The bear glanced at him and was gone with a "woof" into a dense thicket of alders and willows. 

         At lunch he pulled up on some large rocks in mid stream -- the dense brush on the shore looked too much like bear habitat for him to be comfortable eating and resting there. He stripped the sweaty clothes from his body spread them on the rocks to dry and lay naked in the warm sun for an hour. It had been cool and rainy for days before this trip. Last night was clear and cold. He'd slept rolled in his sleeping bag in the open beside his truck, and woke that morning with frost in his beard; so the warm sun on his old, heavily muscled body felt good.

         He thought of his wife, of the times they'd paddled this river. They'd stopped for lunch here too and of course ended up making love on this very rock, with a ground pad beneath them. Just after the climactic moment they were startled to hear voices and the sounds of paddles in the water. Partially screened from view by the steep upstream side of the rock, they looked over the edge to see two raft loads of floaters not thirty yards from their rock. The rafts were heading straight for their large rock and would likely swing around to it's lower side. The lovers had left their clothes on their canoe tied up to a rock across a shallow pool from the trysting rock. Their was no way to get their clothing without being seen by the rafters who were almost to the rock. In a few seconds they would spy the couple.

         He looked at his wife. She gave him a sly grin, shrugged her shoulders and with complete aplomb stood up, stretched her fit, just loved body for all to see and calmly walked across the shallow pool, past the gawking rafters to the canoe where she began to dress. Smiling and red faced he quickly waded to their boat, put on his life vest, threw his clothing in the bottom of the boat, stepped in and away they paddled.

         He and his mate laughed about the incident the rest of that trip. For years to come every time they paddled the river they had stopped at "Lovers' Rock" for another tryst and a laugh. Now alone, he felt a deepening sadness mixed with long neglected desire.

         "Time to go," he muttered to himself.

         He only paddled another hour that afternoon. A good camping spot presented itself on a small bluff above the river; so he built a fire there, set up his tent against the probability of rain from the thickening clouds, ate some jerky, drank some whiskey, went for a walk up a hill, with the shotgun over his shoulder, and was back at the fire playing his harmonica when the moon crawled up into the southeast sky.

         It wasn't completely dark, "Won't get much dark in late July, even in the middle of the state," he said aloud. "Not like on the North Slope, where the sun stays up all night."      

         After reading in the twilight for half an hour he turned in for a good night's sleep.

Part Two will follow.

Child of Darkness

Child of darkness, can you see the light?

Can you feel the warmth,

drawing you out of depression,

calling you into life,

pulling that piece of you which still feels,

still lives,

out of the gloom.

Remember the light.

Remember life.

Feel something, anything 

to stave off the false siren call

that dark death gives. 

January 2009

More College Poems

More College Poems

Untitled #7-14

It's been a while, we've changed a bit,
and though I hoped I never believed that you and I
would have a chance to share again.
Yet here we are, older, sadder, maybe wiser,
crossing paths again.

Where do we start and how shall we play;
maybe as friends or a little more?
I want to stay and learn to love,
but the endless road is calling.
We've mountains to climb and lives to live
with miles and years between us.

So hold me closely and whisper of someday,
when we're older, sadder, and maybe wiser.

Billings, Montana, August 1982


Montana Moonlight

Did you see the moon last night,
big and full, so bright it seemed alive
bathing the snowy world in an eerie bluish white?
I walked for hours beneath it,
acutely sensitive to the sound
of a single set of footsteps on crunchy snow, wondering,
would you kiss me when my beard is full of ice.

Billings, Montana,   January 1982



Dream Wind

Blow on cold wind, shift the leaves and bend the trees,
surround me with the dreams of youth,
add to this illusion and I will stay to see
while others scurry before your breath,
too concerned for comfort to share
the dream-like spell you weave.

University of GA North Campus, November 1981


A Weight Room

With swelling chest and rising spirit,
man becomes a god.

And I, sitting alone
midst the tools that have carved me to this form,
understand in bits and pieces.
This madness calls me,
lures me give my soul
for glory that is fleeting.

Rocky Mountain College Weight Room
May 1982



These four poems along with "Herbert" were published in the 1983 Centennial Edition of Soliloquy, Rocky Mountain College's literary magazine.

Herbert

I wrote this for my step-father, Herbert Roberts when he received his first cancer diagnosis in 1982. Almost ten years earlier he'd been crushed in a car accident and had to undergo several years of agonizing surgeries and rehabilitation and a life time of pain.


Herbert

Death I comprehend
it happens to us all,
but this suffering
it makes no sense,
has no justice,
I do not understand.
You were too strong,
too full of life
to become so broken.
And when finally
living once again
betrayal struck within,
no reason for or why,
simply striking.
You've hurt so long,
been so brave,
I've never seen your tears;
so with love and prayers
I give you mine,
still not understanding.

Billings, Montana - January 1982

Bush Medicine

            I vaguely remember waking from the surgery. Valium and Demerol do make it hard to remember much. The surgeon was saying something about a hole in my esophagus and Barium leaking into my chest cavity, setting up a nasty infection. He said I had twelve to twenty-four hours to live unless he operated immediately. I hazily signed a consent for surgery, suggested the hospital staff call my wife, who was six hundred miles away in a small Inupiaq village north of Nome, then I went back to sleep.

        A month earlier Pat and I had moved to the village of Teller, a small hamlet of about 300 souls located on a spit of land between Port Clarence of the Bering Sea and Grantley Harbor, where the river which drained Imuruk Basin backed up before entering the port. Teller sat in a wind swept, isolated, starkly gorgeous place, with thousands of square miles of rolling tundra and jagged mountains in every direction separating it from the rest of the world. There was a gravel road, open five to six months of the year, leading south seventy-five miles to Nome. Fourteen miles to the west was a lonely US Coast Guard LORAN station, manned by thirty sailors. Across the river channel along the other side of the spit was Brevig Mission, an even smaller village. Outside of Teller, Brevig, and the Coast Guard station you could travel a long way by snow machine, foot or boat and not find any other people.

        After the second day of school that August of 1990, I was eating some stew in our tiny apartment and looking out the window at the amazing view of the harbor. Suddenly I realized I couldn't swallow. I could breathe, but there was a piece of food in my throat that wouldn't go down. I tried drinking some water and it came right back up. I went to the bathroom, stuck my finger down my throat and retched over and over, but the blockage wouldn't budge. I was worried. Pat was out visiting friends and of course in the pre cell phone era I didn't have a way to call her. I walked to the large padded chair in our living room and threw my torso across the back of it, hoping to perform a self induced Heimlich maneuver. It didn't work. I tried again, then again.

        By now it was mid-evening and I was spitting constantly, as I couldn't swallow my own saliva, but I was breathing fine. Pat was still out and I didn't know how to reach her. I decided to call the village health clinic on the chance that someone might be there after hours. The health aide answered. When I explained the situation she said there was an EMT at the clinic. He had come in on a medivac plane to pick up a village elder who was ill and she said that I could talk with the EMT.

        I walked the couple of hundred yards to the clinic and talked with the EMT. He suggested I fly to Nome with them and let a doc take a look at me. I agreed.

        The twin engine Beechcraft made quick work of the short flight to Nome and I rode in the ambulance with the EMTs and the sick old man to the small regional hospital in town. I waited several hours in the ER and finally, near midnight a young doctor came in. He explained that he had finished medical school a couple of months earlier and was paying off student loans by working in rural Alaska.

        The doctor checked me over, decided to try to push the blockage out with a nasal-gastric tube. Now, if you've never had a small plastic tube passed up your nose and down the back of your throat you'll just have to trust my word that it's an odd sensation. The tube got to the blockage and despite a couple of attempts it wouldn't push the chunk of stew meat out of my throat. Next the doctor had me try a Barium swallow while making an X-ray of the blockage. Barium is quite thick and heavy; so it seemed that maybe this would push the lump on down into my stomach. It didn't. I threw up pink Barium allover myself, and the X-ray machine. So all we got was a picture of a lump in my esophagus.

        The hospital folks said they couldn't do anything more for me; so they offered to book me on a commuter flight the next morning to Anchorage and to let me sleep on a spare bed until it was time to go to the airstrip.

        I arrived at Providence Hospital in Anchorage feeling pretty dehydrated and looking forward to having the upper endoscopy preformed to push out the blockage, I figured after the procedure I'd get a hotel room for the night and fly back to Nome and Teller the next day.

        After waking from the endoscopy and being told that my life was in jeopardy things got pretty fuzzy. That Valium and Demerol mixture does make you relax. The next thing I recall from the first few days at Providence was the intensive care unit. My mom was there and Pat was there. After several days when it seemed that I would live, I was moved to a room on the surgical recovery floor. I had tubes coming out of six parts of my body and was told to push a button whenever I felt the need for pain relief. That first week is still lost to the haze of morphine and pain.

        Dr. Fredrick Hood, the talented chief of surgery at Providence explained that the nasal gastric tube had torn a hole in my esophagus and unknown to anyone in Nome, some of the Barium I'd tried to swallow had leaked through the hole, surrounded the organs in my chest and set up an infection. Repairing the tear had been simple. Just a single stitch was needed to close the hole and let the esophagus start to heal. Flushing out the Barium, however, had required the surgeon to open my chest up. He cut out one rib and broke a couple of others. The team had to flush my chest with water for more than four hours to get all of the Barium out. Then they pumped me full of antibiotics and waited to see if I'd make it. I had two large tubes coming out of my lower back, which allowed fluids to drain from my chest into two gallon size jugs under my bed. I had a drain tube from my stomach protruding from my abdomen, another one low on the front of my abdomen and a feeding line running under my collarbone into my stomach. Of course there was also an IV or two leading into my arms for fluids and medication.

        The second week at the hospital saw me improving. When I began to go for walks around the halls I had to have someone pushing my IV tree and carrying the drain jugs. I must have looked like something from a horror movie.

        After a couple of weeks the feeding line was removed and I got to eat some real food. I was starting to feel restless and there was snow on the peaks outside the hospital window. Fall was coming and I wanted to get home. I began wearing blue jeans under my hospital gown, keeping my tennis shoes on all the time and going for longer and longer walks. I was determined that I was going to get better and get out of that hospital. The staff had been great. The nurses had cooked some of my favorite foods and brought them to me. A couple of them had entertained my mother, while she’d been in Anchorage. I'd been given wonderful care. Friends from Georgia sent cards, money, books and crossword puzzles, but my birthday was coming up and I wanted to celebrate it back in the village.

        When the doctors told me the impact of the surgery on my body was like being thrown through the windshield of a car at sixty-five miles per hour and that it would be a year before I felt ok again, I nodded and said fine. Secretly, I thought since I was young and strong I'd be back to normal in a few weeks, maybe a couple of months. The docs were right of course. The flight back to Nome and the bumpy small plane flight to Teller were exhausting. Before the injury I'd been able to lift more than 360 pounds over my head. When I got home I couldn't raise my left arm over my head nor reach out and pick up a cup with that hand. But twenty days after flying to Nome and four days before my birthday I'd made it home.

        Slowly, over months, I regained strength, but it was a year or more before I felt somewhat normal again. I would never be as strong, or as healthy, again. 

I’d quickly realized that to survive in Bush Alaska you needed to be well prepared and self-reliant. I beefed up our first aid kit, adding a dental kit, IV needles and lines, saline and a set of army field surgery tools. I added pain meds and antibiotics to the kit and a couple of manuals on emergency medicine. Thankfully we never needed most of the stuff. Today I still keep a pretty good first aid kit, minus the meds and dental supplies. However, as I wish the young doc in Nome had known, I'll always keep some meat tenderizer ready to mix with water and gargle - just in case.