Back To Alaska

Back to Alaska
On a recent flight back to Alaska I sat next to a young person who I could not easily identify the gender by the typical signals until I noticed his boarding pass. He was quite an interesting fellow who I would place in his late teens to early twenties,  he did not strike me as having many years under his belt yet. He had a very feminine quality about him and he had a very beautiful shade of pale purple hair with darker purple streaks running through it with roots of about 6″ long in a medium ash blonde, the overall length of his hair was around just past his shoulders and straight. He had a habit of running a couple a of fingers through the edge to tuck it behind his ear. He had this odd way of talking with his hands where he would put the tips of his two middle fingers together on the tip of his thumb and then point his index and pinky up in the air like a shadow dog and then he would move his hand and fingers like the dog was talking or cocking its head.

As I said, he was a very interesting individual, he got on the plane in Texas and at the time I had idea that he was bound for the same place I was. As we talked about this or that, nothing really important, he stated how much he really loved clouds and how disappointed he was when he learned they were just water vapors and you could not really lay on them. He said that he loved looking out the window and seeing imaginary animals in the shapes of the clouds.

Sitting next to the window was not a big deal for me, I was preoccupied by reading and thinking of what I would be writing about next, little did I know that subject was sitting next to me, so I changed seats with him. He was very appreciative and said so with his shadow dog hand. We got to talking about our final destination, Alaska, and why each of us were going there, I for a reunion and he was moving back there for a job after he had lived in Texas for 3 years.

It turned out that he was going to be working as a set netter. This tidbit of information surprised me, to say the least, but not as much as when he said that he has done it before and it was not that hard. I admit, I personally have never been a set-netter but I have talked to people who have and they have said just the opposite. So I was surprised that he was going to be set netting for one and second that he was going to be in that industry at all! As a person the had a an air of colorful, fun and interesting dramatic flair about him he definitely struck me as someone who would flourish on a stage, not a boat.

Irregardless, he was very excited to be returning home after living in Texas. I hope that he finds his calling and I hope that working a summer of set netting does not take away his unique and genteel nature.