Clarence

Anchorage Bed and Breakfast

One of the most interesting things about travel is the people you meet. Some of them just stick in your mind forever.  Fortunately for me, these are good memories.  And so it was with Clarence.

We were staying at a bed and breakfast in Anchorage, Alaska.  We prefer bed and breakfasts to the usual hotels when we travel. At the bed and breakfasts we find that you are more likely to meet interesting people, travelers as well as the locals. Particularly when you gather around the breakfast table for a communal meal. The bed and breakfast in Anchorage was different than what we were used to. Instead of being one building, it was made of several.  Our abode was like an apartment a few doors down from where we would meet for breakfast. We managed a good night's sleep after landing  at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, picking up our rental PT Cruiser, and grabbing  a bite to eat before finding the bed and breakfast.  The weather was a cool drizzle.

At morning breakfast we met our hosts, or rather the son of the owners of the bed and breakfast.  The son, his wife, and two-year-old were from  Mexico and had come to help out his mother  in

It's not real! But don't I wish!

the tourist season. He ran some sort of internet business, which he could maintain from Alaska via a laptop. The other guests were from Minnesota and near the Arctic Circle area of Alaska.  I tend to enjoy breakfasts with other guests. We have met some very interesting people this way.   The breakfast was delicious with bacon, sausages, pancakes, pastries, cereals, and various local jellies and jams.  I rarely have a problem starting conversations with strangers, and before long I felt like the Andersens of Minnesota and I had been friends forever. We had visited their home state a few years earlier and knew some native Minnesotans back home. Also, we had almost frozen to death, or so it seemed, on the shores of Lake Superior when camping across the country.

The Andersens, husband, wife, and teenaged daughter, were in Anchorage to meet their son. He lived in the far north and would see them the next day. As a matter of fact the other two guests were his wife and son. She was a Native American of the frozen north and her son looked a great deal like her.  He had her jet-black hair, slightly turned-up nose, and Asian-shaped eyes. But in those Asian-shaped eyes was the ice-blue color of Grandpa Andersen's.  He said his name was Clarence, and he was sitting next to me.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Ten," he said, while stabbing a piece of sausage.

"Like video games?"

"No, never play 'em."

"What's your favorite TV show?"

"I do not watch very much television. Don't have time..."

"Clarence would rather not be here," his mother interjected.

"Where would you rather be, Clarence?"  I queried.

"Home."

"Why?"

"I've got work to do!"

"What?  You're only ten-years-old!"

"I have a trap line."

"And what do you trap?"

"Whatever gets in the traps.  I look at them once a day.  My friend is checking them while I'm here. I need to check them myself."

"You trap animals? Why?"

"For their pelts," he said, "mostly fox."  I thought I detected a condescending tone in his voice.

We had all finished breakfast and it was time to pack up and leave.  I waved "goodbye" to Clarence as we pulled out of the driveway. I'll always remember my conversation with Clarence, a ten-year-old trapping animals for fur in 2005.  And, he didn't watch television or play video games.  However, if my memory serves me well, I set rabbit boxes to catch ole Peter when I was ten.

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