Posted on 09/19/2008 10:46:27 PM PDT by sinanju
For a long time I've been an Alaskan in exile, spending only a portion of each year (the sunny part) in the homeland. As a result, I am the only Alaskan that most of my friends know. So, when Sarah Palin was picked as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, the e-mail poured in. "Not all Alaskan families are as weird as the Palins, right?" wrote a friend from California.
"Let me assure you," I wrote back. "They are all freaks."
I then described, at some length, the neighborhood I grew up in. There were my parents, superorthodox Catholics, complete with backyard statuary. Across the street, an Air Force officer and family. Next-door to them, a gay couple. Not just gay, but extra-flaming, mow-the-front-lawn-in-a-nightshirt-and-nothing-else kind of gay, walk-into-a-bar-yelling, "A beer for the queer!" kind of gay (in Alaska, in the 1960s!). My parents kept an extra set of house keys for "T-Bird Tommy," as the more flamboyant partner was known, so that when he came home drunk and couldn't find his keys, he would have a nearby spare...
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
What you want to do is read the article, but, in your mind, imagine Garrison Keillor's voice, doing his "Prairie Home Companion" schtick.
You'll be ROFL inside of two minutes.
Great read, sinanju.
Ya know, we been here along the Yukon for 8 years now and kinda ready to head back towards real normal people. My prob is that once you live in a community of 100 Whites & 28 Indians 200 miles from nx nearest community and know everybody's business, no locked doors, or crime except alcohol probs it's awful tough moving back to a place where you see trk after trk and don't know a one of them.
I think if I had it to do all over again, I'd called Willow home for good.
Further proof that truth is wackier than fiction.
But all the essential details that Sarah talks about are definitely there. Albeit, one can’t help but wonder if maybe Sarah sands down the rough edges a bit.
I live in a frontier (sparsely populated) mountain County. Urbanites would tell us we have no diversity. Heck, it is like the Steinbeck book Cannery Row. Most of the people are characters and all are individuals. It is diversity at its best.
ping
Why would they even ask such a rude question? Does anyone ever let these people out of their cubes? Liberals are such isolationists. Go out, explore the world in your own backyard. It's alright...really.
Nice article wasted on the Slate readers who couldnt open their minds to any viewpoint not sanctioned by their college professors.
You know, this so describes the Alaska I grew up in, and in a lot of ways, still live in. People who don’t live here don’t understand how we can be standing on each others necks one minute and helping carve up a moose the next-just as we marvel at the beauty of this land in one breath while taking the precautions needed to keep the land from killing us dead.
Thanks for posting this. As an eccentric individual, it sounds like Alaska might be my kind of place.
bump for later
Wonderful article. My older sister lived in Alaska for several years and taught music, math, and computer science. She fit in so well, and after reading this I understand why. She had to leave her beloved tundra when she came down with early onset Alzheimer’s. She spent a couple years looking for home and could wander an incredible distance in a short time. Now that she’s in heaven I am sure she is wearing a parka over her wings.
If there is a state that needed to be made fun of and lampooned it’s Arkansas. Yet, the MSM didn’t do that when Clinton was running.
“I live in a frontier (sparsely populated) mountain County. Urbanites would tell us we have no diversity. Heck, it is like the Steinbeck book Cannery Row. Most of the people are characters and all are individuals. It is diversity at its best.”
Absolutely. I’m just stunned, Marsh2, at the blatant bigotry coming out of these ‘enlightened’ city dwellers. Kind of explains the vitriol against farmers that we saw a few years ago, doesn’t it?
This insanity of denigrating all things North Western because we represent the likes of the KKK is absurd. I remember being very young and watching TV about the civil rights movement. I was stunned to find out that discrimination against blacks (drinking fountains, etc) still went on in this country......because we NEVER saw that kind of thing in the NW...before or since.
“If there is a state that needed to be made fun of and lampooned it’s Arkansas. Yet, the MSM didn’t do that when Clinton was running.”
No kidding!!! You would have thought Arkansas was a cosmopolitan hot spot the way the liberals ignored it for the Clintons.
“The miracle of my childhood—what still casts a sunny light on my social memories of Alaska in the ‘70s—is that we all got along so well. Not just coexisted, but actually had relationships with one another: We played together, shared garden produce and salmon, pushed one another’s cars out of the snow, and, in that pre-cable era, found each other’s idiosyncrasies entertaining rather than infuriating. “
Great NorthWest ping!!! Great article from the left.
Anchorage has wwwaaaaayyy to many lib’s, but the state as whole, still gets it right.
“Anchorage has wwwaaaaayyy to many lib’s, but the state as whole, still gets it right.”
I know...and you would think the media would notice that!
Not to bad!! >:-}
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