Jeanne Waite Follett
The Christmas Star
On their first Christmas together, my parents purchased a simple red aluminum foil star for the top of their small tabletop Christmas tree.
In the snapshot they stand on either side of the tree. The star has a large hole in the center, obviously meant for a tree light to be inserted from the back.
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Remembering Pauline
My friend Pauline died recently. From the time I heard that she was ill, and since she passed, I spent a lot of time thinking about the dynamo that was Pauline and the times when our paths crossed.
Pauline and I were friends, but not best friends. We didn’t hang out together, giggle about boys, or share our innermost teenage angst. Were we not classmates at Anchorage High School, we most likely never would have met.
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Running with the Big Dogs
Thirty-some years ago my friend Ramona had the use of her friend’s team of Malemute-McKenzie River huskies. These were working dogs, used by her friend Steve to haul freight and gear on Mt. McKinley for mountain climbing teams. During his off-season, Ramona ran them to keep them in shape.
Ramona and I decided to take on challenge one winter—we wanted to mush to the old copper mining town of McCarthy, deep in the Wrangell-St. Elias.
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My Favorite Car, You Ask?
It wasn’t my favorite car. That would be the 1965 Ford Mustang.
No, the vehicle I want to tell you about wasn’t even a car. It was a Willys Jeep, surplus from World War II, no doubt.
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October Rains
When I hear the October rains thrumming on the roof, I think about Girdwood, the little ski resort town where I lived many years ago.
I lived there at a time in my life when I thought it utterly cool to have no telephone, no radio or television, no running water, no plumbing, and a little Quaker pot-burner oil stove for heat.
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Trouble with a Capital “T”… and Don’t Forget about Ralph
Not long after moving to Alaska, my mother almost called the cops on me.
Such was my transgression that I have little doubt the Anchorage cops would have enlisted the Territorial Police and the U.S. Marshals in hunting me down.
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