Elise Sereni Patkotak

When I was growing up, back when dinosaurs prowled the earth, there was another extinct species that prowled the earth with them – doctors who made home visits.

In our neighborhood, every child born in the 50s and 60s grew up under the soothing, if somewhat loud, ministrations of Dr. Di Nicolantonio, referred to by children and parents alike as Dr. DiNick.

His family owned the Venice Restaurant across the street from my dad’s store.  The only time anyone wavered even slightly in their belief that his appearance alone could cure all illnesses was when his nephew contracted polio. But

The new roundabout in South Anchorage certainly seems to be stirring up some controversy. I’ll have to be honest and say that the first time I used it, I wasn’t quite sure what it was.  I remember thinking that it was an odd place to stick an island that blocked through traffic.

I didn’t recognize it because I am a veteran of the infamous traffic circles of South Jersey.  Clearly this roundabout doesn’t even begin to have the size and dimension needed to truly reach the level of a traffic circle as I know it.

On the Black Horse Pike

Education, or the lack thereof, is a topic that generates a lot of heat in Alaska.  The bush/urban divide is probably nowhere more evident than in the state’s education funding bill that values bush students less than urban students.

Any arguments that can be mustered to support this disparity are relatively useless next to the emotional reaction produced when you tell a parent that their child is somehow not quantified by the state as being quite as valuable as another child.  The fact that those children seemingly less valued are mostly Native just adds fuel to the fire.

As someone

A young friend of mine from Barrow was talking to her mother recently. Mom was here in Anchorage at the time. It was right after the New Year and the young lady commented that there was light now during the middle of the day so she knew the sun would soon be back.

It’s statements like these that make me realize that if I don’t take care, Anchorage is going to turn me into a real whimp.  Here I am longing for the days to lengthen so that I have some incentive to get out of bed before 10 AM.

I was in a place called Laguna Niguel for Christmas Eve.  It’s a gated community in California a little south of L.A.  It’s about a million miles away in every possible sense from Mississippi Avenue where I grew up. 

But the people there were people from the neighborhood. The hostess Paula was my sister’s best friend from childhood. Paula’s mom, Mrs. Gerbino, brought the traditions and memories of my childhood Christmases with her.  It made this first holiday without mom a little easier for both my sister and me.

Christmas Eve dinner was all that I remembered from my youth. 

I would like to be able to take the high road about shopping sprees this Christmas holiday. I’d like to be able to say that on this of all recent Christmases we should be focusing on something other than buying more junk.

But that’s hard to do when our national leaders keep telling us it’s our patriotic duty to spend money.

For some, that message is a clarion call to do what they have always done best. Now they get credit for doing it as a patriotic gesture. Talk about a win-win situation.

In World War II, women came out

I just returned from a trip east to my childhood home on the Jersey shore. The weather was – for a Barrowite – downright summery.  In fact, on some days it actually got up to 68 and I’d complain long and loud about how darn hot it was.  Most people just gave me strange looks.  They’re outsiders, what do they know?

I’ve always loved the Atlantic Ocean. Being brought up at the seashore in Atlantic City has left me with an abiding devotion to that dark mass of crashing energy.  The mid to north Atlantic has a dark look and

I guess it was inevitable that if I went back east for any length of time I would eventually find myself drawn to New York City.  It was not a decision I made easily. One part of me felt obligated to go and the other part just wanted to hunker down in front of the nickel slots in Atlantic City and pretend there was no bigger world than that of the windowless, timeless, cacophonous casino surrounding me.

I’d spent Veteran’s Day weekend at Valley Forge State Park hiking some of its trails. All about me were signs of the winter

Notes from a plane trip post September 11, 2001:

Flying is a strangely quiet experience now.  With only ticketed passengers allowed through security, the boarding gates are positively ghostlike.

No more balloons saying “Welcome home, college graduate” held proudly aloft by smiling parents.  No more little children asking over and over, “Is daddy’s plane here yet”. No more final whispered conversations between lovers about to part.  Just quiet people sitting quietly.

A man behind me talks on the phone to his girlfriend, relating the horror of trying to get through the huge security line. Even as he complains he keeps

Maybe I’m a little extra sensitive about immigration issues because my family was so recently immigrants to this country.

Having spent most of my life living in areas rich with cultures other than middle class white America, I find that the multi hued colors of Brooklyn’s streets, the gruff accents of the Inupiaq language and the heady smells of a walk through Little Italy in South Philly have always described America to me as much as, if not more than, a suburban neighborhood with neatly mowed lawns and trimmed hedges. 

In order to get a true picture of America today,