What I does is who I be: Narrative

The faded carpet in the Frontier Flying gate at the Fairbanks International Airport was -- at some point in the last 30 years -- bright orange. The News-Miner office used to have carpet just like it, installed in the '70s, I'm told.

I had plenty of time to contemplate things like that as I waited through delay after delay from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. There were wind shears over Anchorage that were supposed to die down--any--minute--now, so I patiently soaked in the kitchy surroundings (ooh, a model recreation of a steamboat!), and every 30 minutes I was informed that it would be yet another 30 minutes ... and another ... until my flight would depart.

After a lunch of pocky sticks and whatever was not unappealing in the snack machine, I grew weary and managed to catch a few winks until a fellow passenger, a Nanooks fan on his way down to see the UAF hockey team, roused me and informed me that we were boarding in five minutes.

Quickquickquick. Check your stuff. Voice recorder. Pens. Pencils (It's October; ink freezes every now and then). Paper. Super-versatile clipboard. Both cell phones, work and 941, are they off?

I was parched and still groggy from my nap when I climbed aboard the 20-seater that would hopefully make it all the way to Anchorage.

As the plane descended over the shores of Anchorage, I didn't have that fond yearning feeling I usually get when I see a coast these days. Nope, my sinuses were acting up and I didn't get the sleep I had been hoping for on the flight. I was daydreaming of a Rockstar and some DayQuil like an eighth-grader dreams of saving the day and getting the girl.

As we taxied to the terminal at Ted Stevens International Airport, I chatted with five-time Iditarod winner Rick Swenson about high school football (that was a fun sentence to write).

I checked my cell phone: 3:58 p.m. The first of three games I'm here to cover kicks off in two minutes. So much for caffiene and medicine.

Out of breath from sprinting with my luggage, I hailed a cab. The driver was a Middle Eastern man with a cartoonish accent.

Driver: "Where we go?"
Me: "Anchorage Football Stadium."
Driver: "Ahhhhh, stadium?"
Me: "Yeah, um, Where they play high school football. Anchorage Football Stadium, that's the name of it."
Driver: "OK, OK. We go."

We passed a "Welcome to Alaska" sign as his cell phone rung. He picked it up. Whoever was on the other line was getting his life story. His old home in Arizona. The reasons he moved up here. Why yes, he'd love to move to Kansas. He can cook. Boy did he love to talk about his cooking ("I cook-a for you. I cook for you.").

Holy crap, he was talking to a woman who'd found him on the Internet! Very interesting indeed, but it was 4:17, and I was getting antsy.

He must have noticed me squirming and staring at him in the rear-view mirror. He stopped wooing the woman, who wouldn't give him her phone number, and dialed another number.

"Dispatch? Yes, where is the football stadium? Ah, Anchorage Stadium? Ah..."

The Arizona-born Persian chef had no idea where we were going the whole time!

He was fumbling to describe the place, so I asked for the phone. OK, I said, "Gimme the damn phone," but you get the point.

I gave Top Chef taximan $15 for my $25 ride and didn't ask for a receipt. I arrived halfway through the first quarter -- thankfully not as late as I was expecting -- with ample time before halftime to meet with the media relations person, grab a program with all the team rosters, stow my luggage in the press box and find the Anchorage Daily News writer (Kevin Klott, awesome dude) to let him know that I'll need his stats.

With my brain going a million mph faster than my hands, I took some play-by-play notes from the press box before heading down to the visitors sidelines. On the field, it struck me: The scene was unbelievable.

Directly behind the press box was a row of mountains the likes of which I hadn't seen since driving the Alaskan Highway. Only this time, there was a football game in front of it. If the game was Florida-FSU, it would have been official: The plane had crashed and I am in heaven.

Otherwise, the game was, well, like every other game I'd seen this season. In Alaska football, a pass is considered a trick play. The season's too short for a quarterback and his receivers to smooth out any timing issues. Thus, these kids are the perfect players to receive a scholarship to Brown in 1904.

The winners preened; the losers bawled like someone just hit their puppy with a Honda Civic. And so forth.

When Game 1 was over (the Interior guys lost), I hustled to the Sullivan Arena across the street, where there was a collge hockey tournament that allowed me in for free to use the building's WiFi. There were five wireless servers available. Only one worked -- very slowly at that.

I had a window of about 50 minutes between games, not enough time to write a full story with quotes and such. I might have been able to squeeze a total story in, actually, but the connection was so slow that e-mailing the story was a 20-minute ordeal. So I knocked out a few paragraphs for the Web site and scooted back to the sidelines for Game 2. The visitors were once again the Interior team, which was helpful since I like to stand on the guest sidelines to be close to the marking sticks.

The game kicked off around dusk, which with the aformentioned scenery was another truly majestic moment. Game 2 featured the Interior team I was banking on for another trip to Anchorage for the championship game next week. They lost a heartbreaker.

Too bad, so sad. I'd been talking to kids fresh off season-ending losses for weeks, so I was becoming immune to the teary-eyed musings of swollen-muscled young men. I put my game face on, the understandingly soft, contemplative look I usually reserve for people who tell me how afraid they are of Obama, and headed into the blubbering mass of humanity that once was a football team.

Only -- it got to me this time. These kids were upset in ways I hadn't seen outside of funerals and breakups, falling to their knees and such. That outpouring combined with the salty reek of postgame jerseys made it hard to keep from welling up a bit. Some of it was comically gratuitous, too, so refraining from chuckling also proved to be a chore.

So there I was, cutting through a circle of depressed 18-year-olds, fighting the forces of my own sentimentality.

Quotes, written in my huge illegible scrawl, were soon ready on my notepad, and I jogged to Sullivan Arena. It was 10:45 p.m. when I opened my laptop. At 11:05, I hit "send" for the finished Game 1 story.

Oh, crud. My bag was in the press box.

I made a wedge with my forearms and hustled through the crowd, now departing from the hockey tournament. I sprinted across the parking lot that separated the venues, dodging SUVs that had "Go Wildcats!" and "#34! GATA!" written on the windows. A few times, I came close to becoming a window dressing myself.

Press box -- locked. The guy with the keys -- gone. My second story -- not yet started. My deadline -- 25 minutes.

I sprinted back, nearly avoiding death by SUV a several more times. I filed my story five minutes past deadline, which was about 10 minutes earlier than I had feared I would.

Danny Martin, a fellow N-M sports writer who was covering the hockey tournament, and I split a cab to the hotel.

No restaurants were open nearby, so I dialed up Pizza Hut. Large, pinappley goodness was on its way. It cost $22, which probably seems horrendous to anyone reading this in the Lower 48. Honestly, the girl on the phone could have said $100. I'd have paid it. I hadn't eaten for 13 hours, and my wind sprints in the parking lot didn't help matters.

Waiting for lunch/dinner to come. I watched "Survivorman" feast on bugs in Africa. I cranked up the volume to drown out the couple in the adjacent room, who were drunk and hurling swear words at each other. I had just finished folding my clothes so they'd be presentable the next day (my clothes, toothbrush, deoderant were all safely hidden in a press box about two miles away), so I answered the pizza man's knock in boxers and a T-shirt.

I didn't even look at the TV while I ate. My eyes were fixated on the wall, in its gloriously one-coat-painted state, and though of nothing. Just truly blanked out.

Was I ready to do it again tomorrow? I'm never ready, but I do it anyway.