Tales of Crazy Gail: A Unique Alaskan

WORD

FORWARD

I first met him in the late summer of 1968, over a year after moving to Fairbanks, Alaska, to attend the University. I had just become a part-time graduate student and was working as a Chemist at the Water Lab, which became part of the EPA while I was there. It was located on the ‘west ridge’ of the campus with other research facilities

This was a period in Alaska when it was a poor new state, the oil discovery on the North Slope had just recently been announced, and in many ways Fairbanks was literally the end of civilization in North America.

I had gotten into the habit of eating dinner and having a beer with my friend and co-worker Bob at the old Sombrero restaurant. For the local folks reading this, the Sombrero was located between the bank and the Foodland supermarket, near the corner of Cushman Street and Airport Road.

More often than not this unusual fellow was there, alternately being quiet and polite, then showy and outspoken. We were introduced by the bartender, Jim Ritchie, who had been in Fairbanks since the 1920’s with an ‘outside vacation’ as an artillery instructor during the Second World War.

His name was Gail. He looked like something out of a movie, with salt-and-pepper hair, a not too long but wild greying beard, dressing in Carhartts and long-johns no matter what the weather, five foot six, and wall-eyed. He was quite personable, but obviously not one would want to make an enemy of, especially after catching sight of the pistol he always carried in a shoulder holster, hardly noticeable under his jacket He told great jokes and stories as we rolled the dice to see who would pay for the next round of drinks. Often way too many drinks were consumed before the group would retire for the night.

He would occasionally join Bob and me and other Water Lab staff at the lab cafeteria for lunch. This made for some interesting conversations, and put Gail in with a group of people with whom he had had little contact previously – professional scientists and engineers.

His manner of speech would lead one to believe he had received little education despite the fact that his mother was a school teacher – his father was another matter altogether.

Gail is a very personable, reasonable, laid-back person – as long as he’s not drunk or pissed-off. He’s also quite humorous and a genius architect, builder, tinkerer, jokester, scatologist and improviser. Everyone I know who knew him liked him, or at least came to respect him. I’ve never before or since encountered a person who was so nice but capable of doing such outrageous things and never getting in trouble!

These stories are true, and I have tried to organize them somewhat chronologically. The stories concerning Gail prior to our meeting were told to me by more than one person, and/or by him, so I have no reason to disbelieve them. The remainder of the stories I witnessed myself, or were experienced by others who related them to me with corroboration by Gail. I find myself writing this since every time I get into telling ‘Crazy Gail’ stories, people tell me I should write them down. So, for better or worse, and now that any statutes of limitations have expired, here are his stories.

Author’s note: Gail was noted as a most prolific and proficient curser; I have attempted to keep the cussing to a minimum in this book, although there are places herein where it is included as appropriate to the story. He also enjoyed what some would call ‘potty humor’, so this book does contain multiple references to ‘shit’.

I want to thank you for reading my book! You’re invited to visit my web site at www.authorangelo.com for more information, samples, pictures of Alaska, links to some of my favorite sites, news of future books, a short bio, contacts and more.

Part 1 – Arrival

Chapter 1 - BEFORE ALASKA

Gail was born in the back country of West Virginia and had a very poor beginning. When he was a child the family moved to west Texas, where he eventually worked in the oil fields and as a gandy-dancer on the railroads. He was never qualified for the military or for many other jobs because he was wall-eyed. I asked him once why he hadn’t had his eyes fixed, as his brother had done. He told me I’m used to it. Besides, it’s good for confusing people!

In the early 1960’s, after a few years in the Merchant Marine and rounding the globe twice, he had come to Alaska with his twin brother Dale and friends DeHart and John to fight fires.

He told me that when his last voyage was over he was paid in cash and put ashore onto the deserted New York City docks at 4 AM. He called several taxis, but nobody would pick him up in that area at that time of day, so he started walking towards the nearest subway entrance. On the way two men jumped out of an alley and demanded his money at knife-point. Gail pulled the pistol out of his shoulder holster, shot each of them once, and hurried to the subway station disposing of his firearm down a storm drain. He never knew if he’d killed them or how badly they were injured as he left them both on the sidewalk. He bought a 1-way train ticket to Texas and wired most of his pay to his mother for safekeeping. He never went back to New York until many years later.

He also told me that he had been married once, owned his own TV repair shop, his wife left and took him for everything he owned, and he had worked in Chicago installing TV antennas for apartment buildings. I was never certain of the order in which these events transpired.

At the time I met him, he was working at Alaska TV Repair, amazing his co-workers with his unorthodox methods which somehow seemed to always fix the problem. Gail’s brother and DeHart had already returned south by that time.

Chapter 2 - THE OLD BUICK

One early spring day in the early 1960’s Gail, his brother Dale, and their old buddies John and DeHart, set forth from near Tyler, Texas. There they had bought a heavy, old 4-door Buick, pooled their mechanical machos and started driving north. Most meals were Spam, peanut butter, or hot dogs roasted over a camp fire, and baths were few and very far between, maybe even non-existent.

Two weeks later they wheeled into Fairbanks, Alaska. They located a cheap cabin 5 miles out College Road, below the hill upon which stands the University of Alaska. Here the four of them set up housekeeping of sorts in two one-room cabins, each containing a gravity-drip oil stove fed by a 55-gallon drum, one light bulb hanging from the center of the room, a double-decker bunk for their sleeping bags, one small table and two chairs. They each worked a few odd day jobs, if and when jobs could be found, but spent most of their effort as members of BLM firefighting crews. There were long periods of waiting, then frantic activity when they were called to a fire.

Normal tight (broke) living was supplemented by fish, fowl and game poached using the old Buick as their transportation and home-away-from-shack. This often required driving on old back roads, some no more than a track. The Buick would often get high-centered on rocks, stumps, small trees or creek banks, giving way only after much pushing, digging and cussing.

Gail came up with the perfect solution to the problem. He somehow acquired a sheet of 1/2 thick sheet steel large enough to cover the entire under side of the car. Applying a borrowed cutting/welding rig, he form-fitted the steel sheet to the bottom of the Buick from front to back and side to side, welding it continuously to the car's frame. This did, indeed, allow the Buick to float" over many obstructions, although it added so much weight to the vehicle that the gas mileage dropped considerably, from poor to horrible.

The next time he had to change oil he had to re-borrow the torch to cut holes in the sheet steel so he could reach the drain plug and oil filter!

Chapter 3 - HUNTING SMOKESTACKS

Things were getting boring around the shack. The guys had no fires to fight. No construction jobs. No employment of any kind for which Gail and the others were qualified. It was mostly just sit around and gripe to pass the time in the almost perpetual warm, buggy daylight of midsummer Fairbanks. Until, that is, a flatland foreigner pulled into the camp with his wife and two young children, all their worldly possessions heaped in the back and on the top of their car and in the flimsy homemade trailer wagging behind it. They rented one of the cheap cabins and paid two weeks in advance while the man of the family planned to look for work of some kind.

After getting help from Gail and the others to tote his belongings into the cabin, his wife and kids collapsed exhausted into their sleeping bags following their long and cramped trip. This fellow from Indiana then drove off without a word, reappearing shortly with two cases of beer and a fifth of whiskey. Now, this combination was known to draw Gail like bear shit draws flies. When the fellow offered Gail and the others a wee tonic, an alcoholic beverage, in thanks for the moving help, they could hardly refuse. One beer led to another, then the whiskey was opened and passed around, and before they could start on the second case this flatlander was regaling them with stories as to how he was going to become the Great White Hunter of the North.

By this time Gail’s three roommates had had enough to drink and left for a cooling and sobering bath in the Chena River. On and on the newcomer went, and with each embellishment it became more and more obvious that he knew little of hunting, and nothing of the fauna, flora, geography or flying menaces of Alaska. To him a deer was a large animal; he had not yet laid eyes on the likes of a caribou or black bear, moderate size by Alaskan standards, let alone the much larger moose, bison, grizzly (brown) or polar bears.

With much nodding of the head, continued lubrication and vocal encouragement, Gail kept the conversation going strong, mostly to see just how far the fellow would go with his stories.

Gail finally inquired as to just what he was going to hunt these trophies with. The fellow dipped into the back seat of his car and emerged with an old .30-06 bolt action rifle with open iron sights. He proudly held it in the air, then either not realizing that the cabins were only a bit over a quarter of a mile from the University of