REVISITING ALASKA

I didn't spend much time thinking about that first visit to Alaska until I was headed to the airport at the end of this, my most recent visit. There's not much to see at 5 a.m. on a cloudy July day, and my thoughts wandered back to August of 1972. I was a solitary traveler, a young West Texas school teacher exploring the Northwest. All my friends had opted for Hawaii but, always different, I had to see Alaska.

I first noticed Fred on the flight from Seattle. Thick sandy hair, pale blue eyes, freckles. Not my type at all. He was the self-appointed tour guide, but not in a loud or brash manner. He circulated through the cabin, speaking softly to the mostly-elderly passengers, and smiling in passing at the rest of us. I thought him interesting -- there were only a few of us under the age of 60, and it seemed we gravitated to one another.

Through Sitka and Juneau, on up to Nome and Kotzebue -- I watched him, and became more interested. It may have been that there was only one other guy within decades of my age, or it may have been the Arctic air, but I found myself becoming obsessed with making him notice me. I finally had the chance to make my play for him on the bus to the hotel in Anchorage. I discovered that he was traveling with his parents (how quaint!) and would be starting medical school in Ohio in the fall. This was his last fling, he said, and I secretly hoped it would be with me!

We met for dinner, and then walked in the still-sun lit streets, sharing ideas, arguing fine points, revealing parts of ourselves with one another the way only travelers do. I felt safe and secure with Fred as we walked the streets of that metropolitan city, although it could've also been the abundance of policemen and the fact that the sun never set.

Near 2 a.m., tired of the sun and remembering I had an early train to catch the next morning, Fred walked me to my room. Somehow, I'd been lucky enough to get a corner room on the 8th floor of the new Captain Cook Hotel, with a knock-your-socks-off view of Cook Inlet and Mt. Susitna, the Sleeping Lady. The view of the sun hovering over the horizon was too much . . . Fred decided to come in for a bit.

Some of us were still virgins in those days, and, even though Fred and I talked of our dreams and plans for the future, and held each other through the night , our budding relationship remained pure. We made a connection, however. We shared ourselves, with few pretenses and no expectations beyond Anchorage.

Well, not completely. The romantic and emotionally immature me knew we'd carry on a long distance romance until we could stand it no longer, and marry. We talked about meeting somewhere: I was to be in Washington, D. C. in October, and we set a rendezvous appointment. Fred went skiing in Vermont at Christmas, and invited me up. But reality soon set in. His medical studies kept him away from a weekend at play. I was a starving graduate student, and borrowing for a ski trip was not a good idea when I wasn't sure where tuition money would come from. We wrote and called; I moved to Austin, and he moved to Seattle. He called to tell me that he'd fallen in love -- and married -- and had a daughter.

Six years later, I spent a long weekend in Seattle visiting friends, and we met again. I spent time in his home, met his wife, played with his (now two) daughters. His wife was warm and gracious. Did she wonder who this girl -- no, over 30 now -- woman was who dropped into her husband's life through postcards from exotic places and now, a visit out of the blue?

Did he ever tell her about me, and of the parts of ourselves we shared those many years before? No matter. I think we both discovered that sunny afternoon in Seattle that we could accept our relationship for what it was: a friendship born on a summer voyage, bonding through common interests and goals between travelers.

Over the years, I lost track of Fred and Brooke. I don't know where he ended up, how many daughters he eventually had, what his medical specialty was. But I wondered if he remembered me.

I also wonder if he remembered that I told him about daddy sitting on the side of the bed talking to me while I drifted off -- my special time. He said that he'd remember that if he ever had a little girl. I wonder if he remembered. . .

I married a fellow traveler, and as we travel to places both familiar and new to us, we share the memories of those places with each other. I haven't yet shared Fred with my husband. That is a sweet memory of another time. But I will, when the time is right. For now, I can look at the Captain Cook growing smaller in the back window, look down the deserted streets of pre-dawn Anchorage, smell the sweet perfume of the forsythia hanging from the lightposts, and remember.