When I arrived almost exactly two years ago, Jeff and Kay Jabusch told me people in Wrangell aren’t necessarily wary of newcomers. Rather, they pointed out, they’re hesitant to get attached since they never know who’s going to stay.
I fully intended to stay.
As you read this, I’m on the Columbia with my three cats, headed for Bellingham, Washington. From there, I’ll disembark and head for my new home in Idaho.
A lot changed in two years. When I arrived here, I was married and had four cats and was quite healthy. The marriage ended after being here less than a year. One of my cats became ill and I had to have her put to sleep. Just over a month ago, I was diagnosed at Wrangell Medical Center with a potentially life-threatening condition.
Through all the curveballs life likes to throw at us, I kept going.
Despite the slips and falls on the ice in that first winter here, I cursed a blue streak, but I got up and moved on, albeit slowly.
Sliding my vehicle through intersections and getting it stuck in the snow didn’t dissuade me from getting my Alaska driver’s license and registering my vehicle here, digging into my residency.
The ice forming on the inside of the windows of my rental house and mind-numbing utility bills didn’t keep me from buying a home here.
I got to know business owners, teachers, artists, fishermen, tour guides (sometimes, they were all rolled up into just one person) and people from every walk of life. I learned more about the Tlingit culture than I ever thought possible and made many Native friends.
New Zealand Terry gave me halibut, which I breaded and fried, and it was one of the best things I’d ever tasted, next to Nancy Murkowski’s halibut casserole dish, that is.
In two years, I took thousands of photos of all sorts of wildlife: Bears at Anan, deer in my yard, Wolves on the wrestling mat and on the hardwood.
I was also honored to photograph weddings, blessings of the fleet, Fourth of July festivities and tossed wieners.
People trusted me with their stories, like Jacquie Dozier’s lunch with Queen Elizabeth II, the family Hardangerfele that was handed down over generations to Larraine Jenson-Kagee, or the legacy left behind by the late Ira Merrill.
There were also the gross stories I got to write, like Brian Merritt’s biology lessons for fourth graders whereby he gutted a deer carcass or pulled one dead fish out of another dead fish, or the aforementioned wiener toss.
I accompanied fourth graders upriver for a field day. They bit the heads of fish, they dared each other to eat moose poop. Come to think of it, most of the gross encounters involved fourth graders. Make of that what you will.
For more than a year, I’ve been fortunate enough to inflict, I mean “share” my comic strip with readers. My cartoons even adorn ballcaps and T-shirts for KSTK’s annual wiener toss. I promise that’s the last time I mention that event.
In the past two years, I’d like to think I’d met all the Rooneys, but I have a feeling that would take at least five to six more years.
Also in the last two years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of the best people I’ve ever known. They’ve become more like my family.
I believe Amber Hillberry (used to be Armstrong) and I really worked hard to create what the paper is now. Yes, we bicker, but we laugh, especially when she forgets to attach a file to her emails without fail.
I couldn’t ask for a better co-reporter than Caroleine James, with her quiet subversive humor and can-do (even when she doesn’t want to do) attitude.
By extension, the folks at the Petersburg Pilot, who print the Sentinel, are the good friends I don’t get to see nearly enough. I admire Orin Pierson for taking on ownership of that paper and making a go of it. While Ola Richards, who runs the press, and I are connected for life since we have the same ink running in our veins.
Of course, I am forever grateful for Larry Persily, the Sentinel’s owner, for bringing me aboard and giving me the chance to make a life here. Without him, I’d never have met many of you and learned even more about journalism. I also feel like no one appreciates my pun-riddled headlines and stories the way he does.
But all good things, as the saying goes, must come to an end.
Just over a month ago I was diagnosed with something that could have made me leave not only Wrangell but the mortal coil much earlier. Thanks to Drs. Lynn Prysunka and Laura Ballou, along with all the great nursing and support staff of WMC, I’m still here to say my goodbyes to Wrangell.
However hard it is for me to go, I will still be here in a small, rodent-like way. My comic strip “Ritter’s River” will continue to appear in the Sentinel.
To paraphrase the song by Supertramp: Goodbye Wrangell, it’s been nice. Thanks for sharing your paradise.
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