pinball or pop-corn.

I remember stepping off the airplane and into a whole new world.

It was the Anchorage airport, and there were giant stuffed grizzly bears in the hallways that stood towering above you as you walked to get get your luggage. It was so unlike anything I had ever known.

My first impression of it all was that it was freezing. It was late at night and when we finally stepped outside I was shocked. The cold was startling and bone-chilling, and it took my breath away. I can't say that you ever get used to that kind of cold.

It was all very overwhelming; we were all in uncharted territory. I didn't know what to expect, I just knew this was my new home. I didn't question it - we had prayed about it as a family - and this is what we were supposed to do. But that didn't ease my sense of terror as I stood in the dark and in the cold that night. I was really, truly scared.

We were picked up from the airport in a limosine. I don't believe I'd ever ridden in a limo before, let alone get picked up from the airport in one. One of the elder's wives was there to greet us and she was wearing fur. A large, brown fluffy fur coat. It was so decadent and strangely mesmerizing, I wanted to touch the coat or hug her just to see if it was as soft as it looked.

We said our hello's and made our introductions to the few church folk that came out to greet us that night. This part is all fuzzy to me. I just remember there were people and they were happy and I was ready to crawl into a warm bed.

The limo delivered us to our apartment. Well, it wasn't OUR apartment, but it was the apartment we would be staying at temporarily. The place belonged to a woman in the church and she was out of town for a while, so she graciously let us stay while we looked for a place of our own. We were glorified house-sitters, I suppose.

Looking back, I doubt the apartment was anything special...at all. But to me, it was all new and glorious. It was two stories with new carpet and everything seemed so pristine. And...they had a pinball machine! The pinball machine was rigged so that you could keep recycling the same quarters over and over again - so essentially, it was all the free pinball you could play. I always felt conflicted about playing pinball, however, because the machine itself was somewhat crude. There were strippers on poles (in bikinis) that would spin around the pole whenever you shot the pinball into some special hole. I hated the strippers and really felt like I should not be allowed to play such a great game on such an awful machine. It was such a conflict for me! In the end, I think my sense of entertainment won out and I just played a lot of ping pong.

But in the back of my head I always felt strangely guilty. I knew I shouldn't be having fun on such a machine.

But mostly, I always questioned the lady who owned the apartment. Did she care that a pastor and his wife and 3 daughters were going to live in her apartment and see her dirty pinball machine? Didn't it bother her? Why didn't she hide it?

I have no idea if she ever felt weird about her pinball machine and its encounters with three young pastors daughters. Honestly, she probably didn't give it a second thought. And to tell you the truth, the game probably wasn't all that raunchy. But I was eight and we'd just moved to the wilderness and that pinball machine was a great distraction. It was either pinball or calling "POP-CORN" for the time which got really boring after 5 times or so. I mean, really, how many times can one call and hear a recording tell you what time it is? Its really not that interesting.

And such were my first days in Anchorage, Alaska.