<\/a>Vivian Faith Prescott \/ For the Capital City Weekly \n Mickey Prescott looks through binoculars on Wrangell Island.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
But here’s the good news: Dad did not die. He got better once all the family arrived from Florida, Seattle and Hawaii. As soon as we gathered in the hospital, stories like medicine, dosed the room. We laughed at old stories and learned new ones. In between our laughter and Dad’s nap he woke up and said, “You’re all going to miss me.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Vivian Faith Prescott \/ For the Capital City Weekly \n Howie Martindale and father-in-law Mickey Prescott get ready to fillet their halibut catch. Mickey’s Fishcamp, Wrangell.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
After a couple weeks, delaying impending death, Dad was sent home to hospice, meaning, his recliner, his own bed, the dogs, my clam chowder and halibut pizza, and a view of the sea. His fast-growing rare cancerous tumor is back, and he doesn’t want to endure any more chemo or radiation or surgery. The doctor said it could be a couple months or a year, that they just don’t know.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Lately, it feels like I’m floating with a life jacket on and a pair of binoculars. I can see things more clearly with my binoculars, yet there’s a sensation of floating, waiting, drifting. Sometimes words don’t come out right on the page. I want to watch whales with my dad one more time. I want to pick spruce tips with him and go jigging for halibut one more time.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Now, with binoculars in hand, Dad sits in his recliner looking through the glass sliding door out to Etolin Island across Zimovia Straits. “There’s been a whale out there for a while.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Lately, we talk about death as if it’s out front trolling in an open skiff, and not hidden in the stump of a tree. I ask him to record a story for everyone about the times he “almost bit it.”:<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Vivian Faith Prescott \/ For the Capital City Weekly \n Mickey Prescott and one of his trail crew, Glenn Decker. USFS, Wrangell Alaska.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
It was a nice spring day and flat calm. We had a Gillcraft, an 18-foot boat with a small cabin on it. I was married, maybe in my early 20s, in the1960s. Me and my friend Lance Ingle headed to Salmon Bay on the north end of Prince of Wales Island. We always got steelhead there. The wind came up. We were fishing in a stream and the trees were blowing over around us. We looked out of the lagoon and huge waves were hitting the island out front.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
We couldn’t go home, and we couldn’t camp on the beach because trees were blowing down. We had to anchor out. We only had a camp stove, one sleeping bag and no food because we thought were only going to be gone for the day. Lance’s dad knew where we were but no one else did.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The next day it looked calmer, but we couldn’t go north so we tried to go through Ossipee Channel between Shrubby and Bushy Island. The tide was ripping through there with 8-foot waves.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
I asked Lance if he thought we should put life jackets on, and Lance said what for? I told him, well, they’d be able to find our bodies then.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The boat was icing up from the waves and it started to list. We had to chip the ice off our boat before we headed for Nesbit Reef. It was white caps all the way across. Then the tide switched, and we headed to Round Point when a wave took out the boat’s windows. I had to hold a rain jacket up against the window. We pulled into a nook and laid up for hours.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The next day it was calmer, so we ran across Chichagof. It was rough but doable. It took us eleven hours to get back. Normally, a ride would’ve taken an hour or so. We didn’t find out until later that Lance’s dad, Sharky, had called the Coast Guard but it was too bad to fly. The wind was clocked at 110 miles per hour. And the warm spring weather had dropped 20 degrees that day. I don’t think we ever put on our life jackets.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
I’ve heard most of Dad’s stories, but some are not familiar. Either way, storytelling must be good for the body and spirit because Dad says he doesn’t know why he’s still here. “It must be because I have more fishing to do.” It seemed his blood pressure and kidney, heart, lung, blood sugar all improved when we suggested that we were going to put the boat in the water soon, because it’s almost spring.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Vivian Faith Prescott \/ For the Capital City Weekly \n Mickey Prescott picking spruce tips with Kéet in Wrangell.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Together, my brother and I don’t look like a meeting of mourners. My brother, who’s visiting from Florida, is helping to care for our dad at our fishcamp. It’s morning and we have bed hair and we’re in Dad’s cabin sitting in lawn chairs, dipping Dad’s favorite burned cookies (that my brother burned especially for him) into our coffee. Our dad is sitting in his recliner with Kéet and Oscar curled nearby telling us another story about how he almost died:<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t