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Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,109
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,109 |
Like I said before... Dog and Pony show, and an expensive one at that!
No thanks on the photos, I want to remember the H.S. gymnasium the way it was when I was there... 30 years pre-Obama.
BTW, how many barges did it take to get all of the yard ornaments out of town? Some of that stuff was just starting to rust when I walked those dusty streets! I collected quite a few neat old Alaska licence plates from the early 60's off some of the old abandoned cars in yards... favorites are the yellow Big Dipper/North Star plates and the Bicentennial Brown Bear plates! Another guy gave me a couple of old freeze dried, dusty (? how old!!!) wolf hides off his shed next to the road by his house. I was bored so I took them home, washed them in the tub, dried them, cut off the nasty parts, and treated them with borax. I then cut them up, pieced and sewed them back together, lining the backs and made two real nice fur ruffs for my coats. I still have those ruffs, now almost 35 years later, and they still look nice and the hair has never slipped!
Good memories are starting to come back now, overshadowing the bad Obama vibes. I remember coming up on some road construction going on ??? First Street up by the old Wien Building near the airport. They were digging trenches and must have gone through an old native burial area. On the gravel pile was sitting a perfect, intact old human skull. I thought that was pretty cool (my Dad had an old one in his office from dental school) so I decided that would make a neat addition to my collection of "trinkets". I stopped the truck, grabbed it, tucked it away and stashed it in the back of the store where I worked as a warehouseman/delivery boy. I don't remember whether I told anyone about it or whether someone just saw it , but it did not stay in my possession very long! My boss quickly snatched it back up and promptly put it back in the trench and buried it! I got the lecture later that day. He also was not very pleased when I told him that first summer about "popping away" at ravens out at the infamous KOTZ dump with my Uncle's Mini-14... young and dumb!!! Fortunately for me and them, I figured out the local "do's and dont's pretty quick!!!
Great times for an 18 year old. Ed, my boss, paid me at the end of the summer in $1000 dollar bills a couple of years. Not knowing what they were and saving my money for college, I innocently took them home and deposited them in the bank (I had thought it was cool that I could pack my whole summers earnings into my wallet!). My dad about keeled over a few years ago when I told him that.
I wouldn't trade those experiences and many others up there for anything... guess that is why the whole Obama visit/media circus bugged me so much. KOTZ deserves more than that... too unique and beautiful in it's own special way to be ruined by the politics of Washington D.C.and the charades of the POTUS for his own personal benefit/ego/legacy, IMHO.
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 50,627
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 50,627 |
Like I said before... Dog and Pony show, and an expensive one at that!
No thanks on the photos, I want to remember the H.S. gymnasium the way it was when I was there... 30 years pre-Obama.
BTW, how many barges did it take to get all of the yard ornaments out of town? Some of that stuff was just starting to rust when I walked those dusty streets! I collected quite a few neat old Alaska licence plates from the early 60's off some of the old abandoned cars in yards... favorites are the yellow Big Dipper/North Star plates and the Bicentennial Brown Bear plates! Another guy gave me a couple of old freeze dried, dusty (? how old!!!) wolf hides off his shed next to the road by his house. I was bored so I took them home, washed them in the tub, dried them, cut off the nasty parts, and treated them with borax. I then cut them up, pieced and sewed them back together, lining the backs and made two real nice fur ruffs for my coats. I still have those ruffs, now almost 35 years later, and they still look nice and the hair has never slipped!
Good memories are starting to come back now, overshadowing the bad Obama vibes. I remember coming up on some road construction going on ??? First Street up by the old Wien Building near the airport. They were digging trenches and must have gone through an old native burial area. On the gravel pile was sitting a perfect, intact old human skull. I thought that was pretty cool (my Dad had an old one in his office from dental school) so I decided that would make a neat addition to my collection of "trinkets". I stopped the truck, grabbed it, tucked it away and stashed it in the back of the store where I worked as a warehouseman/delivery boy. I don't remember whether I told anyone about it or whether someone just saw it , but it did not stay in my possession very long! My boss quickly snatched it back up and promptly put it back in the trench and buried it! I got the lecture later that day. He also was not very pleased when I told him that first summer about "popping away" at ravens out at the infamous KOTZ dump with my Uncle's Mini-14... young and dumb!!! Fortunately for me and them, I figured out the local "do's and dont's pretty quick!!!
Great times for an 18 year old. Ed, my boss, paid me at the end of the summer in $1000 dollar bills a couple of years. Not knowing what they were and saving my money for college, I innocently took them home and deposited them in the bank (I had thought it was cool that I could pack my whole summers earnings into my wallet!). My dad about keeled over a few years ago when I told him that.
I wouldn't trade those experiences and many others up there for anything... guess that is why the whole Obama visit/media circus bugged me so much. KOTZ deserves more than that... too unique and beautiful in it's own special way to be ruined by the politics of Washington D.C.and the charades of the POTUS for his own personal benefit/ego/legacy, IMHO. Very hard to imagine $1,000 bills still in circulation that late... Gresham's Law is generally considered very reliable... And certainly any number of such a rare bill is harder yet...
Mark Begich, Joaquin Jackson, and Heller resistance... Three huge reasons to worry about the NRA.
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Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,109
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,109 |
Ed was a pretty successful businessman and had probably picked them up somewhere and tucked them away for a few years.
Of course this was in about 1982 or 1983 as well. I think I made about $6,000 or $7,000 a summer the first couple of years I worked up there and I remember stuffing those into my wallet before jumping on the old Wien 737 that first week of September, mid 30's outside and spitting snow. Took the "red eye" home from ANC to SLC, flirting with the Western Airlines stewardesses in the back of the plane, arriving to 90+ degree weather in Salt Lake in the morning... too hot! Life was good and simple back then.
Ed knew what he was doing when he gave me those bills. He was pretty savvy and was trying to impress me and reward me at the same time. I had wanted to work at the "fish lot" buying fish from the commercial fisherman but he insisted that I stay at the "store" working in the back. I wasn't happy... he knew I wanted to be out where the "action" was (or at least I thought that's where it was at!) I just wish he'd told me how special those bills were. I do remember him telling me to be careful with them... maybe he was referencing the stewardesses mentioned earlier!
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