There are good things about living in Washington, too

I happily packed up and left Washington state to return to Alaska in 2007. Still here. I write for my local newspaper here in Alaska, so it only makes sense that, by and large, I write about Alaska. But the fact is, many of my friends and family in Washington read the Frontiersman and, well, I guess I’ve stepped in it a little. Somewhere between this column and my occasional Facebook post, I hit a nerve.

“You always poke fun of us down here! You’re always teasing us!” they say.

So while it may be kind of weird to write about life in Washington, this one is for those folks.

What do I miss about Washington? Hmm. That’s hard. But as a challenge, I shall try and come up with 10 things and put them in order from least to most:

10. The food! Don’t get me wrong, we’ve found a good restaurant or two up here in Alaska, especially in Fairbanks (how come Fairbanks has the best restaurants?). But for whatever reason — maybe it’s the competition or the ethnic diversity — we truly miss Moctezuma’s (yes, Moc, not Mon), The Spaghetti Factory, Spiro’s and the endless choices for truly epic Asian cuisine. Heck, even in the “fast food” category we find ourselves wishing Alaska had a Jack-in-the-Box!

9. Ferries: The drive from Port Orchard to Seattle was grueling. The bumper-to-bumper madness of Highway 16, followed by the out-to-kill-you I-5 corridor, made for an awful drive. Driving 50 miles could take hours and hours. The solution? Drive to the Southworth/Fauntleroy or Bremerton/Seattle ferry and enjoy a peaceful trip across the Puget Sound. Watch the birds, boats, seals, sealions and occasional whale. Admire the trees along the shoreline. (Look! There’s Mom’s house!) Likewise, I could plan a trip from Kitsap County to the northern part of the state using the boat from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island and avoid I-5 altogether!

8. The trees: The immense Douglas fir trees and cedar are awesome. In some areas you can see trees with a larger diameter than your car. How cool is that?

7. Stock windshields: What do I mean by that? I mean that more often than not, whatever car I drove (even some that were 30-plus years old) had the same windshield in them they had when they rolled off the assembly line. Not like up here where I can almost count on replacing it annually. Read through the car ads in Craigslist sometime: “has the normal Alaska crack” is not referring to drugs or somebody who needs to pull his pants up. I’ll never understand why we don’t require commercial trucks to cover their loads. And while I’m on the subject …

6. Clean cars: I knew in advance that returning to Alaska would mean giving up my clean-car obsession. In Washington, “cleaning the car” meant washing it by hand (including the door jambs and wheels) followed by drying, washing the glass inside and out, vacuuming (pulling the mats out), wiping the upholstery, blackening the tires, bleaching the whitewalls or white lettering if necessary, etc. I did this year-round and as often as needed. If the paint started to fade, I pulled out my various compounds and waxes to shine the paint back up. Can you imagine trying to do that up here? I’d end up in a funny farm!

5. Live Christmas trees: OK, so I know this is a truly odd one for most people. And when I say “live,” I don’t mean “real.” The real trees are most certainly dying if not dead already when you buy them. But when we lived down there, our tradition was to go to a nursery and purchase a 6- or 7-foot-tall tree, rootball and all. We would drape something over the big biodegradable pot it came in, keep it watered through the holiday and then, the day after Christmas, we would find a place on the property to dig a hole and plant it. It was pretty cool as the years went by to see trees that grew large enough to climb on and say, “That’s the tree from ’78, that’s the tree from ’79,” etc. Along a similar line, we also used to go to the local pumpkin farms and select which pumpkin we wanted right out of the patch. Kids loved it.

4. The prices: $5 footlong? Not up here! Same goes for just about everything else. Seems silly to be paying an average of .50 cents more per gallon of gas in such an oil-rich state, especially when Washington has an immensely high gas tax — and is still cheaper than we are! Groceries, cars, lumber — you name it, it all costs less to buy in Washington, even adding in their sales tax. Though, the price difference doesn’t seem to be as much as it used to be back in the ’70s and ’80s (or am I just not remembering right?).

3. Longer, hotter summers: OK, you knew that one was coming, right? Every May I get to watch my friends and family in Washington putting pictures up on Facebook of “80 degrees and at the lake!” or “look at my flowers coming in” as I grumble, staring look out the window at the bare trees, dead grass, snow piles and slush. Blehhhhh!

2. Going, going, gone: Feel like a trip to Idaho to visit a friend? Or perhaps spend a three-day weekend on the Oregon coast? How about taking the kids to Disneyland? No problem! Just hop in the car and go! Of course, we can hop in the car and “go” from here, too. And, after several hours of driving, we’re still in Alaska.

1. Blackberries: Huh? That’s Ben’s No 1? Blackberries? You’re darn right it is! Going out the back door and filling up a bucket, coming back and in and within a few hours I have blackberry pies cooling on the counter or blackberry jam almost ready for the fridge. Man, how I miss that! Especially every fall when I know my mother’s fence line back home is covered in blackberry vines practically sagging from all the plump, big blackberries. (But I’m more than happy to have somebody else pick them because, as a true arachnophobe, I also know those vines will be practically sagging from all the plump, big spiders. Yuck!)

So there you have it, my Washington family and friends. Yes, I guess there are things about Washington I miss. But now I’m worried that my Alaska friends are wondering, “Well, why doesn’t he just move back there then?” I guess you have to weigh the good against the bad. Yes, there are things I don’t get up here that I had down there. But when I weigh them against things like fleas, banana slugs, several months of cold rain, Los Angeles-like traffic, smog, absolutely insane taxes, over-regulation, genuine love of socialism and communism — well, Alaska looks pretty awesome.

Oops, did I stick my foot in my mouth again? Dang it!

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. Contact him at bcompton1971@yahoo.com.