Why I Hate Alaska

It was the uplift that lent her definition, the going to get the G.E.D., the undergrad degree, then the grad, then the jobs that followed. This was my mom, this was my childhood. All the while, raising me, dropping me off at daycare, then school. Coming home and collapsing on her bed each night, sideways because her door was in the corner of the room. I pulled her boots off. She'd sleep till nine, cook dinner. Wake up the following morning and resume.

She missed her college graduation because the MSW classes started the same day. My mom got every job she interviewed for after graduation. Confident, not even 30 then, no matter that she had a son almost ten. It was all about progression, this era. She moved upward as the mythology of the world says one should. Onward, upward, always. That's how you do.

"These S.O.B.s won't give you jack-shit in this world," was how she put it.

There were detractions to this persistent theme of uplift. Through her twenties and thirties, my mom's only social outlets were reading and talking on the telephone. This was when the latter was still bound by cords—hers being excessively long and haggard, the broken spine of some prehistoric worm. It was often said that my mom was an attractive woman, and she did date, but had little time for more. There was a man, an electrician at a treatment center for which she'd social worked, who came over Saturday nights. They closed the bedroom door, and then the next day he'd cook a better meal than she could and watch the Eagles till it was time for him to go home. This got her through her 30s.

We, my mother and I, had a social life, together. We lived at 12th & South at the Southward Arms, overtop Señor Chupas, and on Saturday we'd walk east to Front Street and the Delaware River, then all the way back west again, three miles to the Schukyll, before going home. One day my mom bought this black lab from a Mexican guy driving a white Plymouth who'd just slowed down next to her. He showed her a box of them on the passenger seat; they were adorable and there was an ATM on the block. She spent half her check on one, not even haggling. We called it Sasha, and when she grew bigger she went on the walk with us.

Everything my mom bought besides food was on a whim, which was the construction of her character. If you gave her less than seven minutes to think it through, you could pretty much get her to agree to anything. Things I got from this: to see Creepshow opening night when I was just nine years old, a Willie Tyler's Lester ventriloquist doll, a Colecovision with Donkey Kong. I used to meet her at work on paydays, conveniently steer her past the Kay-Be on the way home and coax her inside. Best thing was, she never regretted any of these impulse decisions. Just do it and get it done: that's the way she was.

Time kept moving, I grew physically bigger then grew intellectually, emotionally as well. My mom was suddenly hitting forty, and I was suddenly heading to Atlanta for undergrad myself. I was leaving and now my mom needed something to step into the vacancy. A goal, a challenge, or something to love.

Like timeshares, like religion, like mortgage refinancing and local newspaper subscriptions too, anything that someone has to go out of their way to sell to you usually isn't worth buying in the first place. Add working in Northern Alaska to that rule. There was a guy in Philly whose sole job was recruitment. Federal jobs mostly, for Indian Affairs particularly, but other jobs too. This bastard was just haunting hospitals throughout the city, and he happened into Jefferson's social work division and there my mother was, having a bad day no less. He brought his recruitment video to...