When I left Alaska after living amid your splendors for 30 years, I learned the truth of the old saying "Alaska gets in your blood and never leaves you."
And not in the sense my old Daily News office mate Mike Doogan used to joke about, when he'd say that "Alaska winters are like lead poisoning; they're cumulative." (Although I certainly can attest to the truth of that maxim. Toward the end of my tenure, in winter, my energy would drop to a level that would make a hibernating bear look like he was on speed.)
What stayed in my blood are memories of things like travels from Allakaket to Unalaska, long bike rides on the Coastal Trail and calls from irate readers of the Daily News. I enjoyed watching Anchorage grow from gangly adolescent to a more mature urban oasis in the middle of incomparable wilderness. It was the best possible place I could have raised my two sons, supplying them a great public school education, a safe neighborhood and plenty of healthy activities.
Upon relocating to the Philadelphia area, not far from where I grew up in northern Delaware, I brought trunk loads of Alaska memorabilia with me. However, my lovely non-Alaskan wife informed me that I could not fill every square inch of our home's walls with photos of Alaska.
No, her decorating scheme was already set, so I had to be content displaying just a few of the greatest hits. Like the photo from the time she and I were up close and personal with bears in Katmai. Or the pregnant moose that ambled into my backyard, knee deep in snow, and munched on last season's peony stalks. Or the photo of Mount McKinley, shot from Wonder Lake campground at 3 a.m. on a miraculously clear July "night."
Yes, as I settled into a more sedate life in the temperate zone, I knew Alaska would always be a part of me.
What I didn't anticipate was that a certain Internet radio service that I listen to all the time would keep bombarding me with ads for Alaska businesses.
That car dealership on Gambell that's open every day 'til midnight? Cal, call your radio dogs off, please! I don't need a 4x4 here in the temperate zone, where at the barest hint of snow they blanket the roads with enough salt to melt an iceberg the size of Greenland.
Then there's the ad featuring the wonderfully rich-voiced actor who reminds me that in Alaska I have it all and can do it all -- like go ice fishing and play golf in the same day. (I never did either of those things in my 30 years of Alaska life, but never mind.)
Because the ad presumes I still live in this exhilarating yet dangerous place, where outdoor adventures can easily end your life, I am urged to "protect it all" and buy insurance. All I have to do is tap my smartphone screen to see a list of 22 agents in Anchorage alone.
C'mon Big Insurance Company, don't you know real Alaskans carry the kind of insurance offered by Smith & Wesson?
I suppose I could try to figure out how to contact said Internet radio service and inform them that I live in Pennsylvania, not Alaska. Frankly, I'm too lazy to bother. Besides, if they find out my true station in life, I'll probably get boring ads urging me to check out nearby retirement homes.
Give me the ads from Cal any day.
Matt Zencey is former editorial page editor of the Daily News. He is now a health and science editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. His email is mzencey@hotmail.com.
MATT ZENCEY