Summer of '69 in Alaska was a little different than the lower 48 ,sure ,we had the music,,,but T V sucked ,,everything was taped in Seattle and flown up & shown the next day ,,Johny Carson,,the Superbowl ,the World Series ,Etc,Etc,, no satalites yet ,,so,i didn't watchT V the last three years i was up there ,, but,,you could go up into the mountains ,,find a running stream and pan for Gold ,,Gold was frozen at $35 an ounce ,all the banks had Gold Scales on their counters ,you could find a couple hundred bucks werth in a weekend ,don't sound like much today ,,but in '69 ,premium Ethyl gas was .50 cents a gal ,,a pac a Luckies was .75 cents ,BUT ,,Alaska didn't have Veggie farms ,,the soil wouldn't grow corn ,,tomatoes ,,lettuce ,,etc ,,so all the veggie stuff had to be flown in from Washington state or Canada ,,which made it all a little pricey,,in exchange ,,we shipped fresh & canned Salmon south ,,I went Commercial Salmon Fishing July of '69 ,,open season only lasted a month ,,made a ton a money that month ,,$14 grand ,,plus,,we didn't have the War Protests,,Race Problems ,,Anchorage was the cross roads of the World ,,at the Airport every Airline in the Free World stopped there for fuel ,you could here every language known to man ,I didn't realize all that what was going on 'till i moved back to Iowa late fall of '69 ,, Boy ,,what an eye opening i got spring of '70 ,, ,,
Summer of '69 ,,the month of July to be exact ,,went commercial Salmon fishing for Joe Reddington Sr ,,,the father of the Idadarod Sled Dog Races ,, fished the tides with three 50 foot set nets ,,staggered 50 feet apart ,,,,about 500 to 750 fish per tide ,,two tides a 24 hour time period ,,no sleep 'cept an hour at hi tide and lo tide ,,lived offa salmon cooked in the converted WW II LAST / Tug Boat fly bridge ,,and peanut butter sanwitches , that's Joe in the lower pic ,,he ran the LST boat to pick up our fish for the canary ,, had to throw my clothes away ,,had all that Salmon Fish shit on em ,,slept for waeek after,,said i'd never do that again ,,BUT ,when I went to the Canary to pick up my check ,,$14,000 bucks for 30 days werk ,,,sure made me change my mind ,,lol,lol,
Funny ,,i didn't eat Salmon for a year or two after that ,,but now ,,i buy Alaska Smoked Salmon at the grocery store ,,love it !!,
I was 14 in 69......I changed more that year than any other year in my life.....and I've been confused every since
Ahhh yes. The summer of '69. I spent part of it at Ft. Lewis, Wa. then the rest of it at Ft Sill, Ok. Yeah that was one great fucking summer.
Thanks to a rich uncle, my summer of 69 was spent visiting a exotic far away land. All expenses paid, including free shuttle service to go on nature hikes to commune with nature and learn the ways of some of God's creatures, such as leeches, mosquitoes, water snakes and pythons. All the while enjoying some of the best government approved canned cusine available.
Got out of the AF in Jan 69, 7 months early. Thanks Tricky Dicky. Went to work as a tech for Collins Radio Co. in Cedar Rapids, Ia. Fair money for 69, $4.25/hr. Put a FE 427 and T-10 4-speed in my 56 T-Bird. Burned at least a tank of gas a day crusin. Quite a carefree time in my life. But in Feb 70 Tricky Dicky hit again. He had a big defence budget cut. Collins lost a contract and I was out of a job. So, it was back to Colorado where I still hang my hat. Still one of the best years of my life.
Been out of the Navy for two years;living in a 3rd floor walk-up with my girlfriend(and down the road 1st wife)and her girlfriend and her boyfriend(they eventually got married and still are;we did and ain't);painting motorcycles on my back porch(ever watch a Sportster tank fly 3 stories down just after you finished painting it?)and cursing the airliners that come over the house starting about 5:30 pm every day(we're under the busiest approach to Logan Airport)while counting the rivets on their underside.Having mad parties all weekend with more alcohol and dope than you can shake a stick at;outlaw bikers coming by at all hours wanting paint work done;working days in a body shop doing Corvettes and fighting with the rats in the crawl space under the building(we had to paint cars in the morning because if we did it at night the rats would run across the fresh paint)and checking out all the bars in the Combat Zone in downtown Boston and usually wind up sleeping it off in the back of my 60 Chevy sedan delivery.Painting everything imaginable including custom bikes and race cars(drag cars as well as Formula cars)and staying as out of control as possible in between.Going to Sandy's Jazz Revival in Beverly Mass and watching a young guitarist named Springsteen and wondering why he wasn't a star(yet).Going to the Boston Garden just about every week courtesy of my girlfriend's boss whose company cleaned up after concerts and seeing Steve Miller and John Mayall and a bunch of others from the 6th row center.Weighing 150 lbs(hell my stomach weighs that now)and wearing these ridiculous striped bell bottoms and paisley print shirts and getting f**ked up on Ripple and Boone's Farm and Arriba wine or blowing a few bowls of homegrown s**t through a water pipe full of 5 Star Metaxa and then drinking the bowl afterwards. Or maybe that was 1970 or 71;I know it was ONE of those years!
I once got hammered off of my dad's home made vino back then. Great stuff! I think I smoked my first cigarette back then also.... A non filtered Camel...
I got outa the AF active duty ,June of '65,,but had 2 years of InActive to do ,,there was talk of guys on In Active getting recalled to go to Nam...I'd alreay seen the injured Nam guys that were sent to the big hospital at Elmendorf AFB,,I didn't think I wanted to go over there ,So ,,i joined the Alaska Air National Guard ,,,got out of that in '69 ,& when i got home to Iowa ,i went to the Iowa ANG ,,I'd heard our F-102's in Alaska were gonna be sent to Iowa ,there was a 1000 man waiting list ,,then ,i got a call from the ANG that i was accepted ,,I asked what happened to the waiting list ,,they said they had a lot of cancellations ,,,,so,,I asked what Aircraft were gonna replace their F-100's ,,,they told me F-89's ,,WHAT !!! i said ,,I cancelled out ,,I wouldn't werk on those P O S airplanes ,,our F-102's went to South Dakota ANG ,, in '70 & '71 there were a dozen F-89 crashes in central Iowa ,,those things were junk when they were new ,,
Kinda' funny, my son is 21 and in the USMC and he's been saying that same thing since he was 12 or 13 years old!
Can't remember who sang it ,,but every morning on my way to werk in my '69 SS396 Chevelle , ,,6;00 am ,,the one and only rock radio station in Anchorage would start off with "It's a beutifull morning ,,think i'll go outside fer a ride ,,feelin' Groovy "",,started my day off 'Feelin' Groovey" too ,
When our one n only rock radio station in Anchorage back in '69 signed in every morning ,,they signed in with the movie theme ,,"The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music !!" ,,based on the mountains that surounded Anchorage ,,that was quite appropiate ,,the mountains around Anchorage were alot like the mountains that surrounded Los Angeles ,California ,,also kept the weather frozen in and around us ,,
It's a Beautiful Morning=The Rascals Feelin Groovy?=....I wanna say 29th Street Bridge sang it ("possibly" Simon & Garfunkel)
"Feelin Groovy" was written by Paul Simon and recorded by Harpers Bizzare! The music scene back then was awesome. To me, the music scene changed (for the better) in '67, hit its peak in '70 then...DISCO! It sucked then and it sucks now!
''66 to '70 is about all I listen to most of the time. Very little from after '70 grabs me like the earlier songs did.
Dueces:Yep ,,the F-89 Scorpion ,,came out in 1947 ,,a real piece a junk ,,the F-100 they repaced at the Iowa ANG was 3 times the aircraft the F-89 was ,,i refused to werk on em ,,so did a bunch of other ex USAF mechanics ,,
Dueces; in '61 ,,I went to Jet Mechanic Tech School in Amarillo ,our main werk aircraft was a F-105 and a F-100 ,,we tore the F-100 apart & put it back together ,,then took it out to the run up pad ,,and each of us got to sit in the cockpit ,,wind it up and hit the afterburner ,,,the F-100 was a mechanical hydralic problum ,,but the F-89 wasn't even werthy of tech school guys werking on ,,as far as my teachers were concerned ,,the F-89 shoulda been in the junk yard at Davis Monthin AFB in '61 ,, ,,I really liked weking on that monster F-105 ,,my friend here is a retired Lt Col ,a F-105 ,"Thud" pilot thru 3 tours of Nam ,,not very many "Thud" pilots came home ,,
Whenever My girlfriend and I would crusie to Santa Cruz we would wear out this song on the eight track tape player http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7klWRu5xDvk&feature=related
The F-105 was called by those Nam pilots ,"The Thud" because thats the sound they heard ,up in the air , when they hit the ground ,,"Thud" pilots were all heros,,they were used up till the end ,as decoys ,,to get the North to get their radars up to launch their "Sam" missles so the other fighter/ bombers waiting above could lock onto em ,,and hopefully take em out ,,well,,the North would launch their 'Sams"' and shut down their radar sign ,,killed a lot of F-105's untill the President canceled the program ,,i won't say anymore about the "Program" ,,
The Jalopy Journal
