Going Down In Valdeez

February, 1975

I was standing there in front of the Pipeline Club in a fine misting rain with my hand still on the door of the taxi that had brought me in from the airport to Valdez, Alaska (pronounced Valdeez, so that the last syllable rhymes with disease, by the folks who lived thereabouts, folks who do not take the pronunciation of their town lightly and who are subject to become very pissed very quick if you do not come down hard on the eez, drawing it out in a long sibilant Z); I was standing there lookin...