Memories of Wasilla

Lawrence Henrey in The American Spectator.

Wasilla comes into play because, having sobered up, I suddenly found myself with quite a lot of money on hand, in cash. That's one of the cultural markers of Alaska: having a lot of money. Having a lot of money young. And, in Alaska, just about everybody flies. So I decided to take flying lessons, something I had always wanted to do.

A friend of the band put me in touch with a flying instructor named Mark. Mark told me to meet him at the Wasilla airport Sunday at 9 a.m....

...I cruised the entire town in a matter of minutes, seeing no airport. So I stopped at the Iditarod Cafe, an all-American kind of diner and grill festooned with souvenirs of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, and asked where the airport was.

"Right out there," said the man behind the counter, pointing to the back door.

I opened the back door, stepped out, and nearly got beheaded by a roaring tail-dragger, taxiing on the gravel....

He's got some points to make, too. Read it all.