I recently celebrated the 34th anniversary of the day I arrived in Alaska. The fact that I remember the date and celebrate it each year is probably indicative of how important it is in my life.
At a luncheon I attended soon after this anniversary, I was approached by someone who said that it was clear from what I wrote and said that I’d found my place in this state and had put down some pretty deep roots. She asked what it was that had kept me here way past my initial two year commitment with Indian Health Service.
It’s hard for me to answer that question without getting all soggily sentimental and wanting to stand up and sing the state song while waving the eight stars of gold on a field of blue. I lived in three other states before moving here and never felt that way about their state songs. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t even know their state songs. I think Alaska has to be one of the few states that uses its song so much it’s as familiar to most Alaskans as the national anthem and, may I add, a whole lot easier to sing.
Anyway, I got to thinking about the question of what it was that kept me in Alaska, what it was that told me when I arrived here that I had finally found home. It’s hard to express in words but I can give one very specific example of it.
I used to belong to the Alaska Press Club. Each year, the club holds a journalism week that ends with a banquet at which awards are presented for excellence in the fields of print, radio and TV journalism. In a state like Alaska, this makes for a very interesting banquet because the state is so far flung and its media so dispersed and disparate. And, if we are to be perfectly honest about this, people in the Bush tend to have a different attitude towards dress and appearance than their urban counterparts. For many of us, not freezing to death took great precedence over looking good. For many Bush Alaskans, the latest fashion means the newest Carharts in our closet.
At this annual banquet, you had everyone from your TV talking heads with perfect hair and makeup and expensive gowns and tuxes to the public radio reporter from the bush who duct taped his Carharts so they didn’t flap when he walked up to get the award he hoped to win.
And that, quite simply put, is what has always attracted me to this state. Although Anchorage can be a bit on the too urban side in this regard, it has never turned the corner and gone completely citified. Go into any restaurant in this city and you will see people from every walk of life dressed in every possible combination enjoying a fine meal without a sideways glance from any hostess or maitre’d or snobby wine steward. Alaska is, as it has always been, a place that accepts any and all as equal until you prove you are not worthy. And I simply love that about our state.
I love that even though I have friends who shop at Nordstrom’s, a store that intimidates me just to walk through, they can be found just as easily at Sears or Fred Meyers. Real Alaskans simply don’t know how to be snobbish in that East Coast/West Coast way. They live in million dollar houses that have three cars parked on the lawn that only boast six tires among them, and that’s not counting the RV under the tarp.
If we are snobbish, it’s about the important things like the fact that our mosquitoes can beat up your mosquitoes any day of the week with one hand tied behind their back. And our spring breakups are the worse breakups anywhere in the world bar none. And our politicians can be both nobler and sleazier that your politicians can ever hope to be, and they can be both at the same time.
Alaska is truly, in the best sense of the phrase, a classless society. Your former governor can be found in front of you in line at REI, your state senator can be reached by a phone call to his home. The same talking heads you see on TV are picking up their kids at the same school your kids attend. We mix and match all strata of society in this state and the result is a strong and vibrant community.
I can’t imagine living anywhere else and enjoying it so much.