Sandy Distinguishes Herself

     Sandy became an architect in the early 1970s when only about 3% of the trade was female. She didn't have female models to emulate: "Architect" meant Frank Lloyd Wright, flitting about in his black cape and pork pie hat in the late 1800s; Philip Johnson with his round eyeglasses framed in thick black; or Ayn Rand's Howard Roark, epitomized by Gary Cooper in "The Fountainhead," standing at the top of a building looking presciently into the future, the wind whipping through his open shirt.
     Her first practical experience was helping build a cabin one summer in a remote part of Montana. The experience was useful, but the area a bit unsophisticated after the university milieu: "They announce lost dogs and cats on the local radio," she said.
     Sandy started practicing out of Anchorage, Alaska, where she was more of an anomaly than ever: probably the only red-haired female architect, business owner, license examiner, ever to visit the north slope. On one of her trips, she was shown to her quarters: one of a string of trailers joined by a boardwalk, each with starts and moons and women's names on the doors.
    But the man who remembered her best as an individual was an old Eskimo. She had visited the site of a remote school house built on permafrost. She slipped on an icy slope, and rather than try to stand up again, she remained sitting and  scooted to the bottom of the slope. On her return a year later, the same old Eskimo stared at her for a moment, then recalled:  "You're the one who goes down hill on your butt!"