Log Cabin Lollypop of Death

Northern Lights Boulevard, Fall 1969

Around the time little Blueberry Lake was unnecesarily replaced by the Sears Mall, I used to love to go with my parents (in the new used beige Landcruiser) to the precursor of Alaska State Bank, which sat in a friendly log cabin across Denali street. I have a fine memory of that bank- all that warm wood Alaskaness, an old fashioned safe, a wood stove, iron bars across the booths, nostalgic even then, and free lollypops with the string loop for us urchins. These lollypops were of higher than usual quality, and delicious. As time went by, and money stank up the air, the staff were less friendly, the lollypops diminished in quality, and the fairy tale bank was torn down to make way for new dead pipeline prefab.

One time we went there,I nabbed a 'pop, and we drove west on Northern Lights Boulevard to the green sheet metal hardward store across from B and J's. (It was somewhat paved there, two lanes without shoulders, incredibly dusty - rather the opposite of a boulevard) Just as we pulled in, a blank crash thumped next to us, and a body was flying high across the glare of the sun - a thud. A man, perhaps 25, now unmoving, lying face up on the ground with blood in red rivulets netting his face, his blue denim jacket. His motorcycle lay there, white and red as well, and a guilty car stood shocked with a massive dent in the chrome grill. I don't remember getting out of the Landcruiser, but I remember standing there and looking, too surprised to be horrified until later. I was shooed away. I imagine that I held tightly onto the candy. Not lime: was it lemon, orange, or cherry? Why did this man ride motorcycles? Why did the driver kill him? My wise and patient father explained something, but that did not clarify the matter.

Much later, I got to go to the gold rush ice cream palace across the street, remembering horror as they came in with their ridiculous fire engine giant sundae on a stetcher celebration, which seemed to my jaded 6 year old eyes, a little forced, a little tasteless. It was not my birthday. What was death?