Claiming Land in Alaska, 1970 - Part 2

Once we were reasonably sure of our position it was time to take a hike and do some exploring.

We camped on the road that night, and started down one of the seismic trails the next morning. This commenced an exploration that went on for most of the next two months. We had compasses, a map, backpacks, rifles, and each carried a 4x4 piece of lumber.

Why a 4x4? The State of Alaska expressly required that a corner be marked by a 4x4 stake. Being the law abiding rubes that our act obviously proved, and certain that some bureaucrat would stomp deep into the woods to check for compliance, we lugged them all the way in, only to leave them lying in an area we never returned to.

Deep Creek flows through a small canyon and we eventually came onto its bluff. It was several hundred feet to the river below. Many places were too steep to descend into the canyon, so we walked east along its edge that first day. Later we would go into the canyon and explore it, but that first day we were content to see what was on top. We eventually came to a grassy meadow that sloped gently down toward the river.

It had a breath taking view - a half mile across to the opposite rim and you could see a mile or two up and down the canyon. We decided to camp on that spot, and eventually staked our claim there.

A cluster of six or eight large spruce trees grew in the meadow. We went into the middle of them and chopped all the dead branches away, clearing an area big enough to pitch an eight foot square tent. It was perfectly protected from wind and weather, and well hidden from view. We brought back a tent the next week and built a permanent camp inside the cluster.

School was out at 2:00pm on the next Friday, and we were packed and headed down the road by 3:00pm. That was our pattern for the next five or six weeks. We’d get down there about 7pm and be too antsy to camp on the road, so off we’d go, into the woods, just as darkness fell. The sun never seems to set during the summer, but by September, when there is no moon and a bit cloudy the might gets real dark, black. In a hour it was so dark we might as well have been in a cave, and all we could do was forge ahead, use our flash lights to check the compass, and hope we didn't get lost.

We found ourselves in a area of tall grass, with blades towering over our heads. It was spooky and we were singing and talking load just in case a bear was in the area. We wandered into a swamp and I stepped knee deep into mud, pitched forward, and jammed my rifle barrel into it.

Any bear within three miles would have heard the cussing and sensed there was a lunatic human in the area to be avoided. That’s probably the reason no bears showed up. We were thankful of that as our main protection was disabled. I carried a 308 caliber and Dan usually brought a 22 for small game. We extracted ourselves from the muddy swamp and shortly thereafter heard the river and knew we were close to the bluff. It took us several weeks to develop a path to our camp.

GO TO: Part 3

Claiming Land in Alaska, 1970 - Part 1

I worked for the Alaska Fish and Game during the summer of 1970. The State flew me down to the Alaska Peninsula, and I spent 70 days with another worker, George Carnes, counting salmon on the Sapsuk River. When I returned to Anchorage in August Dan Wilson, a fellow biology teacher at West High, stopped by the house. He wanted to know if I was interested in staking some land on the Kenai Peninsula.

He unfolded papers and maps that provided info on the State’s land program known as “Open-to-Entry”. Large tracks had been designated from which lots could be leased. You could stake up to five acres, but there was a catch - you had to describe it’s location accurately enough to convince a state official that you were located in the right place. This is the story of our search for the perfect piece of recreational land, and the realization that happiness is more often found in the search and not always in finding it.
Dan was interested in a tract of land on the Kenai Peninsula. It lay about six miles east of the main highway and the village of Ninilchik. The "Open to Entry" parcel measured roughly three miles east-west by one mile north-south, and Deep Creek river ran through the center. It cut through a deep gorge, and we hoped to stake claim on land near the bench so as to have a panoramic view of the valley below.

We made our first trip in late August, a four hour drive from Anchorage to Ninilchik. There were only a couple roads heading east in that area, and we were not sure which was the best way to access the land. Road maps were of no use - not enough detail, so we used U.S. Geological Survey maps. We tried Deep Creek Road as that seemed logical. Dan drove and I acted as navigator, but it came to a dead end within a couple miles. The only other approach to the tract was off Oil Well Road. But the map had been produced ten years before the road.
The two of us looked into the forest while driving back and forth, trying to figure the best place to enter the brush. Our U.S Geological Survey map (shown above) provided scale, contours of elevation, streams, lakes, swamps, and the main roads, but Oil Well Road was not on it. The map had a square mile grid marking Sections of the Township/Range system. It provided the declination of the compass, and I had drawn in the borders of the tract we wanted to explore; but we didn’t know were the road lay.

I've lost count of the number of times we drove up and down that road. It was more than 15 miles to the end. We retraced a three or four mile stretch, but that part had enough twists and turns to create considerable puzzlement. After several passes, we noticed the telephone poles had sets of metal numbers nailed onto them. We studied those numbers hoping to find a pattern. Gradually it dawned on us that one set of numbers matched the Section numbers of the Township/Range system on our map, and the other set numbered consecutively.

That numbers fit with our map; the first on the pole designated the Section; the second number counted the poles in that Section. If we drove west and then turned northwest the first number changed to 7. That fitted with the map’s designation of Section numbers so we were able to place our location on the map in a fairly accurate way. I traced the road onto the map, and then determined the parcel lay two miles south of Oil Well Road.

We noticed there were several cleared paths into the forest. They were like highways, about 40 feet wide, and so straight you could see way in the distance along them. The clearings were seismic trails which had been made in the early sixties when the oil companies were prospecting. They had detonated charges along those trails and were able to determine the characteristics of the underlying strata by analyzing the timing of the seismic waves that were generated. Later we found the seismic trails crisscrossed the entire area providing us with a convenient means of travel. We got to know them well and traced many onto our map.

GO TO: Part 2

Driving the Alcan, Part 5 - Things & Places

"There is some of the most beautiful mountain country I have ever seen between Mileposts 350 and 450 - mountain streams, rivers and two of the clearest emerald green lakes - Summit and Muncho.” That is how I started my journal on June 26, 1967. I went on to say, “…a man at a gas station by the lake said Muncho was 800 feet deep.” That hundred miles is still one of my favorite.

Milepost 477 is a must stop - Liard Hot Springs. When I passed in 1967 my face was still tender and I did not possess a positive attitude toward adventure - being I was yet operating in security mode. There is a nice camp ground at Liard and a parking area at the trailhead. A boardwalk weaves its way across a warm water swamp ending at the Hot Spring. There is a dressing room and several sets of stairs into the pool - very relaxing.

That night I camped at Milepost 632, just east of Watson Lake. “My camp site tonight is another government one. This is a large, open area with tables and fire pits distributed around the edge. There is an indoor cooking house in the center… A small stream runs by the camp with very clear water. I made up my mind that I was going to wash and shave - no matter what. The dust was bad today. My face was no longer sore, but with a three-day beard, peeling skin, and the dust, I couldn’t stand myself any longer. After I ate, I put a pan of water on to heat, and with a sudden thought, grabbed a bar of soap, went down to the stream and washed my hands and arms. It felt so good that, after shaving, I went back, took off my boots and waded about in the clear cool stream. Now I feel like a new man.”

I stayed at Milepost 968 on June 27th, about 50 miles past Whitehorse. From that point it was 250 miles to the border and paved road thereafter. The highway on the Alaskan side was smooth, like gliding on a magic carpet, and so refreshing I couldn’t stop.

The official end of the Alcan is Fairbanks, thou construction started from Delta Junction, about 100 miles east. The Parks Highway, which connects Fairbanks to Anchorage, did not exist in 1967. One had to take the more circuitous route via the Richardson Highway out of Delta Junction . I turned south toward Anchorage at Tok Junction on the Glenn Highway. The Glenn crosses the Richardson at Glennallen and goes on into Anchorage. I didn’t stop until I got there.

It was raining when I entered Anchorage at 11:00pm on June 28th. I was tired and miserable so I spent thirteen precious dollars for a hotel room on Gambell street. I had $92 in my pocket the next day. I rented a room and went job hunting.

GO TO: Another Time on the ALCAN

Driving the Alcan, Part 4 - Hazards

I once heard a joke about a carpenter who boasted of having a hammer that belonged to his great grandfather. He bragged that it was a hundred years old and had only two new handles over the years… but he did have to replace the head once. The story reminds me of the changing Alcan. It’s paved all the way now. Many sections have been drastically improved, others abandoned entirely. It’s not the same road anymore, but still an adventure - though I’m a bit jaded after so many times over it.

So, what advice can I offer a modern day adventurer? I was warned about flat tires and broken windshields, so I carried my spare tire on the roof for fast access, but never needed it. I felt somewhat complacent having completed the trip without even a small crack in the windshield only to have it smashed in Anchorage a week after arriving.

Those particular hazards are not much of a threat now-a-days. In 1983 Mary and I were returning at summer‘s end, and as we passed through Beaver Creek, the last Canadian town before the border, I thought about filling the gas tank. I didn’t have enough Canadian money to pay for the gas, didn’t feel like using a credit card, and knew there was a station in Alaska, about twenty miles further.

Evening approached as we crossed the border and headed on west. When we got to the station it was closed, its parking lot filled with road graders and bulldozers. The old guy who run it for years had died during the summer. I had an eighth of a tank of gas, and the caretaker informed us it was about twenty miles to the next station - either way. It wasn’t a puzzler to figure our options.

Twilight and drizzling rain fell as we pulled onto the highway, still heading west. I slowed to thirty MPH to conserve fuel as we drove into the night. The headlamps lit a glistening blacktop that blended with the darkness on each side. We shared a mile-by-mile silence, eyes fixed on the road ahead, looking for salvation. The gauge went to empty and then fell below the mark.

We were climbing a long wide curve when the engine sputtered. I switched tanks, hoping there might be a teaspoon or two left in the other empty tank. The engine caught; we topped the hill and started down the other side. The lights of the station, like a beacon in a stormy sea, shown ahead and guided us into the driveway. The engine sputtered again and the truck came to a stop about twenty feet from the pump. We were overjoyed with relief. I never let the tank go below the half-way mark after that.

GO TO: Part 5

Driving the Alcan, Part 3

Over the years the Alcan has been continually improved and shortened. I’ve crossed it over a dozen times since that first trip, and have seen new sections laid down and old ones abandoned.


I remember driving up a hog-back ridge of the original highway in 1972, and seeing a new section being laid across the valley below - a straight-arrow as far as the eye could see. It cut off nearly thirty miles of old road. Some cut-off sections form loops and are still maintained; others have been abandoned, leaving spectral images - grass covered swaths wandering off to nowhere.

A new edition of the Milepost will often give two numbers for a location. The second one will be denoted as the “Historic Milepost”, the mileage number of the original road. The numbers I wrote in my journal will thus not correspond to present day Milepost markers, and my memory is not sufficient to provide anything more than a general stab at to where those markers were placed forty-two years ago.

According to my journal I left Edmonton at 1pm Saturday the 24th of June. The repair shop at the Oldsmobile dealership took an amazingly short three days to replace my engine - they did a fine job. I drove from there to Dawson Creek and on to Milepost 52 before stopping for the night - about 450 miles. I groused about paying $2 for “a campsite which turned out to be nothing more than a small piece of lumpy ground to pitch my tent - no table, no fire-pit“. Milepost 52 would have placed me 5 miles beyond Fort St. John. I don’t remember anything about the town from those days, it was petite, but is now the second largest along the Alcan (mining and oil) at 18,000+ citizens.

The camp-site would have been close to where the Hudson’s Hope Loop leads west and south, following the Peace River. It’s a beautiful drive, a bit steep and winding at the north end but passable. I pulled a 30 foot trailer over it in 2005 so it can be done. It connects with the town of Chetwynd, cutting off a few miles if you’re going that way. Chetwynd is on Highway 97 which heads south, going through St. George, following the Fraser River Valley toward Vancouver, BC.

Only five places on the Alcan qualified as towns in 1967. They were: Dawson Creek (Milepost 0), Fort St. Johns (MP 47), Fort Nelson (MP300), Watson Lake (MP635), and Whitehorse (MP 917). Today they possess a size and sophistication that is in marked contrast to the frontier character of forty years ago. I don’t remember much at all about those towns of 1967, and I drove through them again in 68’, 69’, and twice in 72’. They did not change much in those years.

I remember the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. A G.I. started it in 1943. He made a mileage sign with an arrow pointing in the direction to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. Its worth a stop to wander through the forest and look at all variety of items - mostly license plates and town signs, but entertaining oddities can be found throughout.

Mary and I contributed our bookstore sign in 2005. It was a nice onewith a "town cryer" on top We thought the Forest would be a good place to leave it as we had given up the book business. We stopped by on our return in 2006 and found that some jack-ass had stolen it.

Another thing I remember from the first trip is that ten or twenty miles of the Alcan was paved on each side of Whitehorse - a welcome relief from the bumpy gravel.

GO TO: Part 4

Driving the Alcan, Part 2

A week after my engine burn-out, Denver, the mechanic said the car was ready, but it might run a little hot - so keep an eye on it. I drove on toward the Alcan stopping near White Court to check it. I opened the hood and stood looking at the engine. All seemed well, and then, for some unknown reason, I reached over and opened the radiator cap. Hot water hit me directly in the face and eyes - what a dumb, damn thing to do??

I stopped a few miles further and the kind people at a filling station gave me some salve to put on my burned face. My eyes were OK but my face stung for several hours. I suffered the equivalent of a moderate sunburn the rest of the trip.

Dawson Creek, B.C. is the official start of the Alaskan Highway. Construction really started 10 miles west of the town in 1942 because a dirt road already reached that far. Dawson Creek is a northern agricultural region and the town is surrounded in late summer with beautiful yellow fields of canola. The population, at about 12,000, hasn’t changed since I first drove though. The main point of interest is the monument standing in the middle of town to mark “Mile 0” of the Alaska highway.

I kept a journal of the trip, but stashed it away, never looking at it again until recently. It is fortunate I dug it out as I find I have been giving misinformation about my maiden trek over the Alcan. For instance, I’ve told people for years that I crossed into Alaska and continued driving all the way to Anchorage on the 19th day of June, 1967. According to my journal it was the 28th of June. I’ve been celebrating my Alaskan debut on the wrong day for nearly forty years - that’s on par with having a 4th of July Parade on Bastille Day.

I was disappointed that gravel did not start at Dawson Creek's city limits, and remembered the first thirty miles out of Dawson Creek as being paved. My old journal informs me that the first eighty or ninety miles was paved.

I might have gotten some facts wrong, but my lingering impressions possess a certain credibility. There was a paved road and it looked much like the miles I had just covered, but heck, I was on the Alcan. I was supposed to be struggling through primitive country, not seeing farm houses or cultivated fields. I had expected to leave civilization at town’s edge. This is the impression remaining with me all these years, and I remember feeling a sense of disillusionment …but I remember, it didn’t last long.

A few miles further I came onto the Peace River, and descend into the valley below. Ninety miles out would have put me several miles past Fort St. Johns. That is when the road narrowed becoming as rough and rutty as any I’d seen. I began to wondered what I had got myself into. The next twenty miles were probably the worse I encountered. I navigated around deep ruts cut into the edge of the road. Some pot holes where deep enough to bottom-out, and my top speed was reduced to a creeping fifteen miles-an-hour. I decided I wasn’t going to punish myself or my lemon-yellow Oldsmobile. I was in no hurry, and I didn’t want to leave a trail of wasted tires streaming out behind me, so I covered much of the gravel at a modest 30 mph... or slower.

GO TO: Part 3

Driving the Alcan, Part 1

The first time I drove the Alaskan Highway it offered great adventure. The Alcan twisted and turned its way through eleven hundred miles of gravel, following much the same route that was hastily cut through the wilderness at the beginning of World War II.

The Army Corp of Engineers completed the road in just over eight months. It was a dusty, rutted, sometimes narrow lane, that followed the contours of the land. Sometimes a passing vehicles would create bellowing clouds of dust so thick that cars prudently stopped until the air cleared. Vehicles reaching pavement at the other end came out painted a shade of yellow ochre, and half of them sported broken windshields because oncoming trucks and cars propelled rocks at them.

The road climbed over majestic mountains and snaked its way through pristine wilderness - no fences, electric poles, or buildings. It passed an occasional roadhouse, or hunting lodge - otherwise nothing marked human presence. For a young man who grew up in Indiana it was like going back in time, like visiting the far reaches of the earth.

I bought an Alaskan Milepost, a yearly publication describing, mile-by-mile, the 1522 miles between Dawson Creek Canada, and Fairbanks, Alaska. There are, literally, mileposts all along that great distance, and with the guidebook, one knows what to expect around the next bend in the road. My 1967 edition was more the size of a large paperback novel. The latest Milepost edition is 8 by 11 inches, and packed with 800 pages of information - a must for anyone thinking of making the trip.

I spent a week in Kokomo getting ready. I traded cars, buying a 1965 six-cylinder Oldsmobile hardtop. It had a black top and was painted lemon-yellow on bottom. (The color proved to be prophetic.) People told me I should expect at least one flat tire on the trip, so I got a car-top carrier and put the spare tire and camping equipment on it. The camping equipment consisted of a Coleman stove, a folding aluminum table and an old army pup tent made of heavy canvas.

I stopped off in Skokie to say good-bye to brother Don, his wife, Barbara, and my nephew, Lee. We looked at a map as I showed them my proposed route. Don shook his head as we spoke of the nearly 4500 mile distance to Anchorage. It was such a long way. I wondered if he thought I might never come back, and I remember saying something about the fact that the road went in both directions.

I headed for Alaska in early June of 1967. I had enough money in my pocket to get there, and a cashiers check for something like $757.65. I no longer remember the exact amount but $757.65 is about right.

I was fifty miles east of Edmonton, Alberta when I noticed a black cloud of smoke bellowing out behind me. It soon became evident that it was emanating from by tail pipe. I pulled over to check things out and could not get the car started again.

I spent a week at a modest hotel while a mechanic named Denver worked on rebuilding the engine of my 1965 lemon-colored Oldsmobile. He didn’t mind that I hung around talking and handing him tools, so the days were not a total loss. I got a mini-course in engine replacement. When the job was done I took the bill and my cashiers check for $757.65 and walked across the street to the bank. I don’t remember what the bill amounted to or what the exchange rate was at the time, but once I paid it there was less than a dollar in change. It was like they knew.

I was near the point-of-no-return. Edmonton was about half-way between Kokomo and Anchorage. There was enough money to go either way. Dad and Mom had given me their Shell gas credit card when I left Kokomo in case something happened, so I thought, “Eh, what the hell”, and headed on toward Alaska.
GO TO: Part 2

Going to Alaska

I was in the fourth grade when a fellow student told of his trip the previous summer to Alaska. I remember it for two reasons. One, the event took place before “show-and-tell” became popular in elementary schools, and it was thus the first and only time I remember a fellow student giving such a report. Second, the boy stood in front of the class telling of his passage by steamship to Alaska, of water-ways, harbors, and fishing villages. The story conjured images of a remote and exotic place, and it stuck with me. I’ve wondered if that incident is responsible for my coming to Alaska more than forty years ago. I was in college for an inordinate length of time, then taught in a small country school in southern Indiana for a year before moving to Chicago to find a “real” job. I interviewed for a number of positions and was offered several. I finally accepted one as an outside salesmen for a company that sold scientific equipment.

I came to hate the job almost immediately. Here I was, a guy with enough college to have a doctorate degree if my endeavors had been pointed in the right direction, and the only people I felt comfortable with where the ones working in the warehouse. They seemed real while most of the ones in the office came across as caricatures. I would go home to my apartment in the Near-North each night, walk down to a neighborhood tavern and sit at the bar sipping a brew and stewing over the future I had chosen.

Once I finished my training the company was going to transfer me to anywhere they wanted. I was about to become a company man. They owned me, and I did not like it. My discontent apparently showed. They fired me after about a month. I walked out of the building with mixed emotions - along with failure and rejection, there was an overpowering sense of relief and freedom. I remember driving over to brother Don’s place in Skokie, and walking my young nephew, Lee, up and down the sidewalk as I waited for Don to get off work.

My next life lesson in Chicago was a four or five week stint selling Britannica Encyclopedias. The Britannica training was a shameful course in psychological manipulation. The sales booklet we used was programmed to get people comfortable in saying “Yes”. It was a flashy paged trap with an innocuous question that was asked at the bottom of each right-hand page. Customers tensed at the first question, but soon became at ease as the salesman would then turn the page and move on. “Yes” the photography is beautiful; “Yes”, the information is very informative; “Yes”, it would be wonderful to have it; “Yes” the price is reasonable; “Yes”, the payment schedule is affordable; “Yes”… and before they realized what was happening the poor suckers had bought it. I sold three or four sets. All save one were to families who could not afford it, and probably would not use it after the newness wore off.

Then one night while sitting at that neighborhood bar I decided to hell with it - I was going to Alaska. Within a few days I had dropped my sales kit on the desk of my supervisor, given up my apartment, and was driving out of Chicago. I left with a very negative and lasting impression of Corporate American and its business practices.

GO TO: Driving the Alcan, Part 1

Old-Time Radio, Part 2

With radio you could be blind as a bat and see everything clearly. It was like a kid playing with a box that a toy fire engine came in. I had a toy fire engine once. It was a windup red plastic one with an extension ladder. It was always a fire engine, but the box could be anything. That was the way radio was. You didn’t need a fire engine or a rocket; all you needed was your imagination. There was nothing to see. All you needed was the sounds coming out of the darkness; sounds that conjured mental images: door slamming shut, police sirens screaming, footsteps loudly clicking on sidewalks, or barely heard stalking a helpless victim, squealing tires, heavy breathing, church bells - everything was there. The era was called the Golden Age of Radio. There were some music shows, but I mainly remember the comedy and suspense shows.

I remember many different shows over that period of the late 1940s. It was probably the peak of the Golden Days. We listened to some of the shows regularly. I can still hear the “Creaking Door” open and shut, as it did at the beginning and end of each “Inner Sanctum” episode. I can still see the junk come flying when the closet door in the Fibber McGee and Molly show was eventually opened. Sometimes you waited till the end of the show, but you knew that Fibber McGee was going to eventually open it. I remember the booming voice of The Great Gildersleeve and his grand schemes. There was the quote at the beginning of The Shadow, “Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?”, then sinister laughter followed. The alter-ego of the Shadow, Lamont Cranston, would answer, “The Shadow Knows!”. Red Skeleton had a phalanx of characters, but the one I remember most was Klem Kadiddlehopper. The singing cab driver character was a good natured, slow-witted, country bumpkin that poked fun at city slickers, but he didn‘t seem to know he was doing it.

The Jack Benny Program with Rochester and Mary Livingston was one of my favorites. The perpetually 39 year old comedian played the part of a cheapskate that was vain and self-promoting. I can still hear Rochester’s scratchy voice.

There were many others: The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Marie Wilson of My Friend Erma, Eve Arden in Our Miss Brooks, Hattie McDaniel in The Beulah Show, Bob Hope as the Lemon-Drop Kid, Jack Armstrong the all-American Boy, Amos and Andy, Blondie and Dagwood, on and on…

We moved across town in 1950, and in 1952 Dad brought home a television set. All of our attention shifted in that direction after that. Many of the old radio shows moved on to television, but things were never quite the same. Radio shifted to a music format and to talk shows. It was never the same either. Garrison Kellor resurrected a facsimile in the 1980s that most resembled Old-Time Radio. I listen to A Prairie Home Companion when ever I can and I’m reminded of how it use to be.

Old-Time Radio, Part 1

I remember Old-Time Radio in a personal way. I can yet see images in the room cast in silvery silhouettes at evening twilight. Don, my older brother, and I were usually lying on the floor, sometimes on our backs looking up at a distant ceiling. Or we would be lying flat on our bellies with chins resting in cupped hands - looking at images that were not there.

We had hardwood flooring. Maybe we laid on those bare floors, maybe on throw rugs; I no longer remember. Mom and Dad laid transverse across the bed with their heads propped up on folded pillows. Sometimes Don or I might be up there next to them. That is the way I remember listening to radio in the 1940’s. In Mom and Dad’s bedroom, in the dark, on the floor.

We had several radios in the house. It was not because we were rich. Dad knew a lot about them. He picked up broken ones, pirated parts off others, and resurrected them. There was a big floor console in the living room. It had a phonograph player under the radio dials. You got to it by sliding flexible double doors, one on each side, back into the console.

The basement, a radio graveyard, was stoked with tubes and empty chassis. This was before transistors came into common use. Radios were, by necessity, big and heavy. The chassis that radio tubes were plugged into were made of steel, and radio tubes were large, ran hot, and sucked up electricity. You could quickly run a car battery down by turning the radio on while the engine was off. Don and I did just that when Dad went in a store one time and left us sitting in our 1947 Pontiac.

There were only a few books in the house. Paperbacks would not become ubiquitous for a couple of decades, and kid’s books were rarely found in most homes. Mom read The Bears of Blue River, a book about early settlement in Indiana, to us a couple times, and there were selections from Hurlbut’s Bible Stories. There was a stereoscope that we looked at once in a while. It had ten or twelve heavy cardboard photos, each a bit larger than a postcard. There were two images on each card. The images looked identical, but had been taken a few feet apart. You slipped the card into a metal frame of the stereoscope, and slid it back and forth on an arm to focus - presto, a 3-D image appeared. I don’t remember what the photos were about - maybe WWI scenes. Don and I looked at them a few times, but it was mostly for idle curiosity. We had a phonograph player and a few records. I don’t recall any music for sure. There was one by Elmo Tanner, a whistling song called Heartaches. I remember hearing it a lot, but maybe it was just on the radio. Radio was the major source of news and entertainment in those days. President Roosevelt comforted America with his "FireSide Chats" during the Depression and the War, and we gathered around it at night - the focus of our entertainment.

GO TO: Part 2

Saturday Matinee at the Movies, Part 2

Generally the good guys wore white hats while the bad one donned black. Lash LaRue was an exception. A bit of an anti-hero, he dressed entirely in black, talked out of the side of his mouth, and carried a long bullwhip. He was so adept in using it that he could rip a revolver out of a bad guy’s hand at a distance beyond the reach of the whip.

Hopalong also dressed in black, and like the other heroes, traveled with a sidekick. Hopalong’s was called Lucky, Lash LaRue partnered with Fuzzy, Frog traveled with Gene Autry, Gabby Hayes sided with Roy Rogers. Two Indians were sidekicks. Tonto assisted the Lone Ranger, and Little Beaver sided with Red Ryder. Some of the sidekicks were serious, most were comical relief.

On the whole our heroes never killed any bad guys, at least not up close. They shot guns out of their hands, beat them up, and sometimes wounded one (most likely in the arm), but a lot of the villains did bite the dust. Usually they were shot off their horse during a running gun battle where hundreds of rounds were fired back and forth. The “dead” never suffered or bled. Sometimes the hastily edited movies would show the dead guy breathing, or a bus driving by in the distant background, or power lines, or some other anomaly that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was all great fun.

The monster movies were the ones I loved to fear. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Werewolf, and the Mummy were the chief staples, and starred Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney. I was the youngest of our gang and found the movies terrifying, and swore at the end of each film that it was going to be my last. I’d have nightmares right afterward, but would find myself sitting with the gang when the next one came in town. I spent most of a movie with my eyes closed during the scariest parts. Either that or I would look through my slightly spayed fingers as I held my hands over my eyes.

The popular comedy movie stars in those days were Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, Abbott & Costello, Our Gang, The Bowery Boys, The Marx Brothers, and Martin and Lewis.

The war movies were mainly propaganda films made during WWII, most starring John Wayne. They were heroic productions dealing with bravery, honor, and duty, but had little else to do with the reality of war. Dad use to say he wouldn’t walk across the street to see one. I now understand his point, but it seems every generation has to grow up and learn the brutishness of war for itself. People might find war to be the vulgar, and repugnant thing it is if movies depicted its costs in more truthful ways, - then maybe it might go out of fashion.

Saturday Matinee at the Movies, Part 1

There were six movie theaters in downtown Kokomo when I was growing up. The Indiana theater was on Main Street, two blocks north of the courthouse . The Isis, also on Main, was a block south of the town square. The Fox, and the Sipe, sat a block off the square. The Wood and Colonial were right on it. Mom and Dad said there used to be a least one more in the south part of town. They’re all gone now.

Cinema was probably even more popular than it is today. We had radio and comic books, but there was no TV, computers or Internet, so the movie house was magnetic to us kids. The Sipe was the premier theater. First run shows came there, and it was about the only theater in town to have a balcony. Adults paid 35 cents to see a film at the Sipe while us kids paid 20.
I remember debating the ticket lady in 1951 trying to convince her that I was still eleven even though I was born in 1939. According to her logic 51 minus 39 equaled 12, and thus I owed an adult’s token, but I persisted, arguing my point until she grew fatigued and waved me in.

The theaters offered a free Saturday morning movie that showed at either the Indiana or the Sipe. We kids favored the Sipe because it had a balcony. The place would be jammed with kids on those Saturdays, and the staff gave each of us a small box of gum candy as we entered. The candy was stale and rock hard. A battle would soon be instigate between the balcony and the main floor. Those in the balcony were usually the aggressors as the targets below proved too tempting - besides, the stuff was only good for throwing. Candy rained down onto the main floor in a hail storm of red, green, and yellow pellets, and was promptly sent back. After the battle subsided we would settle down and watch the movie.

There were only few categories of flicks worth seeing as far as us boys were concerned: comedy, westerns, war, and monster movies. There was plenty of each to choose from, but westerns proved to be the easy winner, B-Westerns as they were called, B&W films, extremely low budget, and produced by the wagon load. Technicolor films were rare in those days.

A herd of cowboy heroes starred in a plethora of these horse operas: Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tim Holt, Red Ryder, and the Lone Ranger to name a few. Almost all the Westerns played at the Fox, and you could take in a double feature for a mere 14 cents - half the kids in town were there.

Now that I’m older and able to reflect with unbiased judgment upon these specters of my past, I have to admit to some oddities in their circumstance that escaped me in my youth. For one thing, not a single western character seemed to have a home; they were all drifters, constantly moving from one town to the next. The evening scene would find them huddled around a camp fire. They slept on open ground with nothing more that a thin blanket for cover and a saddle to lay their head - never needing a tent because the night was always starry.

When they got to town the first stop was invariably the nearest saloon, for a shot of whiskey or sarsaparilla (i.e. root beer ), then to ask where they could put up their horse, and finally, to get directions to a boarding house for a steak and a hot bath. Our heroes were seldom able to depart the saloon without getting involved in a fistfight where at least one ruffian was thrown out a window or propelled through the swinging doors.
GO TO: Part 2, Saturday Matinee at the Movies

A Kids Life in the 1940s, Part 5

The holidays started in the fall with Halloween. I don’t quite remember my first Halloween, or the costume - maybe a pirate, but several of us were escorted from house to house on Lafountain. A couple older ladies, sisters I think, lived across the street. They offered cookies and a paper cup of coke. I was wearing a stiff mask made of course gauze, common in those days. It had a small slit for the mouth. The cookie went through the hole without problem, but as much coke soaked into the mask as made it to my mouth. It never occurred to me to take it off.

In subsequent years we abandoned the Treats for Tricks. The usual trick for those early days was just knocking on doors and then running away. One year we learned of tick-tack-toe. That was the name given to a trick using a wooden sewing spool. We would notch the outer edges, wind a string around it, run a pencil through the hole, hold it to a window glass, and pull the string. It made a harsh rattling sound. We got a bit carried away with it and repeatedly returned to the Brunk house because they were handily next door. Don Brunk finally chased me down, held me to the ground and made me promise to quit - the others got away. Mostly it was a fun night running excitedly through back yards. I think it was Bob Hundley who was the only casualty. A clothes line caught him across the throat on one of our nightly escapades. He went vertical for a short instant and then landed hard on his back - no permanent damage though.

I was a true believer in Santa Claus. I once passionately argued his existence with Bob Hundley as we walked toward downtown Kokomo. I was seven and he, being two years older, was worldly and scoffed at the idea. He was adamant, but I was equally insistent that I would never usurp Santa’s position by trying to take his place. I would, by golly, stay in bed and let Santa do his thing for my children. I did not realize it then but that conversation probably sewed the seed, and my youthful images of sugar canes and that magical time of the year started to fade. Within the next year or two I became sophisticated to the ways of the world and Christmas was never the same.

The best part of Christmas was the anticipation. The pressure grew with each passing day. By Christmas Eve the spell was cast. We wandered in a daze of delight, and expectation. Don and I would go to bed at eight or nine trying to sleep through the early useless period. One O’clock would come and we would be up - our first foray. It was never successful. There was nothing new under the tree. Mom and Dad were still up and would send us back to bed. The raids continued through the night, sometimes no more than on half-hour intervals. Eventually, about three or four in the morning, we would venture out to find that Old Saint Nick had again successfully made his appearance while we dreamed of sugar plums and other such things. We knew he had been there because the Christmas tree had new, unwrapped gifts around it. Psychologically, things started down hill after that. At that instant one would hear squeals of joy, the tearing of gift wrapping paper, exclamations of delight, etc, but the feeling of anticipation faded quickly. The best part of Christmas morning is before it gets there.

We got our J.C. Higgins bicycles for Christmas in 1948. The ad to the left shows a bike like the two we saw standing in front of the tree. The room was shadowy, but they glittered in the glow of the Christmas lights - shinny two-tones - purple and tan. We hadn’t expected them, so their appearance that Christmas morning took us by surprise. Don and I stood transfixed. I said something like “Pinch me, I canned believe it” Mom and Dad heard my exclamation and laughed about it for years.

Each bike took six D batteries to run the headlights, taillights and horn, so we started out with each bike fully charged. My bike took some hits almost from the first day as I was a bit small to ride a full size 26 inch bike. There were many crashes as I learned to ride. Sometime afterward, maybe a year or so, we were with Mom in Kresge’s Five & Dime store on the town square when she stopped to talk to a woman she knew. When the woman heard that we had received our bicycles last Christmas she said something like “Christmas is just not quite the same for kids after they get their bikes”. Don and I both agreed and said we thought the woman must be very wise.