October 02, 2006
LETTER FROM ALASKA
It's always with sadness that I anticipate the last e-mails I get from Alaska each year from my Uncle Pete, (yes, the one who was in the paper posing with a potato he grew that was shaped like a moose.)
The tone in the e-mails is always wistful. He loves Alaska as I do and while coming home to Florida each October after so long away does please him, I know he is haunted by fish that went uncaught and moose and flowers and mountains and sunsets that went unphotographed.
By the time the alder leaves turn yellow and the fireweed begins to die and transform into a burnt orange, Pete knows it's time to call it a summer.
His last mail for this year was a series of missives filled with photos, as if he couldn't bear not to take it all back with him:
Well, the ground is just covered with fallen leaves, almost all of the trees and the mountains are covered with snow. Really beautiful but ... time to move on.Pete
PREVIOUS LETTERS FROM ALASKA:
Winter's coming. Time to head south.
The salmon don't stand a chance.
The Last Fuzzy Slipper Frontier.
There's a bar in them thar country.
Sunsets, salmon and civil ceremonies.
Volcanoes, churches and halibut.
A fantasy RV for The Last Frontier.
Heading north to the homestead.
Publicizing moose-shaped tubers.