ICE DREAMS - CHAPTER A

I will be posting one chapter per week of my latest book, ICE DREAMS. Please note that the numerical chapters are autobiographical. The alphabetical chapters are pure fiction. 

Several weeks after my harrowing experience at the beach and crossing the tundra, I decided to go again. This time I took a strong flashlight with me. Several times I stopped, bent down and looked closely at the tundra growth. It was really fascinating. Even though it was brown and dead looking, I could see the variety of plants. It was almost like a forest in a miniature world. I thought of Gulliver’s Travels. I was like Gulliver.

I reached the beach and sat, as before, watching the surf crash against the enormous black, hardened lava rocks. The waves hit, surging almost to the top. If I had been closer I would have been drenched by the spray. The pounding surf began to take on a beat, a rhythm. It was a lullaby for me that made me doze at times.

I was about to leave when I saw a young lady by one of the rocks. There were no women, military or civilian, stationed on Shemya! This young lady was wearing a white blouse with puffed material at the shoulders, a bright vest of many colors and a full skirt. She had long brown hair. She was motioning to me. Hesitantly I walked toward her, expecting her to disappear as I came nearer. I wondered how she could stand to be out in this cold January air in only a dress. She beckoned to me more urgently. Maybe she was getting cold.

As I drew nearer, I saw that she was very attractive. She was speaking and her words were happy and musical, but I couldn't understand them.
She was standing at the mouth of a cave. Warm air wafted out of its mouth in the largest rock. She took me by the hand and led me down a slope that went on forever. Down and down we went. The tunnel or shaft, whichever it was, showed the marks of having been hewn out with tools. It was only wide enough for one person to walk in it, and only high enough to walk by bending at the waist. If anyone had been approaching us, they could not have passed by us.

I wondered what language she spoke because I couldn't understand her. Just then the thought came into my mind, “No, you cannot SPEAK our language, but you and I can communicate with our thoughts.”

“Where does the heat come from?”

 “There is a pool of water which is heated from under the earth by the same volcano whose lava once formed this island.”

“How can your people survive living in a cave all the time?”

“We have always been resourceful. We fish and garden in the summer. We are excellent scavengers and craftsmen. You would be surprised at the wood, metal, and military gear we find lying around. When we run low on supplies, usually in winter, we can sometimes “liberate” some food intended for the mess hall. We find many useful items around the terminal building at the airport. After the War, what was dumped during the day or was left to be dumped the next day, we took for our own use.”

“They haven’t caught you?”

“They don’t know to look for us.”

The tunnel led into a large natural room. It reminded me of the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. I saw no evidence that this big room had been hewn by human tools. In the center was a large oblong pool at least twelve feet across. The ceiling above the water was covered with stalactites. From the pool there emanated light that illuminated the whole room.

My “guide” spoke in a Slavic-sounding language, though I did not recognize half of the words as Russian. I did gather that her name was Tatyana. Beside the pool sat an older man whose name was Evgenij. Tatyana explained to him why she brought me into their cave. Most of the time she addressed him as “Starshij” (Elder).

While they were speaking, several women walked quickly through the room. They came out of a side tunnel, and went across to another side tunnel. Starshij motioned to one of them to join us. The women were attired like Tatyana. They were dressed like Russian peasant women.

Tatyana left and the other woman, Gretchen began translating for the Elder. “You are wondering what language we speak and why Tatyana brought you here

“Our ancestors were Cossack soldiers who fought on the side of Czarist troops during the Russian Revolution. The battles brought them to Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. It would have been suicide to cross the broad expanse of Russia, now ruled by Bolshevics, in order to return to their native land. They decided to buy a fishing boat and sail to Alaska. There were already many Russians in Alaska. Russians settled in Alaska before your own Civil War. One of our Czars sent a fleet of ships to keep California from being retaken by Spain. There was even a Russian fort in Northern California.”

“Starshij” told me that they loaded the fishing boat with seeds and implements just as our pioneers loaded covered wagons to travel West. Many Russian and Japanese fishing boats sailed into these waters and returned with rich catches of fish. Some, however, floundered and wrecked in the cruel sea. That is what happened with the boat loaded with their ancestors. The boat was driven by the winds and sea currents and smashed into the huge rocks at the entrance to the cave.

Some people perished from injuries or the cold. The more resourceful found or made shelters for themselves and their families.  They discovered warm air being wafted from a large crevice in the rock and built a shelter around it large enough for the survivors. Then the men set to work making the hole wide enough to crawl into. In time, they found their way into this large underground room.

It then became a priority to make a tunnel to access the underground room. It was not livable until even women and children could go in and out each day. Humans need sunlight each day to stay healthy.

“How have we sustained our colony for generations now?” Starshij continued answering my questions, “Let me show you our workshops.” He took me to several underground rooms. In one room, men and women made material from scavenged items. Men took packing crates and pallets apart, straightening the nails, smoothing the boards. Women made glue and leather from the remains of whales. On a shelf, I saw boiled-clean whale bones and jars of screws, nuts, bolts, and rivets.

A small room was the design room. Men and women with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and other catalogs cut out pictures of items to possibly make in their shops. Another room was a carpentry shop. Women sewed in the dormitory. Finally, we reached their stock room.

“When we have a large supply of goods to sell or barter, and the weather is not terrible, we flag down a fishing boat and offer to pay him to take us to Japan, Russia, or one of the Alaska islands. We don’t go to cities or even towns because we have no passports or identity papers. We go to Indian villages or the villages of poor people in Japan or Russia. We have a long history with them. They eagerly barter food supplies, other things we need, or even pay us money for our handcrafted goods. They know they can sell them in the towns for more than they have given us. Maybe they sell them as native craft. Everyone wins.”

“Why did Tatyana bring me down here? There have surely been many other soldiers and airmen who have visited the beach.” I asked.

“Tatyana is the only virgin in our community. Unfortunately for her there are no unmarried men in our community. She could go on a fishing boat that takes our crafts and several of our men who will trade them. She could meet an Alaskan native or Siberian native or Japanese peasant young man. I think she would rather meet a young American military man. Her parents are dead so she could move away from here.

“I see that you wear a ring, so you are married. I’m sure that she did not know that you were married when she invited you down here. Maybe you wore gloves and she didn’t see your ring.”

“Yes, I am married. The Air Force sent me to Alaska on our first wedding anniversary. We are expecting a baby in five months.”

“That is wonderful. You can leave now. I ask you for your solemn oath that you will never tell anyone what you have seen and learned today.”

He extended his hand and we shook on it.

I walked up the sloping tunnel to the cave’s exit. It was pitch black outside and soon I was beyond the warm air of the cave’s entrance. I was grateful for the flashlight. I could see the path back to the mess hall and our barracks. The further I walked away from the beach, the less sure I was that what I had seen and experienced was real.    

ICE DREAMS - CHAPTER THREE

I will be posting one chapter per week of my latest book, ICE DREAMS. Please note that the numerical chapters are autobiographical. The alphabetical chapters are pure fiction. 

We left Elmendorf Air Force Base on January 18, 1960. During the time we were there, Lorraine was receiving my letters in four days time. I was also receiving mail from her since she began writing me the day after I left. When we arrived on Shemya Island, the mail did not come and go  regularly. During January a plane carrying the mail to us and returning to Anchorage with our outgoing mail came only on Fridays unless the weather was too bad and it was delayed a couple days or more.

The temperature hovered around the freezing mark in January. During the daylight hours it might go several degrees above freezing. At night it was almost always below freezing. There was also a lot of snow. During the month of January there was about fifteen inches of snow. It did not melt! On Shemya, in an average year 225 days of 265 had some form of precipitation.

In one letter after I had begun duty on Shemya, Lorraine complained that she had not had any letters from me for ten days. So she had pulled out old letters I had written to her in 1958 before we were married and 1959 before she joined me in Syracuse. In another letter she said that she had received a large stack of letters from me. She was debating whether to read them all that day or to ration them out and read only one letter a day. Reading them all that day won out.

Much in her letters concerned the baby we were expecting. She was sure it was going to be a boy because of the energetic kicks she received. She told me about a game the baby played with her. When it was kicking she would pull up her top to see if she could see the kick from the outside. The baby would quiet down. She would lower her top after a few minutes and in a short time the baby would start kicking again. She said that happened on repeated occasions. She was never able to SEE the baby kick. Whenever her mother saw her pull up her top and look at her stomach, she would chuckle because she knew the baby was playing its game with Lorraine.

Lorraine told me about some maternity tops that she made or was making. She didn’t have a sewing machine so she was doing all the stitching by hand.

She registered for a class in “natural childbirth” sponsored by some doctors at Johns Hopkin Hospital but taught at the YWCA. She met with several problems. When she went to register for the class, which met one evening a week, at first they refused to register her. They said she was supposed to have a letter from her doctor. Someone interceded and they said she could register if she would bring the letter the next week. Once in the class, she had another difficulty. She wrote:

“During my class on Wednesday (last night) at the YWCA the instructor went into (what I now believe) decisive detail of the importance of a husband during a woman’s pregnancy. Looking back, I realize she dwelled so on this subject because she feared losing the one male pupil she has (he seemed to be getting little from the course). However, I didn’t expect this and allowed myself to lose all perspective. Why I didn’t is because I never thought one way or the other. You were going away and that was that. I felt bad but soon accepted it.

“Well, here was a good chance for me to pity myself. I began feeling sorry for myself and suddenly felt helpless. Luckily, some good sense began to work. Soon I was back on the ground and feeling quite foolish (although no one knew of these thoughts). I was shaken by this incident, however.

“Now I believe that I wasn’t disturbed because of the talk, but of a feeling I’ve had that my instructor thinks I’m not married. Strange and silly I know. But I feel very strongly about this. She even calls the other girls Mrs. but me Miss. Well I’m not going to worry myself over that. I know the truth. I’ll just make a mental note to correct her the next time she forgets to address me properly.

“Well, as I said, I was shaken by this incident. When I arrived home, I quickly prepared for bed and took your letter with me to my room. You can’t imagine the joy and comfort that letter brought to me. A few times I shed some relieving tears. I felt as though you were right with me; I had told you my troubles and you were oh so gently soothing me. You couldn’t have been closer if you had been sitting on the edge of the bed. Your love has meant so much more to me since you have gone. I’m trying to figure out if this new rich love has always been with us or if it has developed because of our separation. Darling this separation is paying off.”

During that first month that I was away, we decided on a name for the baby if it was a boy, Paul Troy, and a name for the baby if it was a girl, Elizabeth Ruth.

By the end of the month, Al had still not returned the car despite several phone calls to him. The promised $25 had included the stipulation that he was to Simoniz the car. He had not even started to do that. Then one night, past midnight, Al called. He had been driving all over Canton looking for the garage. All he could remember was that it was #12 in a row of garages. Lorraine gave him the address of the man who rented out the garages. With that information he was able to find the garage. His father had followed him to take him home. He had Simonized the car after all, cleaned the interior of the car and even lubricated the door hinges.

That was not the end of Lorraine’s problems concerning the car. The car insurance premiums jumped about 50%. She wanted to drop the car insurance since it was not going to be driven until I returned. However, she had to make a decision before she could get an answer back from me. Her sister’s husband advised her to drop liability and collision coverages and just keep comprehensive.

When she called our insurance agent, he told her to cancel the insurance altogether because comprehensive insurance was included in my car payment to the finance company. Cancelling the insurance also meant that she could not renew the car tags which would expire soon.

She wanted me to do the federal and state income taxes, so she was gathering all the receipts, W-2s, and the forms I would need and was going to mail them to me.

We were paid on the last day of the month. I was broke. In one letter Lorraine had enclosed $1. In another letter, she enclosed $5 but because of delays in the mail, I did not receive it until several days after we were paid.

We were paid by check. After I moved into one of the trick barracks I met a man who lived in a room diagonally from mine. He was strange. He had a stack of pay checks that he had never cashed. He would awaken about a half hour before anyone else, go into the shower room and wipe the soap residue from the soap holders in the shower and wash basins in order to wash and shave. He collected cigarette butts out of ash trays, stripped them and salvaged the tobacco from them which he put in a little cloth bag. Then he rolled his own cigarettes. He was forever “borrowing” (bumming) things he needed. I heard that he came from a well-to-do family and that he owned a number of rental houses.

I finally moved out of the makeshift barracks and into a barracks building in which men from different tricks and day time workers all lived. The barracks buildings were wooden, one-story buildings with a hall way going down the center of the building. There was an outside door at each end of the hall way. Once outside there was a stairway going the height of the building up to the road level on one end and at the other end, really a fire exit, the stairway went up onto tundra. In the center of the building there was a laundry room with washers, dryers, and laundry tubs. There was a latrine with toilet stalls, and there was a washroom with sinks and showers.

On either side of the hall way were two-man rooms. The rooms had   two beds (a little narrower than a single bed), two dressers, and a wall locker on either side of the room. On my side of the room there was a window over my dresser. Lorraine told me to send her the measurements of the window and she would make curtains for it. I sent them to her and in a little over a month I received a package from her with curtains and a matching dresser scarf which she had sewn by hand.

My roommate had a fishing net hanging all across the wall above his bed. The net held a collection of glass floats. These were old because now the fishing boats use cork or rubber floats. The clear glass floats were beautiful – various colors and different designs. He was not in the room for much more than sleeping or getting ready for work. He liked to comb the beach for items of interest the waves brought ashore. He also scoured the tundra for artifacts from World War II. He told me that in addition to the runway that was now being used, there are several other runways on the Island that have not been maintained and thus are unusable. However, they were good places to scrounge for souvenirs.

There was another man in the barracks whose wall was decorated with snapshots. He had written to TEEN magazine’s pen pal column and said that he was being sent to a remote island in Alaska for a year and he was going to be lonely. He asked for pen pals. Every time the mail came, he received a bushel of letters, mostly from teen age girls. Most of them enclosed a snapshot of themselves. Some were wearing bikinis. His wall was solidly covered with snapshots. When the wall was completely filled and he was still receiving snapshots, he began editing the wall, taking down mediocre pictures and replacing them with new, more striking pictures.

The mess hall was located near one end of the runway which ran alongside the mess hall. Although the plane carrying our mail was only coming out to Shemya once a week, there was a variety of other users of the airport. Northwest Orient Airlines had leased the airport from the government after World War II. They flew daily passenger planes from Seattle to Japan, landing at Shemya to refuel. Other airlines had to fly via Hawaii to reach Japan. This was several hundred miles further. Northwest allowed SAS passenger planes to refuel on Shemya. They also permitted Reeves Aleutian Airlines to fly into Shemya from Anchorage. They allowed Flying Tigers Airline to refuel in Shemya because it carried only cargo.

There were a number of military planes that landed on Shemya. One interesting plane was a Navy cargo plane. It serviced Navy personnel on floating ice floes who were doing meteorological and oceanographic measurements. These planes were equipped with JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) so that they could take off in the short space allowed on an ice floe. Sometimes, planes flying from an air base in Japan or Korea to Eielson AFB near Fairbanks, Alaska would land to refuel. (There was a cocktail lounge in the terminal building. It was OFF LIMITS to enlisted personnel but flight crews and our own officers knew of its existence and patronized it.)

We would stand alongside the runway and gawk when we heard a plane overhead preparing to land.

The Reeves planes would sometimes unintentionally put on an exciting show. Their planes were old. Many times the pilot couldn’t get one or two of the engines to start no matter what he or the ground crew tried. As a last resort, he ordered everyone off the plane, even the other crew members. Then he took off and slowly made a circling climb above the airport. It would take him a long time to reach the altitude he needed. Then he put the plane into a steep dive. The propellers of the engines that were not running would be screaming as the dive spun them at high speed. At the last minute, the pilot switched on the ignition for the sick engine(s) and they would fire, spraying engine oil all over the ground. He would pull out of the dive only hundreds of feet above us. Such a roar they made and you could hear the metal plates on the wings rattling.

We had an air show in our back yard and it was free.

Sometime after we had all moved out of the makeshift barracks it was put to use again. An Air Force plane based in Japan wandered off course and into air space over a part of the Pacific Ocean with territorial limits claimed by the U.S.S.R.  Soviet fighter planes scrambled against the plane. It evaded most of the fighters but one of them managed to badly damage one of the plane’s wings. Shemya was much closer than Japan and the winds were favorable for trying for Shemya. The plane just did make it. The plane was placed in a hangar in order to work on it.

There were about a dozen men on the plane. They were wearing flight suits over their underwear. You can imagine their reaction when they were shown the only living accommodations available. That was only the beginning of sorrows. They had no American money. It wasn’t allowed in Japan. They only had military “scrip” which our Base Exchange couldn’t accept. They were each given $40. Our Base Exchange had men’s underwear and socks but no jeans or shirts. The First Sergeant went around collecting donations of clothing from the men. Base Supply loaned them parkas.

They could not believe that there was no phone service, no movie theatre, no enlisted men’s club where they could buy beer. They couldn’t wait to get home to Japan. Some aviation mechanics had to be flown out from Elmendorf Air Force Base. Until they arrived to remove the damaged wing, it couldn’t be known what parts had to be ordered for the repairs. They arrived, removed the damaged wing, sent it back to Anchorage, and waited several days for a new wing and the necessary parts. Then it took a couple days to install the new wing and make other repairs. The crew of the plane walked around the Island scowling or sat in the mess hall drinking gallons of coffee and smoking endless packs of cigarettes.

Finally, the day arrived when the plane was ready to fly. The crew boarded the plane in the hangar. A tow tractor was attached and began pulling the plane out of the hangar. When it was halfway out of the hangar, a powerful gust of wind caught hold of the plane and whipped it to one side. It ripped it off the tow bar, twisting the forward landing gear strut and ripping the new wing off the plane. The crew disembarked and returned to the makeshift barracks for another five days.  

ICE DREAMS - Chapter 2

I will be posting one chapter per week of my latest book, ICE DREAMS. Please note that the numerical chapters are autobiographical. The alphabetical chapters are pure fiction. 

The letters from Lorraine were always at least six pages long and sometimes longer. She was working in the Maryland Department of Statistical Records, preparing monthly reports compiled from death certificates. On breaks from her work she typed part or all of a letter to me.  If she finished it at home, that part was handwritten.

She would tell me about the baby kicking and punching, things she was assembling for its arrival, maternity clothes she was making and borrowing. There were a number of babies on the way. My mother, my cousin Darlene, and one of Lorraine’s girlfriends were also expecting babies. That meant there were baby showers to attend. It was snowing when Lorraine was on her way to one of the showers. She slipped in the snow getting off the bus, but caught herself. The girl who got off the bus behind her also slipped and she fell down in the snow and slush. No one got off the bus to help the girl.

Lorraine was having trouble figuring out how to pay the bills. She knew there were car payments and car insurance payments. She didn’t know how much they were or where to send them. There was at least a two week response time between the time she mailed a letter with a question for me and when she received a letter back from me answering the question.

One of the first problems she had with the car was getting it back from Al. The day I had to leave, I couldn’t find anyone in the family who would/could drive me to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. My flight was on Monday morning and the Airport was at least twenty miles from Lorraine’s family’s home. Finally, I offered Al $25 if he would drive Lorraine and I to the Airport and drive Lorraine back. He agreed.

That morning, I had to go several miles to where he lived, pick up Al and his wife, drive back and pick up Lorraine and my luggage. Then I drove to the Airport. I told Al we would have to wait until the first of the month the $25. That was satisfactory with him. After I had departed on the plane, Al drove Lorraine back to her house. He then drove the car to his house.

Al was supposed to bring the car to Lorraine in the next few days afterward and ride the bus back to his house. Evidently, there was something wrong with his own car and he began using our car to go to work, run errands, and so on. To make matters worse, Lorraine did not have his phone number or address. Her sister’s husband, Jim, was a claims adjustor for Liberty Mutual Insurance. He warned her that our car insurance probably would not cover any damages if Al was using the car without our permission. Lorraine was writing me about this on the 10^th of the month and I didn’t even get her letter until the 21^st. She wanted me to send her Al’s phone number and she was wondering if she should still pay him the $25. Whatever answer I could give her did not reach her until the beginning of February.

We had rented a garage in which to store the car for the year that I was away. Once Al returned the car, Lorraine would have to wait until Jim was at the house so she could have him put the car in the garage (which was probably a half mile away) and make sure the garage was securely locked.

There was no phone service on Shemya. There was a phone connection in the orderly room to headquarters in Anchorage. There was a secure phone in the Comm Center in the Operations Building. These phones were for official business only and were on a military network. I don’t think there was any interface with commercial phone companies. On the other side of the Island there were contractors who were building the new barracks and other buildings. They had phone service on which they could call their families.

There was a MARS shack. MARS is Military Amateur Radio Service. Air Force and Army personnel who were “hams” (radio amateurs with a license for amateur radio) could use the equipment in the shack. They would sometimes run a phone patch for one of the men. This involved finding a radio amateur operating someplace close to where a phone patch was desired. I wanted a phone patch to Baltimore, Maryland. The amateur in the MARS shack would try to make contact with an amateur in the Baltimore area. That ham operator in the Baltimore area would call the phone where Lorraine was living and connect the phone to his radio transmitter. We could then talk in a one-at-a-time conversation. She would say what she wanted to say and then say “Over.” I could then talk until I was finished, then say “Over.” That only happened one time while I was on Shemya. I think it was in October or November. One time when I was in the MARS shack hoping a ham from Maryland would call in, we got a call from a man who said that he was also in the Air Force. When we looked up his call sign it was General Curtis LeMay!

Lorraine’s letters were filled with declarations of her love for me and reasons for why she loved me and how much she missed me. My letters also contained protestations of love, but I often included graphic descriptions of our lovemaking. She said that she liked them, but was also embarrassed by them.

The walls of our makeshift barracks were soon plastered with pin-ups from Playboy and other similar magazines. That was short-lived. The chaplain complained to our commanding officer. The First Sergeant came into the building and ordered them removed.

The first or second Sunday that I was there, the noise in the large bay was unbearable. There were radios on, tuned to the only radio station. There were tape recorders playing other music. A group of men were playing cards and talking loudly. Another man was playing his guitar and singing. I thought I would go mad.

I went outside and decided to follow a sign pointing down a path “To The Beach.” I followed the path which was going across tundra. I found out later on that during World War II there had been a number of fox holes dug in that area. The tundra had grown over them, but if you stepped onto a foxhole, you would fall through the layer of tundra into the foxhole and it would be difficult for anyone to find you.

I walked about a half mile down to the beach. There were huge rocks as tall as a two story building. The waves would crash into them. I sat down on a flat rock along the beach. As I listened to the crashing and roar of the waves, I remembered my last Sunday at Port Mission in Baltimore. A woman sang a solo that I could hear it in my memory just as when she sang.

In times like these you need a Savior,

In times like these you need an anchor;

Be very sure, be very sure,

Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

This Rock is Jesus, Yes He's the One,

This Rock is Jesus, the only One;

Be very sure, be very sure,

Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

In times like these you need the Bible,

In times like these, O be not idle;

Be very sure, be very sure,

Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He's the One,

This Rock is Jesus, the only One;

Be very sure, be very sure,

Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

In times like these I have a Savior,

In times like these I have an anchor;

I'm very sure, I'm very sure

My anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

This Rock is Jesus, Yes He's the One,

This Rock is Jesus, the only One;

Be very sure, be very sure,

Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

                                                                      by Ruth Caye Jones

It was a very relaxing experience. When it became dusk, I started back. Before I reached the path, it was pitch black night. I couldn’t find the path or even see anything ahead. I was walking on tundra and it was spongy. After a while, I stepped into a tiny creek running underneath the tundra. I pulled out my soaking wet boot and trouser leg. I knew that in this darkness I would probably walk in circles. I was really scared. I was too far away for anyone to hear if I yelled.

I decided to stop and slowly turn around to see if there was anything to see. As I slowly turned, at first I saw nothing. I heard the pounding surf, but I couldn’t tell from what direction. In the distance, I heard a pack of wild foxes making their strange yelps. Maybe my eyes were adjusting to the dark, because in one direction I saw a faint, blurry red light, then a faint, blurry green light. The red and green lights slowly alternated. I realized that what I was seeing was the rotating light atop the control tower. I knew that if I walked toward those lights it would bring me to the mess hall or our barracks, or maybe the runway.

Between wherever I was and my destination, the barracks, lie a large stretch of tundra. Every step was treacherous. I would put a foot forward and test to see if there was firm ground underneath. If there wasn’t, I had to detour. I kept walking toward the pulsing green, then red, glow in the distance. My progress was slow, but I had a wet foot and leg to remind me of what could happen if I carelessly pushed on without testing each step.

The lights finally brought me to the middle of one side of our barracks. I didn’t see the building as I approached it. I only knew it was the barracks when I was almost upon it. I walked along the side of the building, relieved to be off the tundra. When I walked into the building the lights were out and everyone was sleeping in their racks. That must mean it was well past midnight. The mids shift had gone to work and the eves shift had eaten, come back to the barracks and turned in for the night. I took off my wet clothes, took a shower, and went to bed for only a few hours sleep because I had to get up for work on days.

Living in the improvised barracks had many inconveniences. Just one of these was that there were no lockers - no foot lockers and no wall lockers. Another was that there were no chairs or tables. Our duffel bags were our chest of drawers. Our rack was our table and chair.

Lorraine was living in the same house with her parents and her maternal grandparents. During the first month I was gone, Lorraine’s sister and her husband went away on a trip. They left their infant daughter in the care of Lorraine’s mother. The little girl was a toddler, just beginning to walk. She was still in diapers. One evening Lorraine was sitting on the couch writing a letter to me. The little girl, Sharon, was toddling around the living room exploring what she could get into. Lorraine’s mother had left the room to get a clean diaper for Sharon. When Sharon saw her coming with a diaper, she ran away, holding onto the sofa. When she reached Lorraine, she slapped the stationery onto the floor and then sat down on the pages of the letter. I received a scented letter.

I met a grand Christian friend at the chapel service. He was Army Master Sergeant Malcolm Donahoo. The first thing he would tell you about himself was that he was a born again believer in Jesus Christ. The second thing he would tell you is that he was from the “yellow clay hills of southern Illinois.” He had an interesting story about J.C.Penney’s store in Alexandria, Virginia where his wife was living. He wrote a letter to the store and enclosed a check for $25. He asked them to call his wife on her birthday, ask her to come down to the store that they had a surprise for her. When she arrived, they were to give her a $25 gift certificate and tell her that her husband sends her a Happy Birthday and wishes he could be there.

The store manager called her and asked if she could be ready at noon on her birthday. He would send a car to bring her to the store. The car he sent was a limousine. When she arrived, the manager met her and escorted her to the staff dining room. She ate lunch with the staff and afterward there was a birthday cake. The staff sang “Happy Birthday.” Afterward the manager stood up and said, “Mrs. Donahoo, your husband regrets that he cannot celebrate your birthday with you. He sent this $25 gift certificate for you. Take your time shopping in the store. When you are ready to go home, have a clerk call me, and I will send our driver to escort you back to the  car.” Sergeant Donahoo had tears in his eyes as he finished the story.

Once a month, the mess hall had a luau for us. The Japanese and Filipino crews alternated months in being in charge of the luau. There was Hawaiian music playing and the mess hall would be decorated as if it were on a tropical isle instead of an Alaskan isle. The serving line had a variety of hot foods. They were all special. There might be a steamboat of beef from which the server would cut off slices for you or giant pepper hams or stuffed turkeys. In the center where the condiments and beverage generally were located, there was a long row of tables with a vast assortment of delicacies. The centerpiece was always an ice sculpture. There were tubs of cracked ice with every sort of soda. The competition was fierce between the Japanese and Filipino crews over who could put on the best luau. The men would fan the flames of the competition by bragging up the luau to the other crew when it came on duty a couple days later.

Riding the bus to work was just like being on a bus crowded with high school students going to an out of town game. There were always a half dozen loud mouths who joked and guffawed and harassed one or more of the men every ride. Going back after work it was usually quieter. Everyone was tired.

From Lorraine’s letter of January 13, 1960:

“Darling, keep looking ahead but don’t dwell on how long the year “stretches out.” This will be a profitable year; you mark my words. Don’t allow your depression to blind you and hold you back. As your wife, let me tell you what I think. Depression is going to be your worst enemy. I will help to sharpen your weapons but you are the one that will have to fight. Just don’t forget to sharpen mine for I already have a raging battle going.

“Our mail goes so slowly. I want you to read this now but it is impossible. So the heck with it. I’m thankful that you will read it at all.”

My reason for going into the Air Force was to try to get a college education. In my eleventh year of school I was called to the ordained ministry. The first step was to earn a college degree and then attend seminary for three years. When I graduated from high school I did not have the money to go to college. I worked as a draftsman for Western Electric and they paid for night school courses at Johns Hopkin University. I took the courses for about a year, but it seemed that it would take forever to complete four years of college taking one or two courses a semester.

Someone told me that I could make much faster progress taking night school courses in military service. The classes were given on base. Sometimes, the military would send you to college full time. I enlisted in the Air Force. Right away they sent me to Syracuse University for almost a year for courses to prepare me for my Air Force specialty. In the time that I was there, I earned 24 semester hours credit. With the credits I earned at Johns Hopkin I now had more than a year’s college.

There were no courses offered on Shemya. However, the Lord had a surprise for me. During the year I was on Shemya, the Air Force offered a college GED test. This test covered the areas of English composition, English literature, science, math, psychology, sociology, and history. About a dozen of us signed up to take the tests. A man flew out from Anchorage to administer the tests. They required one week of testing. We took a test in the morning, had a break for lunch, then took another test that afternoon. This continued for five days. The man took the tests back to Anchorage to be graded. It was weeks before we received the results. When we received them, I was told that I made the highest score in the Alaskan theatre and that any college or university would give me credit for a year of college. I now had two years of college!        

ICE DREAMS - Chapter 1

I will be posting one chapter per week of my latest book, ICE DREAMS. Please note that the numerical chapters are autobiographical. The alphabetical chapters are pure fiction. 

It was our first wedding anniversary and I was three thousand miles from my wife in Baltimore, Maryland. I was at McCord Air Force Base in Washington state, waiting for a plane to fly me to Alaska. That is where I would be stationed for a year. If all went well, maybe I’d return in time to celebrate our second anniversary together. It didn’t happen that way, but I’m sure I was hoping for it at the time.

I was in the snack bar of the terminal, nursing a Coke at a table with Brannon. He was also married and had left his wife and infant son at her parents’ home in Georgia. He kept feeding the jukebox playing “Georgia, Georgia, Georgia On My Mind” over and over. It was a dark winter night outside, and inside the snack bar there was a blue fog of homesickness. We were surrounded by men we knew and many others we didn’t know, but we were missing our loved ones.

After waiting an hour or more, our flight was called. We stood in line with our duffel bags and overnight bags. At the front of the line were two sergeants who were rummaging through the bags.

“What are they looking for, Brannon?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they think we can hide our wife in a duffel bag.”

When we got nearer to the sergeants, we could hear the question, “Do you have any alcoholic beverages in your bags?” My heart sunk. Lorraine’s Christmas presents to me had been a thick wool sweater, a back scratcher, and a fifth of Smirnov Vodka. When the sergeant asked me the same question he had already asked fifty other airman, I admitted that I had a bottle of vodka, reached into my bag and pulled it out. He took it from me and tossed it into a nearby barrel. I heard it crash into other bottles of confiscated spirits.

We boarded a chartered plane and flew for hours into the dark northern sky. It was the middle of the night when we landed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska. We boarded buses like school buses but painted Air Force blue and were taken to the transient barracks. They were nice. The buildings were brick and the squad bays had single beds with mattresses, not the usual bunk beds. The next morning, we were allowed to sleep until 8 am, went downstairs to the mess hall where we had a delicious breakfast.

I left Baltimore on Monday, December 28, 1959 and arrived in Seattle, Washington that evening. I stayed at the YMCA until the evening of Thursday, December 31, 1959 when I took a military bus to McCord AFB. I had very little money. For breakfast, I had a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee at the YMCA. During the day, I walked around Seattle. There were a number of really steep streets. Some streets were so steep that there were concrete strips across the sidewalk placed a footstep apart to assist in walking up the hill. I ate again at 3 pm letting one meal count for lunch and supper. I chose an inexpensive cafeteria where the cheapest meal on the menu was salmon steak. I had the salmon steak special for the three days I was in Seattle. In the evening, I spent my time in my small room at the YMCA writing a letter to Lorraine and reading. After a diet of oatmeal and salmon steak specials, the Air Force mess hall in Anchorage was haut cuisine!

For ten days at Elmendorf AFB our only duty was to attend various briefings and go to medical and dental examinations and appointments. There was no doctor or dentist on Shemya Island where we were being sent to work for a year. The doctors made sure all of us were in excellent health and weeded out anyone who was not. The dentists filled every cavity, pulled any tooth that wasn’t salvageable, and double checked every existing filling. For the year that we were there, if someone absolutely had to see a doctor or be hospitalized, it was a day long airplane trip back to Anchorage once there was a plane to come out to Shemya.

During our free time, we could roam the base – go to the Base Exchange, fast food concessions, movies, bowling, or library. We could also go into Anchorage. Buses ran every half hour to town. One day when I was riding into town, we came upon the bus which had left a half hour before the one we were on. The bus looked like it had been bent into an “L” shape. There was an ambulance and some police and MP cars with lights flashing. A moose had charged the bus and reshaped it! We heard on the news that evening that the bus driver said the moose walked away shaking its head.

January 1, 1960 was an important day for Alaska residents. On that day, the Federal subsidy for transporting food to Alaska was discontinued and the price of food in the grocery stores and restaurants leaped upward. I went to a little restaurant which only had a counter, no tables. I ordered a hamburger and coffee. The price of the hamburger was about three times what it would have been in Baltimore or Seattle. However, there was a tradition concerning coffee which continued. You paid for one cup of coffee, but the counter man kept refilling it as long as you were there.

Lorraine had begun to write letters to me the day after I departed for Seattle. She wrote long letters every day. I began to receive them while I was in Anchorage. Our letters to 0ne another became a second world and a second reality in which I lived during our year apart.

Finally, the morning arrived for our flight to Shemya Island, the “Black Pearl of the Aleutians.” We boarded a Reeves Aleutian Airlines DC-4 for the flight to the Island. The flight took all day. As we departed the terminal we were handed a bag lunch. Actually, it was going to be our lunch and supper. Shemya is the next to last island in the Aleutian chain. It is a LONG way from Anchorage. We were flying there in a propeller driven plane. The first leg of the journey was dangerous.  Going over the Kenai Peninsula the plane has to fly over some high mountains. Many planes have crashed into the mountains for a variety of reasons – wind, snow, fog, icing on the wings, engines losing power in the cold air, and others.

We didn’t reach our destination until well past supper time. Of course, it was dark. In January, Alaska has only a couple hours of sunlight. A sergeant met us as we disembarked. As we stood in ragged formation before him, he said, “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there is a hot meal in the mess hall waiting for you. The bad news is that we don’t have any vacant bunks in any of our quarters. After you eat, I’ll take you to a vacant building. We will bring you two oil stoves, stove pipes, racks, mattresses and pillows, blankets, bed sheets, and pillow cases. You sergeants, organize the men into work parties. If you all pitch in and work hard, maybe you’ll have a place to sleep sometime after midnight.”

The building was left over from World War II when there was a large contingent of Army Air Corps personnel stationed on the Island. It was shaped like an “L” and had a dozen or more SeaBees living in the short leg of the L. Where the two legs met there was a latrine and a shower room.

We examined the empty, damp, cavernous room that we were to make into our living quarters. A truck arrived from Base Supply. As could be expected, someone counted wrong and they were short ten racks, mattresses, pillows, pillow cases, and twenty sheets and blankets. Also, there was no toilet paper!

The men who were installing the oil stoves had a difficult task. After setting up the racks, putting mattresses on them, and making up the racks with sheets, blankets, and pillows, we watched the seemingly impossible task of putting the stove pipes up through the roof. The roof was at least twelve feet above the floor. The men assembled stove pipe sections until the pipe was long enough to reach the ceiling/roof. There was a spring hinged trap door for the stove pipe to be pushed through. While one man tried to hold the assembled sections vertical, another man was trying to guide it to the hole. When they thought they were under the trap door they shoved upward. If they were even an inch off, the pipe would not go through. It was a tedious, frustrating task. Meanwhile we were all shivering in below freezing temperature in that barn-like room.

When the pipes were extended through the roof and attached to the stove and the stove was filled with oil, no one could figure out how to light the stoves. Several men went off trekking through the dark, cold night looking for someone who knew how to light the stove. The building was near to the mess hall and the Filipino mess crew was cleaning up. The men explained our plight to an older man who seemed to be in charge. He sent one of the young men who was mopping the floor. Grinning from ear to ear, he quickly lit both of the stoves. Since he couldn’t speak English, we had no idea what he had done that we hadn’t already tried. We prayed the stoves would stay lit. They did; we began to thaw out; and the dampness gradually dissipated.

The next morning, we wandered over to breakfast. The mess hall was a large building with many tables and chairs. About six men sat at each table. The dining areas were at each end of the building. In the center, there was a serving line on one side. In front of the serving line were tables with beverages, bread, and condiments. Four meals were served each day – breakfast, lunch, supper, and midnight breakfast. The men worked on three eight-hour shifts  - days, eves, and mids.

The food service was managed by Northwest Orient Airlines. They had two groups of workers, who each had charge of the mess hall for forty-eight hours. Then they switched. One group was Japanese and the other group was Filipinos. There was no love lost between the two groups! Just like us they worked on the Island for a year. Then the airline flew them home for free. Many of them saved their earnings and used them to buy a house or even a farm. They lived in barracks buildings just like the Army and Air Force personnel. The Filipinos had their own barracks building as did the Japanese.

After breakfast, the First Sergeant came down to the temporary quarters where we were staying.

“I’m sorry for the uncomfortable living arrangements. They are building a new barracks building and that is where all the attention is given by the brass. It won’t be ready for at least a year, so we have to make the best of it. This morning I will assign you to “tricks.” The trick which is on days works six days on days and then has two days off. After two days off they work eves for six days and then have two days off. Then they work mids for six days and have two days off. After that it is back to days for six days.

“I will read your names and tell you what trick you have been assigned and what shift they are working today. The bus that takes you to work will always be outside the mess hall. Report to the trick supervisor at work. Be sure to wear the badge you were issued in Anchorage. You can’t get into work without it.

  “The barracks buildings are assigned by tricks. When a barracks has a vacant bunk, the trick supervisor will tell you who will move into it. I don’t think any of you will be in this building more than a month or so.

“Finally, the plane that you arrived on brought us a couple bags of mail. We don’t receive mail every day. Every time a plane arrives from Anchorage, there will be mail. From now on, you can go to the mail room to check if there is mail in your box. The mail room is located in the same building as the orderly room and the recreation room. If you see mail in your box, you come back during the hours posted that it is open and the clerk will give you your mail. Right now, I have the mail for those of you who arrived last night. I’ll read your names from the mail I have.”

There were a couple letters for me from Lorraine and one from my mother. She was also expecting a baby.

I was assigned to the trick that was working days. Those of us who were assigned to that trick were told to be ready to go to work in a half hour and a truck would pick us up outside the mess hall and take us to the operations building. On the ride to work we had our first view of the area where the orderly room was, the building where Base Supply was located, the tiny building in which the base Armed Forces Radio Service station was located, and the barracks buildings on either side of the road.

The barracks buildings were long, one story wooden buildings. Each one was located in a deep hole such that the roof was level with the surface of the road. To get into a barracks building you had to descend by a pair of wooden stairs.

We learned that the reason they had been built down in holes during World War II was to keep them from being blown down, the roofs being torn away, or some other damage by the ferocious winds to which Shemya was subject. These winds, called “williwaws” could reach 150 mph. We had all been issued special parkas whose hoods were thickly trimmed in dog fur. When walking in high winds, you could close the hoods and peer out through the fur. This protected your eyes and face from dirt being blown like bullets by the wind. Along the road on one side there was a thick rope strung along and fastened to pipes driven into the ground. These were to hold onto while walking in high winds.

When we reached the operations building, we walked up to the door and had to hold our photo identity card under our chin. The person inside compared your face with the photo before admitting you to the building. The shift supervisor already knew the training each of us had received before being given orders for Shemya. We were each assigned a work station. I worked at the same station the entire year that I was there whether I was working days, eves, or mids. You were expected to remain at your station for eight hours. If you had to run to the toilet, the man next to you had to do your work and his while you were away. That wasn’t feasible for more than a few minutes.

When we were off duty, there wasn’t much to do. There was a small Base Exchange which was only restocked once a year. Once a year there was a period of time when the ocean waves were calm enough that a ship could send a barge loaded with supplies. When it was unloaded and the shelves of the Exchange refilled, you could buy any brand of cigarettes, soap, laundry detergent, shaving lotion, razor blades, shave cream, candy, chewing gum you wanted. As the year went by, every pay day the shelves became emptier. Toward the end, men were forced to roll their own with pipe tobacco, use hand soap to shave with, rubbing alcohol for shaving lotion, and shampoo for doing the laundry.

Laundry was a real problem while we were living in the makeshift barracks. The barracks buildings had washers and dryers. The SeaBees also had a washer and dryer, but we had none. A few of the men knew someone in one of the barracks buildings. The rest of us had to pay a Filipino to wash and dry our clothes on one of the days Filipinos weren’t on duty in the mess hall.  

The Base Exchange ran the entire length of one half of a building which was located between the Base Supply and Motor Pool building and the radio station. These buildings were across the road from the building housing the orderly room, mail room, and the recreation room. The other half of the building, in which the Base Exchange was located, contained a conference room with a long table and very nice chairs, posh enough to be the board room of a bank or large company.

That half of the building also contained a library which had only two bookcases and less books than many families have. It also housed the chapel. Outside the chapel room there was an impressive assortment of paperback books by several Catholic publishers. The books were for the taking and I took my share of some really good titles.

CHURCHES AND PAWN SHOPS

           In our town there is a church building which stood unused on one of the main streets in town. After several years of vacancy, a “For Sale” sign was posted. About a month ago I saw that someone had bought the building and was making some minor repairs to the building. I did not have to wait long to find out the new owner and the use intended for the former church building. It is now a pawn shop.

Pawn shops and churches have some things in common as well as some distinct differences. Both institutions reach out to people with problems. The word “redemption” describes an important aspect of what each of them does. Interestingly enough, the clientele of each establishment is almost mutually exclusive. Church goers do not frequent pawn shops; those who go to the pawn shop usually don’t go to church.

At a pawn shop, the customer brings something of value to pawn. The clerk judges what the item is worth. He then offers to loan the patron considerably less than the actual worth, because if the loan is not repaid in an agreed upon time (three or four months) the item becomes the property of the pawn shop which then has to sell it to recoup the loan. The item can be redeemed before the time expires by paying the amount of the loan plus the accrued interest. Pawn shop attract persons who want money to go out drinking and gambling, people who desperately need money for necessities such as food or utilities, and thieves who want to dispose of stolen goods. Pawn shops try to avoid taking stolen goods because if the police match an item in the pawn shop to an item on their list of items reported stolen, the pawn shop has to give up the item and loses the money it had loaned for it.

Those who come to church are freely offered the “good news” of salvation. Their lives are pawned to Satan. When they do not pay what he demands, they become his slaves. Jesus Christ died on the cross, He shed His life blood to redeem us back from the bondage of sin and Satan and to reconcile us to God. When they become a child of God, they become His concern. He not only cares about their soul, He cares about their electric bill, food for the family. When Jesus was preaching to thousands on the hills of Galilee, it was He who brought up the subject of where would the people find food before they had to travel home. He gave thanks to God and fed them, “as much as they wanted.”

In my opinion the existence of pawn shops should make Christians uncomfortable. The folk who are going into the pawn shop for a high interest, short term loan and putting up some valuable for collateral are the very ones to whom the church should be reaching out. We have good news for them and it is free, but it won’t do them any good if we keep it inside the church and only unwrap it on Sundays.   

MERCHANDISING CHARITIES

At the beginning of this year we needed five wall calendars. I had over twenty from charities who then followed up with letters asking if I had received their beautiful calendar for 2016. If I had not already done so, would I please show my appreciation by sending a generous donation in return? At least six charities have sent me an elaborate certificate suitable for framing praising my generosity. I have never given anything to at least two of those charities.

In addition I received a total of over a hundred Christmas cards. Some were accompanied with sheets of Christmas wrapping paper, seals, and even ball point pens. Throughout the year I have received two desk calculators, several magnifying glasses, two pairs of gardening gloves and packets of seeds, and four American Indian dream catchers. The Indians hang these over their children’s beds to catch all the bad dreams and only let good dreams pass through. Like multitudes of other people I have a desk drawer filled with return address labels and note pads which inevitably accompany pleas for money.

Many of these requests for money include return envelopes with postage stamps affixed. A friend of mine uses these envelopes for personal letters. He affixes a blank label to cover the address of the charity and then writes on the label the name and address of the person to whom he is corresponding. A couple times a year when I clean out the box into which I toss requests for money, I set aside all the reply envelopes with postage affixed. I then soak the stamps off and glue them on my own outgoing mail.

Am I pleased with this largess that I receive in a steady stream week by week? NO! When I send money to Indian schools, homeless shelters, food banks, heart, Alzheimer’s or other health charities, I want my money used to alleviate poverty, suffering, or misery. I don’t want it used to buy gifts for people who don’t need anything to entice them to give alms to those who do need help.     

No NaNoWriMo For Me This Year

In 2009 I was reading the blog of a writer in India, She mentioned that she was going to take part in “NaNoWriMo” that year. I had never heard of it. I looked it up in “search” and went to its website. NaNoWriMo is an acronym for National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November at least 300,000 writers from all over the world try to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in one month’s time. They sign up after October 15 and are assigned a web page for their novel. Periodically they log how many words they have written and a graph shows them if they are on schedule to finish on time. Participation is free but those who sign up are asked to make a donation to the Office of Letters and Light which administers NaNoWriMo. Those who succeed in writing a novel of at least 50,000 words (there are six enormous computers which verify the word count in less than two seconds) are declared “Winners.” They can buy a T-shirt which proclaims their status.

Every year 2009 through 2014 I participated and successfully wrote novels of more than 50,000 words. Two of these novels I self-published in print and three others I posted on this blog at a rate of one chapter per week. The process of writing that many words in a month is consuming. I still had to write a sermon each week, preach it on Sunday, then send it out by postal and email. The days that I did write for NaNoWriMo, I had to write 2,500 words or more.

This year I decided not to participate. The wood on my house needs to be painted. I don’t know if the weather will cooperate, but I have put off the job too long. There are other jobs I have put off too long. If I find time for writing in the evening, I should start again on my memoirs. I’ve lived a long time and I don’t know how much time remains.