{"id":1115,"date":"2010-12-08T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T08:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blogblog\/?p=1115"},"modified":"2010-12-08T22:15:05","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T18:15:05","slug":"i-thought-his-name-was-al-kootka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/i-thought-his-name-was-al-kootka\/","title":{"rendered":"I Thought His Name Was Al Kootka"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aloizy Kuchta<\/p><\/div>\n

…and with a name like “Kootka”, it sounded like an Indian name and I figured he was part Tlingit!\u00a0 Instead I found out from reading the Juneau Empire’s obituary his name is Aloizy Kuchta and he’s originally from Poland.\u00a0 (Huh, oh?\u00a0 That explains his Eastern European accent; gawd, what do I know?)<\/p>\n

Al and I hadn’t seen one another in years, however we ran into each other during Celebration weekend back in June in front of Goldbelt’s hotel.\u00a0 We hugged, shook hands, laughed and wondered where the other was all this time!\u00a0 I even took a photo of us on my little digital camera (and I looked all over for that photo in my iPhoto files and could not find it –\u00a0 I am sad I do not have that photo).<\/p>\n

After reading his obituary, I realized\u00a0 this\u00a0 man has known me all my life!\u00a0 No wonder (like many of us) he was always so kind.\u00a0 He watched me grow up:\u00a0 holding my parents’\u00a0 hands, walking to school,\u00a0 running around in the woods, on the docks, on my bike, building bonfires out Thane Road, rowing “borrowed” skiffs,\u00a0 holding hands with a boyfriend, then being married, raising children, doing my landscaping business, etc. etc.\u00a0 Just think about all the people he watched grow up in this town.<\/p>\n

My father and Al were friends; they had similar interests in fishing and hunting.\u00a0\u00a0 Al was like a distant uncle not so distant.\u00a0 He always wore twinkling eyes, even when I last saw him back in June.\u00a0\u00a0 Although he was obviously (finally) getting old, I could still feel in him the robust strength and love of life..\u00a0 He walked just a little slower, he nodded his head a bit gentler, yet he still had that uplifting hug!<\/p>\n

Al was one of Juneau’s old-timers.\u00a0 We “big city” kids grew up with familiar downtown Juneau faces – so many of them are gone now.\u00a0 With the familiarity of these folks, there was a sense of security. \u00a0 Many old timers watched out for us. \u00a0 When I see old people still walking around, even as slow as they might be, they are a treasure; it’s like having beautiful flowers on the table and quoting my friend Brien:\u00a0 “…reminding us how short life is…”<\/p>\n

As our parents’\u00a0 generation is moving on, the “Baby-boomer” generation is moving into the position of being “old-timers.”<\/p>\n

There will be a service at the Catholic Church this Saturday, December 11th at 9:30am.\u00a0 You may read more about Al Kuchta in the Juneau Empire at:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/stories\/120510\/obi_746080692.shtml<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…and with a name like “Kootka”, it sounded like an Indian name and I figured he was part Tlingit!\u00a0 Instead I found out from reading the Juneau Empire’s obituary his name is Aloizy Kuchta and he’s originally from Poland.\u00a0 (Huh, oh?\u00a0 That explains his Eastern European accent; gawd, what do I know?) Al and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-1115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-honoring-others","tag-juneau-old-timers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}