My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [19]
My entire team was on board, and all I could do was watch. The other car finally stopped about ten feet short of my bumper. We both smiled nervously and fled. The highway was soon closed by a collision involving several vehicles.
Get me to the starting line, please!
A jet carrying my family touched down in Anchorage five days before the race. The visit represented their first family trip since 1985 when my mom had hauled the five of us to a wedding in Minnesota. The group included my brother Coleman, his wife Bonnie, my brother Blaine, my sisters Leigh and Karen, my mom Fanchon, and her sister Margo. Only Karen had visited Alaska before.
I couldn’t spare any time to play tour guide. The family checked into an Anchorage hotel and drove to Wasilla in a rental van. It was icy, and my mother and aunt barely made it from the driveway into Cyndi’s house without falling.
“They’re so small!” my sister Leigh said, seeing sled dogs for the first time.
“This one’s more like I would expect,” Blaine said, pointing to Harley. “THIS IS A DOG! You sure these other scrawny ones will make it?”
Inside the living room, I felt like a contestant on a game show, answering a dozen questions at once. Cyndi’s house was equipped with a woodstove and an oil heater for backup. In my rush to get ready, I’d let the stove cool. The room temperature, probably in the high 50s, felt balmy to me, in my long underwear. Along with all their other questions, my mother, brothers, and sisters kept mentioning the weather. I patiently shared what I knew about Alaska statistics.
“Hey Brian,” Coleman said finally, “you realize we’re freezing here.”
My mother seconded that opinion. “If you look around, we’re all still wearing our coats.”
I got a late start Thursday. Moonshadow Kennel driver Tom Daily and I bumped into each other at a gas station in Anchorage. Both of us were lost, pleading with strangers for directions to the Clarion Hotel, the site of the Iditarod’s mandatory pre-race meeting.
The streets were slippery. A guy in a small car rammed me. I jumped out, fearing a catastrophe. The dog truck was unscratched, but the car’s grill was smashed. The guy just stood there, staring at the damage.
“Look,” I said, “this was clearly your fault. You agree, don’t you?”
He nodded yes.
“Good, because I don’t have time to mess with cops.”
I roared off, leaving him standing by the ruined car.
Twelve mushers, including Daily and me, missed the first roll call. Jim Kershner, who was again serving as race marshal, fined us $500 apiece. Then I found out that fines wouldn’t be collected until and unless I again entered the race in some future year. A reprieve. I put the fine out of my mind. Nothing mattered beyond the starting line on Saturday.
The Egan Center ballroom was packed. Last-minute withdrawals cut the number of teams to 75. No matter. My early entry had paid off. My name was number 3 5 on the list, meaning that I’d be drawing for position with others in the top half of the field.
The actual drawing was a tedious affair. Kershner held up a boot filled with buttons marked with starting position numbers. One by one, we mushers reached for a number, then stepped up to the podium in front of a huge Iditarod banner and thanked friends and sponsors. Folks at my table checked off the positions as they were announced.
I lined up ahead of Terry Adkins and Nels Anderson. The three of us were drawing for the last starting positions in the first half of the draw. Afterward, Kershner would refill the boot with buttons representing starting positions 38-75 for mushers, like Madman, who had signed up after that first day of registration in July, so many months ago.
As we awaited our turn for position, I bantered with Adkins, a true Iditarod legend.
When the mushers set out for Nome in the inaugural 1973 race, Redington talked the U.S. Air Force into letting Adkins, a Kentucky-born