Sesquicentennial

Sesquicentennial

"Ballerinas can spend only five minutes at a time in the sun," said Aletha over E-mail. "And cold water -- forget it."

"You're kidding," replied Russel, the Alaskan wrestler. "I thought dancers were athletes. Why can't you handle little things like warmth and coolness?"

"We are athletes: most football players can't even keep up with our strenuous routine. But the sun is no little thing. It depletes our energy. More than five minutes and I feel anemic, like Dracula got to me. And the cold, it shocks our systems. It's not easy being a southern dancer."

Russel reviewed that conversation as he spread out on his lounge chair atop a snowdrift in Nome.

"In the Lower Forty-Eight you actually have to be careful oftoomuch sun? Ha! Here it is April first, it's fifty degrees, and I'm shirtless and taking a sun bath on a drift. Too much sun -- there's no such thing! And cold -- hey, that's what it's all about!"

The boys on the wrestling team were having a contest: who could get the best tan before Spring Run-off. The rules were strict: anyone showing goggle marks would be disqualified. That meant the boys who skied, tobogganed, skated, or ran dog sleds had to be careful of snow blindness.

Alex, who years before had moved to Alaska from Duluth, couldn't believe that he was taking a sun bath in the snow.

"Onthe snow," corrected Russel.

"Wherever. I'm going to E-mail pictures to all my old friends."

"While you're at it," said Russel, "tell them it was minus forty last month, so at plus fifty, it's ninety degrees warmer. That really is summer by comparison. Then they can understand that we're not a Polar Bear Club trying to be heroes, just normal Alaskans enjoying the Spring."

"Yeah, regular heat spell, now it's fifty."

Russel won the contest. As a prize, his fellow wrestlers gave him a pair of aviator sun glasses. Russel sported them as proudly as his even tan.

After school was out, Alex flew south with his parents to their summer

cabin on Lake Superior. Because there was room for one more, they invited Russel. When he learned he was going, he E-mailed his friend, Aletha, because he knew that she and a friend were heading north. When the correspondents met at the Duluth air port, the Alaskan wrestler was charmed by the New Orleans ballerina. He was so impressed spontaneously he gave her his hard-earned glasses, saying, "For you, Aletha, a special treat. They should protect you from the dehabilitating sun." Inwardly he felt sheneededthem; for him they were a decoration.

Russel added, flexing his muscles and his ego, "Alex's uncle, Robert E. -- he's from somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line -- has a catamaran,Sunkist. I know nothing about catamarans except they have two hulls. Don't ask me what a hull is. But if you dress all in white, including hat and shoes, and you wear those fabulous sun glasses, then can't you be in the sun for over five minutes at a stretch?"

Naturally the Southern Belle picked up on the boy's macho: it was soYankee. What else could she do but play along until an opportunity presented itself to set things straight?

"Sounds reasonable," came the meek reply. "But I insist on a bathtub of sun block, ten gallons of fresh water to keep me from dehydrating, and a place to escape to when I feel faint."

"Come on, Aletha, certainly a little sun can't hurt a strong dancer like you." I wonder, the northerner thought, if a lot ofsouthernweakness isn't intheir heads?

When Aletha sensed that, you can guess how the proud Confederate reacted.

The crew that cast off from the dock was a boat full of extremes: two dancers from the south dressed from head to toe in white, for Aletha had brought Gina, a fellow troupe member, and two bare-topped wrestlers from Alaska wanting to show their muscles as well as suck up every ray of sun. It was a jolly crew, determined to have fun, although there was a slight edge in the air.

Alex, the only seagoing member of the foursome, wanted to go to Knife River. Years before he'd moved to Nome, he spent his summers there fishing. He loved chunking for the small fish in the outlet: Blue Gill, Sunfish, Bass, and trolling for the big fish in the great lake: Walleyes, Pike, and Lake Trout. It was all new to the others so they agreed pleasantly.

"Just be careful of the sun," advised Alex. "Especially you girls. Sun reflecting off the water can be every bit as dangerous as off snow."

"Tell that to Russel," said Gina. "I've never seen snow. Truth is, I haven't seen much sun, either."

The trip up the shoreline was exciting. The boys, eager to show their Alaska-brave prowess, dove off the catamaran into the chilly waters of Lake Superior pretending it wasn't cold. When they warmed on the deck they said, "Ah, a heat spell!" The girls hovered in the shade of the sails and the protective cabin.

"Southern girls sure are different, aren't they, Alex?" teased Russel. "A girl from Nome would give her credit card and cell phone to be able to take a dip in a sauna bath like this. And the sun -- it's like a million-dollar-a-night spa on the Riviera. Lord, wait till we get back home. We can tell everyone we swam in the South Seas. I feel like e-mailing them right now."

They kept teasing until finally the girls had had enough. True, it was all in fun, but these guys simply couldn't get away with that much. They knew the wrestlers liked challenges. So she and Gina led the boys in like all good spiders do their unwary victims.

The truth is that the dancers, like all athletes who work to the max during season, especially those who have zero body fat, had gained some weight since their last performance. The fear of heat exhaustion had withered now that they were in the brisk air of the far north -- far north for the Louisiana girls but south for the Alaskans -- so the girls were more confident about being outdoors than at home. They even entertained the notion that if they dove in the lake it might cool them so they could take more sun.

As the girls pondered, the boys were overtaken by the urge to throw the southerners overboard. It surprised them when the girls beat them to it: Stage One.

"Come on, boys, let's go for a swim." With that, Aletha and Gina slickly pushed Russel and Alex overboard. They kept teasing by thwarting their return. Because it was a catamaran, the boys tried to out-maneuver the playful girls by diving under the hulls hoping to pop up at an unguarded spot. But the agile dancers always kept them at bay. The wrestlers had been in the chilly water for some time and their deep dives required more energy. Before long, they'd had enough of cold Lake Superior. That's when the spiders presented Step Two.

"Let's have a race," Aletha suggested coyly. "Girls against boys."

"Are you kidding?" laughed Russel. "One second in this water and you'll

freeze your southern tu-tu's."

"You think so?" responded a tantalizing New Orleans accent. "You big ole Polar Bears afraid or something?"

"Where to?" shot the wrestlers automatically, not thinking that they were already chilled.

"To the point and back?" smiled Gina sweetly.

The eternal trap was baited, set, and now it snapped.

In dove warm Aletha and Gina as blithely as mermaids, and off took the muscle-bulging, half-frigid boys.

How can a teenager fathom the instinctive power of the female? And how could these young ladies, so acclimated to ninety and hundred degree days, soaking in warmed Jacuzzis and dancing in smoldering studios, how could they possibly have sensed just how long those boys would hold out after their chilling foreplay? Did they know that these Alaskans always wore long wool underwear, goose down parkas, and seldom stayed outdoors in subzero days for more than a few minutes at a time? Could they have known that the boys were indoor types at heart, not the stereotypic, rugged outdoors men? Maybe the girls saw the slight bluish skin discoloration as they swam in cold-water Lake Superior, butexhaustion? The ballerinas must have been gifted by an extra sense.

Half-way to the point, the wrestlers began to slow down. When they touched shore their breathing was noticeably labored. Part-way back the boys exhibited marked signs of hypothermia. They boardedSunkistonly because the girls threw them life savers.

Andhowthey threw them! With playful smiles, sweet teasing, and "We'resosorry the cold got to you" in enchanting, southern accents.

To rub it in, Gina said coyly, "You know, Aletha, I think it's time for a sun bath. How about you?"

Meanwhile, Russel and Alex, whowerestrong but presently over-extended, sat scrunched up, their teeth clattering and their phalanges visually blue-white. The last thing they needed was more chilly air. Instead, they donned sweat suits and shivered in the warm cabin.

When the girls sensed they may have over-pranked, they poured as much hot liquid as they could down their victims' quivering throats: coffee, tea, chicken broth. All while the cold-wracked bodies that had recently boasted Herculean strength shook under the wool blankets.

After the girls and mannedSunkistto the Duluth slip, Uncle Robert E. fastened her secure. "Back so soon?" he asked, noticing who worked and

who huddled.

"I wonder," stage-whispered Aletha to her friend as the boys tottered under their still-shivering blankets, "if these southern waters are a bit warm for Polar Bears. I don't know what they'd do if they swam way down in New Orleans. Freeze, I suppose?"

"Most likely, Dear," answered her ballerina friend in her most Spanish Mossed, Magnolia-blossomed twang.

Now, to document the race, the dancers got it all on film. And don't you justknowthat those sweet, fragile southern girls put the entire episode on the Internet and E-mailed the folks in Nome?

It's been a hundred-fifty years since the Big War. But once in awhile, when you least expect it, a whisp of the Reb raises its head.