CHAPTER 20
Elmendorf AFB
1971-1975
When we got to Alaska, we lived in the base guest housing for several days while we looked for a house. We bought a split entry duplex at 4820 Klondike Avenue in Anchorage. We moved into the three bedroom apartment upstairs and rented out the two bedroom apartment below. There was a shared laundry room below and an unattached two car garage in back. We were about three miles from the base.
I was assigned as OIC of the Engineering Section of Alaska Communications Region; our headquarters was Air Force Communications Service (AFCS) out of Richards-Gebaur AFB, Missouri. We had about 15 civilian and military engineers plus drafting and administrative support assigned to the section. It was our job to draw up plans and order material for all new communications and flight facility installations in Alaska. After we had been there about a year the Alaska Communications Region was deactivated and our mission was transferred to the 1931st Communications Group.
One of the projects we had in Alaska was to install communications equipment for a gunnery range at Blair Lake. It was a total disaster. Some of the equipment we ordered was wrong; some wrong equipment was shipped when we did order it right; some things didn’t fit in the allotted space; some things were broken in shipment; the installation team was delayed in getting on site. It was just one of those cases where if something could go wrong, it did. This was all taking place in the middle of winter and the civil engineers were having problems even worse than ours but they were not aware of it until spring came and things started thawing out. The building where we were working was about 20 by 30 feet with quarters in one end and the communications equipment in the other. It was built on piers about two feet high. No one knew it at the time, but the main sewer line had broken; the sewage was being dumped under the building and it froze into a solid block all winter. This was no problem until spring when all the surrounding snow melted, but the shade slowed the melting of the ice block under the building and it just drizzled out all summer. Just before the first freeze the following fall, enough of it melted to repair the broken line. I’m glad I wasn’t the one that had to crawl under the building to fix it.
The cold really wasn’t that bad in the Anchorage area. You had to go to the interior for it to really be cold. The worst part was frozen pipes and cars that wouldn’t start. Water pipes were buried about ten feet deep and they didn’t use meters in order to keep them from freezing; they just charged a flat rate for water. Every one had a thaw wire connected where the house supply line hooked on the water main. Then, if your supply line did freeze, you could get an electric welder, connect one lead to the thaw wire and the other lead to the water pipe inside the house to thaw it out. While we were there we had one spell when the temperature went to about 35 degrees below zero for several days. That is when it becomes hard to get the cars started. By using garages and block heaters it is possible to cope. When the bush pilots landed in a cold area, they would drain their oil and take it inside. When it was time to take off they would heat the oil before putting it back in the engine.
There were 13 big radar sites scattered across Alaska to keep a lookout for incoming Russians. Most of them were quite remote. I’ve heard it said, but never saw it documented, that when a bird flew through the radar beam close to the antenna he would fall out of the sky. I had cause to go to the site at Indian Mountain. The only way to get there was to fly in; Alaskan Air Command had the last C-124 on active duty and it was used to supply the radar sites. The runway at Indian Mountain went up the hill. To land there they didn’t descend; they just flew straight into the mountain, hit the runway and rolled up the hill. When it came time to take off I think we could have left the ground with the engines idling because we were going down such a steep hill. The day I went to Indian Mountain, Nell had some excitement of her own. She was on her way home from the commissary when she thought she saw a wallet on the side of the road. She backed up to get it and went over an embankment. The Volkswagen bus she was in rolled over about three times. Fortunately, she wasn’t hurt badly, but the bus was pretty well banged up. To this day she panics when a car starts to tilt a little, especially if it is backing up.
Alaska is a way of life. Most people there either loved it or hated it; very few were somewhere between. Sterling Allen was one of our civilian engineers and he fell in the group that got tired of the cold weather. He decided to transfer out; he said he was going to put a pair of skis on top of his car, head south and not stop until someone asked, “What are those things on top of your car?” The nights are long in the winter, but the long days make up for it in the summer. If you like the outdoors you will find yourself in the group that loves Alaska. While there, we bought a pickup with a cabover camper. One of the things we enjoyed most was taking the camper to Homer to fish for shrimp. We caught the shrimp using a wire basket and cat food. I made the basket out of woven wire screen with half inch squares; it was about 30 inches square with all four edges turned up about three inches. Using a light rope we made a harness so we could lower the basket from the dock; we tied a can of cat food in the middle after we had punched a hole in the can. We would let the basket sit on the bottom a few minutes and then pull it up fast. The harness kept it flat and the edges kept the shrimp from swimming off. When the shrimp were in the area it didn’t take long to fill a bucket. If they were not in the area we would just wait a while. Usually they were most plentiful about two AM. Shortly before we left Alaska, there were so many people shrimping from the dock in Homer they made everyone stop.
The first Christmas we were up there we bought the kids some skis. Randy had been doing cross country skiing at school but he wanted some down hill skis so that is what we got for him. Ronda’s were short skis, about three feet long. She asked me to take her outside and teach her to use them. That was a mistake; she should have asked Randy. The ground was flat around our house but on a near by lot, a basement had been dug out for a new house. I told Ronda she should ski down into the basement. She did and things went as planned until she hit the bottom. The skis didn’t make the transition from almost straight down to flat and level. When the tips of the skis hit the bottom, they just dug in as did Ronda’s face. She still won’t let me forget her ski lesson.
Fred Sodomka was another Major in the 1931st Comm. Group. He and his wife, Joan, had two kids about the age of Randy and Ronda, and they arrived in Alaska about the same time we did. Our families did quite a few things together. Fred and I liked to go to the base dump and scrounge for things. Joan thought it was below a major’s dignity to do such things (she was probably right) but we did it any way. We found several treasures; Fred found a good chain. I found a bunch of broken telephones; what was broken on one was good on the next so by exchanging parts I came up with several good ones. I found a lady’s blonde wig that we had a lot of fun with. I remember seeing a picture of Dad with that wig on but don’t have any idea where it is.
Uncle John was serious about wanting to come to Alaska. I bought two lots from one of the civilians in our unit, drew up some floor plans and borrowed some money from the base credit union. Building materials in Alaska were very expensive so Uncle John took my plans and bought enough supplies in Seattle for two houses. He bought lumber, plumbing, heating, electrical, roofing, insulation, windows, doors, carpet, siding, and just about everything else except the concrete. He then rented two shipping containers from Sea Land, had them loaded and shipped to Alaska. In June of 1972 he and his two sons, Terry and Mike, came to Anchorage and we started to work on Sherry Street. Terry brought his dog, Moltke (pronounced Mokie) with him; the dog loved McDonald hamburgers. One day Terry decided to see just how many he could eat; it took ten and a half before he stopped. Uncle John, Terry and Mike would work all day and I would come out as soon as I got off base and we would work until ten or eleven PM. That summer we had all the daylight we needed to get a full days work in. We built one house and sold it. We built the second house, sold our duplex, and moved into the new house at 3515 Sherrie Street. Just before we moved, I was selected to go to a 24 day school on how to design facilities to prevent signal interception. So Uncle John and my cousins moved Nell while I was gone in February 1973. Just to be sure they completely finished the job before I returned I took a few days leave and stopped by to see Ninny and Pawpaw in Adamsville, and Mom and Dad in Decatur, on my way back to Alaska. Uncle John then went back to Seattle for the rest of the winter and when spring came he returned with Aunt Ola and a travel trailer; that summer he built houses on his own. I worked some for him, usually with the electrical and plumbing installation.
The house we moved into on Sherrie Street is unique in one respect. One end is four inches wider than the other. I used to get impatient with Uncle John when he had to get his glasses out to read the measuring tape. He was trying to get by without digging his glasses out while we were laying out the foundation. Unfortunately he misread the tape and we didn’t discover the error until the concrete was poured. We faced the foundation with natural rock so by using thin rocks on the wide end and thick ones on the narrow end we were able to hide the mistake. When we framed the house on top of the foundation, we used the correct measurements without consequences. Now that I need glasses to read a tape, if I had it to do over again, I would be much more tolerant of Uncle John and his glasses.
The IRS audited us the year we sold the first house we built. They wanted to see our church contributions and the expenses for building the house. I had the checks for church in order and the auditor added them up one by one, no problem. The receipts for the house were not as organized. They were all in a big paper bag. When the lady asked for them I dumped the bag on her desk. She looked at them for a minute and then said, “That looks about right”. She sent us home and the whole audit took about 15 minutes. I think they made plans to get even with me the next year because we were audited again. The audit notice was sent to our old Anchorage address and forwarded to Missouri, but I was TDY in the Philippines when it came. By the time I got home I had already missed the audit date in Anchorage. I wrote them a letter and explained what happened. I asked them what they wanted me to do. They didn’t even answer my letter which was fine with me.
Uncle John, Colonel Carley (a friend), and I went bear hunting south of Juneau. We flew commercial to Juneau and a bush pilot dropped us off in the islands somewhere to the south. He came back six days later and picked us up. We took camping gear and a Zodiac raft with motor with us. Our biggest problem was finding wood dry enough to burn; it rained most of the time we were there. I had a small crab pot I took and each morning before we went out we would bait it and set it out. Without fail it would be full of crabs when we came in at night. We would boil them and eat our fill. We didn’t eat much of the food we packed in because the crabs were so good. We saw several bears but had trouble getting close enough for a shot. Then, on the last day of the hunt, a few minutes before we headed back to camp, I was able to get a small bear. Uncle John got one later after we left Alaska. I don’t know if Colonel Carley ever got one or not. That was the only hunting I ever did in Alaska. I had the bear skin in the basement while waiting to get it tanned. We had a little dog, Linus, and that bear hide worried him to death; he wouldn’t go anywhere near it.
The state of Alaska had a program with similarities to the Homestead Act of the 1800’s. Any one that lived in the state for a year or more could stake-out up to five acres in selected areas and after having it surveyed, they would be given title to the land. You didn’t have to live on it. Frank Gertcher (one of the engineers that worked for me) and I went down to Seward where some of this land was and drove our stakes. Our lots were on the east side of Resurrection Bay (there is a big silver salmon derby on Resurrection Bay every year). There was no road to it so we rented a boat to get there. I staked one parcel for Nell and one for me between Humpy Cove and Thumb Cove with about 800 feet of water front. Frank was a little further down the bay. I had a scare while walking through the brush. I was huffing and puffing up a hill and saw a stump where I wanted to sit and rest. I had just reached it and started to squat when a black bear stuck his head out of a den he had dug under the stump and growled. I found out I wasn’t out of breath after all. I let the bear have the stump all by himself.
One thing Nell and I both enjoyed about our tour in Alaska was that every summer someone came to visit us. The first summer, 1971, Mom and Dad came up; they brought Randy and Ronda to Seattle, put the kids on a military flight and the next day they came up on a commercial flight. I just about ruined the summer for Mom. We were in our Volkswagen bus going down Glenn highway when a man about two cars in front of us stopped right in the middle of the road to make a left turn. There was a left turn lane but he didn’t bother to use it. I glanced back to say something at just the wrong time and rear ended the car in front of me. Mom’s back was hurt pretty badly and it was a long time before it got better. The second summer was when Uncle John, Terry and Mike came up. Then the third summer Ninny and Pawpaw (and their friend Ossie) came up. Nell took them to Portage, put our camper on the train to Whittier, took the ferry to Valdez, drove to Fairbanks and back to Anchorage by way of Mt. McKinley National Park. I couldn’t get off work and didn’t get to go with them; they all had a good time. While they were there I made a deal with Pawpaw; I gave him $2800 and when I got out of the Air Force in 1977 I would get his tools. The fourth summer (1974) Mom and Dad came back up; this time they brought Uncle Ray and Aunt Edna with them. Nell took them on the same tour she took her folks on the year before. However, when they were at Valdez, they went salmon fishing. (See figure 24.) Dad, Uncle Ray and I hiked in to Three Mile Lake (I think) and caught some nice trout.
It was our last summer there that the visitor really caught us by surprise. The tour to Alaska was supposed to be four years so we were due to rotate in April 1975. However, when the Air Force found out we had a visitor scheduled they extended us to July. We were not expecting it but the stork dropped by on the 13th of May. Roger was born with some bilirubin problems and spent a few extra days in the hospital and under some special lights but soon came home and was ready to travel by July. I went to the base hobby shop and built a cradle for him. Ronda was disappointed because he wasn’t a girl. I think she is happy now that she has someone to help fix her computer.
We went to church at the Tenth and B Church of Christ in Anchorage; Ronda was baptized there. I served as deacon. They had a new building under construction before we left but we didn’t get to see it completed. I tried to sell my pickup and camper before leaving Anchorage but could find no buyers. I left it with a friend at church, Stan Godsoe, to see if he could sell it. We sold our house at the peak of the market in Anchorage; the Alaska pipeline was almost completed and there was a housing shortage all over the state, so it worked out well for us.
We put our dog, Linus, in a crate and shipped him on the same plane we flew to Seattle. In Seattle, my cousin, Jan, (Uncle John’s daughter) met us and took us to a car dealer where we picked up a new Dodge Dart we had bought while still in Alaska. The next day we put Linus on a plane to Kansas City where we had arranged for him to be put in a kennel until we arrived a few weeks later. He was a small dog but we like to have never got him in the crate for his second plane ride. I guess he didn’t like the first one and wasn’t going on the second if he could help it; he was almost dog enough to get his way. We took leave and visited all our folks in Texas before going to my last Air Force assignment at Richards-Gebaur AFB, Missouri.
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