The School Generator
A group of ladies and I have been talking about the snow storms happening across the U.S. Several have mentioned that they have generators they can use for backup power if needed. These discussions made me think back to my first experience dealing with a generator.
It was right after I graduated from college and I took my first teaching position in Sleetmute, Alaska. My sister and I accepted the two teaching positions in the one room school. We flew to Alaska from Pennsylvania landing in Anchorage. We then boarded a small plane and flew to the village of Aniak. The next leg of our journey offered me the new experience of flying in a three seater, one propeller plane which skimmed over trees and seemed to brush sides of mountains to land in the tiny Yupik Eskimo village of Sleetmute. At that time, way back in 1977, the population of Sleetmute was hovering at about 70 souls. We landed on the graveled airstrip with a bounce and rattle that probably shook the teeth out of the dear departed in the neighboring graveyard!
Anyhow, a trip upriver in a dory (that's another story), overnight at a lodge (goes with the dory trip story) and then the next day back downriver and we were deposited on the shores of the Kuskokwim River. We hiked up the hill to see our white, clapboard, two story one-room schoolhouse. The guy delivering us to our new teaching assignment said, as he left to climb aboard the two-seater plane, "Your call number is WGG84 Sleetmute and radio in every morning before and after school. Make sure you keep the generator at 60. See you." That was it and he was gone; taking flight like a bird trying to avoid being it's predator's next meal.
My sister and I just looked at each other while standing surrounded by our backpacks, sleeping bags, and our two precious puppy dogs we brought with us cuddled in our coats.
We turned back to survey what we had gotten ourselves into. There stood the school and the apartment attached that was our new home. Sure enough out back in a shed was the school generator. A great big lummox of a creature. It had all kinds of dials and pipes, switches and buttons and neither of us having a clue on how to keep it at "60"; whatever "60" meant.
We quickly learned from a man that introduced himself to us as Zukar that the school generator is the only 'lectric in the village. It runs at 60 and anything over or under is not good for it. If it goes out, there is no heat, power or running water for the school (and for its two new teachers).
Over the year that we lived in Sleetmute I learned to know just by the sound that mechanical beast made if it needed a bit of fine tuning or if it was about to go down in the throes of death. Fortunately Zukar took it upon himself to become the guardian of "the beast" and it was just a very few times that I had to gather courage and pray for safety and enter its cave to press those buttons or flip those switches. Whenever I had to I would take one step inside and lean in as close to the beast and do whatever deed needed to be done and then turn and run as fast as a cheetah before it would belch and groan and the old shed it called home would shudder.
What a year that was!
It was right after I graduated from college and I took my first teaching position in Sleetmute, Alaska. My sister and I accepted the two teaching positions in the one room school. We flew to Alaska from Pennsylvania landing in Anchorage. We then boarded a small plane and flew to the village of Aniak. The next leg of our journey offered me the new experience of flying in a three seater, one propeller plane which skimmed over trees and seemed to brush sides of mountains to land in the tiny Yupik Eskimo village of Sleetmute. At that time, way back in 1977, the population of Sleetmute was hovering at about 70 souls. We landed on the graveled airstrip with a bounce and rattle that probably shook the teeth out of the dear departed in the neighboring graveyard!
Anyhow, a trip upriver in a dory (that's another story), overnight at a lodge (goes with the dory trip story) and then the next day back downriver and we were deposited on the shores of the Kuskokwim River. We hiked up the hill to see our white, clapboard, two story one-room schoolhouse. The guy delivering us to our new teaching assignment said, as he left to climb aboard the two-seater plane, "Your call number is WGG84 Sleetmute and radio in every morning before and after school. Make sure you keep the generator at 60. See you." That was it and he was gone; taking flight like a bird trying to avoid being it's predator's next meal.
My sister and I just looked at each other while standing surrounded by our backpacks, sleeping bags, and our two precious puppy dogs we brought with us cuddled in our coats.
We turned back to survey what we had gotten ourselves into. There stood the school and the apartment attached that was our new home. Sure enough out back in a shed was the school generator. A great big lummox of a creature. It had all kinds of dials and pipes, switches and buttons and neither of us having a clue on how to keep it at "60"; whatever "60" meant.
We quickly learned from a man that introduced himself to us as Zukar that the school generator is the only 'lectric in the village. It runs at 60 and anything over or under is not good for it. If it goes out, there is no heat, power or running water for the school (and for its two new teachers).
Over the year that we lived in Sleetmute I learned to know just by the sound that mechanical beast made if it needed a bit of fine tuning or if it was about to go down in the throes of death. Fortunately Zukar took it upon himself to become the guardian of "the beast" and it was just a very few times that I had to gather courage and pray for safety and enter its cave to press those buttons or flip those switches. Whenever I had to I would take one step inside and lean in as close to the beast and do whatever deed needed to be done and then turn and run as fast as a cheetah before it would belch and groan and the old shed it called home would shudder.
What a year that was!