Author Archives: wmergler

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Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler ANCHORAGE Alaska—(Weekly Hubris)—7/18/11—An old friend—Bev—died back in January of this year. I attended her funeral then and the family’s visitation. Tomorrow, she is going to be buried in a cemetery plot here in Anchorage. But, wait, you might say: This is July! She’s been dead for six months! And, [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler Author’s Note: I wrote this column a couple of years ago, but now I feel it is important to recycle it. Another summer is here. The “club members” are back at our airports in full force, and I think maybe this all needs to be said again. ANCHORAGE Alaska—(Weekly [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler ANCHORAGE Alaska—(Weekly Hubris)—6/20/11—Last night, I watched the DVD of the latest in a long list of film versions of Charles Dickens’ famous classic novel, Oliver Twist. This version, filmed in 2007 for the BBC, is directed by Coky Giedroyc and stars Timothy Spall as Fagin, Tom Hardy as Bill [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler ANCHORAGE Alaska—(Weekly Hubris)—6/6/11—In Ray Bradbury’s wonderful classic, Dandelion Wine, there is a now-famous chapter in which the young protagonist, Douglas Spaulding, age 12, as soon as school is out for the summer, puts on a pair of tennis shoes for the first time since the previous September. Bradbury’s description [...]

The Vanishing (& More Haunted Than Ever) Bookshop Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler ANCHORAGE Alaska—(Weekly Hubris)—5/16/11—We just lost our Borders bookstore. It finally closed its doors recently, after several really depressing weeks of clearance sales. The last time I went in there, about two weeks ago, it looked very much like a casualty of [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler ANCHORAGE Alaska—(Weekly Hubris)—4/11/11—Pity the poor, follickly-challenged male. Someone’s got to. He is the unsung schlemiel of our trendy society, and no amount of depression or anger or lame, self-deprecating humor on his part keeps him from being a joke in the world. Something there is that loves to laugh [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler Note: The following column was written two or three years ago, but I think it bears publishing again at this time. The young woman—I’ll still call her Molly—who is the subject of my piece came into the bookstore again today. She is still young, still lovely, still vibrant with [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler Note to Readers: The following story is absolutely true, but I have changed some of the names. Mr. Pettigrew was not really named Pettigrew, but he may still be alive (though it seems unlikely, since these events took place nearly half a century ago) and may have family somewhere. [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler ANCHORAGE, AK—(Weekly Hubris)—2/14/11—Last summer, during the very height of the tourist season, I noticed two elderly women from Kansas or Iowa or Idaho (I don’t recall exactly which one), hovering raptly over a Sarah Palin display in a downtown Anchorage gift shop. I was well aware that the owner [...]

Above The Timberline by Wayne Mergler ANCHORAGE, AK—(Weekly Hubris)—1/31/11—A while back, while channel-surfing, a predominantly male activity that I have fallen into (I never actually watch an entire show, just flit around, curious as to what’s on), I came upon a sitcom in which two middle-aged men were talking about “dating.” One character, a wild [...]