Northwest Airlines transferred my Dad and his family (including brother Dean) to Anchorage from Seattle in September 1950. We first lived in a Northwest-built house for four years on 11th and L.. I attended Chugach (Miss Sibbald and Miss Kelly, who allowed KoolAid and cookies on Friday afternoons.) Fifth grade (along with Pauline Reed) was with Miss Zukowski in 5th at the quonsets on E St.
We lived near Dawson and 20th after 1954, so I went to 6th grade at North Star (Mrs Franke, who is still in Anchorage), and became Captain as a safety patrolman under Glenn Norton. We worshipped at Central Lutheran, where I was in the choirs with several peers who are friends to this day.
At Central J.H. downtown, then in high school, I studied real hard because it was expected. I also played hard: learning the piano was an important part of my education. The music highlights in high school were competing with Glenda Rhodes for the honor of accompanying other musicians AND being a member of Jack McGuin’s concert band, playing the tympani.
Having learned to play the organ, I made pin money during college playing for a Sunday service at Central Lutheran. At AMU, I played tympani in the orchestra, and graduated in math, music, and education in 1964. On Sept. 11 (!) I married Nancy Trombley (AHS 1961) and we taught school in Liberia in the Peace Corps 1965-7. We then settled in Tacoma where I went to UPS graduate school, then New York City, where Nancy studied acting - and became an actor and playwright.
We had no children. That marriage was dissolved in 1974, and later the same year I married Jo-Li, who had a B.A. from National Taiwan University and was well-traveled. In New York, we were both immersed in the travel business, and continued our careers in travel after a move to Seattle (1975-85). (Again, no offspring.)
With an MBA from UPS (1982), Jo-Li switched to banking, and the travel business took us (hurray!) back to Anchorage in 1986. I left travel in 1989, and bought an existing retail business selling high-end bedding. My changing from wholesaling travel services to retailing goods was a challenge. But the business thrived, and I was able to retire “on time” when I sold out in Sept. 2009. All the while, it’s been wonderful to have been in Anchorage again - now for 25 more years - and to maintain treasured friendships with my AHS classmates.
Dale and Jo-Li 2000 Reunion
Yet I’m getting older and colder. In 2005, we bought a home in a guarded, gated golf community in Tucson called Heritage Highlands. We visit it when we can and love the weather there - in winter. We recommend it to anyone who asks - and, yes, there are a lot of Alaskans there.
Today, I am a kept man, and enjoy cooking, baking, listening to music (classical and jazz), playing piano, helping “downsize” this household, and doing favors for Jo-Li, who is several years from retirement.. I am executor for Dean’s [AHS 1958] estate - he passed away in May of last year from COPD. And I hope to publish an instructional manual for teens about driving techniques.
