While e-mailing a friend about, Sarah Palin regarding her cutesy speech style as if speaking to a baby and anyone taking her seriously; I added she is one well shaped babe for a Grandma.
Got me thinking.
Oh no! Not Moi thinking!
About Palin's family's values and other products of Alaska I have known.
Is Alaska one big trailer park without the trailers. I mean the mentality, of course.
Kind of like a, Jersey thing is a Jersey thing. ref. South Park.
Or "West Virginia, one big happy family. Really!" from this Board.
Is Alaska a refuge for "trailer park trash" without the trailers?
One couple who vacationed in Alaska went back to tell their single female friends that with the male:female ratio in Alaska, the odds are good but the goods are odd. Hmm. Must be one big Pahrump.
I've lived in Alaska two different times, the first time the year after it became a state. To Alaskans, we in the "Lower 48" are Outsiders. Alaskans are independent, self reliant, and generally distrustful of government, especially that of the Lower 48. Mostly, they'd prefer to be left alone.
People carry guns everywhere. While I was there, a shootout occurred between a motorcycle gang from Anchorage and some railroad workers at a hotel where the railroad workers boarded. The motorcycle gang came in to the hotel and said, "We're taking the place over.
The railroad foreman said, "Like hell you are." Guns were pulled and a shootout occurred. As I remember, no one was killed, but a few were wounded.
Generally, considering that everyone has guns, cops need a valid reason for messing with someone - at least out side of the cities.
They call it the "Last Frontier, " and in many ways, it is. I lived in an old log cabin, without electricity or running water. Actually, the creek in front of the cabin ran during the summer and I got my water from it. During the winter I had to drive seven miles to s spring that ran all winter.
I had an oil stove for heat, and propane lanterns for light. I've had bears knock at my front door, caught beaver in the stream out front, and seen plenty of wolf tracks. During the winter, I had to park my car on the highway and walk a quarter mile to the cabin. To start my car in the morning, I had a propane weed burner, and come stove chimney pipe with which I directed the heat from the weed burner to under the oil pan to thaw my car out enough to start it.
Did you know your tires freeze flat on one side and thump until they warm up enough to become round once again, and that, if it's cold enough, you can throw a pot of boiling water into the air and not a drop of water will hit the ground. It all turns to ice crystals and floats away.
Drug use, when I was there, was widespread. Alaskan privacy law pretty well said it wasn't the government's business what you smoked in your own home. I went in the student union building at the college in Fairbanks, and the air was thick with pot smoke.
I worked a couple of times up there in oil to earn money for college. I didn't meet many outside of oilfield guys and strippers. I have a question for you.
Work and personal preference have kept me in the sunny southwest. I love the country but I do have to admit that there is a big percentage of people who do not have a twinkle in their eyes and generally have a bit of an attitude and are basically unfriendly (not all, but a lot) in NV, AZ, etc. I have really been struck by how friendly people are in northern places like Montana and British Columbia. Maybe the thumping tires jars something into them.
Can you make a grand generalization about people in Alaska? Generally friendly or so independent that they put up a wall between themselves and the world?
Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:19 am
I worked a couple of times up there in oil to earn money for college. I didn't meet many outside of oilfield guys and strippers. I have a question for you.
Work and personal preference have kept me in the sunny southwest. I love the country but I do have to admit that there is a big percentage of people who do not have a twinkle in their eyes and generally have a bit of an attitude and are basically unfriendly (not all, but a lot) in NV, AZ, etc. I have really been struck by how friendly people are in northern places like Montana and British Columbia. Maybe the thumping tires jars something into them.
Can you make a grand generalization about people in Alaska? Generally friendly or so independent that they put up a wall between themselves and the world?
It's been long enough - left for the last time in 1976 - that I had to think about it for a while. Also, the first time I was there, 1959 - 61, I was in the Army, and didn't have much contact with the average Alaskan.
I would rate them as friendly. They don't like to be messed with, but people were generally helpful and friendly. If your car broke down alongside the road, someone - usually the first person driving by - would stop to help. Of course, in Alaska, a breakdown in the winter, could be deadly.
I liked Alaska, made a lot of friends there, and intended to go back, but I ended up in Winnemucca instead, and who could leave beautiful Winnemucca?
