Shopping is different done from a distance

“Where do you buy food? Where do you shop?” These were questions frequently asked by our summertime bed and breakfast guests while we lived in Slana.

When we replied, “Mostly in Anchorage, 250 miles south,” we either got a head shake “no” in disbelief or a nod “yes” in understanding.

As a child growing up in Glennallen in the 1960s, I was quite used to trips to Anchorage every few months for groceries and other supplies. Sometimes the weekly laundry for our family of six was also hauled along, making a laundromat one of the stops in town.

After Gary and I married we lived in a variety of places, both in Alaska and California, where the farthest we had to drive for groceries took only half an hour. But then, when we moved to Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula in 1979, things changed. Working for ARCO Alaska (an oil company), Gary had a week-on/week-off schedule. The evening before he was to arrive home, he’d call me and I’d give him the grocery list. He took his job of stock picker and grocery deliveryman seriously.

The first three years he worked on the oil platforms in Cook Inlet out of Kenai, and he bought the groceries in Kenai or Soldotna about 60 miles from Cooper Landing. The next couple of years, he flew to Prudhoe Bay out of Anchorage, so on his return home he bought groceries in Anchorage, 100 miles north of Cooper Landing.

Once we moved to Palmer in 1984, he was relieved of his food buying duties for the next 15 years. I clipped coupons, stocked up during the weekly sales and otherwise shopped wisely. On the other hand, I was sometimes known to drive the four miles to Palmer for only one item.

Then we moved to Slana, which made for an even longer drive to Anchorage than when I was a child living in Glennallen. The additional 140 miles made a round-trip of more than 500 miles. Road construction delays were typical during the summer months and the winter trips took longer with less daylight and watching for moose and caribou as well as ice and snow conditions. Gary would sometimes make a round-trip in one day during the summer, but not me. Thankfully, we were welcome for overnight stays at my brother and his family’s home in Anchorage.

During the summer months when we were the most tied down because of the greenhouse, the generator (for the freezer), and bed and breakfast guests, we’d take turns making the supply trips. We occasionally picked up items in town for neighbors and friends, but that service had to be handled carefully so it didn’t become a time consuming nuisance.

We always had a master list and detailed smaller lists with standard stops at grocery and hardware/lumber stores. Added to that were the specialty stops and maybe a doctor or dentist appointment. Time usually ran out before the list was complete, leaving a seed for the next trip to town. Although there was rarely time for clothes shopping and no time for window shopping, we did eat out once or sometimes twice a day while in town. Since Slana’s nearest restaurant was 17 miles north and the food quality depended on which of the two cooks was on duty, we really enjoyed the treat of eating out in Anchorage.

One winter about 10 years ago, a couple months after our bad earthquake, I took a two month leave of absence from my school aide job and Gary and I drove our camper “Outside” to visit and vacation in several states. One of our stops was at his sister’s home in Gilroy, Calif., which is located near an outlet mall. This really excited me since I had not had time to go to Anchorage to shop for replacements of the many items destroyed in the earthquake.

When Gary and his mother decided to drive to San Francisco for the day on business, I realized it would be the perfect opportunity for me to go to the “outlets.” Besides my list of items and a few for the Slana School, I also just wanted to window shop with no one hurrying me along.

They dropped me off when the shops opened at 10 a.m. with the agreement that I would call when ready to come home. With more than 95 stores, I knew I couldn’t dawdle or there wouldn’t be time to check them all out. If a purchase was made, I asked the clerk to hold it for me behind the counter and made a list of the stores I would need to return to when Gary came to pick me up. With only a 15-minute hot dog lunch break, I concentrated on shopping and the day flew by.

This was back in the day before pay phones became obsolete. Actually, we did have a cellphone, but it didn’t work at home in Slana and we didn’t think to bring it along on this trip. About 6 p.m., I located one of the several pay phones and called to check in and say that I needed more time. When my sister-in-law answered she said, “Where are you? We’ve been worried. The guys are over there driving around the outlets looking for you.” I thought that was as ridiculous as looking for a needle in a haystack.

I gave Diana the name of the store next to the pay phone. Keeping me on the line, she used her cellphone and called her husband’s cellphone, and Jim and Gary arrived in less than a minute. Diana wouldn’t hang up until she got confirmation from Jim. Then I listened to a repeat of the concern and questions from him.

Gary wasn’t worried, but he couldn’t very well sit at home while Jim searched for me. With all the turmoil, I decided not to ask for more time and figured it was better to end my “shop till I dropped” day early. For years, my brother-in-law made comments of disbelief about my shopping marathon. But for me it was a pleasant memory to recall as I sat in my home 250 miles from the nearest major shopping center.

Now living in Palmer again, Gary and I find that everything we need is available right here in the Valley. Our lives are simpler, our lists are shorter and our trips to Anchorage are so infrequent my brother actually misses me.

Maraley McMichael is a longtime Mat-Su Valley writer and resident.