Remembering the original

If you’ve ever read the little line at the bottom of my column, you’ll see that I rejuvenated the column my grandmother began many years ago.

Phyllis Compton had always enjoyed writing and was so happy when the Frontiersman began printing her tales of life in Alaska under the tagline “Compton’s Corner.” Recently, as I have visited people and made new friends, I have been genuinely surprised by the number of those who have approached me and said they knew Phyllis. This column is for them.

Grandma was not a lifelong Alaskan. She wasn’t a Colony child. Although my grandfather had spent some time up here during World War II and shortly after the end of the war, his wife had spent the majority of her life in the North Cascades of Washington state. But she came to Alaska a few years after my father moved up here and was immediately smitten with the wide-open spaces, mountains, rivers, lakes and wildlife.

Grandma lived in Deming, Wash., when I was born. When I was still quite small, she moved to Concrete. Concrete was (and still is) a sleepy town nestled into the Cascade Mountains along the Skagit River. My summers, winter breaks and every other opportunity I had were spent with my grandparents there. My memories of Grandma include walks along the emerald-green Skagit River looking for Jasper. She had an amazingly keen eye for it and could spot it among the shore hidden among the river rocks.

Sometimes I would just look for round rocks that she would let me bring home and use her paints to make into some sort of decoration. She was an extremely talented painter, entirely self-taught. I recall occasionally sitting next to her as she watched Bob Ross paint his “happy little clouds,” getting exasperated because she felt she couldn’t match his talent. (She could. The proof is hanging on my dad’s walls.) She always had that same way of getting frustrated; scratching her head and saying, “Gad!” Often, at the end of the day, I would sit in the living room eating popcorn my grandfather had made in a pot watching my grandparents dance to “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

She was in love with her organ and a day never went by when she wasn’t practicing. She played at the Mt. Baker Presbyterian Church every Sunday. It was a 100-year-old log cabin church presided over by the Reverend Higbee (you can’t make this stuff up). I was allowed to ring the bell. For a time she worked part-time delivering food for the Meals-on-Wheels program, darting all over the mountains in her 1971 Ford Maverick she had named “Maggie.” When that program was cancelled, she went to work part-time cleaning at the U.S. Post Office. I would bring my bike and ride along the one, short street that ran through Concrete. All the old retired guys and former loggers knew my grandparents and after work, Grandma would frequently find me in the diner sitting next to them as they drank coffee and talked about whatever.

One of the big events of my young life was my only trip to Disneyland as a child. My parents never had any desire to go and although Grandma didn’t earn much, she managed to sock away money for a couple years until surprising me that she was taking me to Disneyland. We rode the bus from Seattle to Anaheim and I was in heaven. Imagine my surprise when Grandma laughed at my refusal to ride Space Mountain and went by herself. My elderly grandmother — going to ride Space Mountain. I was in awe. I had no idea my grandmother could be so tough.

Later, as I learned more about some of the things she had done as a young woman, I started to realize just how tough she really was. I think one of the most impressive jobs she had held was driving logging trucks off of Whidbey Island. Those old trucks didn’t have power steering or power brakes, and it took a lot of work to muscle them around. If they tried to drive the truck slowly onto the ferry to Port Townsend, they would often push the boat off the dock. So when she arrived at the dock, they had her remain at the top of the dock. When it was time to board, she would be given the OK to proceed down the dock at a fast clip and fly onto the boat at speed, then slam the brakes hard to prevent the truck from shooting the truck off the other side and into the bay. Wow.

More than anybody else I ever knew, Grandma had a devotion to the Lord. She was never bashful and engaged everybody she knew about it. Many found it inspiring, some found it, well, not so much. As she grew older I actually got some laughs about it. Glenny took her to the hospital once in a bit of pain and distress. Despite that, as she was rather uncomfortably moved onto the bed by the nurse’s aide, she managed to gasp out, “Do you know Jesus?” to the aide. It obviously threw him off his game and, yes, I found it amusing.

She enjoyed a great joke and was never without several ready to fire off. I recall introducing Grandma to a friend and right off the bat she asked, “Are you good?”

He replied, “Um, yes.”

“Do you charge for it?”

“Um, no.”

“So what you’re saying is, you’re good for nothing.”

Priceless.

“Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road?” (Because it didn’t have the guts!)

Cracks like that won her first prize at the Alaska State Fair joke competition. I don’t know how, but they did.

Grandma passed away a couple years ago now. She was powerfully devoted to her religion and actually looked forward to entering Heaven. I have never met a person so at peace knowing that she was in the twilight of her life. She was thrilled to live in Alaska those last few decades; lucky and fortunate to have made some great friends.

I miss her every day. I sincerely thank those of you who introduced yourself to me over the past few weeks and told me you remember her. I found it very touching.

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.