Sunday, November 14, 2004

Some family and grown up history

Flown outside to be born in Seattle because Alaska was yet not a state, so I could be president of the United States if I wanted, I am daughter of 3 generation Alaskan Architect Roland "Chic" Lane, and 2nd generation Alaskan Land and Energy Regional Planner Darlene "Dee" Lane. Our family likes to plan, design, and build things.

Some of my earliest memories are of looking at Mt. McKinley (Denali) reflect on the waters of Cook Inlet, and playing in the snow on boxes we used as sleds.

I remember the first street light Anchorage had installed when I was about 5 years old. I recall the big bonfire we threw wood into when Alaska gained Statehood, with the newspaper reading “We’re In!”

As the world’s climate changed the snow gradually became less frequent and lasted shorter periods of time until the yearly snows stopped almost altogether by the time I left home. So basically I am a female techno-artist geek hick from the North Country.

I grew up on the very last corner in Anchorage, the place where people from all over the country having driven the ALCAN (Alaskan Canadian Highway) would finally stop and stumble out of their cars, and trucks, exhausted, and ask us kids if this was the end of the road. If they drove any further, it was over a cliff. We tried to always remember to say “welcome” and always answered any questions we could.

My neighbors and best friends were a federal court judge and his wife, a noted designer, and their kids.

One of my first friends as an infant was the then 40 year Alaskan State Senator Yule Kilcher, who with other friends of the family wrote the Alaska State Constitution.

Yule spoke 47 languages and dialects and traveled the world speaking about his efforts to build a homestead in Alaska. His granddaughter is the singer “Jewel”, his namesake.

The first time I went Outside was right after the Great Alaskan Quake, when my mom shipped me off with my brother and sister to live in Malibu with my auntie Marilyn Story, and my two cousins. The air of Los Angeles made us kids very sick and we lay on the floor of her car retching as we had never breathed polluted air before.

California c.1964 came as a big shock and I fell in love with the West Coast of the United States – from Aunt Marilyn’s house overlooking the Pacific Ocean you could see up and down the coast until the earth’s curve hid it from view (she was a stewardess with Alaska Airlines and Bernie Story, her husband was a pilot with Alaska). And it was always warm in Malibu, and the water was blue, not like the mud grey of Cook Inlet, and Turnagain Arm.

Meanwhile back in Alaska as part of disaster recovery my Mother and her friends worked for 72 hour sessions, until they dropped off to sleep from exhaustion to bring the fires and damage under control and estimate and propose emergency funds to then President Johnson, after Jack Kennedy was assassinated.

Interestingly when I visited Washington DC, many years later I was hosted by Alaskan US Senator Ted Stevens' office, even though I was there to watch Jimmy Carter be inaugurated President. Alaskans can be very close in surprising ways. It was a surprise and delight to walk down the street with Ted in D.C.

Fairbanks in high school was an eye opener.

Eventually I moved outside because I felt to be a big fish in a small pond and the traditional ideas of what a young woman should do in Alaska did not fit my need in life to explore; I craved to know every thing.

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