Slice of Good Ol Boy Life

As the days got longer in the land of the midnight sun, so to did my resolve to cut this adventure short and come home to my loving and devoted husband.

I was being micromanaged in a way that felt a bit over the top and it was obvious that because I didn’t party every night most of the younger employees in camp had little interest in engaging with me.

There were a few exceptions. DL was a young midshipman fresh out of the Navy. He was a tall Black man with a cheerful disposition. DL always had a warm greeting and a funny comment.

“I’m just here to clean toilets,” he often said, a humbling reference to his job as a housekeeper at the lodge.

Sandy was another bright spot. She was about my age and a mother of two college educated daughters. I wasn’t sure what her relationship status was, but Sandy was up here in Alaska by herself. In fact, she drove all the way from Jacksonville, Florida. Quite the commute.

Sandy provided the intelligent conversation from a place of caring and understanding that I found refreshing amid a camp full of privileged millennials and Gen Zers trying to find their footing on the Alaskan tundra.

The cold definitely bothered Sandy. She was always bundled up at breakfast every morning. When I found out she was a Clemson graduate, I sung the school’s fight song — “Hold That Tiger” — one day that put a smile on her face.

Sometime around late June, the three of us embarked on a memorable day trip to Homer, Alaska. The end of the road.

I had heard Homer was a funky, artsy town and it didn’t disappoint. There was a seafaring feel to Homer, complemented by cute shops, thoughtful galleries and hipster thrift stores all juxtaposed by nature’s beauty.

Driving a long a section called The Spit revealed majestic mountains rising from the water. Purple flowers lined the road as we traveled to where restaurants and bars were grouped together on a harbor.

From here, tour operators helicoptered wealthy tourists to nearby wildlife sanctuaries to watch brown bears gorge themselves on salmon. Unfortunately, our budget would not accommodate that adventure.

On this trip, DL had been peppering me with questions about journalism. In particular, he was after sources and methods.

“So tell me, John, how do you know if someone is corrupt?,” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if DL was playing dumb or genuinely curious, so I explained the public records process, “sunshine laws” and ethical principles and practices, the best I could.

On the way to Homer, we stopped in the small town of Ninilchik, where I photographed a huge golden eagle perched atop a buoy along the foggy coastline. The mood in Ninilchik was quite suspicious. Rumors of a sizable Russian ex-pat population had proceeded our visit.

A Russian Orthodox Church confirmed there was a presence and when we stepped inside the local convenience store, it became clear we were the outsiders.

“You’ll find a lot of the old ways still in practice here,” the shop keeper said when Sandy asked about life in Ninilchik.

That comment stayed with DL for the rest of our trip. “The old ways,” he repeated in a slow bass tone. It was an oblique reference to a time that was probably not the most welcoming to a Black man, independent woman or gay guy.

I gained tremendous respect for DL that summer. There were probably just a handful of African Americans on the Kenai Peninsula. If he felt out of place, you wouldn’t have known it, but if there was a party, DL was typically the life of it.

Meanwhile, I missed David more and more each day. The advice Alan had told me in Los Angeles began to make sense. The garbage had to go. It was time to return home and take it out.