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IN THIS ISSUE

• Dixie continues her description of their trip to Alaska and the Yukon
• Rafiki´s wartime story comes to its remarkable conclusion
• Dick Monaghan finds that late marriage requires some adjustments
• Jean Sterling remembers her father reminiscing about WWI
• Gerrit de Leeuw sends a story about an aptitude test
• Jack Peaker´s story is about an inquisitive little girl
• Tom Kyle posts a taped discussion among seniors which he chaired

Dixie continues her account of their

ALASKA/YUKON TRIP

Via Tok we headed for Delta, pulling into a small park there just at dusk. Chris and Elizabeth went for a short walk and when they returned, said I should also get out with my walker, that they walked on moss, not grass, as they had expected. I took their word for it.

Delta was first called Buffalo Center because of the American bison transplanted here from Montana in the 1920s. In the 1970s, however, our bible tells us the government designated this very fertile basin of the Tanana river an agricultural area and made more than 112,000 acres of land available for farming. The average farm is about 300 acres, but they range in size from 25 to 3,000 acres, many with large farm buildings. Barley is the major feed grown but also wheat, forage, pasture, and field peas; there are some small scale vegetable farms; beef producers - they use an Angus cross suitable for northern climates; dairies; swine producers; bison, elk, reindeer,yak and musk ox ranches, as well as several commercial greenhouses. This didn´t mix well with bison; they had multiplied, became a nuisance to the farmers and are now kept in check by issuing hunting licenses.

Different development came during and after WWII. Under the Lend- lease act, the United States was helping Russia against Germany by sending airplanes and supplies through Alaska into the Russian Far East and an air field, Allen Army Airfield, was constructed three miles south of Delta Junction as a stopping point on this long journey. The Alaska Highway was built to connect an existing road to Dawson Creek in British Columbia and met the Richardson Highway some miles south along the Delta River; this meeting point became Delta Junction. More road building connected Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, to what is now Glenallen, meeting the Richardson Highway, and ultimately making a link between Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska´s second largest city. (You really need a good map for all this.)

After the war, a U.S. Farm base, Fort Greely, was built next to the airfield and it, and the land around it, were used as a training base for cold-weather combat during the Cold War. The base and the new roads increased tourism, and the resulting economic boom moved the commercial centre from Delta to Delta Junction. In 1968 when oil was discovered, construction started on a pipeline to carry the oil from the North Slope to Valdez, and brought many new residents and businesses. The place was changed forever. (Since returning from the trip I have read a book, ´Blue Hills´, written by Judy Ferguson, about homesteading in this area in the 60s. It is well written and very informative about life in those years.)

Next day it was on to Fairbanks, Alaska´s second largest city, beautifully situated on the flat valley floor of the Tanana River basin. (I must confess I had never heard of the Tanana River before going on this trip - and it is a big river.) We had reservations at 2 p.m for a 3½-hr. cruise on a paddle steamer up the Chena and Tanana Rivers south of Fairbanks, which included a visit to an Indian village, and with our time limit we only skirted the city, which was a pity. Their excellent university, sited on 2,250 acres, gathers students from all over the world; it is America´s only arctic university and is a research centre for global change and arctic phenomena. With a Land, Sea and Space grant, it serves communities state wide through distance service of instruction and research activities. Maybe a visit next time?

The Riverboat Discovery, owned and operated by the fourth generation of the Binkley family, is part of Alaska history, dating back to the Klondike Gold Rush. In 1898, Charles M. Binkley hiked over the Chilkoot Pass, not in the search for gold but to chart and navigate the Yukon River and its tributaries. He became a pilot and boat builder. His son, Captain Jim Binkley Sr., piloted freight vessels on the Tanana and Yukon Rivers in the 40s, about 2,000 miles for the round trip. It was profitable and exciting work; in a season from break-up until freeze-up, they might make 10 such trips, during which he learned and memorized thousands of miles of river. He liked people and made friends with the Indians, Eskimos, traders and trappers along the river.

When planes and trains began to carry much of the freight in the early 50s, the last of the steamboats was retired. In 1950, Captain Jim and his wife Mary purchased from the Episcopal church a 25- passenger boat and in 1955 he built - in his back yard - his first sternwheeler, the 150-passenger Discovery I.

Working as a team, Captain Jim and Mary, who admired and respected the Native cultures, wanted to share their appreciation with the many people coming into the area, and with his river knowledge and many contacts, the first tours began. In 1971 the 300-passenger Discovery II came into service, built on the steel hull of the last freighting steamer on the Tanana and Yukon Rivers. In 1986, Discovery III was built near Seattle, Washington, and shipped to Alaska. In the Travel Weekly Magazine, the tour is rated the top boating attraction in North America. Always operated by members of the Binkley family, third and fourth generations are now at the helm. (I believe there must be something about the northern air that inspires such initiative.)

To be continued.

Here is the remarkable ending to the story of Herman Rosenblat, who was liberated from a Nazi prison camp by the ending of the war:

THE GIRL WITH AN APPLE

Eventually I made my way to England, where I was sponsored by a Jewish charity, put up in a hostel with other boys who had survived the Holocaust, and trained in electronics. Then I came to America, where my brother Sam had already moved. I served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, and returned to New York City after two years. By August 1957 I´d opened my own electronics repair shop. I was starting to settle in.

One day, my friend Sid, whom I knew from England, called me. "I´ve got a date. She´s got a Polish friend. Let´s double date."

A blind date? Nah, that wasn´t for me. But Sid kept pestering me, and a few days later we headed up to the Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma. I had to admit, for a blind date this wasn´t so bad. Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. She was kind and smart. Beautiful, too, with swirling brown curls and green, almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life.

The four of us drove out to Coney Island. Roma was easy to talk to, easy to be with. Turned out she was wary of blind dates too! We were both just doing our friends a favour. We took a stroll on the boardwalk, enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and then had dinner by the shore. I couldn´t remember having a better time.

We piled back into Sid´s car, Roma and I sharing the backseat. As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the subject, "Where were you," she asked softly, "during the war?"

"The camps," I said, the terrible memories still vivid, the irreparable loss. I had tried to forget. But you can never forget.

She nodded. "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far from Berlin," she told me. "My father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers."

I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant companion. And yet here we were, both survivors, in a new world.

"There was a camp next to the farm." Roma continued. "I saw a boy there and I would throw him apples every day."

What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy. "What did he look like? I asked.

He was tall. Skinny. Hungry. I must have seen him every day for six months."

My heart was racing. I couldn´t believe it. This couldn´t be.

" Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving Schlieben?" Roma looked at me in amazement. "Yes,"

"That was me!"

I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions. I couldn´t believe it. My angel.

"I´m not letting you go." I said to Roma. And in the back of the car on that blind date, I proposed to her. I didn´t want to wait.

"You´re crazy!" she said. But she invited me to meet her parents for Shabbat dinner the following week. There was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most important things I always knew: her steadfastness, her goodness. For many months, in the worst of circumstances, she had come to the fence and given me hope. Now that I´d found her again, I could never let her go. That day, she said yes. And I kept my word. After nearly 50 years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I have never let her go.

This story was published in the August 2006 issue of Guideposts. There was more to this story, including pictures.

" A chance blind date led Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat back to Roma, the girl who helped him survive a Nazi concentration camp. Eleven years old when he was captured by the Nazis, Herman never got to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, the joyous event in which Jewish boys mark they passage into manhood. But in February this year, 63 years late, Herman finally did, with his wife, Roma, friends and family by his side. They ate cookies; danced the hora (a traditional Jewish circle dance); and hoisted Herman aloft in a chair. Herman is now retired from his job as an electronics repairman and he and Roma live in Miami Beach. He plans to write a book. "If a human being lives four hundred years, he´ll never go through what I went through in seventy," Herman says.

Dick Monaghan sends

SOME THOUGHTS ON LATE MARRIAGE

Things I am in the process of learning as a new husband of 78:

1. You don´t put the pillows on the floor when you make the bed because they might get spiders in them.

2. If the blinds at the front of the house are not raised to equal heights, people passing by will make negative comments.

3. Men cannot wear white socks to the symphony.

4. You don´t put your mail-in ballot in the residence mailbox for the postman to pick up, because a Republican might steal it.

Things my wife is in the process of learning as a new bride at the age of 81:

1. It is not a misdemeanor to sleep in an unmade bed.

2. The floor IS a filing system - it´s just horizontal, that´s all. It should be accorded respect and not tampered with.

3. It´s also a closet.

4. Men´s athletic socks make great footwarmers.

Things we agree on:

No one gets excited if we address each other by the names of our former spouses. Companionship and common interests trump any other aspects of a relationship.

CORRESPONDENCE

Jean Sterling writes about her father´s experience in war: My dad was a World War 1 veteran, and Armistice Day was very special to him. He never thought of it as Veterans Day - to him it was Armistice Day. I remember him telling me how he and his buddy were kicked off the train to Paris three times (they didn´t have proper passes for Paris). Paris was where all the celebrating was going on and they wanted in. His other war story was about how the ship they went over on was notorious for causing seasickness, and how almost everybody was sick except for him and a few others - they had the dining room to themselves. A joke was about two guys hanging over the rail of the ship when one says to the other, "I think I see a submarine." Whereupon the other guy groans and says, "Thank God!" Other than that he didn´t talk about the war, and according to the bars on a medal, he had been in the thick of the action. My mother had no idea until after he died and a male friend saw the medal and told her.

Gerrit de Leeuw tells the story of an aptitude test:

THE BIBLE, THE BOTTLE, OR THE DOLLAR

An old country preacher had a teenage son and it was getting time for the boy to give some thought to choosing a profession. Like many young men, the boy didn´t really know what he wanted to do, and he didn´t seem too concerned about it.

One day while the boy was away at school, the father decided to try an experiment. He went into the boy´s room and placed on his study table three objects: a Bible, a silver dollar, and a bottle of whiskey.

"I´ll just hide behind the door," the old preacher said to himself, "and when he comes home from school this afternoon, I´ll see which object he picks up. If it´s the Bible, he´s going to be a preacher like me, and what a blessing that would be! If he picks up the dollar, he´s going to be a businessman, and that would be okay, too. But if he picks up the bottle, he´s going to be a no-good drunkard, and, Lord, what a shame that would be."

The old man waited anxiously, and soon heard his son´s footsteps as he entered the house whistling and headed for his room. He tossed his books on the bed, and as he turned to leave the room he spotted the objects on the table. With curiosity in his eyes, he walked over to inspect them.

Finally, he picked up the Bible and placed it under his arm. He picked up the silver dollar and dropped it into his pocket. He uncorked the bottle and took a big drink.

"Lord have mercy," the old man whispered. "He´s gonna be a politician."

Jack Peaker claims

YOUR DRIVER´S LICENSE TELLS IT ALL

A mother is driving a little girl to her friend´s house for a play date.

"Mommy," the little girl asks, "how old are you?"

"Honey, you are not supposed to ask a lady her age," the mother replied. It´s not polite."

"OK", the little girl says, "how much do you weigh?"

"Now really," the mother says, "those are personal questions and are really none of your business."

Undaunted, the little girl asks, "Why did you and Daddy get a divorce?"

"That is enough questions, young lady, honestly!" The exasperated mother walks away as the two friends begin to play.

"My Mom won´t tell me anything about her," the little girl says to her friend.

"Well," says the friend, "all you need to do is look at her driver´s license. It is like a report card, it has everything on it."

Later that night the little girl says to her mother, "I know how old you are. You are 32."

The mother is surprised and asks, "How did you find that out?"

"I also know that you weigh 140 pounds."

The mother is past surprised and shocked now. "How in heaven´s name did you find that out?"

"And," the little girl says triumphantly, "I know why you and daddy got a divorce."

"Oh really?" the mother asks. "Why?"

"Because you got an F in sex."

THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE

Tom Kyle has now placed a taping of a broadcast on the subject of The Best Years of Our Life on his website:http://www.mts.net/~oldguy/ radio/clips.html

Tom led the discussion by a group of over-sixties on October 17, and it was aired over station CKUW, 95.9 FM, the radio outlet for the University of Winnipeg.

That would make a good topic for discussion by readers of the Spinner. When were the best years of your life? What were you doing, where were you living, and who shared those years? Don´t all write at once - I couldn´t stand the shock. ;)

You can also read this newsletter online athttp://members.shaw.ca/ vjsansum/ and http://www.nw-seniorsonline.org/stories.html

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE... Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry A. Kissinger