Tom, you got the right guy here. After reading through this thread I figured at least someone would know at least one of my kin.
I was wondering when you were gonna start calling him Louie! That's all I've ever know him as. He lived on the 1st street in off E20th and Lk Otis and I grew up on the 2nd. Louie also bought my uncle's brown Trans Am back in the '70's.
Hmm... There is something very familiar about this story. Did you pick up this route from another kid? Maybe one Chuck B., aka C F B. C. F. picked up the route from one Marv P. You may very well know both of these guys because we are or were all involved in somewhat the same quite electrifying business & C.F. & Marv were real good buds, partners at times. As told by C.F., Marv had a route near where you used to live near 4 corners. Marv was teaching C. F. the route. Marv told C.F. what to do when a mean ass dog ran after him. All he had to do was turn & point in a certain way, which Marv then proceeded to demonstrate when one such mutt showed up. Dog backed right off. Marv had trained them well with a squirt gun full of ammonia & didnt even need to use it anymore. Those dogs knew he was the one. This was a whole hell of a lot funnier when C.F. told the story in person. Many of his stories & comments were. Aint seen C.F. for years & miss that dude. He has a business in the Valley.
He seems to prefer Lou nowadays. Yup, lived on Aleutian St. back then. Lives on Sundi lake now. I remember that Pontiac Cannedham. Lou & The Butchers brother both bought one. They were high school buds.
Man Tom, I remember you had cool cars, hotrods, motorcycles........ you were the coolest guy in town as far as I was concerned. No bull crapping, you were like Steve McQueen to me as a kid. P.S. My sister wants to know if you still have every car you've ever owned
Who had the yellow VW Bug with the small block in the back of it in the early '70's? I had a dark blue '68 Camaro with a mildly built 327 w/Holley carb, Edelbrock intake, headers, exhaust, Centerline rims, etc. The Bug and I were stopped together southbound at the light at C & 15th when he started giving it some gas wanting to race. I chuckled not hearing it as the V8 it was. When the light changed he dumped the clutch and nearly stalled it diving his front end. I looked in my mirror expecting to see him when all of a sudden he just BLEW by me like I was standing still!! :eek1 Sometime later I saw the Bug in a car show Too funnny. Tom, get busy making your hotrod road worthy so I can go for my 1st ride in an open wheeled chopped vehicle this summer.
Marv had the other side of the street and yep... I've tt CF in the last month or two. The ammonia trick though was dad's suggestion after I had some trouble with a GSD and a huge white dog that was a major cornhole. Couldn't tell you how many drinks I bought that white dog. He was dumber than a post and would come in for several shots. Definitely liked to bite though.
I lived in the log cabin just off Fireweed. First driveway on the left. Oscar and Grace Ingold (owned Ingold's Auto Parts) lived on the corner, and I rented from them.
We lived on Birch Lane which was renamed Chevigny Street. Little brother wanted a paper route and the Times route was all sewed up so he called the Daily News. They didn't have any routes in our part of the Sand Lake area at that time and told him if he could get 20 customers it would be worth their time to drop the bundle at our place and he could have a route. Well, in no time he had 20 and the route was reality, stretching from Collins Way to Raspberry to Tall Spruce just past Crawford subdivision and then back by Delong Lake around the big corner on what is now Jewel Lake Road to Chevigny. Pretty soon he had more customers than he could carry the papers for so he asked me to take half and he took half. This was all before the 1964 quake when they were still an evening paper. Don't recall how large the route got but we were each making good money off it. I think he ran the route until our parents moved to CO in 1970. That part is fuzzy for me since I pretty much left home in '66. There were a few dogs on the route. Never carried the amonina gun although we knew about it from my old sixth grade teacher, he grew up in FBX and on a gold mine and lived in Crawford subdivision. The dogs would back down when you squared off on them. Only time I got bit was when I subbed for my brother when he was sick and a customer who didn't know me saw me walking away from his house in the early morning dark and yelled, "sic 'em Buck!" and his black lab nailed me high up on my thigh. Dog let go right quick and I turned and yelled at the idiot asking him why he did that. He came running out in his socks on the below zero snow all apologetic and wanted me to go into his house to make sure I was OK. I told him he was a stupid idiot, turned and walked off and finished the route--it was way cold that morning and i had on so many layers the dog didn't even break the skin. The old gas station at Four Corners was one of our customers. I went to collect from him once and he was counting the till for his deposit, had a pile of change on the table. Told me I could have all the change for the paper bill for that month and save him the trouble of counting and rolling all the change. I took his offer. Must have been about three or four times what he owed. Nice tip. Little brother was walking the route the afternoon of 3-27-64 with a friend. They were on the hill that is now called Thurman Drive, back then it was part of Sand Lake Road. They were on their way home and had bought a bunch of candy at Four Corners, which mom had told them not to do. When the quake began they both thought they were getting sick from all the candy they'd eaten. I was late starting my half of the route that day so i was home when the quake hit. Mom had just bought and i had helped her put on the kitchen shelves a months supply of canned goods. They were open shelves. When the rocking and rolling began I jumped up and tried to keep stuff on the shelves, leaving an open gallon of milk on the table. Pretty quick all the canned goods were on the floor rolling around in the milk. Soon as it stopped mom said to get my papers delivered and she'd clean up--that's the way she was, work needs to get done no matter what. There were lots of trees down on my short-cut trails through the woods. Glad I was home and not on the trail when they fell. All the machine shop work I ever needed done while I lived in Anchor town was done at Ingolds. Some of my friends liked Smitty's better. I think it was because of the "wall paper" he had. Joe
Jim and Charley still have that Bronco. I lived on Wandering Drive off Sand Lake Road right across from Kimuro (sp) Studio. Sand Lake Road was quite the race track back then. We could hear motors lighting up at the Dimond corner heading north. The folks at SLAuto were/are the best. Fite
All this discussion of the Sand Lake area reminds me - the first topless joint in the Anchorage area was on Sand Lake Rd. Eddie's Sand Box, IIRC. While I was living on Ingra St, my wife and a neighbor lady a couple of doors down became good friends. They talked her husband and me into taking them out to the place to see what the talk was all about. Personally, I wasn't impressed. About the same era the Red Barn opened up in Eagle River. Since that was during my decadent youth we, along with that same couple, and sometimes a third, would hit the place on Sunday nights when it wasn't too crowded. It took at least 3 beers to get me out onto the dance floor, but after a six-pace I would even swing the larger lady around in a polka. Sheesh! The things I did back then to embarrass myself.
Fixed for accuracy. I was a photo lab aid under Sam at UAA around 1980. MY first strip club experience was at The Showcase Lounge in Seward in the early '70's. I was 16yo and used to hang with guys that were older than me but I was a bit under the limit for drinking back then (which IIR was 18-19?). It was during the Silver Salmon Derby when we went into the Lounge. The door lady asked me when I was born and I was too far gone to figure it out. Low and behold another attractive employee came up and told her not to bother me! I don't remember what happened after that or how long we stayed. My group was in 2 different vehicles. My buds in the other car got pulled over somewhere and spent the night in jail. Their parents had to come get 'em the next day. Don't think much else came of it tho. My friend and I went back to the campground and got chased by a group of thugs so he and I slept in his little MG and went back to Anch the next day. Both being about 6', him in the front seat and me in the back, don't think we got much sleep. Fun times! I also used to go to the Fancy Moose on Lake Spenard underage. I knew a very pretty girl who worked there. Emma dear, I still think of you.
I walked through that parking lot as a kid a zillion times going down to DeLong lake to goof off. I can remember wondering what the place was as it was off the street / non-descript / looked like some kind of office / ...and never seemed to have any activity during the day. Huh. There was also a guy on the lake that liked to molest neighborhood boys. Had to watch for that roach. He finally got busted and spent a little time in the pokey and then moved away. I doubt any of the old neighborhood kids would miss him.
Mark as I remember the Yellow VW/v8 was built by Terry Davis. His dad owned a body shop on 36th between Spenard and Arctic. Terry worked and then owned the shop in later years. I think he also did a V8 conversion in a Karman Ghia. The shop "Alaska Auto Arts" moved to Wasilla years ago. Terry passed away last year.
January 1962. Getting ready for winter maneuvers just north of Tanacross, the advance troops were treated to the coldest weather anyone could remember. The reports we got back at Fort Rich said it hit an unofficial 86 below at Tanacross, and 78 below down at Northway. Tales of the carnage were rampant. One told of an Army H-21 helicopter (air-cooled radial engine) that was started in the hangar at Tanacross, but when taxied out into the frigid air, the engine "froze up" literally, and stopped cold (no pun intended). Another related how a lowboy trailer, fitted with brand new tires in the maintenance shop at Fort Rich, had the rubber treads shatter like glass when an attempt was made to haul a D7 down the highway. Whereas the normal procedure for Army vehicles in extreme cold was to leave the engines idling 24 hrs/day, that month it was so cold that not only did the engines have to be left running, but a team of drivers was kept busy driving every one for a few minutes out of every hour to ensure the lubricants in the differentials did not solidify, as had happened to a few trucks. The extremely low temperatures took their toll in many ways, and the fuel budget for the entire maneuver was used up before the actual war games even got started the first week of February. Fortunately, by that time weather had moderated, and we only had to endure temps of -50°F and milder for the duration of our stay in the area. As we were breaking camp to return to the post, it warmed up to 10 above with clear blue skies and bright sun. Many of the troops, now acclimated, were working outside at that temperature in their tee shirts. The front end of the camp. The little gray "pop" tent in the right foreground was occupied by a couple of civilian engineers who were testing its applicability for military use. When a helicopter landed nearby the tent ended up in a stand of black spruce, and the engineers wisely choose to move into heated quarters with some officers. Some of the vehicles being tested for suitability under Arctic conditions. From the left: A Ford pickup with tracks installed, a Wagner 4-Track, Robin-Nodwell "semi" with powered trailer. Farther north, near Dot Lake, an attempt was made to cross the Tanana River on an ice bridge. Despite the intense cold earlier, getting the ice to freeze solid enough for crossing with heavy equipment was difficult. To add to the problem, there are many hot springs in the area, and several pieces of equipment were lost. Rumor had it that at least 3 D-7's were completely buried and never recovered. Here's one that was saved from that fate by blasting the mud from around it, then hooking on with this Musk-Ox and another D-7 to drag it back up onto solid frozen tundra. That was the month that John Glenn made the first American to orbit the earth in a space craft. Since the radios we were using (AN/GRC-19, known as the angry 19) were capable of receiving and transmitting on the standard AM broadcast band, I set one up in battalion headquarters so the officers could listen in to the broadcast of the space flight. We all cheered when Glenn made a successful splashdown. While working at the Slana retreat last week, I had occasion to drive to Tok for some materials. Realizing that it had been exactly 50 years since Exercise Great Bear, I drove up to Mile 1328.5 to see how it looked today compared to my recollections. Back then - Today - In some ways, things haven't changed much in 50 years.
A great story Alcan Rider thanks for sharing, we think its cold over here when it drops to 10c in the middle of winter
