Elise Sereni Patkotak

There was a death in Barrow recently and my friend Big Jim sent me this description of the community preparing the gravesite:

“Well we dug the grave for Leland today.  We had plenty of cousins and his brother Sam to help us. It was a true arctic grave dig.  The auger was there compliments of the City of Barrow, and BUECI provided Jeff Larson to operate it as usual.

“There were about 10 guys standing there clearing the dirt with 25 mph winds taking the chill factor down to -40.  The snow was whipping along the ground and then streaming

One of my favorite cartoons shows a man shaking his finger at a dog sitting in front of him. The man is saying, “Bad dog. Bad dog.  Don’t do that or you won’t get any treats and I won’t take you for a walk today.” In the next panel, we see the same scene from the dog’s point of view. Here’s what the dog is hearing. “Dog, blah, blah, blah, treat, blah, blah, blah, walk, blah, blah, blah, today…”

That’s about what I hear when I speak with my accountant and the man who invests what little money I have

I remember that one of the things that made the Inupiat people of the North Slope the angriest was when environmentalists suggested that ANWR was a vast trackless expanse of land that man had never touched. They used this as the reason why industry should not be allowed there now no matter how small a footprint it leaves behind.

This angered the Inupiat because the simple truth is that they have been part of the Arctic for as long as their cultural memory can reach and Western science can confirm.  And during that time, they did not fly on winged

Here’s what happens when you take your kids out of Alaska while they’re growing up.  They have no concept of what real life is all about.  If you bring your kids to a place like San Diego, they grow up thinking that life is all sunshine and 72-degree weather with blue skies and calm seas.

So when they get married and their new husband is stationed in Hawaii, they don’t understand why they aren’t getting a lot of sympathy when they call to complain about being bored in Paradise because it’s raining.  They have obviously grown up with unrealistic expectations

Back in my misspent youth, I studied nursing in New York City.  Part of the curriculum involved going out to an adult mental institution called Manhattan State on an island in New York harbor.

There were three tall buildings on the island. The higher the level, the more extreme the affliction. Student nurses rarely, if ever, got about the third floor. About that same time, a young reporter named Geraldo Rivera did some investigative journalism that led to the exposure of an institution for kids called on Long Island.  The place was a horror house of kids with mental illnesses

My godchild got married recently and I went a bit nuts trying to think of just the right wedding gift to give her.  She’s a very special young lady and, though I’ve never met him, the word I’ve received is that her new husband is a very special young man.  So you can see that no ordinary gift would do.

After much perusing of catalogs and Internet sites, I decided that the best gift I could give her was a book of family recipes.  The recipes would range from traditional dishes that have been in my family since we sailed

I’m not sure how many more days I can take of Mr. T following me through the kitchen like my shadow while staring up at me through his cataract filled eyes wondering why I’ve chosen to torture him at this late stage in our relationship. I don’t want to be mean to him.  If I had my way, his days would be filled with greenies and turkey dogs.  But, like so many of us, he is now being forced to face the inevitable results of old age.

It started with a routine visit to the vet for a dental cleaning

I realize that trying to get any given part of Alaska’s elected and appointed leaders to stop tossing the fiscal gap around like a hot potato at a Fourth of July picnic game is probably asking for more than anyone is able to give.  But I don’t think all the blame belongs to the people sitting in Juneau.  Some of it does, but not all of it.

A lot of it belongs to individual Alaskans who keep sending the message to Juneau that they don’t want to pay for services but by gosh those services they use had better not

Before she died, my mother used to quote the poet Robert Browning’s line, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.” Then she let loose with what was for her a very unladylike snort of derision. You got the feeling she wasn’t buying the sentiment.

When I was young, I’d hear the cynical tone she used when she said that and thought to myself that would never happen to me.  Why?  Well, because as all baby boomers know, we are never going to grow old.

And then I woke up one day and the unthinkable occurred.  As

One of my younger cousins has died.  She’s the first in our generation of cousins to do so.  I guess that makes us lucky when you consider how many cousins we have and what a wide variety of ages. 

Sometimes I have to blink and clear my eyes when I see my cousin Louie.  I keep expecting to see the young man who used to swallow bottle caps to impress his little cousin who had such a crush on him.  Instead, I see a 72-year-old grandfather who could easily become a great-grandfather in the not too distant future.

But I