Buying A House and other Adventures with Wes

Home on Wendys Way, Ahchorage, AK 1970

I returned to Indiana in the fall of 1968 to work on a graduate degree in education, and headed back over the ALCAN the following August. In December, Bob Evans, our new roommate, found a beautiful, four bedroom home to rent on Wendys Way. The place belonged to some old friends of his, Don and Gladys Beattie. It was on the west end of town off Northernlights Blvd., and near the International Airport. We moved on December 19, 1969. Bob, Wes and I pooled our money and jointly bought it in the fall of 1971.

Wes Warner on back porch of Wendys Way, 1970

In the spring of 1970, Wes joined me, Dan Wilson, Jim Sumner, three teachers at West High, on an early spring fishing trip. Someone had the idea that we could get some grayling out of Crescent lake on the Kenai Peninsula. The lake sat in the mountains nestled in a crook of the bigger S-shaped Kenai Lake that lay below. The six mile hike into the lake was mainly uphill. Our trek started on a warm May day with hints of spring in the air, but as the trail gradually climbed into higher country we ran into snow that became deeper with elevation. No one had anticipated the depths we found, waist deep in places.

Wes and his first big Salmon

The five trudged laboriously onward. Several avalanches thundered ominously, unseen and distant. We came to the lake a few hours later, wet and tired. To add insult to injury, it was still frozen. The ice had yet to go out. No fishing that day. We held up in a Forest Service cabin for a hour or so - built a fire and someone made a watery, tasteless soup. Then we trudged back over the trail. The misadventure led Wes to refer and count all future outing that Dan Wilson and I were involved with as “Fiasco Number One”, “Fiasco Number Two” , etc.

A friend, Bob Evans, and Wes Warner, Winter, 1970

Wes Warner, Turnagain Pass, 1970

We had a number of adventures over the years. The three of us bought snow machines shortly after moving. Wes and I went out nearly every weekend over the next three or four winters. Bob often accompanied us, but it was rare for Wes and I to miss. Sometimes several others would go along.

Wes Turnagain Pass, Alaska, 1970

Wes Warner & Larry Robidue, Lake Louise, 1971

Hatcher Pass was our favorite area. We accessed it from either the Palmer or the Willow end. Once we went to the top of Mount Baldy from the Willow side and explored the wreckage of a Military transport that had crashed in the 1950’s. Old abandoned mines were accessible from the Palmer side. We visited several perched on the sides of mountains. One mine was located four or five miles up a valley on the Palmer side. The mine had not been in operation for several years, but a cabin with basic furnishings still stood in fairly good condition. We went in to it several times one winter. I remember a steel cable crossed the path as we came into the mine area. We could not reach up and touch it on our first trip in. We road over it on the last.

Wes Warner & Bob Evans, Mt. Baldy, Hacher Pass, 1971

We made excursions to Lake Louise, and Juneau Lake on the Resurrection Trail, among others, but Turnagain Pass was our other favorite place to snow machine. Wes and I went there on our first trip out of town. I recently purchased a pair of Air force mukluks, blue canvas boots that reached half up my calves. They had thin rubber soles with thick wool liners, and were so light it was like wearing house slippers. I remember wiggling my toes in them on our way to the pass that morning wondering how they could possibly keep my feet warm in such cold weather. We spent most of the day on our machines exploring, stopping once to take each others pictures in front of backdrop of snow covered spruce trees. We had so much fun we both, like kids with new toys, could hardly wait for the next weekend to come. I never worried about the mukluks after that first trip.

Staging Area at Hatcher Pass, Willow side, 1971

A half-dozen of us went to Turnagain Pass on another occasion. We worked our way up to a bench at the mountain base and were spread out, maneuvering through widely spaced trees. I would, now and then, catch a glimpse of one of the other riders off to my side. We were in deep snow. The boughs of the trees were heavily laden with snow, but there was none at their bases. I went too close to one and slid into the hole, an inverted cone of empty space, around its base. It took me nearly an hour to work my way out. I shut off the engine at one point and heard nothing but absolute silence, and knew I had to get out of it on my own. Wes and I purchased snowshoes after that and carried them strapped to our machine. The snow was too deep to walk through, and you could go further on a machine in twenty minutes that you could walk all day - even in snowshoes.

Wes riding on Oil Well Road near Ninilchik, AK, 1971

We bought Honda motorcycles at the start of the 1970 summer. All three cycles were small, not the macho Harley Hog type, but better for running on the back county trails. Bob’s was the smallest, a Honda 90. We teased him saying it looked more like a girlie bike. It was a low geared vehicle with a large platform on top of the rear wheel - a good work horse for carrying things. Mine was orange, with a 100cc engine. Wes had the largest with an emerald green 125cc machine.

Wes on beach near Ninilchik, AK, 1971

Our two cycles were the classic dirt-bike variety with a gap between fenders and tires, but they had little power. We tried hill climbing a couple times. Other bikers, with bigger machines, could easily beat the hills, but ours repeatedly petered out before reaching the top.

Joe Buckingham on his Honda 100, Ninilchik, AK, 1971

One weekend the two of us went south on the Kenai to the Ninilchik area. We road miles along the beaches, feeling free and exuberant, as we leaned into curves, and carved “figure-eights“ in the wet sand. Later that weekend we explored the fifteen miles to the end of Oil Well Road (off of which I’d staked my Open-to-Entry land claim) where it ended at a circular pad. A large diameter, “well-head” pipe rose vertically from the center. It was a bit eerie - we had finally come to the end of the road - fifteen miles through wilderness, no fences, no houses, no poles, no nothing…and then it suddenly ended.
GO TO: Wes on the Kenai

My First Year in Alaska, Wes Warner - Part 3

The Christmas of 1967 was especially difficult for Wes. He told me that he had married the prettiest girl in school, thought it was a happy union, but surprisingly found it to be illusion. He dropped everything and came to Alaska after they broke up. One morose evening he told me that he considered his life to be over. That thought proved to be false; life had just taken a new direction for him.

 Bill Smith, Tim, & Wes Warner, Big Lake, AK, Septermer, 1967
Four of us had driven north to Big Lake the preceding September. That had been the extent of our exploration till May when Wes and I took an impromptu trip to Homer and Kachemak Bay. During the summer we tried our hand at fishing, but often found the streams to be “sterile” - our way of justifying fishless returns. We had yet to learn the ways of fishing in Alaska; that waters could be full of fish at certain times of the year and empty at others.

    

Wes Warner fishing the Sisitna River, AK 1968

One weekend, while fishing down on the Kenai, we decided to try the Lower Russian Lake. We’d heard that it had some nice Rainbow trout. It was a bit late on a Sunday afternoon, after another fruitless day without fish. We started up the three mile-long trail with nothing but fishing poles in hand. I don‘t remember much about the trek other than it was a nice sunny day, and we walked along at a brisk pace. It probably took a hour to walk in; we fished for no more than an hour, and then walked back out - shows how determined and desperate fishermen can get.

Joe Buckingham with Pink Salmon on the Sussitna River, Ak, 1968

Mom and Dad drove the Alcan the following summer, 1968. They arrived in mid -June and stayed several weeks. We flew up to Kotzebue and Nome on Alaska Airlines during the Solstice. Mom and I were having a beer at the local saloon in Nome when I went out to take a photo of Main Street at midnight. Later the three of us walked an ice field at Portage Glacier, drove a very rough road to Lake Louise, and then fished for Red Salmon on the Russian River. They had a memorable time, and reluctantly headed back in July.

Mom and Dad at signpost in Nome, AK, 1968

Dad and Mom left their small travel trailer with me to sell as they did not wish to tow it back to Indiana. I sold it to a couple, that had just arrived in Alaska. I remember they were in their forties, had just obtain jobs in the boom town of Kenai, and were excited about starting a new life. The price was $900 dollars, they paid $300 down and were to make two monthly payments of equal size. The next payment did not arrive as promised, so I had to drive down to Kenai to look them up. I found his wife working as a waitress in a popular bar, and she went and got him. His arm was in a cast. He had a accident shortly after beginning work, and they were up against it. The trailer was in a local park, and his mother was living with them.

Mom and Dad on Snow field, Poertage Glazier, 1968

Dad with Red Salmon catch, Kenia Peninsula, AK, 1968

Mom with her first Red Salmon, Russian River, AK, 1968

I had borrowed Bill Smith’s truck and driven the hundred and sixty miles to Kenai thinking I might be taking it back with me, but I didn’t have the heart to put them in the street. I had a potential sale lined up with a contractor in Anchorage, but told the guy I didn’t want to do that if he would make the two final installments. I gave him another month. I did not tell him I was heading back to Indiana in a couple weeks. Both payments arrived on time.
GO TO: Buying a House and other adventrues with Wes, Part 4

My First Year in Alaska - Meeting Wes Warner

Wes Warner at home on 26th Avenue, Anchorage

Wes Warner, having flown in from Idaho in July, was like the rest of us, a new arrival to Alaska. He was working the sales counter at the auto parts store with Bill Smith, and had rented a room, of which he found wanting.

We decided he should move in with us, but the only room available was one jammed full of junk. Our entrance, at the back of the building, passed through a small vestibule that doubled as a tool room and catchall area. From there we entered the kitchen to the right. The small room at the back of the vestibule had been filled and forgotten for years. The landlady was not opposed to our suggestion that we help clean and furnish the room. Wes moved in mid September.

Wes Warner, Christmas 1967

Wes Warner was not an imposing figure. The first time we met I perceived a short fellow with a slightly rotund body. His hair, kept short in a brush style cut, rose above bespectacled owl-eyes that stared out of a round face. Wes’s visage was remarkable in its plainness. He was, at thirty-seven, ten years my senior. We possessed very different backgrounds, but circumstance had introduced us, and over that winter we found common ground for a lasting friendship.

Wes Warner & landlady Louise Machevski

Two things helped to bring us closer: we were single men arriving in a new world; and we had arrived alone. Wes was starting a new life; I had yet to decide what I was going to do with mine. Neither of us considered ourselves to be a vanguard for those who might follow. Bill Smith and Bill Peasal had wives back home; Smith expected his wife and family to join him, which they eventually did; Peasal planned on returning to South Dakota and eventually did.

So Wes and I, unencumbered by domestic responsibilities, began to frequent nearby establishments on Friday and Saturday nights. There were many in the neighborhood, but our favorite haunts were the Chef’s Inn, a mere two block walk to Northernlights blvd, and the Pink Poddle, located in a strip mall off Spenard Road, only a block from home. Both had live music on weekends and offered diversion and entertainment within safe walking distances.

We often drove to the Office Lounge because we liked its uniqueness. The establishment lay a mile east on Northernlights. It had a circular bar on the second floor of a hex shaped building with windows on most sides. The view of the mountains and surrounding city was spectacular, but the unique aspect of the place was that the bar rotated. We would sit there as giant gears revolved unseen somewhere below, slowly spinning us as we sat at the bar - a merry-go-round of a different breed. Its movement was imperceptibly sluggish, making one revolution per hour. Many new visitors, ignorant of its capacity, sat on bar stools as it made one complete rotation after another. They watched the ever shifting scenery, mountains then city, mountains then city, without ever perceiving the ambiguity.

That winter we got to know each other while bar hopping. Many a night we would walk toward home after midnight, tramping through crisp snow that squealed ever louder underfoot as the temperature grew colder. Some nights we would rock back and forth listening to the crunch, trying to gauge the air temperature from the pitch of the noisy squeak.

On more than one night Wes broke out in slightly tipsy rapture, reciting a poem he learned in school. He never got beyond the first stanza - couldn’t remember the next line or the rest of the poem - didn’t recall the author - but he really loved it, and recited it on many a cold evening walk home.

I eventually found the poem, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, copied, memorized it, and waited patiently for Wes’s next attempt at recital. Eventually it came:

           “Sunset and evening star        

        And one clear call for me!
        And may there be no moaning of the bar,

       When I put out to sea,"
                          
 He faltered at that point and I took over:
   
       But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

       Too full for sound and foam,
      When that which drew from out
        the boundless deep
      Turns again home.

      
       Twilight and evening bell,
       After that the dark!
       And may there be no sadness of farewell,
       When I embark,

       For though from out our bourn of
      Time and Place
      The flood may bare be far,
      I hope to see my Pilot face to face
     When I have crossed the bar.” 

I gave him the copy, and we joined in late evening recitals thereafter.
GO TO: My First Year in ALaska, Wes Warner - Part 3

My First Year in Alaska

The day after I arrived in Anchorage I started hunting for a room and a job, mainly a room. June is one of the few months when sunny days should not be surprising, but it was raining the day I arrived, and I don’t remember being exposed to sunlight for some while after. There was one cloudy day after another in June of 1967. I did not feel like camping any longer, didn’t like the idea of crawling out of a soggy tent each morning, and I wanted to be able to clean up and hunt for a job.

I settled in the Mid-town area though the reason escapes me; perhaps it was because the Moose Lodge happened to be located there on Arctic Blvd. I was a member of the Kokomo lodge, knew fellow Moose would have ideas as to employment and housing, so I frequented the lodge several times over the succeeding months.


The local newspaper provided a couple leads on housing. The first was at the Fireweed Hotel off Arctic. It lay between Fireweed Street and Northernlights Boulevard and seemed more of a rooming house than hotel. The tenants were really young. I was only twenty-seven, but felt like the old man of the place. The room must have been a closet in its former life. The door jammed against the bed upon opening; there were no windows, and one’s legs brushed the bed and wall while edging around its perimeters. The place was a prescription for claustrophobia.

My First home in Alaska

1037 W 26th Avenue, Anchorage, Alaska

The second offering, only a couple blocks away, on 26th Avenue, was near perfect in comparison. My new abode was in the basement of a three story stucco house. The main floor housed the owner/landlady and her teenage daughter. The top floor and basement had been converted to room rentals. I had a spacious room adjoining a small living room that lead into the kitchen. The house sat a block east of Spenard road, close to a grocery, several restaurants, and a couple bars - everything a single guy needed. I was in the “Heart of Spenard”.

Bill Peasal and Bill Smith

Two fellows occupied a room off the kitchen. They were both named Bill and both came from South Dakota, though the similarity ended there. Bill Smith was tall and slim like a bean pole. He stood six foot six, and weighed no more than a hundred-fifty pounds, wore plad cowboy shirts, slim fitting jeans and cowboy boots. Smith was confident, sure of himself, and spoke of things in a knowing manner. Bill Peasal reached a medium height and weight, but was a quiet, mild-mannered fellow, almost bashful. Both were married with wives back in South Dakota. Smith worked at an auto parts store; Peasal labored for a construction company. Both had been in the state for less than a year.

Bill Smith

Anchorage numbered about fifty thousand, and the military bases counted for that many again. Much about the town was frontier, many side streets were gravel, sidewalks were rare, and more than one parking lot lacked pavement. There wasn’t much happening in town that year, the economy was kind of slow, and not many good jobs were available. I took one as a custodian with the school district within the week, figuring something better might come along, but continued to work through the winter. Crews were involved in giving each school a thorough cleaning. During the summer I moved from one location to another as the season progressed and was assigned a position at the new Dimond High School that fall.

Landlady Louise Machievski

I was a bit short of money through the summer. Mom and Dad sent me a check for a couple hundred. I had to open a checking account and wait several weeks before the money was available so I didn't adventure out of town other than a one day trip to Portage Glacier in July. Mainly I stayed in town working and passing time reading books, many about Alaska and the North.

Bill Peasal

Several things happened in August. Bill Peasal and another fellow were taking building materials to Valdez, Alaska when the truck’s breaks went out going down Thompson Pass into Valdez. The driver could not navigate the final curve at the bottom and they crashed. Both survived, but only by luck. It so happened the only doctor in town was being visited by his three sons, who also happened to be doctors. The four worked on the two injured men for several hours. That coincident saved their life, but Bill was in the hospital for a month. The other thing that happened in August was I met Wes Warner.
GO TO: Meeting Wes Warner