Tales of a preeminent sled dog race can either celebrate or denigrate this long-standing Alaska event.
As a longtime dog lover, I can see this annual event two ways. A celebration of the dog-human relationship, or a misuse of the trust dogs so easily invest in us.
Either way, I can’t turn away from a couple of amazing accounts nestled in history books.
First, some news from the 2026 race that ended on March 17, when Jessie Holmes won his second consecutive Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska. The former reality TV star completed the roughly 1,000-mile course in nine days, seven hours, and 32 minutes. As this year’s winner, Holmes received an $80,000 prize.
Now for a couple of did-you-knows:
Saving lives with sleds
In the 1920s, before vaccines, there were 100,000–200,000 diphtheria cases and 13,000–15,000 deaths in the US each year.
The risk made its way all the way to Alaska. While a successful serum was available, getting it to Alaska was not always possible.
The 1925 Great Race of Mercy saw 20 mushers and give or take 150 dogs relay diphtheria antitoxin 674 miles in 5.5 days to save Nome, Alaska, from an outbreak.
Facing -50°F temperatures and blizzards, teams led by Togo and Balto delivered the serum, inspiring the annual 1,000-mile Iditarod sled dog race.
After a vaccination program was introduced in the late 1940s, cases dropped dramatically. Today, childhood vaccination rates remain high.
Yes, poodles on the Iditarod
A musher named John Suter had a dream to run the Iditarod with Standard Poodles, and he actually made it happen. He got his first poodle in 1975 and by 1976 was running local races near Chugiak, Alaska.
Suter entered the 1988 Iditarod with standard European poodles on his dogsled team. He placed 38th out of 52 starters in that 1,100-mile race.
And yes — in 1988, Suter appeared on The Tonight Show to talk about his poodle racers. That link is available in YouTube.
It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, a time for celebration.
We drink green beer, eat corned beef and cabbage, and offer a shamrock for good luck.
Nothing’s too much for the man who chased snakes out of Ireland. Right? I agree, but let’s clear up a few things first.
The man we call Patrick was a slave who returned to be among his former captors.
This is the core of the man, and it’s an exceptional response. Here’s some more.
At the age of 16, Patrick was taken prisoner by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland. There, he spent around six years, enslaved as a shepherd — lonely and afraid, turning to religion for solace.
Most people, once they escape their “prison,” never look back. Patrick did the opposite. He felt there was work there to be done.
After six years of captivity, Patrick heard a voice telling him his ship was ready to take him home.
He traveled 200 miles to the nearest port and managed to persuade a captain to let him stow away. He made it back to Britain and his family.
A nice enough story if it ended there.
But it doesn’t.
After years of study, he returned to Ireland — his mission twofold: to minister to Christians already in Ireland, and to convert the non-believers.
He wasn’t responding to an obligation. He was responding to “a calling.”
And he wasn’t even Irish. He was born in either Scotland or northern England and described himself as a Roman and a Briton.
“Patrick” was not his birth name. When the Pope authorized him to evangelize Ireland, he was prophetically named Patricius, meaning “father of citizens.”
Because of his enslavement, Patrick missed out on formal education. His education was limited to religious teachings, and he apparently taught himself to read and write beyond basic Latin.
Most of us would applaud these results. But the lack of formal schooling embarrassed him — yet his success as a missionary is attributed to tenacity and “dogged determination,” even in the face of doubts about his own self-worth.
He actually wrote about this insecurity in his autobiography, Confessio — one of the oldest personal spiritual memoirs.
Here’s a surprising twist: Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic Church — simply because he lived before there was a formal canonization process.
He was proclaimed a saint by the people of Ireland His feast day wasn’t even added to the universal Church calendar until the 1600s.
Oh, and the snake stories are not real. Ireland has no snakes, then or now. The legend is regarded as a metaphor for Patrick’s Christianizing efforts, perhaps drawing on the Judeo-Christian tradition of snakes as symbols of evil.
In other words, he wasn’t driving out reptiles — he was driving out paganism.
Patrick’s story is about a traumatized teen-ager who became a willing exile for the sake of the very people who had enslaved him.
That’s not a story about green beer, corned beef and cabbage, or even the noble shamrock.
That’s a story about forgiveness, resilience, and radical purpose.
The sentence above proved to be an important lesson in my life, courtesy of a dear friend long since gone.
She’d catch me off guard in the middle of a rant (for want of a better word.) I might be speaking of a family member or friend—someone I knew pretty well. I was frustrated that they were not showing their “true” colors. Maybe I had them pegged as hard-hearted, and they just did a loving thing. Or maybe I thought they were tough, but then saw them well up with tears upon seeing a fragile sparrow deceased on the ground.
I could go on, but I hope I have made the point of my friend Martha Petrey. “MT (what she called me), nobody is just one thing. You miss out on lots of wonderful surprises by confining them to a single definition.”
I know that is true, but I also know that “categorizing” brings some control to an otherwise uncontrollable world. Hence, it makes me feel safe. It’s hard to give up those two assurances.
This week I encountered her wisdom once again.
My brother Jim texted me a long poem written by our paternal grandfather. I once had possession of it, and how it ended up in his home in Milwaukee is a mystery to us both.
Titled “Prodigal Girl,” the poem takes Luke 15:11-32 as its inspiration, only it flips the script. Ask yourself this, Ben Trainor seems to pose, would the story even appeal to Luke’s readers if the wayward offspring were a girl?
Jim and I never knew GrandpaTrainor since he died before we were born. All we had to go on were other people’s memories or opinions.
Most of them never knew Martha Petrey, or someone like her who understands that nobody is just one thing.
By most accounts that we ever heard, Ben was characterized as a stern, punitive, by-the-book man, and a staunch Roman Catholic who believed no one other than RCs would cross the threshold of heaven.
He was a railroad engineer, which means he was gone from home a lot, so we think Grandma probably filled in many blanks for her children and their children
Our mother, who somehow “got him” better than his own kids did, told us there was much more depth to the man than was ever revealed to his children.
She also shared that he loved to write, and was frequently published in Railroad Magazine.
Perhaps “Prodigal Girl” graced its pages.
Commentary by Mary Trainer about Prodigal Girl
Narrative reading of Prodigal Girl Poem
Prodigal Girl
By Benjamin Trainor (1923)
Historical Context
Written in 1923, ‘Prodigal Girl’ reflects a period in American society when moral expectations for women were rigid and public judgment could be swift and unforgiving. The 1920s were a time of social change—women had recently gained the right to vote, and cultural norms were shifting—yet traditional standards of virtue remained deeply entrenched. In this poem, Benjamin Trainor challenges the double standard that celebrated the return of the ‘prodigal son’ while condemning the ‘prodigal girl.’ His words offer a compassionate critique of societal hypocrisy and advocate for mercy, dignity, and fairness.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same …
At age nine (or thereabouts) I met Rudyard Kipling as I flipped through pages of “The Best Loved Poems of the American People.”
It was a book I frequented, guaranteed to be full of laughter and tears, poetry to meet you in whatever condition you arrive. It’s been on my mind lately, so this morning I ordered a used copy from Abe’s Books.
In Kipling’s poem “If” his words stretch across a lifetime of encounters and challenges of one human being, presumably a son.
My basic takeaway is, “If this can happen and that can happen, and you’re still standing, you have succeeded at life’s journey.”
The example atop this blog has stuck with me over seventy decades. In it he talks about two imposters—triumph and disaster. The advice is to treat them the same. Imposters? They can seem very real at the time. Gloriously real and painfully real.
Yet they both offer an opportunity to see ourselves for what we are. Bold, sweet, fleeting, flitting through our lives, and eventually out again.
They are incidents in a day, a month, a year. They are parts of the whole, but they are not the whole.
In us, if we are paying attention, these incidents can lead to wholeness. Paying attention is crucial.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Psalm 51:1
If a movie stars Robert Duvall it is already a winner in my eyes. I don’t believe I am alone in that estimation.
Mr. Duvall departed this world on Sunday, February 15, at age 95, headed to his best yet, and final role.
If I had a list of twenty-five favorites, you’d find Duvall’s 1983 movie Tender Mercies at or near the top. If you haven’t seen the movie, you might wonder at this assessment. But I am not alone in my praise. After all, he was awarded Best Actor Academy Award for this film.
In remembering Mr. Duvall, we remember more than an extraordinary actor; we remember a storyteller who understood that the most powerful performances are often the quietest. In Tender Mercies, he gave us a portrait of brokenness without despair and faith without spectacle. He reminded us that redemption rarely arrives with applause — it comes in small choices, steady steps, and undeserved grace. His performance endures because it tells the truth: the way home is seldom dramatic, but it is always possible.
The movie borrows its title from scripture, namely Psalm 51, which is featured in Ash Wednesday services in many Christian churches. David is said to be the author of this psalm, written following his greatest moral breaches: He slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and she became pregnant. In desperation, David sunk lower and arranged for the other man, Uriah, to be killed. David tried to cover up his sins, but was outed by the prophet Nathan.
There he stood. An adulterer, a murderer, and a liar. Finally, he was at the bottom. The psalm is his appeal to God, an appeal which most–if not all–of us can recognize. Our sins may not be on the same scale as David’s, but I know–at least for me–the need of his prayer: According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions…
Nancy Guthrie is still missing. At least as of noon MST on Tuesday, February 10.
Along with so many others I pray for a safe conclusion to this event. And soon.
I can only imagine how this is weighing on the family. From what I can observe, they appear to be holding it together pretty well. But there must be moments of sadness, anger, hope, futility. Family members have been the object of suspicion, at least at the gossip level. That’s the last place anyone should be judged, yet often it’s the first stop we make just trying to find the truth. Whatever that is.
I was a journalism major in college, later working some fifteen years for daily newspapers. That experience lends credibility to what I believe about the sometimes messy business of reporting the news.
You’ve got a deadline. You’ve got competition. You’ve got a boss who doesn’t want to be scooped.
You don’t want to be scooped.
You want to save your time for rooting out new angles, genuine updates, following law enforcement, following tips, and so on.
Nothing wrong with any of that. Except. In a race to deadline it’s very tempting to pick up what you’ve already run and slap it in there as background.
In so doing, it’s really easy to pick up something that was never factual, and you run it yet again.
There’s a good example from the Guthrie case.
Early on, news reports agreed that the family was alerted by a church friend when Nancy had not showed up for church Sunday morning, February 1. That was picked up and shared broadly. Why not?
The problem is the picture it created in readers’/viewers’ minds.
Many accounts since have picked up and run with this version. The problem? Nancy has not attended in-person church since COVID. Six-plus years ago
According to a story published today, the friend was wanting to set the record straight: since COVID, several women gather at another’s home on Sunday mornings to “attend” an online-church from New York. The article said that it is the church Savannah attends.
Maybe you think, so what? What difference does it make? Here’s how it created a difference for me.
BTW, I am an ordained Episcopal priest, and have wondered why a church friend would feel it so important to let the family know so quickly that their Mom was a no-show at church. I strongly suspected that some detail was missing.
What’s factual is that this friend did inform the family. What isn’t factual is that this was connected to a Tucson church. We are still free to attend or not attend a church service in its building. An absence here or there wouldn’t automatically trigger a call to family.
But a no-show to a friend’s house is a much different situation.
So my practice is to be suspicious while reading or viewing the news, and if something just doesn’t add up right, call the reporter and check it out. They want it right, also.
Dear God, we pray for the safe return of Nancy Guthrie, and for peace of heart and mind for her family. Amen.
Good or bad, each day unfolds pretty much to our expectations.
Kids to school.
Dog to vet.
Catch the top news, however it is we do that.
Phone Mom and Dad.
Text that recipe to a friend.
Go to a scheduled meeting.
For the most part, days pass by like that, without surprise, without incident.
The rhythm is so reliable, it leaves little room for the surprises.
But the surprises can force their way in anyway.
You never know what the day may bring.
It’s a simple sentence that doesn’t require a lot of explaining. Even so, we march on, optimistic, not a care in the world.
Oh, sure, we know that our next moment might be ripped from us. But intellectually knowing the possibilities of major disruptions does not adequately prepare us for when they come.
Just read the headlines on a given day, and put yourself in the place of someone who got that bad news.
Here are a couple of examples, occurrences that nearly take your breath away:
—My heart goes out to the family of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, missing from in Tucson, Arizona.
—Also to the family of an 18-year-old Northern Arizona University student who is presumed to have died in a fraternity rush activity.
So, what’s my point?
Well, since there’s no known way of warding off horrific news, I believe I am left with doing a better job of valuing, not only the great days, but also the mindless days when no harm comes to me or mine. Days when I forget something on my grocery list, or have to circle the block several times to get a parking place; or clean up where my dog peed on the kitchen floor because I didn’t get her out in time.
Imperfections, for sure, but not tragic, or life-altering, or even memorable.
So, welcome, ordinary days. I hope to see you for the blessing you are and the treasure you bring to my life.
On January 7, 2026, Renee Good began her last day on Earth as planned. Up and out of the house to drop off a child at school. Maybe some coffee in there somewhere. Then, in support of friends, we are told, headed to a local protest against ICE. Eventually, now with wife and dog in the car (maybe they were always there), she began to thread her way through parked cars to head home. Meanwhile, an ICE officer allegedly shot her three times, the last shot at what looks like point-blank range. When she sustained fatal injuries, her car continued under its own volition, until colliding into a vehicle at the side of the road. — There has been so much craziness in the wake of this unjustified killing. False claims of Renee’s criminal history published on social media.
It was another Renee Good.
Snopes reports says she did not weaponize her vehicle and try to hit the officer who killed her. More likely, he (me speaking now) was allowed back to duty too soon following being struck and injured by another car, another event. How do I know that what I’m telling you is true? No criminal record, not headed toward the officer with intent? Just killed as a very bad — what?— mistake? —- We can get so caught up in “our side” of a story that we may forget to do our homework. We hear or read words that support our general viewpoint. And we run with it. And, thanks to high internet speeds, we run quickly. In this frightful time, we cannot rely solely on the traditional media to fully inform us. You know, with the story behind the story, motivations, hidden agendas, errors, intentional skewing. — Here’s what I do to get to the truth: Question everything. If it seems iffy in any way, check other media sites. Know which media have a bias one way or the other.
And, finally, fact check with stable resources such as Snopes (snopes.com.) Or one or more other fact check resources. Then, once sorting out the truth as best we can, we face the toughest work of all: What are we going to do about it?
Mountaineering is a very respectable activity. You’re outdoors breathing clean air. Getting a healthful amount of the sun’s rays. The aerobics involved in climbing mountains can be beneficial. The entire enterprise merits some positive attention at the proverbial “water fountain” at work come Monday morning.
But there also must be an awareness that climbing can be dangerous. It requires carefully placing each foot. It demands full attention. Don’t do it just for fame, glory, and fabulous selfies. It’s serious business requiring the whole person: Mind, body, spirit.
At the end of 2025 three hikers died while attempting to conquer Mt. Baldy in Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains.
According to news reports, they were on a particularly treacherous section: The Devil’s Backbone. Picture the spinal structure of a human body, knobby and running across a perilous ridge en route to the mountain’s peak. Not everyone who attempts the climb makes it to the top. Add to that extreme high winds, and you have a disaster that not even rescue helicopters can engage. The fierce wind was a definite setback for any hope of rescuing the three late last year.
Over the years, it has claimed many lives.
All of this makes my story even more incredible, especially to me.
In the mid-1960s, while still in college, I successfully reached the top of Mt. Baldy, traversing the Devil’s Backbone.
The recent tragedies there sparked the memory. Even so, I questioned the reality of that. I must be mistaken. Why would I have attempted such a thing?
But, yes, I went at the urging of a college friend of both my brother and me. For awhile, there was hint of a romantic spark between us, but Mt. Baldy more or less quenched the flame. And it wasn’t all his fault.
I’m pretty sure I told him I did not do a lot of climbing. So I complained the entire climb. Are we there yet? People really do this for fun? How much farther?
This was before Google, where I could have looked it up. Or Dateline, which might have offered another possible motive for this trek.
As we neared the peak, I noticed hikers coming back our way. I was quick to comment, “So people actually do return.”
That day was the end of mountain climbing for me, and pretty much the end of anything further for that friendship.
All of which leads me to this conclusion: If you’re out of shape and someone eggs you on to try something you know is beyond your desire and your ability, DON’T GO.
