Alaska Forum Intro to Alaska!

So this is sort of the Intro...right? Tell us about yourself and what about Alaska do you love, hate? Have you been here before? Where did you live? All that good stuff...

I'll start:

I grew up in Homer. I spent sometime prior to that in North Pole and Fairbanks but between the ages of 2 and 14, I lived in Homer/Anchor Point area.

I moved to Arizona at age 14 to take care of both my grandparents who had dementia. When they both died, I got really drunk...lol...and ended up in Pittsburgh (long story short). Spent some time there, just sort of aimless *coffee sip*... and decided what i really needed in my life was Home. So I returned to what i loved most in my life: this great big beautiful chunk of Earth. Its great up here. You should try it. : ) I've been here for about a year and half now. I'm so glad I came back.

Your turn. ::happy::

I was the oldest of six kids. My sister, who was 4 years younger than I was, died after a long illness. I had quit college to come home and help out, taking a series of menial jobs- insurance clerk, nurses aide- and taking care of my 4 younger sibs while my parents tried to care for my sister.

After her death, I had a vision of my future. It consisted of taking care of my parents and siblings for an unspecified period of time. I decided to rewrite that scenario. I'd been dating a guy from Alaska who wanted me to move up there. I had visited and loved the openness and freedom to be whomever you wanted to be. In May, 1979, I packed up and moved to Alaska. I stayed for 20 years.

I lived on the Kenai Peninsula- in Clam Gulch, Kasilof, Soldotna and Kenai. I moved back to NY when it became clear that my marriage had eroded to the point of no return. The drink, as the Irish say, had gotten the better of him. I decided that I had to get out and start over, and that New York ( western NY, not NYC) would be the place to do that. SO I started over.

I think of how I lived a much more real life on the Kenai- chopping wood, fishing, hunting, growing my own food. I look at newspaper here and still look for the tide tables....I still wonder if this is a humpy year, and there is nothing, nothing in the world that compares to fresh salmon or halibut, caught and cooked the same day . We used to dig clams in Clam Gulch, McDonald spit, and over by Seldovia...I really miss being out in the Kachemak Bay.

I get withdrawal from the ocean living here. I miss the forests of birch trees, the view of the Inlet, even the smokin' volcanoes. I really look forward to reading and writing more about Alaska in this group.