I had to go to this orientation that she was doing, and at the time I was body-building. I’m all alone on the showroom floor, and sure enough, it’s her to interview me and sign me up for the Big Brothers program. They think it’s going to be a waste of time. They figure it’s someone with bad credit with a piece-of-crap car that isn’t worth anything. It was kind of comedic because all the other salespeople saw this black girl riding up in this beat-to-hell hooptie. It was winter, in the middle of the day, and Heather pulls up in this beat-to-hell, piece-of-crap 1985 Honda. There were the affluent and middle-class people, and we also had a huge sub-prime market-people with marginal credit, bad credit. So I had to match Dave three times in a month, and I ended up getting to know him because of that.ĭ: There were two sorts of populations we served at the dealership.

And the next kid got sent to a group home out of state. But Dave got matched with a kid whose family moved a week after their first meeting. Once I match a kid and an adult, I monitor how they’re doing but I don’t really get into it-I don’t really get to know the person very well. He ended up being my only guy from this humongous dealership. Dave couldn’t come, but he was interested. I went into the dealership to recruit some volunteers. So Dave’s car dealership was near a big elementary school. H: For Big Brothers Big Sisters, I tried to find people who were willing to spend an hour a week with a kid at a school near where they worked. So there’s color, but there’s a lot of rednecks and the opposite-Green Peace, tree-huggers. H: There’s more color than I thought there would be because of the military. What’s it’s like being a person of color in Alaska? There’s a place called Chilkoot Charlie’s. There’s Humpy’s, named after the humpback salmon. There’re only a few places to go if you want to go out.

I was coming out of a thirteen-year marriage and was not a viable option for me. There was this chick upstairs from me who wanted to get married so badly, and I dated a woman and what she wanted was a husband. I worked in Wasilla for a while-it was the most redneck place I’d ever been.įor me, there were husband hunters. I did the finance paperwork for Sarah Palin when she bought her car. They want to be on the outskirts-they want to stay in the woods with their beers and their guns.ĭ: It’s Alaska, and all the stereotypes you can think of Alaska and Alaskans are true. H: At that time the ratio was about ten men for every woman, but stereotypically, people who go to Alaska tend to be weirdos. What’s Alaska like? What’s the dating scene? I was working at a GM dealership when Heather and I met. I started a program for Big Brothers Big Sisters.ĭ: I went up there in the Army, spent four years, got out of the Army, and started selling cars. After I went to grad school in Philly, I got a job offer in Alaska, so my one year became seven. My dad got a job in Alaska and my mom had recently passed, and he asked, “Why don’t you just come with me for a year?” I thought, Okay, maybe I’ll get a guy, maybe I’ll get a Husky and a Jeep. H: I went there after college to spend a year between college and grad school. Heather, you grew up in Virginia, and Dave, you in Florida. Pitch: For women dating in Alaska, there’s a saying: “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” A good-and odd-Alaskan love story. This installment features Heather Nelson Brame and David Brame. Editor’s note: Through March, Jennifer Niesslein ( contributing interviews with interesting, “ordinary” people, who do extraordinary things worthy of the big screen-to complement our Winter 2013 issue.

Tina mom of two and hubby flickr