Old friends are one of life's great riches

It was old home week the last couple days of our recent Alaska saga — which began with nearly two weeks on the Kenai Peninsula caring for five kids, four dogs, and two cats. It was the beagle puppy duo that about did us in.

Heading north, Terry and I visited an eclectic group of friends going back almost 35 years. Mainly in Big Lake in the Mat-Su Valley — where we resided 14 years.

The first person we saw was Elsa. She had mushrooms drying on the front porch of her log home. I always trusted her to know the edible ones. Elsa escaped from former Czechoslovakia in 1970 just before you couldn’t get out anymore. Had communist tanks parked in the street in front of her apartment, hid beneath the bed with her two little girls. She could tell no one she was leaving with her daughters. She’s one gutsy lady.

We backpacked Alaska’s 40-mile Resurrection Trail over the mountains with Dave and Anita — the next friends we dropped in on. We still hoot over cutting down David’s foam sleeping pad to provide cushioning for sore feet and shoulders. Poor guy ended up with a placemat at the end. If you want to hear exquisite piano stick near Anita.

Jim and Janet have an alpaca farm on a spit of land with lake in front and back; peaceful waters — where you would usually find his float plane moored. He’s just sold it, but it was there yet for us to have a last look. Who can forget bailing from that thing — on skis one winter, floundering, trying to take off in Alaska’s bush country on an ice-covered lake in deep snow. Jim circled around, we re-boarded, and he got a better run the second time. And how can we forget the major Miller’s Reach wildfire the summer of 1996, and stashing alpacas in anything on wheels to get them out of danger. We ourselves had fled to the farm for safety until the wind shifted.

We visited Terry’s cousin’s wife Lynndeen — now widowed — in her rebuilt home on another serene lake where I used to sit in the evening and listen to loons wail. An electrical fire more than two decades ago took down the first home. We all stood together staring miserably at the smoking rubble that cold January afternoon. They lost everything and began to talk their stories to each other — to prove they’d lived it all.

Old friends are one of the great riches of life — the shared history, the memories, the camaraderie and circle of support. They are not, if it can possibly be helped, to be compromised or squandered or cast aside. Only time can grow an old friend. And as the years march on the growing season shortens.