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Summing any life is never easy. There is always, it seems, more to the story.

Misfortune was written across the recent history of the Arlon Elwood “Jackson” Ball family

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Trouble seemed to find Arlon Elwood “Jackson” Ball — from the time he lost his father to a lightning strike to the intense fighting in which he engaged as a serviceman in World War II, from the death of his younger brother in a traffic accident in 1958 to his own violent death in a North Kenai bar in 1968. But summing up such a life — any life, for that matter — is never easy. There is always, it seems, more to the story.

Perhaps going to Alaska was the fresh start he needed at this time in his life

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Misfortune was written across the recent history of the Arlon Elwood “Jackson” Ball family. Ball’s father had been struck and killed by lightning in Connecticut in 1935. One of his sisters had served time in at least two reformatories in the 1930s and 1940s; another sister’s house had burned to the ground on the Kenai Peninsula in 1952. A younger brother had died in a one-car accident near Soldotna in 1958. Ten years later, it was Jackson’s turn for tragedy.