My upcoming memoir from Epicenter Press, Hardship Alaska, chronicles the events, people and places immediately leading up to and during my time serving as a Vietnam War era conscientious objector. The heart of the story focuses on my two years of alternative civilian service working in and around Anchorage Alaska. My assigned duty initially had me working in emergency shelters, group homes and residential treatment centers for kids in crisis. I arrived at Anchorage Children’s Christian Home on Halloween night, 1970. Even though I was surrounded by the children in my care and the adults I worked with, my feelings of isolation and loneliness took center stage, especially as my first Thanksgiving away from home neared. I wrote Herb Chamberlain, my former college roommate, about the upcoming holidays and how much I feared being alone at that time of the year. But to my surprise, I discovered the opposite. Here’s an excerpt from the book about that first Thanksgiving away from home.
Photo credit: Stephen Cysewski
I wrote Herbie on Wednesday, November 25, 1970, just a few weeks into my alternative service assignment that, “Thanksgiving will be hard away from home… But, Christmas will be the worse of the two—I will be working. I do not wish to be alone. I may even spend the night at the receiving home. Oh, well, there are better things to think about other than loneliness.” The next day, which I assumed would be less than a special holiday away from my family turned out to be one of the best Thanksgivings ever. A group of us from Alaska Children’s Services were invited to spend the day at one of the administrator’s homes. We had staff and kids from a couple of the group homes, many of us away from our families both here in Alaska and the Lower 48. And for more than a few of us, it was not our choice. We went ice skating from midmorning to around three that afternoon. The house backed onto a large lake, and now that it had completely frozen over, it became an extension of the backyard. It was a large gathering with the administrator’s family, his neighbors and the rest of us. We stopped a couple times for hot chocolate and to warm up a bit. On one break someone had put on the 1959 recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony conducted by Bruno Walter with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Westminster Symphonic Choir. A great recording, which sent me into reveries of being back East, Westminster Choir College and home. The Ninth was a particular favorite of mine ever since last spring when we performed it with Leopold Stokowski and the American Symphony at Carnegie Hall. While skating I met an 8-year-old neighbor’s kid who asked if I wanted to take a ride with him on his snow machine. There were a few snow machines idling at the shore along with motorcycles that would regularly scoot off with their riders laughing and whooping across the frozen surface of the lake. The ride was exhilarating, and I marveled at my young chauffeur’s skill at handling the machine. It was a great ride and when we returned to the house, I thanked my diminutive driver and told him how much fun I had riding with him. At 4:00 we went inside, tossing our winter gear in a guest bedroom, and joined the family for their Thanksgiving feast. There were so many of us that the meal needed to be served buffet style. We’d never fit around our host’s dining table. We grabbed plates, silverware and napkins and loaded our plates with strips of Alaskan salmon candy, slices of roast caribou, reindeer sausage and foods I was more familiar with back home—turkey, sweet potatoes and the rest. After the meal, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the girls group home to play board games and then went tobogganing until after 10:00 p.m. The whole day was great fun and I was deeply thankful to have been included in this wonderful celebration. Riding on my Thanksgiving high, the next morning I went off with Lucille, the lead counselor at the girls group home, and we each bought a pair of cross country skis, poles, boots and wax to keep the base of the skis slick. The winter in Alaska would not keep me trapped inside under an electric blanket. I was going to make the most of the next two years.