VISTA CHRISTMAS
December 24th, 1969; Chauthbaluk, Alaska:

It's a fairly mild day, this Christmas Eve, 1969. The days are short, but my cabin is warm, and I read by the fire in a new chair freshly assembled from a Sears unpainted, unassembled furniture kit. It is a welcome step up from a Blazo box and cabin wall.

But I am restless. It is the day before Christmas and I long for company. So, before daylight I begin the 13 mile walk down river to Aniak. There in Lou's roadhouse there will be people sitting around the long scarred table drinking coffee and talking about whatever there is to talk about, even if it's nothing. With a little luck someone will be down from the village later and I can hitch a sno-go ride home. If not, well, I'll worry about that later.

The walk isn't bad. The river is frozen smooth with only a few hummocks and open spots. Sno-go's have worn a trail and it is essentially a stroll on an icy sidewalk. It takes me only slightly under 3 hours to complete the trip. It could have taken less, but I frequently stop to marvel at where I am. I have been in Alaska 6 months. Sometimes it feels like I have never lived anywhere else, so completely has my life here absorbed me, and so completely has life been absorbing.

The roadhouse is homey. Lou with his bald head and frameless, pink tinted glasses fusses from the kitchen. Father Corrigal, the Jesuit missionary, smiles warmly from beneath his Chicago Cubs baseball cap. His yellow Snoopy sweatshirt, jeans and red sno-go boots complete the outfit.

Orrie Haas, the Cooperative Extension Service agent, strolls through from her office off the roadhouse lobby. Watching her, I reflect on the tragedy of a woman married to the wrong man. Should have been to me I grumble to myself. It likely won't be the last time.

Larry Ludlow, bush pilot and bootlegger, in his usual parka and Hawaiian shirt pauses long enough to utter something rude and profane and departs to harass his current receptionist. LaMont Albertson, school principal, drops by on his way to the Post Office, and asks if the mattress he found for me has made life more comfortable. It has. Soft wood not being all that soft.

Others come and go. George, from the Northern Commercial Co. store, harassed by a restless wife; Joe who'd rescued me 2 months earlier when moose hunters had left me for dead on an obscure Kuskokuim River tributary; Cal the Wien Consolidated airlines agent-pilot whose office is in the rear of the roadhouse, and whose lack of a pilot's license would become a modest sensation by New Year's when he crash landed his Stagger Wing biplane in McGrath.

Most come and go, perhaps stopping long enough for coffee and gossip. It is an easy way to while away a day. I am not one of them, I am too young and too new. But I am getting there. I have built a habitable cabin and survived being left for dead. In a country where acceptance is achieved through competence, I am not off to a bad start.