Elise Sereni Patkotak

Generally speaking, Alaskans are a mixed bag of somewhat odd characters who have more or less come together to form a loosely cohesive, if slightly bizarre, society.  One thing is for sure, if you are an Alaskan of the tried and true duct tape, Carharts, blue tarp variety, no one will ever mistake you for someone from New York City.  Or Portland, Oregon.  Or Podunk, Iowa.

My sister brought that home to me on her last visit when she said that she knows she’s getting close to Alaska when the composition of the people on the plane starts to change. 

The heroes of my early life were, inevitably, the saints of the Catholic Church. 

The first “non” saint hero I can remember having was Dr. Tom Dooley. I was later to find out that this noble young doctor bringing modern medical care to war torn Southeast Asia was actually a gay spy for the CIA who was basically playing a two way blackmail game with the US Navy in return for intelligence information on the movement of the communist Pathet Lao guerrillas in Laos.

Since then, I have struggled to find heroes in a world that seems to take great

Moose visit my yard every winter. They leave large piles of moose nugget jewelry all over my lawn as a present. They rip down limbs from my trees and annoy the heck out of my dog who feels he alone should be allowed to kill the dormant grass with his bodily fluids.

Walks and bike rides are that much more exciting because I never know when and where the moose will show up to make passage along my usual route impossible.  I sometimes think they are having a good joke at my expense by running from one block to the

Ever since 9/11, a lot of pundits have been saying that patriotism is back in vogue.  I personally don’t think it ever went out of vogue. I do think there were attempts to hijack its meaning by some groups that decided if you didn’t agree with them, then you weren’t patriotic. They perhaps felt that patriotism had gone out of vogue because what they saw did not match their definition.

I don’t believe that any one group of people can speak for what is or isn’t patriotic in America.  A country built by rebels on the idea that shaking up

I know that we have all the ducks and geese we need in Anchorage, along with moose and bears and eagles, to name just a few.  But I’ve always thought they were part of what makes Anchorage different from every other American city of its size and age.

Back East, cities don’t share their sidewalks with wildlife – at least, not by the definition we attach to that word.  They are cities that grew up before cars and tend to have large and vibrant centers with massive buildings that create their own modern canyons for walking.  Nature, if found at

When I went to school, the rule was simple. Pass your courses and you passed to the next grade at the end of the school year. Fail and you were held back until you did. 

My parents, and all the parents I knew, thought this was just fine. They felt we were in school to learn and if we didn’t learn, why would we be sent to the next grade.

Now I will be the first to admit that the phrase used for this system – “getting left back” – is probably not the kindest phrase in the world. But

I am, by anyone’s definition, a rabid animal lover.  Probably 90% of my charitable donations, financial or otherwise, go to animal rescue organizations. St. Francis of Assisi is my idea of the perfect man. And to this day I can’t watch Bambi because I get so hysterical at the thought of that little deer being all alone.

I am just as rabid in my belief that owning a companion animal comes with certain responsibilities that are non-negotiable.  You are responsible for seeing that they do not reproduce unless you are breeding them for a specific purpose.  You are responsible for

Do you ever feel as though life is the time you spend in line at the post office and all else is simply a dream?  I do.  I spend a lot of time in post office lines. 

There was a point where I thought I had beaten the curse when I realized there was hardly ever a line at the post office in the Dimond Center.  Then other people discovered my little secret and now there are lines there too. 

Of course, standing in line at the Dimond Center is made a little easier if you go to the Thai

I saw the first Matrix movie because I had a thing for Keanu Reeves.  Now before you go off thinking I’m a dirty old lady, let me explain that the hunk part was less than 50% of the fascination. 

I was more fascinated with what I’d seen of him in a movie called My Private Idaho, a movie done completely in free verse – which is why only about six people in the world including me saw or liked it.

I thought it was a quirky choice for a young actor just coming off the Bob and Ted series and

Well now, here’s one of life’s more amusing moments.  The federal government, that bastion of financial accountability, is questioning whether Alaskan Native non-profit health organizations are making efficient use of their federal dollars and providing quality services. This from the same government that houses the BIA, a group that seems to have misplaced about a gazillion dollars in trust fund moneys they were supposed to be holding for Native American tribes.

And the pundits said that irony would die after 9/11. Clearly they didn’t have enough faith in the feds.

I arrived in Alaska in those faraway days when Alaska