During the week of March 15-21 there was an article in the Juneau Empire online about the downtown public library celebrating 20 years in its present location atop the parking garage.  (Link to the article: http://juneauempire.com/stories/032009/loc_412540983.shtml)  The garage is right on the waterfront where the cruise ships dock in summer.  It has great views of Gastineau Channel and Douglas Island.  I remember the library’s earlier location in the building that now houses the city museum up on the hilly Main Street and near the governor’s mansion and State Office Building (known locally as the S.O.B).  After that it was in the ground floor of the “Spamcan” building that’s farther down the hill on Main Street.  The article describes how the city was lucky that the opportunity to build on the parking garage arose.  It’s a great location.  To get to the library, you have to take a single elevator up 4-5 floors.  They’re labeled 1, B, C, D, and L.  While ascending the elevator makes a funny buzzing sound at each floor that some have jokingly compared to flatulence.  I once rode up with some English cruise ship officers and one of them jokingly said “excuse me” at each floor.  I hope they haven’t changed the elevator.  I remember going to the library to do research for a debate for tenth grade English.  My debate partner and I were distracted by the view of the sailboats in Gastineau Channel.  And then there were those many times spent sitting in the comfy chairs with views of the channel reading from large selection of magazines.

I’ve been to other public libraries since then: the old downtown Seattle library and its uniquely designed successor; the large Los Angeles Central Library with its homeless patrons, unrivaled collection and availability of books and audiobooks (people in L.A. don’t seem to read as much as those in Seattle, though I think that’s changing).  Juneau has another impressive library at the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) where I became an expert with microfilm machines.  My wife’s favorite is the public library in Renton, Washington that straddles the Cedar River.  These days, I make do with the Covina Public Library and the Cal State L.A. library.  But with all the libraries I’ve visited and frequented, the Downtown Juneau Library always figures prominently.  Happy 20th Anniversary!

Comment made on 1/26/2009 on article by Alma Harris in the Juneau Empire.  The comment has since been deleted since the Empire no longer allows comments.

url of the article:
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/122808/nei_371780951.shtml

Hi Mrs. Harris:

This is in response to your article, "Following the Freedom Trail" posted on www.juneauempire.com on December 28, 2008.

I was one of the students that traveled with you, your team teacher, and teachers aid to Boston and Washington D.C. back in the 1990’s.

I don’t remember the freedom trail as boring.  I liked how it went all through the city making it easy to find all the historical landmarks.  I also remember the white interior of the Old North Church and that sections of the pews had doors (and locks?) for the families that used to own them.  I also remember stopping by the Boston Common and seeing the memorial to 54th Massachusetts, the regiment of black soldiers that fought in the Civil War and were portrayed in the 1989 film Glory.  What impressed me was that the memorial was also shown at the end of the film.

You’re right, I did enjoy the Boston Celtics game and getting to see Larry Bird.  I remember him making a basket from half court.  Other memories include visiting Paul Revere’s grave.  Near the grave, a man was reading the inscription out loud.  He showed us his driver’s license revealing that his name was also Paul Revere.  I remember the teacher’s aid getting struck by a bicyclist while crossing the street and that time when we got lost driving us through Washington D.C. and you used a word that wasn’t on any of our vocabulary tests. :)

Your article really takes me back.  Now I want to dig out the journal we had to keep during the trip if I still have it.  It’s probably at my parent’s back in Juneau.  The trip really made history come alive and taught me how democracy works, but it also gave me a sense of the diversity and variety of America.  Prior to that trip, the only big city I had visited was Seattle.  After it I had visited Boston and Washington D.C. where there were the most African Americans I’d ever seen.  I believe we also flew over Los Angeles en route to their airport since our flight schedule was rearranged and I remember the city lights stretching out in all directions.  The experience greatly expanded my outlook and made me want to explore and experience more and I believe partially led to me settle in the L.A. area.  Thank you to you, your team teacher, and teacher’s aide opening our eyes.

I may return to the Boston area for a business trip this coming fall.  It would be my first time back since our trip.  Maybe this trip will back memories.

Note: this post was originally published on 12/10/2008 to a different site.

The other day (actually back in June or July, it’s taken me a while to type this up) I was reading an article online in the Juneau Empire, the newspaper of my original hometown: Juneau, Alaska.  I often read the paper online out of nostalgic curiosity.  The article was about proposed public transit plans in Juneau.  One of the plan descriptions mentioned the street Riverside Drive and that name struck a chord.  Riverside Drive sounded very familiar but I couldn’t place it because I kept mixing it up with Riverside County and the city of Riverside in Socal.  There’s also a street called Riverside Drive in Burbank.

I went to Google Maps and entered “Riverside Drive, Juneau, AK”.  The map when to a street in the first neighborhood I lived in Juneau with my family.  It was in the Mendenhall Valley area of Juneau that’s actually the first of three valleys I’ve lived in.  The other two are the San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley where I currently live.  I lived in the Mendenhall Valley (locally referred to as “the Valley”) from ages 6 to 9 roughly.  We didn’t live on Riverside Drive but it intersected our street and was a main thoroughfare that went alongside the Mendenhall River (hence the name).  The Valley wasn’t created by this river but by the famous Mendenhall Glacier.  There’s a park on Riverside drive that we used to frequent even after we left the Valley.  We played many of our soccer games there.

While scrolling through the map I noticed that Google had Streetview for Juneau.  The Streetview feature shows photos of what’s along the streets on the map.  They also have it for the L.A. area and the photo of our home shows my wife’s car parked outside.  They didn’t have Streetview for Seattle so I was surprised they had it for Juneau.  I went to the street where we lived in the Valley and found a Streetview photo of my former home.  It’s still there but it looks very different from when I lived there.  It used to be brown and is now blue.  I don’t remember the deck that’s now in the front though my mom said we had a patio.  But the driveway looks the same and I remember the ditch out front and the dirt road we lived on.  The house had a Century 21 sign on it implying that it might be for sale.  I looked I up on zillow.com and it was valued at less that our current home in Azusa.

The house across from my former home looks nearly identical how it did when we lived there.  Seeing that photo really gave me the feeling of déjà vu.  It’s nearly, if not exactly, the same color and most of the yard looks the same.  We knew the family that lived there well and I’ve been to that house several times.  They probably moved out a long time ago.

We didn’t live in the Valley very long but I have many memories from that time.  We knew many other kids in the neighborhood.  With its parks, wooded areas and all our friends’ houses the neighborhood was like one big playground.  But just before I turned 10 we moved out to a larger house on North Douglas Highway.  The pollution from the firewood smoke in the Valley was affecting my dad’s health and my parents felt the house was too small.  Our house in the North Douglas area was more isolated.  It didn’t have the neighborhood feel and we didn’t play with any neighborhood kids, though I babysat some of them.  But we adapted.  I lived there until I went to college and my parents still live there.

I’ve lived in about fifteen different places in four states and one foreign country.  Other than the first two when I was very young, I remember all of them.  They’ve all taught me something and shaped who I am today.