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During my senior year at Glennallen High School, my husband-to-be, Gary, was hired by Woodruff Construction, who had the contract to build an addition to the high school end of the K-12 building. After our wedding the end of the school year in May, 1973, we moved to Anchorage where Gary continued to work for Woodruff. Through Woodruff, he was hired by Mercer Construction to be part of the crew which would do remodel work at the King Salmon Air Force Base. Gary was excited at the opportunity to t...
One hundred and fifty-two years ago, a ceremony held in Sitka transferred Alaska from Russia to the United States. The agreed-upon purchase price of $7.2 million had been paid earlier in the year. It didn't take long after the American flag replaced the Russian flag on Oct. 18 for conspiracy theorists to start speculating that America had not paid that full amount for what some called "Seward's Icebox." Many people thought that the United States government was involved in a cover-up that...
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó was a veteran of over 170 stage plays and several silent films in his native Hungary when forced to flee to Germany in 1919 for political reasons. Known under the stage name Arisztid Olt, the 6' 1" actor with piercing blue eyes re-branded himself after his hometown of Lugos and appeared in a dozen German films billed as Bela Lugosi before moving to the United States in 1920. A decade later and approaching 50, Bela Lugosi's name would become forever etched in Ho...
I have long been a fan of Robin Williams. From the first time I saw him, in "Mork and Mindy," to his wacky comedy routines on stage, to hilarious movies like "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Good Morning, Vietnam," to sensitive performances such as "The World According to Garp" and "Good Will Hunting," Robin never failed to deliver. And along with most of the world, I was shocked and saddened when, five years ago, he took his own life after being diagnosed with Lewy Body Disease. In terms of his estate...
Q. What is a password manager and how does it work? A. Password managers are apps that use a master password to protect confidential information. They enable users to securely store more information than can be memorized. The two common configurations of password managers are device-based and cloud-based. Device-based managers keep data on a single device, while cloud-based managers keep data on multiple devices and share the data among them. Keeping passwords on a single device is simpler, but functionality is limited. Keeping passwords in...
HIV/AIDS used to be considered a disease of the young. In the early 1980s, when doctors first reported cases of HIV, nearly 70% of diagnoses were among people under 40. Fast forward four decades later and more than 50% of Americans with HIV are now over 50. And by 2020 that number is expected to reach 70%. This is largely due to major medical improvements in the effectiveness of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in suppressing the virus and transforming HIV from an often fatal disease into a chronic condition, like diabetes or hypertension. But...
While looking through a box of artwork a while back, I came across an 11-inch by 14-inch pencil drawing of "The Beast." At the bottom right corner were the words: "To Pop... Christmas 1990...love, Patrick." Back then our son was 14 and called his dad "Pop". The drawing was framed in black construction paper and covered in plastic wrap secured with Scotch tape. Picture frame wire poked through the cardboard backing to form a crude hanger. This needs to be up on a wall, I thought, not buried in a...
A "floating court" of sorts evolved when justice was meted out from the decks of revenue cutters beginning in the late 1880s. And a commander in the U.S. Revenue Marine, precursor to the U.S. Coast Guard, was the first revenue cutter commander to make regular patrols into the harsh Arctic waters. Captain Michael A. Healy was about the only source of law in a lawless land, and he transported criminals onboard the cutter Bear from remote Alaska communities to Sitka for trial. Healy began his...
Known for his gentle satire, basset hound eyes, and witty routines, former Chicago accountant-turned-comedian Bob Newhart turns 90 this month (Sept. 5). This year is also the 60th anniversary of Newhart's show business career – he signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1959. In 2008, I interviewed Newhart along with fellow entertainers willing to share some thoughts on the beloved comedian's career. Newhart said he suspected that he lacked the temperament to remain in the accounting profession b...
What I really wanted to write about this month was the legislation making its way through Congress which would dramatically change how inherited IRAs can be taken out over time. That is what I wanted to write about. But I won’t. Part of the problem is that by the time this column reaches print, even though that may be only a few weeks, the legislation may have morphed into something completely different, or may have died completely. The other problem is that the details will probably change, a...
Q. The Internet in my house seems slower than at my local coffee shop. How do I measure the speed and compare the two? A. My favorite test site is located at www.speedof.me. Each connection has three numbers: Ping, Download, and Upload. Ping measures the latency, or “raw” speed. Upload and download measure bandwidth, which is to say how long will it take to move a quantity of bits each second. When comparing connections, smaller latency means faster. Bandwidth is reversed, so that bigger is better. Here is how to think about it. Imagine a roa...
The school classroom is filled with children eager to hear stories from Marge, who is volunteering in the classroom. Marge speaks fluent Yup’ik and was raised in the community where she has lived her entire life. In both Yup’ik and English, Marge shares the history and language with the school kids, what life was like when she was a little girl, and words of wisdom and advice she wants the children to remember as they grow up. Even though she has a hard time walking and uses a walker for support, she makes her way to the school twice a week to...
Born in Santa Ana, Calif., to two Muslim refugee survivors of the Cambodian genocide, Hatefas Yop wasn't aware of her family's use of public services when she was a young girl. After all, her peers in her elementary school all hailed from the local neighborhood, where many immigrant and refugee families had to live in one-bedroom apartments subsidized by Section 8 housing. She didn't understand the melancholy in an elder whom Hatefas referred to as "Grandma," when she said her food stamps...
Three men found a large deposit of nuggets on Aug. 17, 1896, which started the famed Klondike Gold Rush. George Washington Carmack, who came north in 1885, James Mason, better known as Skookum Jim, and his nephew, Charlie – often called Dawson or Tagish Charlie – left Fortymile during that summer to go fishing. The Natives and Carmack found what they thought might be a good fishing spot and set their nets. They hauled in a few king salmon, but the fishing was poor so they gave up and cut tim...
Opening last summer in Jamestown, New York, the National Comedy Center will launch an exhibition honoring comedian Ernie Kovacs beginning with a Festival on August 7-11 (see www.comedycenter.org). "It's the centennial of Ernie's birth this year, so a great time to recognize this influential comedian," said Laura LaPlaca, the Center's Director of Archives. "The Kovacs' exhibit will remain until summer 2020." Though he died tragically in a single car accident at just 42, Kovacs would leave his mar...
I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say “I don’t need to do any estate planning. I have a will and it does what I want”. Oh, I wish it was that easy. A will is a good and important thing to have, but it doesn’t do nearly what people think it does. For one thing, the will only controls assets that go through probate. So anything that does not go through probate, isn’t affected by the will. What doesn’t go through probate? For one thing, assets that have a designated beneficiary (...
Q. My computer was crushed in an accident. I was able to rescue the drive from the wreckage, but how do I copy my files onto a new computer? A. This can be a surprisingly complex task. Simply installing the old drive into a new computer will not work. The contents have to be migrated onto the new drive. Assuming you have a bare drive from the original computer, the first thing you will need is a new enclosure. These are typically inexpensive and can be found easily online. Check the ports on your new computer and choose an enclosure that has a...
Editor’s note: Long-time Senior Voice readers will remember Edna Woolston’s frequent columns from her home in Sutton, sharing stories about her days there with her husband and their animals, and her thoughts and recollections about many aspects of life. When her husband passed away six years ago, she returned to New York to live with family and we recently learned she passed away this year in January. There will be a celebration of life this month in her hometown of Gaines, New York. In honor of the dozens of articles she wrote over many yea...
If you think America's college loan crisis – with more than $1.5 trillion worth of debt – is only a young person's problem, think again. The federal government is now garnishing the fixed-income Social Security benefits of seniors in its crackdown to get people to repay student loans. More than three million people over 60 are still paying off college loans. Many of these seniors took out loans to help their children, grandchildren or spouse pay off tuition and are still paying them off. Oth...
In rural communities across Alaska, it is not uncommon to see young people on four-wheelers or snow machines, riding around town with family and friends and spending time outdoors. On the same roads you see elders walking alone or with others to visit friends or family, check their mail or buy groceries, or visit the Elder luncheon. As someone who grew up with Elders who walked everywhere, I love to walk so I typically decline rides offered by the youth and get to know the community by walking. The Elders we have visited over the years have...
In the United States, American Indians and Alaska Natives have a greater chance of having type 2 diabetes than any other racial group. This is troubling because without medical intervention, the progression of type 2 diabetes may lead to other conditions and diseases, including high blood pressure, kidney failure and heart disease, itself the number one cause of death in the United States. In the United States, American Indians and Alaska Native are 50% more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic whites. In addition, 33% of the American Indian...
What happens when you mix kittens and the residents of Providence Alaska's assisted living facility, Horizon House? You get the Kitten Social Hour! Kitten Social Hour had a humble beginning. An Anchorage Animal Care and Control (AACC) kitten foster mom, who also provides hospice care primarily to our homeless community was caring for a woman who often mentioned how much she missed her cat. Debbie asked AACC staff if she could bring one of her foster kittens to visit her client and we agreed it...
Many diverse conversations took place at our kitchen table when my husband Gary and I lived in Slana, partly because we ran a bed and breakfast in an area of Alaska that is off the beaten trail, but also because we lived next to the largest National Park in the United States – Wrangell-St. Elias. One Sunday in June 2006 stands out in particular. We had fixed our specialty breakfast of blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs and reindeer sausage and sat down to eat with our father-son guests. We d...
The U.S. Army Service's famed "Black Wolf Squadron" planted its mark on Alaska history in 1920, when four biplanes flew across our northern skies in an attempt to prove the feasibility of long-distance air travel. The New York-to-Nome Alaskan Flying Expedition, as it was known, was comprised of a squad of four airmen with crewmembers flying wheeled DH-4 De Havilland biplanes. The crew left Fort Mitchell in New York bound for Fort Davis in Nome on July 15, to demonstrate that the United States co...
Since her first film role in 1940, Terry Moore has appeared on the big screen in each of the subsequent eight decades. Recently celebrating her 90th birthday, the actress plays a lead role in the Vladislav Kozlov-directed period drama about silent film superstar Rudolph Valentino – Hollywood's first male sex symbol. "The film's called 'Silent Life' and I had 90 pages of dialog to learn," said Ms. Moore from her home in Santa Monica. "I feel it's one of the best roles I've ever had." Following V...
