I'm old,
but I'm not dead yet.
Here we go.
Five, four.
Three, two, one.
Anything where I get air time
and I don't have to worry about the landing,
I get at least 1 second
two... I'm convinced the wings
give me another piece of another second.
The wind, give me another piece of another second.
I get some air time.
I was sitting in this little bar
having a drink and this young man that I met
and he just had that kind of energy. He just looked at me and
and I looked at him and gave him a hug and having a drink.
And he said, ‘We’re gonna bungee jump.’
I said, you're kidding me.
That's on my bucket list.
And so
I followed him
and waited till I caught somebod
kind of off on the side and went up.
And you know, kind of did a pleading
you know, Oliver Twist thing.
Like, you know,
I don't have any equipment on my own, but,
you know,
if you would let me rent, beg, b
don't have a lot of money either.
But I just I would so love to...
And he said, okay.
Five, four, three, two,
one. Bungee!
And had the time of my life.
And I think that
healed me a lot too, because like that really will
get your heart soaring again.
Five, four, three, two, one.
You know, there's so much, there's so much out here.
You can fly, kind of spread
your wings and fly.
That was awesome!
This is where me and Quinoa came
He could
he could run forever out here and just be totally,
totally happy and I could watch him do it
and be totally, totally happy.
Quinoa was
my furry angel that found me.
And he just he saved me.
That boy saved me.
So 11 years we’re together.
He was muscular dystrophy traine
So he was always, like, three feet away from me.
You know, that dog has been beside me his whole life.
You know, your animals
for for some folks those are like your kids.
And then he died November
22nd of diabetes. Poured the savings
account into running up north
trying to get... back and for trying to get it under contr
I'm very fortunate that I retired
in June of last year,
so we got to spend
Well, we got to spend his last time
doing quality time, you know, and that
that's hugely important to me.
So
left my wrinkled old keister here.
I didn't have anybody else, you know,
nobody else I was responsible for
And all my bills were paid didn’t owe anybody any
money, it’s like, okay.
So I just moved me off into the remote and said, Oh, whatever.
But I kind of landed in
a magical community.
It's it's a special place
come through here,
you're going to feel it.
Chitina sits on the Copper River.
We are northeast of Anchorage,
about 200 and some miles, 225, 30 miles something like that.
Year-round is like 60 people,
60 to 70, and about 20 of them are children.
A winter will turn us all into a tight family,
but all families are dysfunctional.
So I'll just leave it at that.
People scrape by here, they do what they can.
I always love that saying we don't live here
to make money.
We make money so we can live here.
So nobody's really rich here.
They want to live here.
It's a really beautiful, quiet place.
It's not like any place else.
When it's 40 below,
nobody cares if you're a Democrat or Republican.
No one cares.
Are you doing okay?
Do you need anything?
Uncle Tom's Tavern.
This is the heartbeat.
As far as I can tell.
This is the heartbeat of the town.
And it's not just it's not just alcohol.
Trick or treat! Grab a handful!
We have a local band and so we get to hear them
about usually once a week.
I like music that feeds my soul.
I think I probably danced up Bourbon Street
first time when I was about five years old.
Most of my years were tortured, either lived hand to mouth
or I worked so hard burning the candle at both ends.
And but I started coming here and met really,
really, really magically beautiful beings.
And it really started shifting and healing my insides and
heal them enough,
love starts blossoming again.
And coming across
people at my stage of the game at my age in life
that's important.
Gimme a squeeze first! Oh, yeah,
These are people I'm closing out my chapters with.
I think, you know, that's that's pretty darn important.
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