Children recognize adults have great power over them but discover adults are flawed.
Sometimes the flaws are physical.
In Fairbanks in the '50s, my family had as neighbors a number of frail old men, miners who had come to the Interior during the gold rush a half century before. For them, the mother lode always was over the next hill. Their dreams of riches were never fulfilled in a lifetime of toil.
These sourdoughs lived in small, tidy cabins. They had no income beyond territorial old-age assistance, a pittance, and a small Social Security check derived from employment during World War II when anyone who could work did. They were profoundly grateful when neighbors like my Dad, Fabian, brought them moose meat or caribou for their Dutch ovens.
One of them was named Kupki -- or that's the name I remember. As a greenhorn, he lost both legs below the knee to severe frost bite. Fell in a creek at 50 below zero and lucky to be alive after surgery.
The loss of his feet did not stop Kupki from walking. Several times a week he stomped downtown, at least a mile, his stumps in old boots. Kupki expended great energy, working up a sweat on warm days, as he willed his way through the dusty streets, pounding the ground with a staff in his left hand. His weathered face was fierce. Walking appeared to be combat for Kupki -- as if he were making war on fate. Years later I read the Victorian poem "Invictus" and thought of him: "It matters not how straight the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll. / I am the master of my fate. / I am the captain of my soul." At 70, Kupki was the size of a child. He was the only adult in Fairbanks an 8-year-old could look in the eye.
Sometimes adults' flaws are mental.
In Fairbanks in the '60s, my family had as neighbors a number of itinerant construction workers, men who had driven the Alaska Highway in search of a well-paying summer job at Fort Wainwright, Eielson or Clear. These men lived in small frame houses; they spent most of their time at work and rarely mingled with their neighbors. Carpenter Dexter Theo was an exception. He mingled with the teenage boys of my neighborhood, Graehl, and their friends from as far away as North Pole, welcoming them into his house -- later a trailer -- where he presided as resident philosopher.
Dex, as we called him, probably was in his fifties, of medium height and build, his head crowned by unruly white hair. He was usually disheveled -- like his home which was so cluttered his guests usually stood. I don't remember how my friends and I met him, but clearly he was an attraction because of his electropsychometer -- or e-meter.
The e-meter, an electronic device that allegedly can measure emotional and spiritual life, was made famous by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, who used it on his flock. Today scientists take the e-meter about as seriously as Scientology.
You can imagine the excitement of teenage boys on a summer evening in 1961 when Dex hooked up one of them to the e-meter and started asking questions. Sometimes he asked about beliefs, sometimes about experiences, sometimes about dreams. The teenagers' answers provided Dex with the opportunity to pontificate on sex, the dynamics of the family, and politics. He told us in his monologues that every male has a replica of the penis in the brain (which explained sex drive), that women are an inferior species, and President Roosevelt conspired with the Japanese to engineer the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Dex was concerned about purity -- despite the condition of his home -- and drank spring water he obtained himself. He worried about radiation (presumably from nuclear weapons) and tested supermarket fruit and vegetables -- I saw him -- for radioactive material. His testing device was a plumb bob at the end of a string. As Elstun Lauesen, another visitor to Dexter's salon, wrote in an email, "His divining ... was based on a theory of vibration which he charted in a dense three-ring binder. He cut open flashlight batteries and salvaged the crystal inside them as part of his supermarket scrying."
Elstun added, "He repeatedly warned us against masturbation lest rejuvenating fluids would not be recycled through our bodies."
Dex was ahead of his times. "Dr. Strangelove" didn't come out until 1964.
This carpenter with an e-meter was an unbalanced entertainer who made a mockery of adults' pretension that they knew what they were doing and had the world under control.
When I left for college in September 1963, I felt myself both looking backward and looking forward. But I was too immature to realize that Kupki and the elderly miners were part of my past, and Dexter, well, Dexter was part of my future. I would meet men like Dex many times. Some of them were peddling religion, some of them were peddling science, some of them were running for office. All of them had an idea that would change the world.
Michael Carey is an Alaska Dispatch News columnist.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com