"The Making and Un-making of a Marine"

No Roads Lead to Nome

 Earlier this year Larry's colleague, Greg Smith a head of substance abuse treatment for Norton Sound Corporation in Nome Alaska invited him to come to Alaska to teach Native Alaskan therapist Directive Group Therapy. The Native Alaskan population has high incidents of PTSD, suicide and addiction. While there he also interviewed a Native Alaskan Vietnam Vet.  

Larry's wife, Helise, joined him for the trip.  This is a tale of that adventure.  Editor

Helise and Larry's Adventure not a vacation:

First installment:

I am writing this 6:30 PM June 24 in-flight to Nome, Alaska for the second time.

We left the house at 4:30 AM Saturday morning June 23.  Yesterday after two runs at landing and not being able to because of the heavy cloud cover we returned to Anchorage to find that Alaskan Airlines had lost my bag, thankfully Helise had hers. We left the airport at 12:30 AM and settled in a distant Ramada Inn about 1:30AM. There we slept until noon and came back to the airport to make a second try at Nome. We flew over five thousand mile yesterday, and today it's almost 600 to Nome.

After talking to several people about Nome as we waited for the various planes, we found out how many joggers had been eaten by bears last year, how to mine for gold at the camp fifteen miles north of Nome, and that there is a dentist, who added to his business barbering, and to round out his need for cash flow opened a bar in the same building. No one we've talked to seems to have been born in Alaska most landed here from some where else.

On the plane there is a man with a dog with its head half out of the bag, I heard what sounded like a bird calling and tuned my head to see a man starring into a box that said Petco on it. He squeaked his lips at some kind of a bird inside the tiny box. Helise and I recognize almost everyone on the plane since most of us have been trying to get to Nome for the past two days.

I am supposed to go to work tomorrow and feel like I haven't landed yet because I haven't but I am stacking up air-miles.

Second Installment:

On this second try at Nome we land in Kutzebue and the pilot decides to wait on the runway before taking off for Nome; he's hoping the clouds will clear. A two year old boy is screaming two seats in front of me, his little hand pressed to his ear, he cried during the entire descent. The pilot comes on the intercom again and tells us we are going to wait for at least an hour to see if the Nome runway will clear of the cloud cover. As we wait the plane continues to fill with folks that seem to be endlessly arriving at this airport that looks like nothing more than a tool shed. The plane now is packed. The pilot booms out that we can't land unless we can see the runway, because the high tech equipment that would help us to find the runway in the clouds is being repaired -- so we need to keep waiting.

I reach into my pack and pull out the ear plugs I had packed and sit back in my seat and stew about what has not been working so far on this trip. My bag has been lost with everything I need, from clean underwear to all the props I brought to do my workshop with. My bio clock has no idea what time it is.  Right now the clock says 8:30 PM and it says 12:30 PM on the lower right hand corner of my computer screen.

The joke "no roads lead to Nome" seems to now apply to no planes land at Nome. Another small boy right in front of me mouths the back of his seat cushion as he stares at Helise and I. Helise is nibbling a doughy cookie given out by the stewardess to pacify us for the long wait and the rising anxiety in the airplane. I push the ear plug in further and grapple to find the Alaskan mindset of "I don't give a shit."

The captain come on once again telling us he's hoping that if we wait another forty-five minutes, it will be clear enough to land.  I look around the plane and see many folks that I did yesterday;they also must have had to find places to stay in Anchorage last night. I overheard some one saying that they got up early and tried the morning flight which could not land so this was there third try at it.

If Alaskan Airlines keeps packing people into this aluminum tube it will take just another round of drinks before the damn things will explode like and over stuffed sausage.

Man, I'd like to see a musk ox, moose, anything besides the inside of this plane. I don't think I can take another meal at Chilies airport restaurant. The non-supportive airplane seat, constant din of kids, and comforting parents, pissed-off passengers and stewardess with smiles that are too wide. I've read Alaskan Airlines magazine three times now. The ten pounds of baloney I carried here for Greg's wife Dora has to be rotting in my bag. If we ever land I will be left holding tubes of stinking meat which is what I feel like right now.

An hour later I turn and say to Helise, "There is a God."   And we landed at Nome.

To be continued....  see Third Installment

Larry Winters