Previous Episode
When we first got to Alaska, we stayed for a couple days in an igloo. It was cold, and polar bears kept gnawing on the sides.
Soon my parents bought a house. It was a split-level house which my mom didn’t like… but it was better than an igloo. Once you came inside, you’d have to go upstairs or downstairs or you’d be nowhere. I’d like to go downstairs because that was where our playroom was.
Dad had a job at the electric company shutting off the power of those who didn’t pay their bills. Mom stayed home and made sandwiches and took care of us kids just like a mother in one of those fifty’s sitcoms.
During the winter, there was lots of snow, and it was fun. Dad would get very angry on the really cold days because he wasn’t allowed to shut off the power. “If people can’t pay their bill, they should freeze to death!” dad would say. Dad is very wise.
I’d like to play in the snow. Me and my brother would play with Star Wars action figures. I had a Luke Skywalker in snow clothes action figure, but I lost him in the snow one day. I guess a wampa got him. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the Hoth Han Solo action figure to go find him. Poor Skywalker.
One day I thought I was attacked by a wampa. It was smaller than the one in the movie and it bit me. I then looked up in a book what it was. It was a monkey… and Alaskan snow monkey!
“Daddy! Daddy! I was bit by a monkey!” I told my dad.
“Quiet, boy, I’m watching a game,” my dad answered.
“There aren’t any monkeys in Alaska,” mom assured me, and then added under her breath, “There isn’t much of anything.”
I could only get my brother Joe foo’ to believe me. We decided to set up a trap to get that monkey. We used our little sister as bait, the first use we ever found for her. It didn’t work, though.
That night, there was a tapping on the window. It was the monkey eyeing me evilly!
“Mommy! Mommy! The monkey is back!” I cried.
“Keep your nerves together boy!” my dad answered, “We’re too near the Soviets for you to be getting scared by monkeys. Keep a strong face like president Reagan.”
Dad was right. We were very near the evil Soviets, and they kept invading us. They were mean and spoke in angry, funny talk. The Eskimos would use their snow powers to help fight them back, but it was quite bothersome. One day the Soviets came all the way into town, and we had to fortify our house and shoot back at them.
“Here boy, take this,” my dad said, handing me the .44 magnum.
“This gun is to big for me,” I said, “I want the 9mm.”
“Joe already took the 9mm. Now shoot a Commie for I give you a whup’n!”
“But I don’t want to fire the .44 magnum!” I screamed.
“You shoot the Commie’s just like your father told you,” mom yelled at me as she loaded a rifle.
I took an aim at one of the charging Soviets. When I fired the gun, it flew back and hit me in the face. Ow! That hurt! I started crying. The Soviet didn’t seem to like getting shot either, but he didn’t cry. He didn’t do much of anything.
After we finished fighting back the Soviets, dad took us to the corner store and bought Joe and me Flintstone push-pops since were such good boys having killed Commies and all. Sarah got one too, but she didn’t kill anyone. That wasn’t fair.
Summer came, and it was very warm. We visited a farm were they grew cabbages. Because of all the sunlight, the cabbages were even bigger than me. It was crazy. I asked mom why we lived in such a crazy place. “Ask your father,” mom said, seeming a little angry.
We also went to a park and got to eat bear meat. It was very yummy. Summer in Alaska was fun, but, as summer came to a close, it was time for me to start school, which was scary.