Commentary: An Alaskan Vacation

By Joe Marren

Buffalo, NY – The three of us were driving more or less southwest on the Chena Hotsprings Road on a long and hilly stretch lined with trees that looked like Dr. Seuss had drawn to amuse the tourists. Brad was driving and fidgeting with the sun visor. First he pulled it down, then left when the sun still shone in his eyes. Apparently he does not like green eggs and sun. Nevertheless, the sun continued to splash across the front seat on Brad and Pat, who was navigating. I cooled in the shade of the back seat as the front slowly and leisurely baked under the sun's glare. That Sun-I-Am! I didn't like him here on me, but I didn't care if he was there on them.

Anyway, Brad tried again, finagling the visor around a little bit more. Finally the sun was out of his eyes, but not Pat's who studied the map.

"That doesn't help me any," Pat laughed as he tried to discern red and blue highway lines off the glare. It was somewhere between 9:30 and 10 p.m. in what passes for evening in Fairbanks, Alaska. We were in town for a family wedding and along the way we would not only celebrate with the newlyweds, but we'd also learn something about interior Alaska's so-called "nights" and its uneasy co-existence with mosquitoes; we'd seemingly bounce along a spongy tundra on a mountain top where we saw the sun gently dropping down and the moon easily rising across the sky from each other; we'd cringe and sometimes look away during the screamingly bloody ear-pulling contest at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics; we'd hike down a rugged mountain road that looked like the glacier was coming back for Round 2 in Denali National Park; and we'd learn that mushers never really say mush to their dogs. Yes, we fell in love with interior Alaska. Ahhh, if it only it wasn't for those winters of four-hour days when the temps hover in the 20, 30 and 40-below range.

Our first night in town was spent not only squinting away from the sun's rays, but also searching for a legendary food joint somewhere near the pipeline. There were nine of us out to dinner from the burbs of Washington and Buffalo. It was late, after 10, when we got to the restaurant. The others ordered safe, easy-on-the-stomach-at-bedtime foods. Not me. I was a tourist from the Lower 48 and I needed to uphold the honor of my hometown. So I ordered wings.

Afterward, our bellies happy if not full, we put on sunglasses to walk into the daylight that 11 p.m. in the summer brings to Fairbanks. Kelly, perhaps the world's friendliest waitress, said she was impressed that I could wear a white shirt and not spill chicken wing sauce on it.

"I'm from Buffalo," I told her. "We take our wings seriously."

Buffalo was a constant theme of the wedding and the time spent in Alaska. Blaine grew up in West Virginia but somehow became a Bills fan. It's just coincidence that his new sister-in-law dates one of the Bills, who was supposed to offer a prayer for the team during the liturgy. For whatever reason, though, he declined and so I volunteered to ask God during the Prayers of the Faithful: "For the Buffalo Bills, may they win a Super Bowl. God's will be done. We pray." So if the Bills do, don't thank T.O., thank Blaine and Katie for asking for God's blessing.

Katie's parents live in Fairbanks but the newlyweds will make their home in Homer. Because so many people were in from out of town for the wedding they stayed in Fairbanks with friends and family for the week after the ceremony. And they were the ones who took us to the WEIO games, the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics. I used to be a sportswriter and covered many an athlete showing grit and playing through pain. None of them - from old-time hockey players to Olympic gold medalists to NFL linemen - have the guts, or the ears, of Leroy Shangin, who beat last year's ear pull champ Jeff Satterfield.

There was many a mom who told her son or daughter, "You're not entering this event next year." As Leroy soaked in the blood on and behind his purple-and-black ears, I talked to his coach. (I didn't ask how does one coach an ear pull athlete? But I should have.) She told me that Leroy lost to Satterfield in the 2008 finals, so this was something of vindication for him. All he had to do was block out the pain.

I wonder if the string from the ear pull is the Alaskan metaphor of the Hawaiian lei, which supposedly brings visitors back to the islands. If so, maybe someday I'll go back to Alaska, and no one will have to pull off my ear to get me there.

Listener Commentator Joe Marren is an associate professor of communications at Buffalo State College.

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