Best hug ever

It’s funny how something can trigger a memory of what seems like a totally unrelated event. I went to see the new Harry Potter tonight, in Imax even. In the second to last scene, where Harry throws Voldemort’s wand into the abyss and walks away, Hermione and Ron stand and watch him go. (No spoiler alert necessary, that’s all that will be said.) I had the strangest feeling she was going to run after him and jump on his back in celebration, just like someone did to me many years ago. Wait. What?

Wow there it was. It would have been the summer of 1981. I was running a small charter boat on Prince William Sound, working out of Whittier. Early in the summer, I met a wonderful woman and hired her as crew. What impressed me? Only in Alaska. On the charter where I met her we were taking a friend of hers out to an island to spend at least a month observing pigeon guillemots, a shy shorebird. To do it she had a small inflatable and an outboard motor and to run the motor she needed fuel. Here’s one of those lift solutions. She wanted a full 55 gallon drum but I knew we would never lift a full drum off the boat. The solution was two drums half full. Those we could lift, toss overboard and float them to shore.

After we arrived at the island we helped the scientist load all her gear ashore and then went to the fuel barrels. This woman and I prepared to lift one. Figure the drum and 25 gallons of fuel weigh something over 200 pounds. So, this woman and I got a grip and I was prepared for a heavy load. That drum came up so easily it surprised me. I looked at her and I could swear she smirked. I fell in love right there. All the way back I schemed how I could see more of her as we chatted a little. It turned out she didn’t have a job and was kind of looking around. It turned out I didn’t have a crew person and I was kind of looking around.

It took a call to the owner but he was all for it, and there we were. As the summer progressed we grew closer and closer. There are several stories but this is about the hug.

The previous winter I had been sending my first book manuscript to various publishers and receiving it back only to send it out again. I mailed it one last time before I headed back to the boat in the spring and checked the mail religiously the twice a week it arrived in Whittier. The rejections may sound depressing but I had read about a writer who said, “naw, every day I go to the post office and my book is accepted. Only once is it rejected and I have all those days of acceptance. I send it out again and then approach each day with optimism and dreams of acceptance.”

We came in from a trip late on a mail day and while she stayed and cleaned the boat, I raced to the post office. I was standing there in the small room filled with people waiting for their mail while the postmaster, I remember his name as Cowboy, called out names. Whittier is a small town after all.

He called my name and handed me a normal letter-sized envelope. It was from a publisher. This wasn’t a returned manuscript. This was a letter. I knew what that meant and let out a whoop. Cowboy who knew what I was looking for asked if that was it. I think so, I think so. Others in the room knew also and pretty soon there were cheers and jumping up and down going on. I remember a very short tourist woman tugging at my sleeve and then asking anybody who might know, what is it? what is it? Somebody said, “It’s his book.” Sometime in that melee she actually asked me to sign an autograph, my first.

This was going to take a celebration and I was not going to do that alone. I probably half flew back to the boat. People were driving past me honking and waving, giving thumbs up.

It was less than half a mile to the boat and I think I did it in seconds; it felt like it anyway. I hopped onto the boat and hollered for her and told her what happened. At this point I realized I had not opened the letter yet. We opened it together and sure enough it was an acceptance. I was officially a writer, there it was in mauve and green (woman publisher).

A couple of people stopped by as we gathered our things to go up to the bar for that celebration we knew was about to happen. There were five or six of us in a group heading toward the bar. Rain had begun falling while we were on the boat. It is understatement to say it rains a lot in Whittier so this was barely noticeable.

Somehow I remember I was talking with someone as we walked and she had ended up walking behind me. I was pretty happy and was probably close to that bubbling we hear about. Suddenly I heard what could only be called a growl behind me, then something hit me hard in the back and an arm went around my shoulders and neck. She hit me so hard we both went down in the wet and the muck and she never let go. I managed to twist and throw my arms around her as well and we laughed and rolled around in pure wet muddy joy. The best hug ever.

That still didn’t stop us from spending several hours celebrating with the rest of our friends. The letter was passed up and down the bar for everyone to read, beers were drunk, songs were sung hugs were exchanged. Memories of the later hours of the evening have disappeared into a haze, but given our proclivities during our time together, I am quite positive it had a happy ending.

The book was published a year later, but sadly the relationship didn’t last that long. Over the winter I had to go someplace alone and quiet to do the rewrites and revisions and she had to go back to her home and straighten out life and a former boy friend and we drifted apart. If you have been reading this blog, it was she who led me to call the bar Key Largo.

In the 1990s I learned she and her more recent husband had been flying from a claim they worked near Yakutat back to their home in Kenai and were lost over the Gulf of Alaska, never to be heard from again. It’s a sadness I carry when I think about her now and then, like when it looks like Hermione is going to jump onto Harry’s back in celebration.

The photo is a pigeon guillemot stolen from Wikipedia