Rewards

I had lunch yesterday with a longtime friend. As we thought back through our lives it turns out we have known each other for a generation.

We first met at the East Pole; she and others own a cabin just across the main trail maybe a little less than half a mile away. That’s within chainsaw hearing distance. When I first went out there to build, my plan was to live in a tent until I could move in. They graciously let me live in their cabin while I built and believe me that was a wonderful offer given that I was building in winter and just staying alive in a tent might have been more adventure than I was up for.

We stayed friends over the years and each time a book of mine was published, I made sure to give them a copy. I also shared some of the stories, particularly the ones about the Bush, that have never been published.

She lives Outside now and was visiting family in Alaska and found time for us to get together for a lunch and a bit of a drive around the country.

The conversation was mostly a mix of memories and current situations, very pleasant. She had asked me to bring a couple of books and when I gave them to her she asked me to sign them for a young person in her life. That person was her great-granddaughter, the daughter of someone who was running around in the woods as a little kid back in those days when we all shared a lot of time together. I distinctly remember one time towing her and my son as they rode in a sled behind my snowmachine.

(A brief aside: One night I was invited to their place for dinner. In order to “bring something” I made one of those Jell-O no-bake pies. As I headed down the hill later, cradling my bear protection shotgun in the crook of one arm balancing a flashlight and the pie in two hands, stumbling over tree roots here and there, a realization made me laugh out loud {If a man alone in the woods laughs out loud, does it really make a sound?}. It hit me as totally ludicrous that there I was this rough and tough Bush Alaskan running around in the woods with guns and knives, but being ever so careful not to lose the peaches off the top of my Jell-O cheesecake pie as I did.)

Back to the present: So, I signed these two books for my friend’s daughter’s granddaughter and as I was doing that she told me that she and her daughter and her son (who helped with building the cabin a day or two here and there) had kept my books over the years in special places, like where you collect precious memories. That moment made all the writing worthwhile. I have never had a best seller so obviously the writing is for some other reasons.

My friend had just given me one of those reasons. When she said it, I felt this wave of emotion kind of flow through me, one of those tingles you get now and then. For the moment it felt like it had all been worth it just to know that friends had found a creation of mine was worth saving as something special.

THE PHOTO: Taken by this friend. I looked and don’t have any pictures of her or her family. It is 1987 or ’88. The other fellow in the picture is another friend who lived out there, too. I have no idea why I was packing heat to cook a dinner for us.