Elise Sereni Patkotak

Robert Sakkaaluk Aiken Sr. died last week.  I first met him when he worked in maintenance at the Indian Health Service Hospital in Barrow in 1972. Most people are more familiar with his son, Big Bob Aiken, who has been a central part of the Eskimo Indian Olympics since the days when he could carry what seemed like a dozen men around the gym without getting winded.  Big Bob came by his strength, both physical and spiritual, from his mother and father.

Robert Aiken Sr. was simply the biggest man in Barrow in both the physical and spiritual sense. Although

There seems to be a whole lot of angst swirling around the Pledge of Allegiance lately.  What many people don’t know is just how young the pledge itself is. It was written in 1892 by a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy who was subsequently forced out of his ministry because of his socialist beliefs.

At the time he wrote the pledge, Bellamy was the chairman of a committee of state superintendents in the National Education Association.  He left the word equality out of his pledge, despite the fact that it is one of three ideals this country represents – liberty,

I imagine that someday in the future, we will view the Michael Jackson interview as one of those moments when you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you saw it.  Not unlike the death of JFK or Martin Luther King, it will be a moment when, looking back at it from a future perspective, we will all realize that the ground shifted under our feet to reveal a truth we had been desperately trying to deny.  That truth is that if you are very rich, a very different law applies to your behavior.

America likes

I think it is just wrong of God or any higher power in this universe to expect Alaskans to endure two break ups in one year.  So whoever it is in charge of the weather, I’m giving you fair warning. I’d better not see snow falling and cold weather returning at this point in the year.

Of course, I’m also not sure I can handle cloudy skies and rain from now till next November.  If I had wanted that kind of weather, I’d have gone to Juneau. I came to Anchorage because in all my years of stopping here on

I find that abortion is one of those topics, like religion and politics, which is best left out of lunchtime conversations unless you are very sure about the opinion of the other people at the table.  From my very unscientific observations, I find that the majority of women I know question whether they could personally have an abortion but they are pretty firm that they don’t feel they should tell other women what to do.

The current lawsuit working its way through the state court system isn’t about a women’s right to an abortion per se. It’s about whether or

A friend of mine recently commented that part of the problem at the teen dance at the Egan Center over Fur Rondy was that parents no longer teach their children how to respond to the police or how to act when stopped by them.  I thought about that and realized that I never actually remember my parents teaching me that either. I just remember that we were always expected to be respectful to the police and to go to them if we were in trouble. Seen from that perspective, the actions of the teens who went up to the cops

I think that everyone in his or her lifetime has certain defining moments. Moments when you know that how you act, how you conduct yourself, will say more about who you are than you would perhaps want the world to really know.

I had one of those defining moments recently.  In the general scheme of things, I think I can now definitely say I am not the person you want with you in case of emergency. I am not the person who will remain calm, cool and collected.

I am the person who will break into a cold sweat, lose

I remember the first time I saw the “birdhouses” out here in south Anchorage. I’d just turned off of Minnesota and suddenly there they were. In a sea of beige and boring sat this amazing village of color adorning these somewhat oddly shaped houses.

My first reaction was to be somewhat startled and my second was to wonder how the neighbors were taking it.  I guess all the recent press coverage and letters to the editor about them has answered that question for me. 

I can’t say I’m surprised by the negative reaction.  In a town that seems to have

“Slip sliding away.  Slip sliding away. The nearer your destination, the more your slip sliding away.”

When Simon and Garfunkel first sang these words to my generation, the destination seemed very far away.  Now, 30 years later, not so much.  It’s not that we’re not slip sliding anymore, it’s just that our destination is much, much closer.

I went to see Simon and Garfunkel in concert a week ago.  It was quite a blast from the past.  For many of us, if there was a defining word for our generation as we looked to the future, it was “plastics” and