I’ll live where the grass is always greener

Observing the winds and rain the past week, I watched my yard get blanketed with stinking dead leaves.

Picking them off my car (I have this thing about dead leaves all over my car) and sweeping, sweeping, sweeping the house and watching the news to see if a house has fallen on a few people I know that I would suspect of being in danger from falling houses (no dice). Then I glance up and see the snow capping not just the mountains, but some of the lower hills.

Sigh.

For a moment I get that thought of how nice it sounds to be somewhere else where they’re still enjoying summer, warm weather and leaves on the trees. But when I listen to some of my friends and co-workers talk about moving out-of-state to get away from our brutal Alaska winters, I remember why I came running back after living elsewhere for several years.

Tomorrow night I’ll be in Seattle. I have a medical appointment that’ll keep me down there for a few days. From what my mother says, it’s still relatively warm down there. The trees are still green and I’m sure I’ll enjoy that part of being there. I’m especially looking forward to getting my hands on some of the blackberries my mother has been picking for me during the past few weeks. But to look into the future, I know the trip will go something like this:

I’ll kiss goodbye to the wife and kids, strip off all my clothes and prance around for the TSA, board the 727 and off I’ll go. I’ll know when I cross into Washington state airspace because my oxygen usage tax will begin counting. I’ll land at Sea-Tac and run to the restroom. There, I’ll have to pay a toilet-usage fee and perhaps a 10 cents-per-sheet toilet paper tax. I’ll meet mom and we’ll go to the parking garage and pay $3,500 for the hour she was parked there. After she fills up her tank (price-per-gallon plus 21 cents a gallon tax) we’ll head to I-5 and shoehorn our rig into bumper-to-bumper traffic and begin the five-hour crawl to get 15 miles up the highway to the hotel. The hotel rates aren’t bad, but once you include the Seattle tourism tax, energy tax and Washington state hotel tax … well, it starts to add up.

I might stay one night at my mother’s house. It’s a nice little house in a great location, but it’s not like any member of the family would want to inherit it. The state makes you pay an inheritance tax wherein they send in a government appraiser to determine current market value and you have to pay it in order to legally inherit the house. It doesn’t matter if the house is paid off or not. (Apparently double-taxation is hunky dory down there. I might help mom make a dump run. Good thing she does it regularly, because if you have a full truckload it’s more than $100. I’ll probably borrow her car for a day, too. Hope the tabs on it are current. Expired tabs are common in a state where it can run into thousands of dollars to put tabs on your car every year.

One thing I won’t have on me is my sidearm. Up here, I will occasionally carry it when I have business in Anchorage. (Hey, what can I say? It’s a rough town!) But no way would I consider that in Seattle. Granted, my concealed-carry permit for Washington has expired, but even so, the sheer looks of absolute horror you get down there should anybody glimpse the tip of your holster poking out of your jacket are enough to make you regret carrying it. They run screaming in sheer panic and you can begin the countdown to the police showing up and running through their spiel of, “yes, you are technically allowed to legally carry it with a permit, but if somebody gets scared you have to leave …”

At least I’ll have my Alaska ID on me so I can duck out on the 9 percent sales tax. Most of the time. Every once in awhile I run into the shop or store that refuses to cut me out of their Washington sales tax. Not worth the argument so I just hand it over.

By the time I board the plane I’ll be happy to come home — wind, snow, cold temps and all. After spending time in warmer states in the Lower 48, I’ve developed a theory; it’s harder to live in Alaska, but the nice, warm locations are full. They’ve been attracting those looking for “easy living” for so long that they’re now popping-at-the-seams full of the lazy, the odd and the unusual. One only needs to read the news coming out of southern California and Florida to see that.

So let the wackos keep the polluted, crowded, over-taxed, over-regulated — but warmer — parts of the country. I’ll stick with the tougher Alaska climate. I’ll live where I don’t have to worry about the government holding me upside down and shaking every dollar out of my pockets. I’ll live where I can legally buy my kid a Happy Meal and a soda larger than 16 ounces if I so choose, where I can walk through the woods without having to stay on the government-approved and improved trail and not cross barriers, handrails, etc. And more importantly, I’ll remember that the grass is indeed always greener on the other side of the fence.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.