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Water in the Chena River inched up ever higher during July 1967 when 3.34 inches of rain, instead of the normal 1.84 inches, fell on Fairbanks. The city's 30,000 residents weren't too worried, though. Most were in the midst of the Alaska Purchase Centennial, celebrating the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. But when 6 inches of rain fell during a period of five days, the river did crest. And on the evening of August 14, it spilled over its banks at 18.6 feet. The massive amount of wat...
Beginning her career as a talented child actress, Beverly Washburn worked alongside Hollywood's most popular actors and her list of favorites is long (see www.beverlywashburn.com). While she appeared in several "Wagon Train" episodes, her favorite was The Tobias Jones Story where Lou Costello plays a drunk accused of murder – a rare dramatic role for the comedian and one of his final acting appearances. "I was a big Abbott and Costello fan, so it was a thrill to work with Lou," said Washburn f...
You can’t believe everything you read online. You knew that already, right? For instance, I don’t know how many times I have seen a list online, showing all the community property states, and Alaska is included on the list. ALASKA IS NOT A COMMUNITY PROPERTY STATE! Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. But Alaska is not a community property state. We do have a statute which allows a married couple to opt into community property, by including certain provisions in a living trust or a specific agreement....
Q. I’m thinking I can rid my life of big, bulky speakers and use my iPhone to replace a skipping CD player. What would you recommend for listening to the radio in my house? A. Chances are excellent that you can find the stations you prefer streaming online. That is where apps like TuneIn Radio Pro and iHeartRadio can help. But do not overlook Google. Often simply searching a station’s call sign in, Google will answer the “how to find this station online” part of the question. But do not stop there. Beyond the stations you know, there is an enti...
On February 15, the Blood Bank of Alaska (BBA) celebrated its second anniversary in the new facility it developed to serve Alaska’s patients in need. It has been a robust two years, and we continue to meet our primary objective of service to patients by virtue of the state’s medical community. On July 25, the BBA will celebrate its 56th anniversary. Being Alaska’s only blood gathering and processing non-profit entity, the BBA has consistently served with distinction, and plans to continue doing so for many years to come. In view of Alask...
Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series provided by the Diverse Elders Coalition, focusing on different senior populations. The cost of aging in America is exorbitant, which my siblings and I are finding out firsthand through our struggles over the past three years to take care of our parents. My mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, spends her remaining days mostly in a hospital bed in hospice care, but mercifully next to my father. Both live in an apartment in a high-end assisted living compound in Fremont, California. It had...
Congress managed to pass well-intentioned legislation recently allowing people with life-threatening illnesses to bypass the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to obtain experimental medications. Unfortunately, it won’t do much to help the people who need the unapproved therapies the most. The “right to try” legislation, pushed by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., which Congress passed and President Donald J. Trump signed into law in May, gives terminally ill patients the right to seek drug...
While looking for something else, I recently came across a photo that instantly brought back many good memories. In the photo, my Dad, my three siblings and I are standing by the Resurrection Pass signpost during the last family hike I participated in. In July 1972 we hiked the Resurrection Trail along with family friends Charles and Jimmie King. The trail was 36 or 38 miles long, depending on which sign post you believed. We started in Hope on a Friday evening and ended near Cooper Landing on Sunday at noon. We couldn’t dawdle because one o...
During July 1791, Alexander Baranof arrived at Kodiak Island to manage the fur exporting operation of Grigorri Ivanovich Shelikhov, who formed the North American Company. When he received orders to build a sea-going vessel, Baranof remembered a sheltered bay he had seen that was a welcome refuge from Pacific storms. Baranof had named it Resurrection Bay, where Seward now exists, as he had found it during the Easter season. Baranof knew he would have access to timber suitable for shipbuilding,...
"The Young and the Restless" star Eric Braeden has been playing character Victor Newman for 38 years and says it's been an amazing run. But he doesn't believe daytime drama actors always receive the recognition of their nighttime TV counterparts. "We shoot 100 to 120 pages a day," said Braeden, from Los Angeles. "Imagine what that means in terms of memorization. Actors in a weekly nighttime series would crap their pants if they had to do that! The most I ever learned was 62 pages of dialogue in...
One of the biggest problems with DIY estate planning (where you get a kit, or a program, or a form, and “do it yourself”) is that the stuff you don’t understand can ruin everything. But then, this happens even with estate planning you get from a lawyer. Sometimes. Case in point: up until 2011, there was some very complicated language, which was inserted into a lot of living trusts, splitting the trust when the first spouse died. It was a necessity in certain situations, but that language is st...
Dear Savvy Senior: Can my Social Security benefits be garnished if I have some outstanding debts? I just turned 62 and would like to start collecting my retirement benefits, but want to find this out before I apply. - Worried Retiree Dear Worried: Whether your Social Security benefits are garnishable or not depends on whom you owe. Banks and other financial creditors, for example, can’t touch your Social Security checks. But if Uncle Sam is collecting on a debt, some of your benefits are fair game. Here’s what you should know. Creditor pro...
Q. What is the single most important piece of advice every smartphone owner should know? A. Back up your phone, especially photos. Your smartphone will eventually become the most important tech device in your life. All the gear that a generation ago filled a Radio Shack catalog is now contained in that single, slim, pocket-sized device. The longer you have it, the more the vital bits of your life will collect there. Once-in-a-lifetime photos, family snapshots, messages from loved ones. The smartphone has become the center of the technology...
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of Fair Housing Act, a pivotal piece of legislation that laid the groundwork for housing protections for marginalized populations in the United States. They say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so it's worth a look back at how things have and have not changed in terms of fair housing since 1968-and just how the legislation was passed in the first place. In 1968, America was an extremely segregated society with distinct white and black neighborhoods. Racial and...
"Honey, did you walk the cat?" What? Walk the cat? Yes, you heard that right. Cats have spent too much time lying around inside, bored and under-stimulated while dogs are treated to walks, play dates and time in the yard. But wait...is it safe to let your cat outside? And what about birds and other wildlife they may kill? There are many safe ways to get your cat outside while also keeping birds and wildlife safe from them (remember, cats are small but fierce predators). Let's start with catios....
Drug prices in the United States are too high – nearly everyone agrees. But political consensus stops at how to lower prices and fix the problem. If it were easy, a simple solution would be found. But paying for prescription drugs is a complicated web of prices, incentives, rebates and discounts among the drug companies, insurance companies and the pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) who are the middlemen who negotiate with the drug companies on behalf of insurance companies. Think of solving the drug prices mess like a complex jigsaw puzzle. J...
My husband, Gary, and I sat visiting with two couples after dinner one June evening several years ago. At the time, we were operating Nabesna House B & B out of our home in Slana. One gentleman asked, "Is there more road construction on Highway number 1?" He was greeted with a couple of blank looks and then we had to ask, "Which road is number 1?" This was our fifth summer to accommodate bed and breakfast guests and the questions were usually in regard to traveling north or south on the Tok...
Our household recently replaced a bathroom vanity cabinet, something long overdue. The process revealed something else long overdue – bottle after bottle of expired, unused, leftover prescription medications. They were in drawers, travel kits, on shelves. Inventorying them was like looking through years of health records, remembering this or that injury, infection, condition, you name it. Besides pills, there were prescription-strength inhalers, skin creams, syrups. Not something that should be lying around and yet there it all was, much m...
Among the memorials in the Anchorage Municipal Park Cemetery stands a small, pink marker adorned with a palette. It is the final resting place of Sydney Mortimer Laurence, one of Alaska's greatest artists, who died in 1940. Known for his dramatic landscape paintings, Laurence was one of the first professionally trained artists to live in Alaska. His works, which often featured Denali, hang in the Musee du Louvre in Paris, the National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C., and many other locations aro...
Fifty years ago, The Seekers were a pop music sensation. Featuring members Athol Guy, Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley and lead vocalist Judith Durham, the Aussie group's pop-folk fusion proved popular in America and their hit, "Georgy Girl," was a nominee at the 1967 Oscar ceremony for 'Best Song' for the film of the same name, although it lost to "Born Free." The Seekers had burst onto the world music scene just two years earlier with their 1965 hit "I'll Never Find Another You," but Durham struggl...
One great result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is that most people see money in their paychecks, because less is being withheld. Our standard deductions have nearly doubled, and the tax rates have dipped. Those are good things. But the personal and dependent exemptions have been eliminated. For myself, I saw my paycheck jump $50 every two weeks. I get 26 paychecks a year, so that equates to an extra $1,300 without me lifting a finger. I love that, but because other changes in the new law will also have an effect, I wanted to make sure I was...
If you receive Social Security and/or Medicare, make sure you inform the Social Security Administration (SSA) when you move. That’s especially important now while the SSA is mailing out new Medicare cards. Even though the Internet is a virtual playground for scam artists, snail mail is still vulnerable to thieves. They’ve been known to file a change of address notice with the local U.S. Post Office, to snag your personal information, checks, and to keep you from finding out that they’ve opened accounts in your name. It’s not as easy as it used...
Staff from Alaska’s Social Security office will be available for questions via videoconferencing at the following locations and times in June: Kodiak Job Center, on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month (June 12 and 26), 9 a.m. to noon. Kenai Senior Center, on the first and third Wednesday of each month (June 6 and 20), 9 a.m. to noon. Ketchikan Job Center, every Thursday (June 7, 14, 21 and 28), noon to 3 p.m. Social Security provides toll-free telephone service to all of Alaska. Residents in Alaska’s Southeast communities can call the...
You can bicker, bicker, bicker You can talk, you can talk You can talk all you wanna But it’s different than it was. I love a good musical, and one of my favorites is The Music Man. And the beginning always makes me think of estate planning. Bear with me. The first number in the show, which is actually named “Rock Island,” after a famous train line, features a bunch of traveling salesmen heading to their next destination. As the train itself beats out the time, they argue about the diffi...
Q. I just bought my first smartphone and I want to play some games. What advice can you share to help first-time phone gamers? A. Many phone and tablet games are labeled “Free” or “Free-to-Play.” “Free” is a loaded phrase in the gaming world. Although the initial purchase price is zero, so-called free games can become very expensive, likely more expensive than games sold for a fixed price. The definition of what makes a game free-to-play is flexible, but typically it means the game is free to download and play, but play is interrupted...
