Acknowledgments

It took a phenomenal amount of support to bring this book to life. Before I thank everyone, please allow me to apologize if I overlook anyone who helped me along the way. No doubt many more people deserve my thanks than I can possibly address in a few pages.

Many thanks to Caleb Seeling and Sonya Unrein for their dedication to authors in the Rocky Mountain region. I deeply appreciate them for giving my story an opportunity to find more readers and vice versa. Thank you to editor Debbie Vance for not only making sure this new edition looks pristine, but also for approaching it with all the delight of a joyful reader.

Thanks to Matthew Davis, for being the first person to believe in my story, and for his affection for “The Lost American.” For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought. I’m grateful you found me, Matt.

Thank you to Andrea Dupree, Michael Henry, and everyone at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, without whom I would not have had so many opportunities to refine and present my work, or to make my humble leap into the world of published authors. The mentoring, support, and camaraderie I’ve found at Lighthouse have proved invaluable; it is a shining beacon for Colorado writers.

Thanks, too, to the Denver Woman’s Press Club. It was lonely typing at home after so many years in noisy offices, and DWPC members not only offered support and encouragement, but delightful friendship and companionship that often kept me from going stir-crazy.

Loving thanks to my husband, Dale Jolley, for going well beyond our marriage vows in his support of my work and of me. He has heard almost every part of this book read aloud. Often he enjoyed it, sometimes he put up with it, and for both I’m grateful. Reading about your wife’s love life certainly goes beyond the vow, “for better or worse.” Perhaps it belongs under the category, “in sickness and health,” for at some points the penning of my most embarrassing truths seemed like a sickness, or fit of madness, that turned our house into an asylum, with all its blessings and curses. Dale, no one could be a truer friend.

Many thanks to the friends and colleagues who read and offered feedback on my manuscript, or parts of it, in its various stages, from unwieldy tome to final version, to another final version, and another: Mark Graham, Nobuko Graham, Candace Kearns Read, Kimberly Drake, Heather Hovis, Sarah Stires, Leila Mar, Karen Foster, Lyn Jenkins, Gay Pinder, Tammy Kilgore, Cynthia Zieminski, Lori Howell, Barbara Roos, and Diane Regan, to name most of them. My loving gratitude to my departed grandmother, Caroline Lee, who clarified important background material and who always reminded me that she was proud of my work.

A special thanks to Tricia Hackel for giving me my first journal in Alaska. I probably would have kept putting off journaling about my Alaskan experiences if it hadn’t been for her. Tricia’s thoughtful and intuitive gesture became the cornerstone for the creation of this memoir, though I didn’t know it at the time.

Thank you to all the fascinating, generous, intelligent, funny, colorful people I met on my travels: without you, there would be no story. I’m also deeply grateful to the friends and lovers whose lives have some part on these pages. Out of respect, I’ve done my best to disguise the identities of those who might be embarrassed by any of this memoir’s content, and to create amalgams of different people where it helped maintain the pace for readers.

A memoir is fraught with the potential for unintended offense, but the gift of writing about one’s life is the gift of finding grace even in the conflicts of our pasts. Please forgive me if you were present for any of the events I’ve described and remember it differently; I realize no picture looks the same to all people. It has never been my intent to make anyone look bad or foolish, but rather, to share my sense that none of us is alone in occasionally behaving badly or foolishly. Those who misbehaved on these pages have redeemed themselves with many acts of kindness, generosity, even heroism. I value every moment we’ve shared—the pain and tears as much as the laughter and joy. I believe we’ve learned much together, and since.

A book doesn’t fulfill its purpose until it finds a reader. So thank you to all my readers for helping this book fulfill its purpose. I sincerely hope you’ve received something in return.