A sweet memory to cherish forever

After stumbling into a bingo game on her 60th birthday, Claudia P. Scott receives the best gift ever: kindness!

Istood before an eternity of ice, timeless and desolate. There was a bluish-gray mist, and the only sounds were the wind, my breath, and the crunching of my boots as I walked along the deserted Arctic shoreline. It was 9 p.m., but it was late May so I could still see to the distant horizon in the fading light.

It was my sixtieth birthday, and I was fulfilling a personal mission—to visit Barrow, Alaska, now called Utqiaġvik, the most northern city in the United States. I was at the top of the world, far beyond the Arctic Circle.

Not a soul was in sight when I came upon an ancient-looking canoe covered with seal skin. The wind flapped a flag lodged in the center of the boat. I wondered if a similar vessel had carried the first humans to this isolated patch of planet. How could one even consider making such brutal journeys across uncharted seas? I thought of the men and women from times immemorial who had challenged such unimaginable barriers just to survive. Or was it simply to satisfy some innate drive to explore the unknown?

My solitude ended when I heard muted voices and then saw dozens of snowmobiles parked in the distance on the frozen ocean. It looked like a

Walmart parking lot on ice. Scores of people dressed in bulky parkas with fur-lined hoods headed toward a large steel building.

I joined the procession and followed the crowd inside. No one seemed to notice.

I had happened upon the nightly bingo game. A twenty-something man handling the cash box told me to sign in. How many cards did I want? I confessed that I had never been to a bingo game. How many did he suggest? I enthusiastically added that I had just arrived in town all the way from Jacksonville, Florida, to celebrate my sixtieth birthday. I admit that I was disappointed when he replied curtly, “Then buy only two cards since you are a beginner.” Not exactly the response I had expected.

I took my seat next to an aloof, weathered woman I guessed to be in her seventies. A dozen bingo sheets were spread before her. As I sat down, she barely glanced up. Neither did the others across from me. I intuited that I might be invading their territory. These were some serious bingo players.

I sat in silence waiting to begin. As the numbers began to be rattled off, I did my best to keep up. After stamping her own cards with lightning speed, my dour neighbor peered over at my two sheets and, without a word, jabbed at two squares I had missed.

Gosh, she was good. “Thank you,” I whispered. No response.

Nobody warns you that “Bingo Fever” spreads quickly. At the break, more cards were sold for the final “winner-takes-all jackpot.”

With my increasing confidence, I bought several.

When the bingo caller, the same hard-to-impress young man who sold the cards to me earlier, returned to the podium before the big game was to begin, everyone in the room stood up. Was this part of the bingo ritual? Maybe a prayer to the God of Chance to have a winning card? Since the only one sitting was me, I joined the standing crowd.

As he slowly nodded, almost two hundred voices simultaneously began to sing: “Happy birthday to you… happy birthday, dear Claudia…” I was the only one standing as they all sat down.

Misty-eyed, I promised this room full of smiling native Alaskans that for as long as I lived, I would remember this as the most special surprise birthday greeting I ever received. I later learned that the seemingly uninterested young man had gone to each table during the break and organized the sweet serenade to me. Even the reticent woman next to me was beaming.

Now I felt welcome in this remote place where I had felt like an intruder. Bingo! —Claudia P. Scott

“As long as I lived, I would remember this as the most special surprise birthday greeting”