File under "Crawling around on the floor with world leaders": On Meeting General Westmoreland to plan for a school in Anchorage, Alaska

When I was 12 or 13 years old I met General Westmoreland, on Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska to plan for a school. At his invitation I met with him privately to discuss planning in North Mountain View, Orah Dee Clark Jr. High, so the jets landing at Elmendorf did not cross over or directly land over the planned combination elementary / junior high school because it was loud, disturbing and potentially hazardous.

My girlfriends and I did not want the junior high to lose it's cross county ski and running track, nor did we want the elementary and junior high to be combined due to drug problems and the cost of an overpass. The cost of the necessary overpass was not included in the city's planning, which drove the associated cost way up. There was also the potential problem of older kids hazing younger kids.

My mom made an appointment for me, and drove me to his office building; I was unusually wearing a dress with my hair combed. She waited in the waiting room. At first General Westmoreland did the "How may I help you pretty little lady" thing, but when he heard the problem description that all changed. We were looking for 5-10 other physical sites but having trouble finding any good ones.

General Westmoreland ordered a large map of Anchorage which included Elmendorf from his aides. Several rolls appeared immediatedly and he selected one.

He took off his suitjacket. We sat on the floor with a very large map of Anchorage spread out in his military office, much to his aide's surprise. They stood in the door way and whispered and fretted. I think there are protocols for guarding a general but what is the protocol regarding a child? They treated him like gold. Finally he shussed them off! (*dismissed*)


We crawled all over the floor together looking at the landing patterns and the potential sites, but really he knew I was asking him for land from the base (and even worse yet to change the landing fields.)

General Westmoreland told me that the military could not be involved with civilian matters, but privately I believe he communicated his advice. I included our meeting in the materials later presented at the Anchorage City Council meeting.

Since no practical solution was found the school was delayed in being built for 40 years(!). Anchorage did finally built it this last year. The school as it existed then was called Orah Dee Clark Junior High where I attended. http://www.asdk12.org/renewal/ms/clark.asp

My mom told me Westmoreland became a famous general in Vietnam. I recall how kind and gentle he was to me, though firm, and strong -- handsome -- he had a big aura. I can find no public records of his being in Anchorage, but I know he was.

Unfortunately due to the presentation we made to the Anchorage City Council the paid city planner was fired for incompetence. The Council reasoned that if three 13 year old girls could do this level of planning they could find a more qualified employee. My buddies, Nancy Byrd, Mary Liston, and I have high IQs so perhaps that was an unfair comparison to him. Everybody should have work, cause everyone needs it. It wasn't our intention to harm anyone.

An article and our photos were published in the Anchorage Times about the planning meeting. I'll see if I can find my old copy and digitize it.

Here's some more information about the General:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Westmoreland

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNwestmoreland.htm

You may be required to sign in to read this article - or just search "General Westmoreland" and you'll get it fresh...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/international/asia/19westmoreland.html

Given the bad warnings about Mexico lately, are you still going to Guadalajara?

Yes. It is safer in much of Mexico than it is in many places in the US in terms of the general crime rate. I have traveled to more dangerous places and been held at gunpoint in Dhaka, Bangladesh for example, and on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, USA more than once, and in the American Embassy in Calcutta, India for example.

Ok I forgot - there were the Mexican Pacific coast endangered-turtle-egg poachers riding horses with rifles, sure, ok, there was that, but they didn't actually *point* their weapons at me, so much as shake them and hold them up in view. I got the point. Mexico is a groove anyway.

In Dhaka the jetliner we arrived on had just touched down and rolled up to the airport when 5 or 6 men dressed from head to toe in black, sporting loaded Russian AK47's climbed on board, pointed their weapons at us and searched the plane - for who knows what. They demanded to speak with the pilot, and after 15 minutes they all left. These bullies felt powerful coming on board, yet they retreated in a way that felt sheepish, and I am sure more than one person snickered.

There was very little discussion of the event afterwards, as if some stewart had accidently dropped a fork and no one wanted to embarrass him by mentioning it. One man just looked over his New York Times for a second, and went right on reading it though the whole thing. There was something funny and sad -- still grim and dangerous about it.

On the Kenai Penninsula outside of Anchorage I had just finished telling the Federally employed fresh-out-of-college biologist (I was traveling with him as a guide and wildlife photographer) that he had no right to cross private land in Alaska. And being "not local" - not recognized - it was likely that someone with a shotgun would soon appear - he no more than put his hand on a gate to open it - when sure enough a very very angry man appeared with gun just like I described. The young biologist was incredulous when it actually occured just as I said it would, as soon as I completed the last word of my sentance. I said to him in an undertone, "do whatever this man asks and we will get out of this alive, and keep our jobs." I was 20 years old. The young biologist's name was Tom Turner, from Oregon. Tom and I were held at gun point by private Alaskans twice during that trip, in spite of my warnings.

If you work for the Fed and want to maintain peace, don't drive a marked federal vehicle into rural Alaska. And don't do stupid things like entering private property without permission carrying a camera. Private people are fed up with being taken to court for what others view as breaking a law. There are major crimes being perpetrated every day by industry and corporations but they have lawyers to keep the accusations at bay. Rural Alaskans are hanging on by a few thin threads and can not afford to be continually harrassed so they personally defend themselves. I can really understand their situation. If there are no gas stations to buy gas, or stores to buy food from up there, how are people going to travel and see the beauty of Alaska? There needs to be private industry.

My trip to the American Embassy in Calcutta taught me a great deal about what it is like to work within a foreign nation. Earlier in the day I watched as a local Indian embassy employee looked right at me and re-shuffled the embassy paperwork so that I, one of the few Americans in line, was the second to last person on the daily agenda behind every Indian citizen although I arrived early in the morning.

I was sick and exhausted when finally meeting with a low level American official who was terrible; insulted by his position he mistreated nearly everyone he came into contact with - snearing and speaking down to me -suffering succotash!- he finally gave the advise I needed, but it meant calling a Bhutanese government official.

Reaching the main door, I looked outside at the 115 degree heat madly distorting the light above the sidewalk and I - I lost heart - I just couldn't go outside to find a phone. So I asked the Indian guards to use a phone to make the required call.

One Indian guard said no, I had to find one outside the Embassy. From behind the large glass panels at the last door, over zealous Indian guards pointed their guns at me - which caused an unexpected reaction on my part! I had enough and threw a fit on the Great Seal of the United States embedded in the flooring, stomping my foot down, I demanded a phone. This was the American embassy, but I was treated like a criminal, they showed no intention to aid me in any way. I yelled "This is MY embassy, and I am NOT going any place until you GIVE ME A PHONE." and pointed at the American Flag and the Seal and at myself jumping up and down - I am sure I looked like a nuke had just gone off in my brainpan banging my hands wildly in the air to get my point across.

I pointed my finger at their guns and laughed! "This is what you do when someone asks to use a phone??!!?" I was beyond overwhelmed, and right then I lived up to my nickname "Chernobyl".

It worked, like nothing else had. Their supervisor was called in - and on command they relented immediately, lowering their weapons against me - a single unarmed protesting American female tourist - they looked terrified. Embarassment ensued but not by me. They presented me with a phone, I made the call, finalized my business and dragged my diarrhea racked, bug bitten, infected, overheated body back to the sweltering hotel as the sun sank red into the heat.

I am still learning from that experience that being 'polite' is not always the best modus operandi, because repression can bubble up later in unexpected ways.

In short I have no worries about Mexico; sure it will be hell here and there, but I've seen it before. Just don't eat in restaurants where the line of sight does not include a view to how they prepare and store food, how they keep things clean, or where locals do not eat - or like India where the walls in the kitchen are black. Yah, don't eat meat in India either if avoidable.

Plus, I am not traveling to a border location - just through it, nor to any famed drug dealer areas, just headed to Guadalajara, so I am not concerned. A friend has offered to put us up in San Diego overnight so we can arrive at the border in the morning, go across and drive a couple of hundred miles south before the devil knows we've left (as the saying goes).

What is a drag is all the paper work required to obtain car insurance, permissions to take the car to Mexico, forms that need to be filled out, money paid for certificates, permits and so forth. I have to notify the State of California, my bank, and the Mexican government and put up insurance against leaving the car in Mexico. I'm just not one for paperwork - it's not that bad.

It would be much much easier to haul my stuff back to Seattle put it in storage there and fly to Mexico from there, using public transportation when I arrive. But I wouldn't be able to get around as well to more remote destinations.

Today I applied for a copy of my California drivers license (cause I misplaced mine), donated some clothes and a ton of Microsoft software. Now I am looking for a place to buy boxes to begin packing.

I'll be applying for school loans, and finalizing some financial details to get ready to go. And I look for work stateside over the Web every single day - that is my job.

Celebrating Alaska Statehood 50 Years January 3, 1959 - 2009 - A Personal Reflection

I remember it like it was just a few months ago - I was already 2 years old and my Mom, a second generation Alaskan - Dee Lane, and my Dad, a third generation Alaskan - Chic Lane, took my sister Lisa and I over the few blocks from our house on the corner of 3rd avenue down to the Park Strip to watch the bonfire in celebration of hard won Alaskan statehood.

There was a great huge pile of wood, and the fire was well underway -- men would run up with all kinds of wood, spare or not, and throw it on the fire. And a whole tree was thrown in too!  The tree being dry burned really fast with a great sputtering noise mixed with the festive scent of painted wood all together.  The United States Senate had voted to make Alaska the 49th state on June 30, 1958.

Just as we arrived from the north side a couple of men were dragging a large wooden box, the size of an outhouse or larger and throwing it on the fire, which was growing quite large. People stood around the fire in a huge circle and it was obvious there had been a bit of drinking going on. Part of a fence was thrown in, sometimes a couple of two-by-fours, or a 8 by 10 sheet of plywood, but mostly old sections of some built things.

My father ran up with his camera just as my Mom was buttoning up my sister's jacket, I think he had parked the car, having just gotten off of work as an architect. She wanted to know what had taken so long. She was pregnant with my brother Ward, born in July of 1958, we girls were born only 11 months apart.

The crowd was growing as the evening was coming in, and singing and hollering and whooping and dancing jigs, in groups of people cheering whenever a new item was thrown on the fire. It was pretty wild and I didn't see many children on the park strip.

Notably the people greeted each other by name since they knew one another! There were a lot of people there.

Later I was taught the "Alaska Flag" song in school. The flag was said to have been designed by Bennie Benson, but the truth was his school teacher designed it to help him submit something, and I think she was happy he unexpectedly won the award with her simple design; she didn't complain when her student got credit for her design.

My mom showed me the Anchorage Times newspaper which read "WE'RE IN!" we kept a copy of that paper for more than 20 years. The heat from the bonfire was so hot it burned our faces and kept us warm - finally my sister Lisa began to get too cold so our folks bundled us off to the house our grandparents built on the very corner of downtown Anchorage where the legal buildings are now, near the statue of Captain Cook.

"8 Stars of Gold on a field of Blue..." I had wonderful teachers. I stayed true.

From the time I was a babe in arms we had a visitor by the name of Yule Kilcher. He was a state senator and one of the most fascinating people I have ever known. I asked him once how many languages he spoke and he took a minute to count them all up and said - "if you include the dialects - it's 47." 47!!! Yule helped to write the Alaska State Constitution, and he stood for liberal causes in a conservative way. People now have forgotten that Alaska was once a liberal state, and it was the conservatives who opposed statehood.

When I turned 13 years old Yule took me to visit his farm down in Homer, driving like a mad man around each curve of the road which he knew every bit of from memory. Every where we stopped Yule spoke to the people in their native languages - and what a diverse set of people he knew - it was just everyone - speaking in Norwegian, Lap, Danish, Finnish, German, Russian, and French, and everyone was so happy to see him and asked us to stay if only for a bite, or tea, or sometimes a sauna! It was one of my most memorable life experiences as I met people from all over the world visiting Yule at his ranch, and his children and other family members and neighbors. I credit Yule with changing my world view completely.

So this photo was taken of the US Flag and Alaska State flag in front of the top floor fireplace in the Anchorage Pioneer's Home with the Christmas tree, when I was visiting my mom for Christmas.

Myself if I were to die today I could honestly say that I have lived a completely unique and unusual life due to being raised in Alaska, and knowing the people I have been fortunate to meet like Senator Bob Bartlett, who was greatly responsible for Alaska becoming a state of the United States of America, and Alaska State senator Yule Kilcher, his children, and Karin and Judge James Fitzgerald and family - Dennis, Denise, Debra, and Kevin, Glo and Victor Fischer and family - Yonnie, the Listons - Bill and Helen, Mike, Mary, Lissa, Gene Guess and family, the O'Malley's, Ernest Gruening (Governor Alaska Territory), Wendell Kay - Eddy Kay, Nick Begich and his family, Alex Duff Combs and his family, the Selkreggs, Gov Bill Egan (who remembered everyone's names and family), Jill Smythe, the Arns family, the Rosenthals, the Jensen family, Kathy 'Willow' Graves, and later folks such as the Browns, Judge John and 'Mama' Kay Reese, Nancy Byrd, the Fairbanks crowd; Drs. Forbes - John Forbes, Rob, the Deans - Doug Dean and Steve Dean, Nick Boseck and his family, the Hale family - Ed, Fred, and Billy, Jim Chase and family, Dennis Savage and his family, Dennis Hartley; the teachers at Orah Dee Clark and East High School, Anchorage Community College and UAA, and other notable people with enormous personalities and strong love for their fellow human beings. Really too many to write about here.

Having left Alaska to seek out world culture I became the student of Dagchen Sakya, a senior Tibetan Lama, where my Alaskan childhood served me well - as I traveled Thailand, India, Nepal, and studied what I believe is the real final frontier, not Alaska as the saying goes, but the innate nature of our own minds.

On January 3, 2009, Alaska will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Alaskan Statehood, and I will be there in spirit remembering a fairly warm day of June 30, 1958 when my mom buttoned me up and said "Look at the bonfire Linda, remember it, because some day when you are much older, you will be able to say, I was there for the first one, when Alaska became part of the United States of America." I remember her black cat eye glasses frames, and the look of joy, pride, and concern on her face as she told me this with her dark brown hair pulled back, she looked into my eyes so closely. And I remembered the bonfire.

Someone told me recently that my life stories are like the movie Zoolander except real, so what's not to enjoy?

What I did not understand at the time was how rare my experience is, and how few people would be alive 50 years later who shared that experience. But I can honestly say, 50 years later, that I have lived because of Alaska, and because of the Alaskan community who raised me and infused my life with personality and love.

Happy 50 Years to Alaska, to Alaskans every where, to Americans, and to the World in which we live together - congratulations! To my relatives who are now raising the 6th generation of our family in Alaska - congratulations on the twins!

For a historical outline see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Statehood_Act

Respect goes out to my elders - Great-grandfather who resurveyed the Alaska-Canadian Border based out of Eagle in 1896, my Grandmother raised in Ketchikan, my Grandfather Billy Murry who was a tailor and owned the New Method Cleaners and the Murmac Bar in Anchorage, my Grandmother Marion Murry who played organ during the silent movie era, to my parents Roland and Darlene, thank you to everyone who made Alaska more than just a beautiful place, but an amazing event.

CHEERS TO YOU! GREAT LOVE -- GREAT PEACE! Do Seek The Treasure!!!

Don't support drilling ANWR

I don't trust the government to do any thing with drilling for oil in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_National_Wildlife_Refuge Here are my reasons -
Those responsible ...
1. could be more competent and should hire those to work for them who have ethics and respect for everyone
2. have shown a history of continuous spills, no planning, can not be trusted to get the oil out of Alaska safely
3. allowed a degenerate anti-culture to invade Alaska and now women fear walking around alone
4. need to consider other things than short term profit motives
5. could consider ANWR for an emergency - but it is not a long term solution - taking the oil means accepting a stop gap solution and having NOTHING left. Is this that last emergency?

Shipping oil unsafely by the goverment in league with private industry killed off Prince William Sound as a result of the March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdex Oil Spill. In the wake of 10.8 million U.S.gallons of oil Prince William Sound has not recovered, the land and water have not been able to clean and restore themselves to what they were prior to the spill. ("Almost 15 years after the spill, a team of scientists at the University of North Carolina found that the effects are lasting far longer than expected. The team estimates some shoreline habitats may take up to 30 years to recover. Exerpts from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill )

I loved Prince William Sound - I photographed it - my heart literarly leaped with joy to see the birds and other wildlife in the pristine blue water with white waves lapping on the beaches when I was a federal wildlife photographer there.

The Native population and other people still can not make a living from that region. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill In 1991, following the collapse of the local marine population (particularly clams, herring, and seals) the Chugach Native American group went bankrupt. According to several studies funded by the state of Alaska, the spill had both short- and long term economic effects. These included the loss of recreational sports fisheries, reduced tourism, and an estimate of what economists call "existence value," which is the value to the public of a pristine Prince William Sound.)

I was devastated because in 1979 I photographed the so called "recovery vessels" along the coast - yellow painted metal submersibles with no engine, that were not waterproof and fitted with no equipment whatsoever. What were these things - a joke I thought?

When I immediately showed government representatives photos of these yellow submarines - including the then head of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, he said they all knew about the condition of their fleet of oil spill recovery vessels: useless.

It was in fact why I left Alaska - clearly no one in the government cares enough to protect Alaska from the short term thinking and money grubbers. They did not even have an emergency plan for the inevitable spills. Drilling in a wildlife range - why not just go drill in the Outside / lower 49 state wildlife ranges if the US government likes that idea so much - first let's drill in the parks - how about if they start with Yosemite National Park?

You may not know that I worked on the Alaska pipeline in 1976. There are areas which are so easy to damage you would not believe it. If you just step on some sections of ground it turns into a soggy pond within weeks. In a year nothing can go by that area. Along the pipeline road all the animals had died out in a 4 mile radius. This is for hundreds and hundreds of miles.

How do I know? My close friend was the chief biologist stationed at Coldfoot at Camp 4 on the pipeline. She was threatened by her pipeline bosses that if she accurately documented the real effects on the environment - they'd just replace her with someone who would lie for them. I suggested she provide the real statistics under the table to the state and federal biologists so that they would at least know the truth even if it was not the official "truth".

The jackasses who came from the lower US states to build the pipeline robbed, raped, and murdered friends of mine in Fairbanks. We found one of our friends buried in a car trunk in a gravel pit. They had to have help to do that. It was like a war zone. I worked with those SOBs - it took me many years to recover - maybe this blog shows that.

The day I arrived in Coldfoot (a camp of between 400- 800 men) - there was lots of violence - some drunk 798'er (pipeline worker, welding union) attacked an old woman in her house with a huge rock - nearly killed her in a rape attempt. What is amazing is that she managed to escape although her head was broken and bleeding. How do I know? Because the only sheriff in hundreds of miles was a friend of mine - he was the one they sent for to find and arrest the asshole who did that. She had to be hospitalized - I think she was in her 60's. I was lucky because I knew how to stay safe but not everyone was so lucky.

For me I could not stand to watch the Alaska I knew as a child become the place it is now, and a place I expect will become worse. When I last visited Anchorage my friends were totally freaked out that I walked around at different times of the day and night in public. Why? Because rape is epidemic there. How do I know for sure besides the statistics? My best friend was an assistant district attorney in Anchorage.

The last thing I would ever do is put any trust into a government that has lead us by lying into an expensive war with one excuse after another and uses deceit and threats to cover up the facts about the effects.

We need to work to find alternative sources of energy - not use up our backup emergency sources in the face of their inability to plan or control the effects of removing the oil. Some areas are worth keeping just as they are because they are beautiful. We can still afford beauty can't we?

Or do we just continue to foster and support a culture of taking what we want when ever we want it - rape, lies, war.

Not me, not now, not with what I have myself seen and know - this is not from some third party source - it's from a 4th generation Alaskan.

Think of this as the last of your own wildlife reserves, and some of the last oil reserves in the country - would you use the very last of it, especially if you understood the effects it would have?

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill for more information about the continuing problems from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill - including the "WikiScanner discovered changes made from within Exxon Mobil altering this article's descriptions of the oil spill and down playing its severity."

And the State of Alaska source: http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/

Historic House, The Doctor's Place, Anchorage, Alaska

As a child under the age of 5 I was stung by hornets or bees nesting in the ground behind this now historic house above the slope near Elderberry Park. Another child tricked us into walking on the path, and the bees stung all of us.

Hearing our screams adults ran to us from all directions. They laid us down on the grass out front to treat us there were maybe 6-10 or so kids bitten. At first I wasn't sure but it finally did hurt. I have been increasingly alergic to bee or hornet stings ever since.

That was probably in 1959 or 1960.

The doctor drove a "Woody" a green truck with wood panels. I always thought he was the oldest person in the world as there were so few elders in Anchorage.

This historic house is near the house my grandparents built on the corner of 3rd and L Street in the old downtown section of Anchorage, near the statue of Captain Cook, which is just across the street from the empty lot were our house once stood.

Never Again - foods...

HDDeGroot from Flickr's "I ate this" group asked us to describe:
"Food you have tried but will never eat again. Like sea urchin or White Castle."

Ok, on a seasonal basis I ate whale sperm for breakfast as a child in Alaska. It was like eating fried cold farinia. It came in long log like shapes, and it's a creamy white color. It arrived wrapped in a brown paper with a matching wide tape- I can't recall but I think it came fresh from the butcher treated as the delicate and rare food it is. We cut it into sections, while we briefly mourned the dead whale, and fried slabs in butter in a big iron skillet. Generally we seasoned it only with salt and pepper.

Since our family is part Scottish, it was just like the old country. Being Cherokee Indian helped too.

We were smart alect three kids and we knew that some day it'd be a great story when eatting any parts of wild animals would be much more rare. One day my sister turned her nose up at sperm for breakfast, but then she saw "Swine Flu" vacine for what it was too, and refused to put that into her body.

For Fur Rondy most years we ate "Eskimo Ice Cream" - it was cold whale blubber with blueberries and other red berries mixed in with white sugar, sometimes it was mixed with snow. I remember the red cheeks of the eskimo kids who would joke with us. They offered it as an act of friendship, served in paper cups with a waxy finish and prepared in bulk by their folks. They knew it was nasty - it was like eating something on a dare. But little did the kids know that we although we were white, we were a 4th generation Alaska family and quite familiar with the delicacies of the bush.

I've eatten most every kind of rare beast from Alaska. But pretty much eating beaver, bear, and wolverine is all gamey and sweet. Moose is dry as heck - I created a recipe I handed down to all my friends called "Mongolian Moosebits". Soaking dry slabs of recently-killed-by-a-man-wearing-only-a-loincloth-and-no-shoes-with-a-knife MOOSE in a terriyaki sauce over night or as long as possible.

Being both Bear and Beaver clan, some times it felt weird eating them so I don't any more. Salmon is a downfall, especially fresh from an Alaskan River.

But the worse was the annual meeting of the two rivers known as Nuchalawoya's soup of moose meat and hair floating around. The soup was cooked outdoors in 55 gallon drums abandoned in rural Alaska. never again. but once, once was ok.(Nuchalawoya - Nu´ cha · la · woy´ · a. At Nuchalawoya the clear waters of the Chena River meet with the the silty gray Tanana River.)

More soon, I gotta get a life.

The Good Friday Quake in Alaska, a personal reflection

The 1964 Good Friday Quake in Alaska, a personal reflection
By Dee Lane, March 2007

At 5:35 on a Friday night in Anchorage we had a stupendous earthquake at 9.2 on the Richter scale - it was adjusted later to that number because they didn't realize the spikes crossed. It was Good Friday.

Outside in front of the house through the large picture window we watched our parked '57 Buick, in gear with the brake on, with each wave of the quake the car would come up on the front yard incline and nearly touch the house as it rolled back and forth. Buicks were very heavy so I had some idea of how intense the quake was - and amazing. In the backyard the trees rolled to the ground back and forth like a wave, like the ground was made of water. The snow was bright white, and then the ground appeared black as it rolled so it was quite a show.

My kids were watching an episode of "Mighty Mouse" when the TV went off and they said, "who turned off the TV?" but they quickly realized we were going to have some fun with an earthquake. And they stood up to watch it, and watched in the back yard too --you could barely stand up. The primary earthquake lasted five minutes or so, and the only damage in our house was of a 1950 Motorola clock (a wedding present, one of a matching pair) and black malachite totemic statue fell and dented a stereo. Our house in Mountain View was stable, on the gravel of an ancient river bed.

Our neighbor Guntrin the baby sitter was at our house at the time of the quake and she kept ruining the earthquake for us, she would cry, “Oh God I'll be good, please God, I'll be good”. And her two little kids were with her and she was scaring the bejesus out of them. She had endured bombing in Germany but we wondered what she did that was so bad to ask God for mercy like that.

Our friends Joe (my boss) and Veneta Arns and their four kids showed up to make sure we were ok. They had driven in from south Anchorage.

For the newborn baby next door, Rachel the youngest of the Jensen children, the Jensens were getting snow out of the yard to make water for the baby, it as easier to melt next to our fireplace. And I left Veneta in charge and she took care of all the 7 kids from the combined families, and as it turned out others too. Joe and I reported to work at the Alaska State Highway Department. And, we got our matching orders but I don't remember much that happened, it was just not enough.

So more and more people starting coming to my house - I just done my shopping and stocked up on food and supplies as if I expected it. I had at least two or more cords of wood for our bright orange 1960’s style hooded fireplace one of only two working fireplaces on our street. So we did not turn away anyone who wanted refuge, a warm house, clean water, and light, as I also had stocked emergency supplies such as hurricane lamps and kerosene. It became apparent quickly that I was needed to help with the rescue effort and founded what became known as “Damage Control”.

So because I could not watch the kids and the house was filling with people I decided to send my three children Outside to live with my sister Marilyn, and her second husband, her two children and my father in Malibu, California.

Eventually there were approximately 150 people coming and going from my small 3 bedroom house with one bathroom.

There were lots of buildings that were flattened from the shaking. New construction met the same fate. After the kids left I wrote an announcement for the radio requesting all architects, engineers, land appraisers, surveyors, typists with manual typewriters, to come and meet at Z J Loussac library at 10 am the following morning, a Monday I think. Fortunately the Loussac librarian heard the announcement over the radio and she was prepared to greet us so in this way we didn't break in to the library as I had planned.

Lots of people came. We set up many teams of two people each with maps, we divided the city to try and figure out if there were people trapped and ascertain the damage and document it. The other purpose of the group was to prepare people for a possible tidal wave, a Tsunami as we called it. We went down to the water's edge and told people not to go to the beach it was dangerous and they were very likely to get wet [funny] - inundated by the Tsunami but no Tsunami ever showed up. I volunteered my car because I wasn't worried about the gas shortage, everyone else seemed to worry about that, but I didn't - I had a full tank. So the teams also used my car to get around and warn people.

I broke into the Department of Natural Resources and took maps that we needed to identify block by block the places that were damaged. And I set up a system of percentages of damages which ranged from 100% which was a flattened useless building to minimal damage like 20%. My ex-husband, Roland Lane, a noted architect, was once of the few that did not come to the meeting. Later I found him sleeping in his apartment on 4th and L street which was very close to the fault line but he said “this building is never going to fall down, so go way and let me sleep”. Pretty funny. He was right it never did, and neither did his "Cliff house" which was a few blocks away, on a cliff, overlooking the fault line.


We chose the innocuous name Damage Control to deflect any criticism from people who may have lost friends or relatives in the earthquake in those buildings, we rendered what aide we could and documented all the known damage, building by building, block by block, and where that wasn’t possible, we estimated in general at the town level such as Seward, which burned and lost the large oil and gas storage tanks. The regular officials entrusted with the authority to act were slow to respond.

We sent a team of people out to check up on an emergency official who did not report to work after several days, they found him with his entire family sitting wrapped in blankets shivering in the cold claiming the world had come to an end. They were fed and comforted.

But eventually we moved to the Civil Defense building where we set up a map of south-central Alaska on the wall with a piece of clear acetate over it. And as the runners bringing reports from distant regions poured in I took notes of the reported damage, fires, Tsunami damage, loss of life, boats destroyed or missing and the state of passibility of the roads and landing fields.

Because communications were down people were using short wave radios, and signaling from the end of their drivable range to the next truck on the edge of it's drivable range, to bring in this news. In the midst of this clever form of tracking, with the situation news being hand delivered scrawled on little bits of paper or from memory a man entered the room, and pitched an offer, he had a truck full of gas, a cat (caterpillar) and front end moose gooser (plow), and he was offering to rent them each for $50 an hour. At this interruption, almost without stopping four of the men present picked the man up and thru him bodily out the door and down the stairs out of the building and returned to what we were working on.

Quickly I realized that just capturing this news was not enough we needed to document it in such a way as we could send our representative to the US government in Washington DC and request emergency funds.

When I completed compiling the damage report I had a man whose house had collapsed and he was the last one to leave Anchorage on the scheduled plane -- I got them to delay the flight to Washington DC. He flew to Washington met with President Johnson to request emergency funds. He returned with a promise of funding. He was the speaker of the house of the Alaska Legislature. I worked at the State while the kids stayed in Malibu.

The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) Director took all my notes and presented them as if he had compiled them which was a bunch of bullpucky and I got to resenting him for doing that. I don't remember his name. I am sure he got some recognition and promotion from my work. Senator Yule Kilcher was at the State he was (sentance trailed off)

The reason I didn't say anything I just decided to do it - silently as benefit to everyone - and not a personal benefit. I stayed awake the first few weeks in 72 hour sections, and slept like 3-4 hours. I went too far, overextended myself and my health was never the same again after that summer.

A week later we had another really bad earthquake almost as bad as the previous week. I was out at Elemendorf in the vault which was downstairs and it scared me because I didn't know we could have another really bad quake that close together. I was looking for photographs to send with Governor Egan to the President. We found tons of photos, a bunch of Seward, the train all scattered around twisted sections of the traintrack - they were relatively new. They included photos before and after the earthquake - they were terrible photos because they showed such detailed damage.

We did not include any of dead people.

Anyway it was scary. So Governor Egan took the photos I found with him to show President Johnson the amazing extent of the damages due to the Good Friday Quake, the fires, tsunami, and after quakes.

Alaska was a new State at that time.

In this way Alaska was able to get emergency funding really fast, and at that time our infrastructure always barely stringing along but it was able to get patched back together. More money came as we showed need; we were pretty desperate, and when the oil was discovered later in the 1960’s it was widely seen as a god send that we had that help from the US federal government so quickly, and before a new source of revenue for the state and local peoples opened up.

dictated by
Darlene L. Lane
Alaskan Pioneer
Urban, Regional, Land and Energy Planner
(design highways and villages, worked on Alaska Land Claims Settlement, D-2 Lands)
Anchorage, Alaska
March 2007

Note:
1959 Alaska Statehood, President Eisenhower signs statehood bill on January 3.
1964 Good Friday earthquake.
1967 Fairbanks flood.
1968 Oil pumped from a well at Prudhoe Bay on North Slope. Governor Hickel establishes Alaska Lands Claims Task Force that recommends a 40 million acre land settlement for Alaska Natives.
1969 North Slope Oil lease sale brings $900 million. First live satellite telecast in Alaska.
1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act signed into law.
1973 Congress passes the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act; salmon fisheries limited entry program becomes law.
1975 Alaska Legislature appropriates funds to initiate purchase and installation of 100 satellite earth stations for establishment of statewide satellite communications network.



http://www.funsocialstudies.learninghaven.com/edu/good-friday.html

On certain
Christian holidays like Good Friday you are not supposed to eat meat.Ash Wednesday's you see an array of people are walking around with the symbolic ash on their forehead.

Just Browsing Outside

As a child I wandered into the University of Alaska at Anchorage’s library stacks and just started reading. If books on physics and math just happened to be across the stack from 19th century French poetry so much the better, it was an easier reach. When finished with one selection I chose the next one randomly, sometimes with my eyes closed just for fun.

This method works well when the amount of data is limited and the desire for information is high. Sometimes random information is a highly acceptable result. Soon I had consumed all the art stacks -- I found I was rereading them going back the opposite direction. I wished for a way to mark the books or sections of books I had randomly read. Memorizing thousands of Picasso’s images at the end of the row was the end of my road, and I went ‘Outside’ in search of cross cultural connections.

For Alaskans the term “Outside” generally refers to the United States, or “lower 48 states”. Prior to roads being built travel to Alaska was via boat and commonly originating from Seattle through the 'Inside Passage' in what is now Canada. Therefore the reverse route, through any means, is termed ‘Outside’, as in, “I’m going Outside on vacation.” or "She had her baby Outside so it could be President of the United States when it grows up" (really - this was a tradition such as evidenced by Alaska Senator Bob Bartlett's family, and my own). The term ‘Outside’, like a nickname or a tag, also implies a great deal about the Alaskan mindset, that the U.S. is really not home, and it is very distant. With a small population people were viewed as valuable.

Lots of people don't know where the term comes from, but my family helped populate the state arriving in 1896 a couple of years before the gold rush, so we contributed to popularizing slang terms 'cause we love 'em. On the other hand, my mom, so fond of telling the truth about everything confessed that my grandmother had not planted the large old birch tree at the very corner of Anchorage on 3th and L street, near where the statue to Capt Cook is now, as she had often repeated throughout my childhood and to anyone who would listen.

This leads me to believe there is another tradition, leg pulling. So all the other theories about where that expression "Outside" came from could be just as valid as that tree planting story. So much for the playfulness of Alaskans -- folksy, resistant to authority, maybe not exactly anti-intellectual but something like that.

My mom tells me she is writing a series of short stories titled "I Didn't Die" about all the times she escaped death in rural Alaska just going about her business in planning. She fell off a cliff and was caught by a net placed there for the express purpose of catching people at AlyeskaSki Resort just outside Anchorage, got stuck in a plane without fuel drifting silently past Denali (Mt. McKinley) but landed safely, once having accepted a plane ride with her inexperienced boss acting as a pilot got lost in the far north and navigating with a map and a flashlight from the air found the only airport for hundreds of miles by spotting a tiny distant light, ate hallucinogenic mushrooms by accident, and poisonous shell food and so forth. And you know what, you know the tag line - she didn't die.

I still see myself as just browsing Outside, and still, someday I might go home.

Don't Whine to Me You Are So Well Off - Stay In School

What I wanted to say to the bright dropout University student but didn't--

I feel need to give you a reference to my perspective and you can make of it, whatever you want. So I will use myself as the example - here goes:

I'm from Alaska, I started working professionally at age 15 as a legal librarian and law clerk.Because neither of my parents saved money to send me to college I worked on the Alaska pipeline as a bullcook, seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day to save enough money for the tuition, books, materials, and living expenses.

This meant that I was a dishwasher on the Alaska pipeline camp that served meals for 400-800 men a day, and cleaned up the accidents that very drunk pipeline workers left in their beds, toilets, and the hallways where they got sick. I worked in Coldfoot Camp for 5 months with only a one day break. It was not the only job I had like that; I also slimed herring, and was a US Fish and Wildlife photographer!I went to the community college just like you did, starting when I was 16 years old.

At 21 I moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. I earned an undergraduate degree in fine art, which is in painting, finishing at the private college Cornish Institute - I completely funded my own education working either full time or part time while I attended school full time - it took ten years. Might as well say "would you like fries with that?" as they hand you your diploma.

After running out of money while on my own, and going without food for 4 days once in 1980 I decided I would take any job and do whatever is required to make a living.

To that end I took any job - the bottom of the barrel jobs as a support tech - while working for RealNetworks when the Internet was brand new -- I emailed someone I never met over the internet and told him I was copying his site so that I could learn to script HTML, and asked would he mind helping me a little bit?I took his site apart and put it back together as my own (http://www.wonderlane.com/).

I taught myself HTML. Once in a while I emailed him with a question and he looked at my work from Indonesia where he lived at that time. My Internet teacher and I still trade Happy New Years greetings via email - we have never met in person.From there I worked increasingly better jobs until I was earning a 6 figure salary.Now I am much older, after having worked since I was a kid, I decided I hate what I am doing for what is barely a living when I am lucky to have a contract. Like many people as I have gotten older I am earning less and less instead of more and more.

So I decided to go back to the university and earn a Masters in Information Science; I will learn something new and it is a challenge. I am not a good writer. And maybe if I am lucky and work hard to learn new things I will restart my career as a result. I follow my intuition -- one never knows what exciting thing one might do next!

One of the things that made a huge impression on me is traveling to India in 1989 and seeing starving people laying in the street and beggars with no clothes in the hundreds - standing around on street corners with nothing to do (and I thought I had it bad!) Even the educated people told me they had no jobs- so when I returned to work at Microsoft I worked to improve business relationships with India.As Americans we are such a rich people we can follow what we love to do and maximize the challenges presented to us in our lives, or we can make choices that make our lives easy.

Most of the other people in the world have no such choices. They work all the time until they die. They don't have "free time" or "disposable income" most people don't graduate from high school.According to UNESCO, at least 875 million adults remain illiterate globally, they never have any chance for an education, they never learn to read or write. Count out 875 million pennies and call me when you are done.

While in the backwoods of Nepal, one lady asked a friend of mine "is the sun that shines on your country is the same one that shines on my country?"30,000 people starve to death every day. Since you started reading this about 600+ people died. So after that grim baseline -Taking a class means taking initiative, to go through the materials, take the tutorials, and/ or work with other people, like following up on my offer to help you - I know both of those things can be challenging as learning experiences, alone, not even counting the subject matter.

And of course I have no knowledge of your background.My best advice is to follow whatever in life fills you with passion. But this was a once in a lifetime chance - everything is - it always is, nothing ever is repeated in just the same way or with just the same people. For example it is very unlikely I will be a TA again.We are very, very lucky, don't you agree? With that said we must take responsibility for every action.You have tremendous potential and only you know what that is and where to place your focus. I wish you every success.

But don't whine to me, because you are so much better off than most people it isn't even funny.

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