My Story

“Safe Traveling”

On a summer evening in 1979 a VHF radio rasped a few feet from my ear. I was a “greenhorn,” someone new to commercial fishing just hired off the docks in Petersburg, Alaska. The skipper and I were on a four-hour wheel-watch, rummy and exhausted from days of little sleep. This old salmon fishing boat, Libby No. 10., was built when fisherman were much shorter people, apparently. My head touched the ceiling beams in the wheelhouse and galley.

At night the marine-VHF radio operator would connect callers on land to ships at sea—callers were queued up and awaiting their turn. Our vessel was about fifty feet in length, not a “ship,” but she floated on the inland sea of the Alexander Archipelago. Geographically speaking, with a good radio and antenna, about half of Southeast Alaska could listen in. For some privacy, the marine operator blocked half of the conversation. Skippers and crew members received heartfelt news from lovers and family and the big salmon tenders made calls to their distant processing plants located in Excursion Inlet, Ketchikan, and Petersburg reporting the tonnage of pink salmon aboard, fish they had purchased from boats like ours. In the radio chatter there was a parting expression that was new to me, one I mistakenly assumed was common only to mariners. At the end of the call instead of good bye I heard safe traveling. In reply, “Roger that, skipper. Safe traveling back to you.”

It made perfect sense. No longer on dry land, aboard an old, poorly-maintained “cannery boat,” safe traveling was my own fervent hope — a wish for good luck, sound judgement, and a prayer of sorts. I’ve learned that people in rural Alaska think a lot about safety when traveling, whether on foot, on the water, flying, or by snow machine. Visualize two skin-clad families long ago. They embrace with eyes and hearts locked together in abiding love. Remember the elders and what they taught us. May we someday share another camp.

To you and your loved ones, I offer this same timeless wish for safety. This website contains a book-length, science-based writing project. The original working title was Food-Sick, a story of the human body, modern culture, medicine, and the chronic disease epidemic that surrounds us everyday which cost the U.S. $4.05 trillion in 2024.

My motives for the writing project are complicated. Now in my mid-60’s, I want to stay healthy, but I hope to educate. As a former science and math teacher I am saddened by watching generations of good people get food-sick in one small Alaska town. Kids who were healthy smart-ass teens aged into chronic disease and now some of their kids are getting sick too.

Today in any given U.S. high school classroom, most students will know someone who is type-2 diabetic—a disease caused by lifestyle. In my childhood years (the 1960’s and 1970’s) that number would have been nearly zero. Based on current national disease statistics, by 2050 57-percent of U.S. adults will be classified as obese. In the range of 30 to 40-percent (or more) of a typical American graduating class will become type-2-diabetic.

What that says about “school,” obviously, is that it operates within a profoundly unwell society. And yet, schools are not succeeding in their missions to launch productive, capable, “life-long learners”, etc. Rather, they are fostering a populous that is incapable of avoiding — avoidable — life-shortening disease. That’s a pretty major failure.

Here in Alaska, schools are staffed with wonderful, hardworking, underpaid educators. Like our society, schools don’t appreciate and are not addressing the epidemic of chronic disease. We are absolutely overwhelmed by the paid commercial speech (bullshit) that amplifies the need to buy and consume unhealthy “food.” And unhealthy food addiction is but the tip of the iceberg. Sedentary lives, screen-time, “social” media, the lack of exercise, the lack of sleep — all chronic stressors — social isolation, and other factors, conspire against our being healthy and living out our natural health-span. Michael Greger, M.D. is fond of saying: “Nobody ever died of old age. We die of disease.” 

When I describe my writing project, someone might ask, “Who is your audience?” I always answer the same: you and your family.  I wish you health, long life, and safe traveling. I am not a doctor and have never worked in the medical field. I am a senior citizen, science nerd, a health coach, and deeply concerned. You can find the bulk of this science-based writing project under the menu Food and Health. Separate pages with jump-links allow easy browsing and access.

Burl Sheldon, Haines, AK