I'm Just Her Father: A Father and Daughter's Alaska

Credits

The Characters

What I Meant to Say…

Libbie Martin, marketer by day, writer by night (and weekends), an obsessive-compulsive over-achieving perfectionist with control freak tendencies…

I grew up on Air Force bases, which could be why I’m slightly OCD (okay, no cracks about the word slightly over there). Books and writing became my way of dealing with constant moves and the scrutiny showered on an officer’s kid. When my parents divorced, we moved from Anchorage, Alaska, to San Francisco. I was 13, just into junior high school, thrown into a cosmopolitan world I’d never experienced. Books again became my world.

After graduating from UOP in Stockton, with a BAIS in International Studies and what we used to call an M.R.S. degree, I spent the next 14 years raising my three daughters and playing suburban housewife.

During this time, I wrote, but sporadically, because there just weren’t enough hours in the day. I was always frustrated, wanting to put the words that are always rushing through my head onto paper. And then, I met a man named Jon Herron, who owned a small press science fiction magazine, and I joined his staff. I learned editing, layout, and how to be a writer, and did some really good work.

Then my girls grew up, and it was no longer cool to be the daughter of the room mom or worse, substitute teacher. Empty nest syndrome was ready to ambush me, so I returned to school to get a master’s degree in History. But while at Sac State, I needed an outlet for the eight hours I was on campus every day—a two-hour commute isn’t conducive to going home for lunch, and as my daughters put it, even I couldn’t study that much. So I went to the school newspaper hoping they’d make me a gofer and maybe give me a chance to write once in a while.

They made me an editor; I changed my major and the rest is history.

I worked as a reporter for about five years, and eventually landed in Fairbanks as a copy editor for the News-Miner. But the news industry has changed, and not in ways I was willing to accept. So I went to the dark side, as we purist journalists used to say, and am now in marketing and public relations. But I still write.

Having a short attention span is a good thing, for a writer. I’ve done so many different kinds of jobs—blackjack dealer, substitute teacher in an inner city high school, technical writer for a local hospital, office manager for various non-profits, lots of Girl Scout jobs—that I have so many stories and characters in my head. Sometimes I feel like there’s no room for me in there, so I have to write some of them out.

Writing is pure art, but you can’t eat art, and creditors insist on cash these days (go figure), so my day job takes up most of my time, but I never really stop writing—I never, ever stop writing. Even when I was raising three daughters and running them all over town, I wrote or read about writing or helped other writers write or thought about writing.

My daughters are all grown, two with babies of their own. We’re holding our hopes out for the youngest, finishing up pharmacy school. She’ll take care of me in my old age, right? (She promises to put me in a nice home.)

I am a reader, still, and right now I have so many unread books waiting for my time, I don’t think I can die until I’m about 207 (A caring universe wouldn’t take me before I finished them, would it?). I’ve snagged the ultimate gig for a reader, that of book reviewer for the Daily News-Miner.

I’m Just Her Father…

I’m Merle (Mel) Martin, Libbie’s father. I do not have any psychological disorders—I just cause them. I am a writer/editor by day—a listener to Celtic folk music by night. I was born in San Francisco, became an Air Force officer and was subsequently assigned to Texas, Montana, Virginia, and Alaska. I resigned my commission after five years in Anchorage, where I then spent 10 more years. I taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage and then directed technology for the state court system.

The majestic Alaska experience came at a price of a divorce, my children leaving the state, and the loss of my second wife to cancer. However, my colleague and friend Tom Sexton eased me into poetry. It was great therapy (some of my family think I could use a different type of therapy now). I have been writing ever since and published five books of poetry. I left Alaska to get a Ph.D. at Texas A&M. (Yes, I am a Texas Aggie! No jokes please.)

I have taught in Alaska, Texas, Mississippi, California, Washington, Thailand, and the Russian Far East. I cannot seem to hold a job! I have been the Managing Editor of Remodel Spokane magazine and the Poetry Editor for SpokeWrite. I live in Spokane, Washington, where my beautiful wife Dotty died two years ago. We have a blended family of nine children, 21 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren. I love life—especially my life!

I am honored by and enthused at coauthoring this book with my daughter Libbie. She is fun to work with and has 30 years of literary and editorial experience with which to cover up my blunders. However, she disrespects me at times. She used to call me ‘Pops’, but now is calling me Poops! She said that was a key stroke error. Sure!

Chill, dude—I could call you ‘Pups’ or ‘Pips’. How about ‘Paps’?

How about ‘distinguished’?

Now that’s pushing it See! What can I say? I’m just her father.

Scrambled Eggs

A scramble of family, jobs, and other life anomalies

She giggles me back to a room full of eyes glowing at her and me, as we melt ages on Grandpa’s knee.

—MERLE MARTIN, GRANDPA’S KNEE

Cori, Rika, and CJ, 1992

Summer of 1980— To Elizabeth

By Merle P. Martin

Circumstance happens,

but most often

it knows what it is doing.

Patricia was dead—

My children had left.

I was in Alaska—

alone, plunging into Hell.

Heavy drinking,

in-and-out women.

My work was suffering,

my writing pitiful,

my self-esteem hospice.

You began to send me letters from

that remote village

where no one spoke English for

miles around.

For that six months of

your junior year,

you were a Japanese daughter,

a novice rose-gardener.

Remember how they laughed

at the picture of me with a

reddish beard.

Then you returned to California.

I hoped your letters

would continue.

I was shocked—overjoyed —

to learn,

you decided to spend the

summer with me,

ignoring your Mother’s pleas to

stay home.

We didn’t do a lot together. You

found a job and friends,

cooked Japanese meals for us.

I showed you off to everyone

I knew.

You were another voice besides

mine in a before-then echoing,

eerie house.

not just any voice—my daughter’s

voice.

Your aura lasted long after you left.

I began to level out, breathe again.

Within a year, I applied to and was

accepted at Texas A&M,

met Dotty, left Alaska after

fourteen years there,

now enjoy a most enviable life.

Did you change that life?

Did you reverse my plunge?

I don’t know— it might have been

merely circumstantial.

Circumstance does happen,

but most often, it knows

what it is doing.

It takes real-life work to grow a kid up

By Elizabeth A. Martin

Parents are funny things—we all seem to have the same fears regarding our children.

We bring these little humans into the world, knowing full well human beings are not easily molded and shaped. Yet we persist in seeing these little people as extensions and reflections of who we are, and so try to turn them into something they might not want to be.

Then, when we are sure the phrase, Do you want fries with that? is going to be the entirety of their business lexicon, we despair.

What will people think?

Don’t lie—you know that phrase has crossed your mind more than once in relation to your kid(s). Us big human beings, having sworn we would never, ever be our mother (or father, as the gender case may be), turn around and try to make Mini Mes out of our babies. We see them as an extension of our values and beliefs, so if they screw up, we think the world is pointing a finger at us and yelling, J’accuse! You are a BAD PARENT!

I don’t know about you, but I think I’d rather be a serial killer than a BAD PARENT.

A casual conversation with an acquaintance when my kids were younger got me thinking. He was despairing about his 15-year-old son’s lack of motivation, dislike of reading, and general ne’er-do-well attitude. His mind was filled with visions of his progeny either living on Dad’s couch for the next 30 years, or spending weekends performing community service for the law enforcement community.

I relate and empathize with him. Because for a long while, I had a daughter who’s entire vocabulary revolved around the motto, High potential, low achiever. There goes that finger, wagging in my head—Bad parent!

She didn’t get the concept of homework—the teacher assigned it, she didn’t do it. Or she did it, but didn’t turn it in. Her punishment for teachers she didn’t get along with—not doing the assignments. That’ll teach ‘em. Her GPA was lower than—well, it was low. Leave it at that.

We fought, argued, demanded, yelled, cried, screamed, grounded, ordered, ignored, and cringed at the thought our daughter might end up being the queen of food stamps. When she asked to take on a part-time job at age 17, her parents hesitated. Her grades were okay, but she’d never been one to smoke the academic community and her participation in family activities and chores was nil. Would a job make her even worse?

But we caved in the face of her resistance (pouting and slamming doors can wear down even the best of us). And she became a McDonald’s diva.

And I am finding it was probably the best decision we have ever made, even if we made it by default.

After six months in fast food, she decided Would you like to super size that? is not the key to success or even happiness. Suddenly, college looked really good to her, and she began researching in earnest. Her homework was done before it was due, and her grades climbed (a 3.4 GPA looks really good after a 1.3, believe me).

And it wasn’t just school that benefited. Although chores didn’t get done in a timely manner without nagging, she became much less like a pouty teen and more like an adult. It’s hard to define where the changes are, because a lot of it has to do with her attitude towards authority—represented by me—and family and life in general. She was much less me-centered than I remember being at 17. And I actually caught her reading Time magazine and watching The Discovery Channel—and there was no school assignment attached to either.

Isn’t that a ‘grown-up’ thing, this wanting to be informed about the world, just to be informed about the world?

She’s gotten a great sense of money and what things cost—not just the monetary price tag, but the man-hours involved in any endeavor. You can’t talk that kind of lesson into a kid—he or she has to figure it out by themselves. Some kids never do.

So that spectre of a skeleton hand shaking in my face and the eternity in Mommy Dearest purgatory is fading.

But… I still have two daughters waiting in line…

Sea Stroll By Merle P. Martin

I walk sea seams,

in wistful dreams.

Gulls cry.

Waves reply.

The moon is shy.

Stars stretch the sky.

My soul coincides

with night.

In youthful years,

I was slave to the sea.

But, it’s abandoned me,

except in dreams.

Granddaughters By Merle P. Martin

Granddaughters pose a dilemma with me,

No matter where on the family tree.

They steal my heart …

Then drift apart …

Some man provides them romance and ecstasy.

Young October By Merle P. Martin

October in most of the Northern Hemisphere marks colder weather. That is not the case in San Francisco. There, the summers are so foggy – cold October almost seems warm. As Mark Twain said, "I