Another man done gone

     A friend of mine died last week. He was the fourth person close to me who has died of cancer in

the past few years. These aren't casual acquaintences or just someone on facebook. These are people who have had profound effects on my life and I miss each one very much.

     I met Del Allison at a party in Anchorage during Fur Rendezvous in 1979. Another friend hosted this party yearly when Gareth Wright and his family came to Anchorage from Fairbanks for the dog races. He had won the race three times and now His daughter Roxy ran the family dogs.
     I had sat on a couch next to Gareth and he asked me how things were going. I told him I was attempting to write a book about the Iditarod but the company I worked for had backed out of providing me with any support and after a year of research it had come to a halt because I couldn't afford to fly along wth the race.
     A man I hadn't been introduced to leaned around from the other side of Gareth and asked, "You want to write a book about the Iditarod?"
     I said, "Yes."
     "How much do you need?"
     The rest is history. In the next two weeks before the race Del Allison gave me a check for enough money to support me along the trail and hired a pilot and airplane.
     Without that help there might never have been a "Last Great Race." It is as simple that.
     Del ran the race that year and then he and some friends continued on with their dog teams to Barrow, another 500 miles or so to the north
     The following winter when a place I had lined up to live while I wrote the book fell through, he found a 10x14 cabin on the banks of the Susitna River and loaned me five dogs and a sled to get back and forth. It was the perfect set up to write such an Alaska book.
    Two years later when the book was published I was able to hand him the first one off the press to thank him for all he had done.
     We remained friends through the next few years, had a couple of adventures, enjoyed some memorable New Years' Eves.
      I had always admired an art print he had hanging in his house: Melissa and McGonigal, a collection of ink drawings illustrating how a nude ballerina taught a moose to dance. When he left Alaska he gave me that print in its barnwood frame and I still have it hanging in my living room. Now it will be a memorial.
     This is whatI am talking about when I say people who have had a profound effect on my life. Were it not for that chance meeting with Gareth Wright, I might never have been able to write that book. Think about that, it's a book the Associated Press class has called an Alaska classic.  And, Del Allison made it happen.
     I can never forget how my first book happened nor can I ever forget the man who gave this writer the lift it took to get it done.
     Each time this happens Eugene O' Neill's quote becomes more firmly cemented into my mind
     "I used to think getting old was about vanity. But it's about losing people you love."