"In the Company of Octogenarians"

IN THE COMPANY OF OCTOGENARIANS

Feb. 13, 2012

One of the most remarkable aspects of “My Working Life after Teaching High School” has been the quality of the company I now keep. For 20-plus years, I was surrounded mainly by teen-agers, a group that energized me even as they drained me in a constant cycle of mental and emotional plasma. There were also, of course, the parents of the students, and the faculties and staffs in the schools—predominantly Skyview High School, where I spent 18 years teaching out of Room B217 at the end of the upstairs hallway. Parents ranged in age from their middle 30s to their early 60s; faculty and staff ranged from their early 20s to their mid-50s. When I student-taught at Soldotna High School in the fall of 1986, I was 28 years old, and my students were roughly a decade younger than me—most having been born in the early 1970s, a few in the late 1960s. When I retired in 2008, I was 50 and was about three times the age of most of my students. Over two decades, this growing chasm of years added to the challenge of connecting with the pupils in my room, but I’d like to think I did well in that regard, first, by never being anyone other than myself, second, by maintaining a good sense of humor, and third, by being decidedly strange at times.

But things have changed on the job front now. Although I work part time at Kenai Peninsula College and am surrounded by faculty and staff and students only a little older than those I found myself among in the high schools, my main milieu these days is local history, and the cast of characters with whom I interact is largely considered elderly.

And they’re a fascinating bunch, in the same way that every generation has its fascinating denizens. It’s just that many people younger than the age of 60 seem to be dismissive of or ignorant about the people who’ve moved into their “sunset years.” This attitude seems particularly acute when directed at my key clientele—men and women in their 80s and beyond. And it’s a damned shame because such folks have so much knowledge and so much to offer. Besides, they’re as decidedly human and vibrant as the rest of us.

Here are some of the older folks who regularly inhabit my world now:

Marge Mullen, 91. Marge came here to homestead on Soldotna Creek in 1947 by walking here with her husband, Frank, from Cooper Landing, where the road ended in those days. She helped build a home and hand-dig a well. She helped raise four children, and she did what had to be done when Frank fell victim to polio and spent the rest of their marriage (and the rest of his life) in a wheelchair. She started several businesses. She has been a force for environmental conservation and historic preservation. Her memory—short term and long—is sharp, and she is forever on the move.

Peggy Arness, also about 86. Peggy was born in Alaska and has spent most of her life since the mid-1940s living in the Kenai and Nikiski areas. Her father was a marshal and later a legislator. Her mother was a pioneering teacher and an important local historian. Peggy herself has a wealth of historical knowledge literally at her fingertips, having spent countless hours cataloguing and cross-referencing information, most of it related to her own family, but also tied tightly to the changes in the area as Kenai grew from a fishing village into a first-class city with money and property to spare.
      Al Hershberger, about 86. After serving in Europe during World War II, Al came up here in the late 1940s to work for the Alaska Road Commission, and then he settled in Soldotna on land he purchased from Howard Binkley. He sold radios and televisions and repaired and maintained electronic equipment. He and Ed Back were integral to public safety when they manned their ham radios after the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964 wiped out other modes of communication. Al’s memory for detail is phenomenal, he has a large woodworking shop in his garage, and he is incredibly adept with today’s modern electronic devices, owning several computers and cameras and scanners and printers, et al.

Willard Troyer, about 86. Will came to Alaska from Indiana in the 1950s and, until health concerns recently caused some changes in his life, he disliked leaving. He and his wife, LuRue, now live part of the time in Arizona, but he returns (and so does she, for a shorter time) to Cooper Landing each year. Will was one of the early managers of the Kenai National Moose Range, but his talents and knowledge have taken him all around this massive state. In the last decade or so, he has authored three memoirs—one centered on his days as a young Amish/Mennonite boy, one about his pioneering work in the study of brown bears (primarily on Kodiak Island), and one about some of his adventures as a biologist and wildlife manager throughout Alaska.

Dolly Farnsworth, about 86. Dolly came to Soldotna with her husband, Jack, in the late 1940s and, like Marge Mullen, still lives right in town. Her eyesight is poor these days, but her memory is sharp. Dolly was the first woman to sit on the borough assembly, one of the first women on the borough school board, the second woman to be the mayor of Soldotna. For many years, she ran her own accounting business, Soldotna Bookkeeping, and she now presides over three succeeding generations.

Shirley Henley, about 86. Shirley still has a wicked sense of humor and is as candid as can be. She came from the Deep South in the 1940s to be a nurse, first in Seldovia, and eventually turned to teaching. (She was my high school chemistry teacher, and a damn good one.) In the ‘40s, she married George Denison, also from the South, and they built and ran the first local theater, starting in the late 1950s. She now lives north of Kenai and swims in the KCHS pool five days a week.

George Pollard, 86. George was born in Anchorage in 1925. He was the son of Anchorage dentist, Clayton Pollard, who “retired” in the 1930s to a small farm of sorts in Kasilof. Doc Pollard couldn’t really retire because for years he was the only dentist around, and people needed him. (Their only alternatives were Seward and Anchorage, both difficult because no roads existed between Kasilof and those places until the late 1940s.) In the 1950s, George became a big-game guide and for several decades led clients into the high country above Tustumena Lake. His hearing is poor these days, but his memory is excellent, and he still knows the lake and the mountains better than almost anyone.

Stan (age 91) & Donnis Thompson (in her 80s). Stan and Donnis formerly ran a hardware store, called Kenai Korners, in Kenai, and they’ve had other businesses over the years. Stan was a U.S. Commissioner prior to statehood and was elected twice to be borough mayor. Donnis was a freelance writer for many years and has a keen memory for local history. Both of them have been active socially and politically for decade, and they both still live where they homesteaded in Nikiski in 1959.

Dan and Mary France (both in their 80s). For most of my life, Dan and Mary have been my closest neighbors. They homesteaded in 1959, and since they are the ones who told my parents about this homestead, they are important factors in the make-up of the man I am today. Dan was a long-time game warden, Mary an even longer-term teacher. They moved to Alaska in 1954, when Mary got a job teaching at the Kenai School.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are some of the folks I visit with most regularly. I count myself lucky to know them, and I am blessed by all they have taught me.