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