Village Sisters: When blood does not really matter.

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My wife and her best friend from school days sat giggling like two junior high girls as I walked by their spot in the stands at the volleyball game.  Rolling my eyes and shaking my head only solicited more raucous laughter.

            Later that night, I mustered the courage to ask what the joke was, “So, what were you girls laughing about tonight?”

            “Oh nothing,” and Myra began giggling to herself again.  “Oh, just something from when we were kids.”

            “You girls make me nervous,” I confessed.

            I have told Tera the same thing.

“Good,” she laughed wide-eyed and good-naturedly.

According to Tera, she knew that Myra and her would be fast friends the instant she saw Myra enter Mr. Kimber’s second grade class in her first day of school dress, placing a hand on each side of the doorframe and scoping out her new environment.  Myra was the new kid in town, but she lacked no confidence.  Just the kind of kid a girl my mother-in-law nick-named the Tera-izer would pick for a partner in crime.

Myra and Tera grew up like sisters in a town that kids could safely walk the circumference of in around a half-hour.  Thirty-seven years later, and thankfully little has changed about that.  Kids are still kids, and though there are now cell phones, village life has been slower to change than that found on the road.

The Original Unalakleet Three Amigos: Laureli Ivanoff, Tera Cunningham, and Myra (Slwooko) Harris

           Tera’s house might as well have been Myra’s when she was a kid.  The girls would walk into the kitchens at either house and help themselves to what they found in the fridge.  Tera’s dad was “Uncle Dave,” Myra’s mom was “Gram”, and both sets of parents kept equal tabs on the kids as though they had been family since birth.

“I started wearing contacts,” a sixth-grade Myra pointed out as Tera sat thinking.

“I bet I could put on my moms,” Tera said as she came to what appeared the obvious conclusion.

“Yeah, that would be cool,” Myra encouraged.  “Let’s go try it.”

And the girls made their way into Tera’s parents’ bathroom.

Tera’s mom, Annabelle, wore the hard pebble-like contacts that all mothers wore in the 1980s, and Tera now stood poised to place it into her eye which she had opened the size of a saucer.

“You just put it in,” the experienced Myra directed.

Tera mustered all the confidence her twelve-year-old frame contained and pressed the contact lens to her eye.

“Owwwww,” she laughed nervously.  “Owwww,” she continued (Tera is the only Inupiaq I know who says ow with a Minnesotan accent).

            “Uh oh,” Myra added.

            “Get it out, how do I get it out?” Tera continued to laugh in pain.

            Between the two of them they finally figured it out and I am unsure if Annabelle ever discovered their experiment.

            Now with kids of our own, we watch ourselves in the little bodies running around with seemingly endless amounts of energy.

            “Dad, can we go ask Harper if she wants to come over?” Ellen asked.

            “I can just text her dad,” I answered.

            “We could ski,” she said as she scrambled for snow pants, hat, mitts, coat, ski boots and skis for the 50-yard expedition to her friend’s house.

            The two girls are three and have known each other ever since they were… two.  Somewhere in there they became sisters.  Maybe it is a village thing, maybe it is a girl thing, but blood does not evidently matter.

            Ellen stood at the base of the stairs with her skis still on, “Go knock on the door, Dad,” she directed.

            I knocked with no answer.  There was no car parked out front after all.

            “Just go in!” Ellen yelled.

            “I’m not just going to walk into somebody else’s house, Ellen,” I answered trying to impart some kind of knowledge on social interaction to my little girl.

            “Why not?  It’s just Harper’s house,” she pointed out, and since they are sisters in a way that I can’t understand, it all makes sense to her.

            “They aren’t home, Bub.”

            “Well, let’s go check on Charleigh,” and I helped her ski back down the little hill.

            Thirty years back in time, and a young Myra and young Tera stood outside West Coast Aviation looking at a large ice burg washed up on the beach during break up.

            “Let’s go climb it,” one of the girls voiced and they found themselves six feet above the beach on an ice shelf.

            “Okay, I’ll count three, and then we’ll both jump,” Tera said setting the plan.

            Tera counted three, Myra jumped with both feet high up in the air, and came crashing down on the shelf at the same time Tera took two steps back. 

            Myra lay on the beach in a pile of ice with Tera laughing hysterically above her, hands on her knees, tears in her eyes.

            A present-day Ellen removed her skis, walked up the steps of Charleigh’s house and opened the arctic entry door.

            “Bub, it doesn’t look like anyone is home,” I said again noticing no car in the drive.

            “Come on Dad,” Ellen motioned for me to follow.  Without knocking, she opened the inside door, took one step onto the laminate floor and fell into a heap, another victim of slippery cross-country ski boots on a slick interior floor.

            “I’m okay,” she quickly said unsolicited, “but looks like you were right, Charleigh isn’t home.”

            Charleigh makes up the third member of the amigos.  As a teacher once pointed out, “I don’t really worry about Charleigh, when Ellen and Harper are getting into trouble, she just kind of stands back and watches.”

            For some reason that didn’t really bring any comfort.

            A car drove up as we walked down the steps of the house.  Charleigh got out and gave her standard greeting, “Aghghgh.”

            “Oh, hi Charleigh,” Ellen answers.  “Want to come over to visit?”

            Charleigh gave some answer that Ellen understood, she turned to her Mom who then consented, and I figured what was communicated was affirmative.

            “Come on Chuck,” I said, “Let’s go.  See you later Brittany,” and we bid adieu to Charleigh’s mom.

            Harper’s house is on the way home from Charleigh’s and by this time Harper had returned.

            “Can I go visit Ellen?” Harper asked, and at that point I was being followed by three girls none of whom were above my waistline in height, but all who have confidence levels around that of professional athletes.

            Once inside the house, it looked like all three had been raptured by the immediate piles of snow pants, boots, socks, hats, mitts, coats, and neck warmers that miraculously appeared in little piles throughout the living room.  Even the girls had disappeared, but the giggles coming from upstairs reassured me that they were still in the house as I tried to bring order to the chaos. 

            A half hour into the visit and nearly every toy had been taken out, played with, and then discarded for the next, at which point the plane I had been waiting for flew over our apartment signaling a need to pack the three girls up into the car to go and pick up the students who would be staying the night at the school.

            In 1990s Unalakleet, Tera and Myra climbed up onto the bench seat of Uncle Dave’s 80s era F-150.

            “You know how to drive a stick?” Tera asked Myra before sliding over to make room.

            “Yeah, no problem,” Myra answered having learned that year in a family friend’s little Escort.

            As Myra depressed the gas pedal and released the clutch both the difference in horsepower as well as the size of the clutch became apparent.  The engine surged with life as the clutch came shooting up at her foot, the truck bunny hopping its way out of the drive.  The journey through town became one marked by a series of engine revs, shooting gravel, a hopping truck, and two teen-age girls giggling uncontrollably.

            As they exited after the drive, both girls continued laughing while holding the backs of their necks.

            “We’re going to feel this when we’re older,” they laughed.

            The three girls I was responsible for somehow all ended up with the proper winter gear on and out the door.  Even I managed to somehow get a coat, hat, gloves and boots on before prodding them down the porch steps.  All the girls piled into the back seat of the car, lifted one at a time into their spots just in time for Charleigh’s parents to pull up to get her for dinner.

            Somehow the three of us made it out to the airport just before the plane pulled up, the girls not allowing me to get one word in as they talked in their only volume in the backseat.  Harper’s dad was at the airport where he helped me get the visiting kids from the plane to the school where they would be sleeping and he assured they were fed.  Somewhere in there, it was decided that Harper would come home with us to continue playing.

            “I’m hungry, Dad,” Ellen exclaimed as I pulled fish from the oven while the girls played in the living room.

            “Harper, would you like me to check if you can eat over?” I asked.

            “My mom and dad are making dinner for me at home,” she said as I got a plate ready for Ellen with silver salmon and braised cabbage.  “But maybe you could text my dad,” Harper continued as the smell reached her nose.

            Permission granted, the girls sat side by side at the kitchen table inhaling food with the only words being requests for more.  Evidently salmon baked with salsa and braised cabbage cooked with bacon are the perfect foods for three-year-old girls as I had to fend them off the last little piece of fish that I was saving for Myra who was at basketball practice.

Where do they put it all?

            “Can I have more fish, please,” Ellen asked eying the one small section left in the baking dish.

            “We need to save some for Mom.”

            “Why?” she asked.

            Back at play, the two girls pulled out a Duplo Lego box filled with dress up clothes, found two sets of wings (one set of bee, one set of ladybug), and proceeded to chase each other around in tight circles the evidently high sugar content of wild salmon and braised cabbage kicking in.

            Myra came home, sat down with her plate to bring me up to speed on basketball practice and continually shooed a hovering Ellen away from the fish she was eating.  Brendan came over to retrieve Harper and act as reinforcements with adults finally outnumbering kids in the sense of numbers, but far outmatched in the sense of energy.

            Brendan is the father of three young kids with Harper being the middle child.  The craziness occurring in our living room was soothing to him, and so he sat down in a recliner for a visit.

            Somewhere along the line the wick burnt short and Harper began to fall apart.

            “Well, Harper, it is about bed time.  Why don’t we say good night and head for home?” Brendan prompted.

            “I could just sleep here Dad,” was Harpers epiphany.

            “I don’t think that is a good idea,” was her Dad’s quick reply.

            “Yeah it is,” came out just as quickly.

            “Harper, we would happily have you sleep over another night, but this is a school night,” I came to Brendan’s aid as Harper melted into a puddle on the living room carpet.

            “Yeah,” Ellen ever the peacemaker added, “you can stay over another night, Harper.”

            The next day at work I pointed out my observation to a coworker who has known Myra and Tera forever, “I think Harper and Ellen have the potential of becoming another Tera and Myra.”

            “Uh oh,” came his very deep voice.  “Which one is which?”

            “Does it matter?” I replied.

            “Get ready,” he laughed.

            Well, if nothing else, the ride should be fun.

Two girls ready for their next adventure (photo credit: Brendan Ellis)