North to Alaska

I had an absolutely delightful flight from Lincoln to McCook last night. One hour and six minutes flying time in air that was absolutely smooth. There was a huge full moon over my left shoulder and uncounted lights on the ground. Passengers sit in the back and are lucky to have a window that only gives a one sided scene. Pilots sitting up front, my favorite spot, get a panoramic view; not many stars out due to a bright moonlight, but every rural security light brilliantly white, clusters of yellow gold identifying Grand Island, Kearney, Hastings, North Platte away off to the northwest and yes even McCook visible from 75 miles out, feed lots in their symmetrical square, and all the smaller towns and villages shining up to say "here I am."

The freight dogs had all reached their nighttime destinations so the airwaves were almost silent, just a few instructions from the pleasant sounding female voice at Minneapolis Center working the airlines and a private jet departing exotic Grand Island headed for an undeciphered Southern California destination. Magic, enchanting, hard to describe and then I pause to imagine this same nightscape before electricity; it had to have been a sea of dark.

With aviation in mind, plus all the current interest in Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, I thought it a good time to reminisce the good experiences that I have had in our largest state. "Huge" is a better adjective to describe the place that is "Bigger than all Texas."

I caught my first glances of Alaska out the windows of a Super Connie back in the days when Alaska was still a territory. I have been back several times since statehood and have an appreciation for the attitude of the citizens. Alaskans, at least the few that I have been privileged to know, remind me of the hardy stalk that populated Southwest Nebraska. My own ancestors were a polyglot European mixture of Scots, Irish, Dutch and German. I think you can find all those and more living in current-day Alaska. It seemed to me in Western Alaska the spoken language had a strong hint of German accent the same that I heard from neighbors in my youth.

Regardless of pedigree I detected a strong "can-do" attitude from those living in our modern frontier. "This may be a harsh place to live and work but I'm tough and will 'git 'er done.'" I love it.

My son chose Alaska as a honeymoon destination. In Anchorage, he rented a car and drove to Denali to sight see enjoying the rugged beauty on the slopes of Mount McKinley. Driving back to Anchorage, he encountered two obviously Asian ladies standing at the side of the highway demurely waving white hankies in front of their faces. Don backed up to check on what looked like a problem. Their English was non-functional so Don tried Chinese, after all "Chinese all look alike!" That didn't work so although his Japanese is poor he tried that, no more successful than speaking American. New bride Jane then spoke in her native Hangungmal and that was a huge success -- they were Korean.

Turns out that several families of Korean people had been camping in the woods not far off the highway and had managed to deplete their batteries so that none of their motor homes would start. Rental companies don't furnish jumper cables but Nebraska farm kid Don rigged a circuit that managed a successful jump start.

Happiness all the way around and time to celebrate with food. Good thing, too, as Jane was hungering for kimchee, probably the longest time in her life that she hadn't tasted the spicy hot pepper fermented cabbage that is the staple of the Korean culture. Yes it is an acquired taste!

Ann has an interesting tie to Alaska, in that her father was part of the work force that built the Alcan Highway in 1942-43. Her dad actually did power line construction and a little-known fact is that a power line was built concurrent with highway construction that became the only land link to Alaska.

Later, when she was four years old, her dad died in a construction accident. She has only a very few pictures of him and a couple of letters written to her mom during that long summer while he was gone providing a vital wartime service for our country.

One of the items on my bucket list is to drive the Alcan, more properly the "Alaskan Highway" and spend adequate time poking into the original construction of the fabled road. I flew the length of the Alcan one brilliant clear winter day departing Offutt AFB headed for Eielson AFB just outside Fairbanks. We flew low for a jet, around 21,000 feet and it was fun to tick off the names of White Horse, Big Delta, Fort Nelson and more, all familiar from reading Jack London books in my youth. Next summer maybe if I can talk Ann into it???

Huge is a better word for the state. We read that Governor Palin is from Wasilla, only 30 miles north of Anchorage but almost 600 miles from the down south capital of Juneau. Actually, Wasilla is in the Matanuska Valley, farm country as close to Nebraska living as one finds in Alaska. My cousin, Jack, lives in Aniak, some 300 miles west of Anchorage as the crow flies -- the only way to go as you can't drive there.

For perspective, Scottsbluff is only about 360 miles west of Lincoln and there still is a lot of Alaska on west of Aniak, and that is not counting the string of Aleutian Islands stretching to within 21 miles of Siberia! Big state!

That is the way I see it.