Interesting you should bring that up, Jerry. I've been examining my life in that context for some time. Sometimes I look around outdoors and ask myself what I'm doing in Alaska, of all places. The answer invariably is that I am more at home here than I've been anywhere in my life. I don't have family here and every one of the people I know and love here I met after I was 52 years old but my roots have sunk deep.

Actually, my first dream was Australia but eventually I decided Alaska was easier to get to!

I wrote a song some time ago that kind of addresses life's trip. I call it Sun and Rain although its working title was 'Opposites'. I tried to find and pair gradations of emotion.

"As I dwell on the mem'ries of so many years
And on the lives of most people I know
It surely does seem that we learn from extremes
Let me show you that it's really so.
There is sun, there is rain, there is pleasure and pain
There is friend, there is foe, there's the stranger that I know
Laughter and tears, hopes mingled with fears
The joy and the grief, the rapture and woe.

"There are giggles and sighs, hellos and goodbyes
So many of each in our lives
Promises broken and words left unspoken
Things idolized or despised
Anger and gladness and happy and sadness
The loves and the hates, the births and the fates
The pathway supernal, the broad road infernal
The blink of a day such long years away...

"Through the years I could see my life blown by the wind
Soaring high and then dashed to the ground
Finally I wondered just how much I'd squandered
Having every wind that blows toss me around
A good man's not always right, nor the bad one always wrong
Things are not always black or white as I'd thought my whole life long
Instead of haste, I've learned patience, deep gratitude for questions
The answers can wait. That, at last, I have found.

"I don't know all the reasons for life's changing seasons
But whate'er they may bring is what must be
So in all of my dreams through all of life's extremes
I'll take each moment and let it shape me
I'll take the sun, face the rain, take the pleasure, bear the pain
Love the friend, love the foe, love the stranger in my home
Life's extremes are the means, fertile seeds that we need
To live and to love, to give and to grow

Yes, there's anger and sadness and happy and sadness
The loves and the hates, the births and the fates
The pathway supernal, the broad road infernal
The blink of a day such long years away
The blink of my day a thousand years away."