North to Alaska - One for the Money

One afternoon I was returning from Jimmy Green’s cabin, naturally taking a different trail depicted on Uncle Frank’s animal skin map, when, not to my great surprise I came across, what can only be described as a log chapel.  Of course I stopped to pay my respects to whoever had gone to all the trouble to build such a place this side of no where.

The chapel door was unlocked so I let myself in.  The sanctuary was very small so I immediately noticed a man sitting in the front pew crying.  I was sort of embarrassed and so as not to embarrass him started my retreat back through the door when he stood up turned to me and said, “Welcome friend.”

The old hymn Amazing Grace started softly playing in the back ground from speakers that I could not ascertain the location of.  He walked up to me, stuck out his hand, and said, “Hello, I am Aaron, you must be the new teacher.”  He invited me for a cup to tea.

I accepted of course because it was cold outside and I had previously turned over my four wheeler.  Getting it righted had shaken me up and I needed a place to recuperate, and besides another code of the road in these parts is that you always accept an invite, fitting in is always on my mind.

His living quarters at the rear of the chapel were nice but small which seemed even smaller because a great big hound dog was curled up in one corner near the potbellied stove.  He poured us both a cup of tea and sat out some biscuits. 

“Nice little place you got here.” I said.   “Yes,” he replied.  “The stove keeps things cozy and warm and I feel a burning love for this old place.  When it gets real toasty and reminds me of my place in Kentucky when I would sit on my porch and watch the blue moon go through its phases.

I asked him if he was a preacher and he responded that we were all preachers but we all preached different things.  The hound dog came over to the table where we were sitting and as I reached down to pet it I noticed Aaron’s boots.  They were the brightest blue I had ever seen and made from a material that I guessed was suede.

He asked me a lot of questions about who, where, why and how, the usual stuff strangers ask and then it was my turn to ask him a few.

To sum up his answers:  He had been a G. I. in the army but didn’t like it because it made him feel blue all the time and he did not like the fact that many of the guys were not nice to him.  They were jealous he guessed.  He told the soldiers not to be cruel to him but men being what they are they continued devilishness but tried to disguise it with humor  He was able to disguise his own feeling of hurt and tried to keep a tender love in his heart as all good Christians should.

When he left the army he drifted to New Orleans and stayed with a Creole family named King and worked on a shrimp boat.  He didn’t like New Orleans much because he always thought there was something strange about a city built below the water line and always was concerned that the rocks holding back the water would one day give way and the only place he could go to escape the flood was atop the old jail house near the Trame district.  He sort of liked fishing though so he hitched hiked to California and worked his way to Hawaii figuring there would be a lot of commercial fishing there.  He was mistaken of course and found himself as a hula instructor at a The Rock Café after it was discovered he could move his hips around better than most of the Hawaiian girls. 

A promoter saw him and signed him to a contract to play a three week gig in Las Vegas, all expenses paid and for a healthy sum of money.  "Viva," he thought, which he explained is a slang Creole word for great.  He soon found out why they called Las Vegas sin city.  He got involved with one of the show girls who he could not help falling in love with, but who eventually broke his heart.  Her little sister tried to comfort him and after he made her promise not to do what her big sister had done, he gave her a ring and a chain to hang around her neck.  That didn’t work out either so he decided to head to Alaska. 

He worked on a fishing boat for awhile and with the money he had made in Las Vegas, that had lasted three years after the original three week contract, and two very successful fishing seasons he moved to his present location, built this little chapel of his and finally found peace.  He felt very fortunate not to live in a ghetto, enjoyed the early morning rains of summer and the always white Christmases that were never blue even though he spent them by himself.  He said he could get moody now and then but then there was always someone stopping by and it happened just often enough to make him realize how foolish he was to rush in to a depressing mood.

We finished our tea and as I was leaving he said for me to be careful and gave me a good luck charm shaped like a flaming star to protect me on the trails he said.  “Thank-ya, thank ya very much for stopping.” He said while shanking my hand.

As I was mounting my four wheeler for the two hour trip back to my cabin I felt more than heard my own voice say, “Conley has left the building.”