by Peter Twitchell
When I was a teenager through my 50s I didn’t know of physical pain. For one thing I was tireless and for 50 years I worked 3 to 4 jobs in a week besides my regular job. My strength and youth made it all possible.
In the early 70s in Bethel due to a lot of drinking many cab drivers lost their jobs due to drinking on the job and made it possible for me to drive for people like Hugh and his brother Faye Short. I drove a Kusko cab, Rabbit Cab, Yellow Cab and Alaska Cabs.
I was able to work my 8 to 5 job daily Monday through Friday and then do custodial work at the Braund building, City Shop, and the court building. I worked tirelessly to help raise my family, harvested salmon every summer, hunted moose and waterfowl in the fall, and ptarmigan and rabbits in the winter.
I enjoyed walking and hunting in the winter in the willows on Cow Island and track rabbit and ptarmigan behind ASHA Housing.
Walking 2 to 3 miles behind Bethel was a bit challenging because hunters on snowmachines Made it difficult to get close enough to ptarmigan and jack rabbits on the frozen tundra. I did buy a Ski-doo snowmachine from Joe Mendola In 1971.
The machine was much faster than walking and I could be miles and miles upriver from Bethel, back of Bethel, below Bethel, and sometimes stuck in deep snow where I had to lift and pull the snowmachine out of deep snow in order to bring it home with my catches of ptarmigan and jack rabbits.
I am now in my early 70s and I’ve endured six surgeries and operations in the last two years, primarily due in a large part to an aging body. The hardest surgery I experienced was when I had a ruptured hernia.
This occurred when I took a large cart filled with cases of water, food, and sanitizing supplies and pushed it through an inch of snow to my truck which was 200 feet away in the parking lot.
I am truly grateful for medical doctors, nurses, and support staff who help us on a daily basis in our elder years and Creator God who has helpers in the field of science and medicine to help find cures for viruses and diseases that would otherwise shorten our lives. Scientists have helped develop vaccines to keep us healthy and strong through all our life.
Life really is a precious gift that Almighty Creator God Jesus Christ of Nazareth our Savior gives. Hallelujah.
