BLACK BEAUTY IS A'WAITING

BLACK BEAUTY IS A'WAITING
THIS BEAUTY ROCKS!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

CHAPTER EIGHT: POTATOES: TEN CENTS A BAG

POTATOES: TEN CENTS A BAG


In later life I became an entrepreneur: A small business owner and operator. But I did this only after I had cut my operational teeth as a middle manager in corporate America.

Why didn't I just jump into my own business right away? It may have been because of the lesson I learned all too well in my first entrepreneurial venture.

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When my family returned to Anchorage, Alaska, after several years in Seward at the Jesse Lee Children's Home, we bought the house at 730 East 15th Avenue. I must have been ten or eleven at the time and the setting of the house was, for me, idyllic: East G Street lay nearly a full block to the west, and there was nothing but a garden and woods between the house and the street; 15th Avenue ran directly in front of the house, perhaps twenty-five feet away and separated from the house by a gravel driveway; to the back of the house was forest that extended nearly a hundred fifty yards straight back from the house, then dropped down a long, steep hill and ended in the muskeg of the valley known as Skunk Hollow; and two hundred feet or so to the east our closest neighbor was the house occupied by the Prator family from whom we had purchased our house. Some few other houses were interspersed amongst the trees along East 15th, but we were very much "in the sticks".

East G Street, in 1952, was a dirt, two lane, road that was tarred or oiled gravel in the summer, plowed snow in the winter, and deep mud at all other times. This was our main north/south thoroughfare into downtown Anchorage, some twenty-five blocks away. East 15th Avenue was anything but a main thoroughfare and was even less passable at all times of the year than was East G!

Heading north on East G would take you to the main street of town, 4th Avenue, just a little west of the city airport, Merrill Field. Heading south on East G took you down the long hill into Skunk Hollow - so named by the city's white kids because this was the shantytown area mostly occupied by the city's black families - across Chester Creek and up the other side of the hollow to Fireweed Lane. Fireweed Lane ran parallel to 15th Avenue, both of which met, on the far west of town, with Spenard Road. Continuing south past Fireweed Lane, East G Street became the Seward Highway.

It was at this house on East 15th that many incidents occurred which have become my fondest memories of life in Anchorage: Learning to shoot a bow and arrow; exploring old military hardware; learning to drive the family pickup; picking ripe Salmon Berries, Strawberries and Raspberries; and selling potatoes at ten cents a bag.

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My brother Ernie, nearly four years older than I and seemingly able to do all the things that I wanted to do, but couldn't, one day brought home the most beautiful weapon I had ever seen: A fiberglass bow that stood a full foot longer than I. Accompanying the bow was a quiver of arrows: Not just ordinary arrows with typical, blunt target points, but hunting arrows with heavy steel tips that had three razor sharp fins designed like the backside of a fishhook. These arrows, he said, were for hunting bear or moose; the fins were specially made so they would penetrate the heavy hide of these game animals but could not fall out. Once in, they had to be cut out.

He cautioned me about using the bow and arrows. This was a hunting bow, he said, not a toy. I could use it when I asked for permission first; but this was his pride and joy for which he had paid a handsome sum and I had to be very careful with it. Patiently he showed me how to string the bow, stepping through the curve on one end and bending the other end backwards to attach the string. Being considerably smaller than he, I could not bend the bow so easily. It required either greater strength than I had, or more leverage than my short legs and arms could achieve. So I learned to string the bow by putting one end in the slots in my bunk bed and pushing with all my body's weight against the other end. With all my effort I could just barely bend the bow enough to attach the string.

Happily, I took the bow outside the house to the forest and practiced shooting it. After some months of practice, always with his prior permission, I was able to shoot and hit a target some twenty-five or thirty yards away. Since the bow required so much strength to pull it, I could never shoot an arrow any great distance or with any great force. But I was extremely proud of my ability to consistently hit the inner circles on the paper target after several months of practice.

During this same summer that my brother brought home the bow and arrows my father acquired a female Beagle. This little dog, well known as a rabbit dog in our native Pennsylvania, was kept on a leash in our back yard. It wasn't long until her yapping and female charms had all the loose neighborhood male dogs visiting our house. Usually, it seemed, she didn't mind their attention. But their constant barking and yipping and thrashing around outside the house, especially early in the morning when I was trying to sleep, and especially when she wasn't ready for their attention, made me start thinking of ways to keep them away.

And it wasn't long until I thought of the bow and its steel-tipped hunting arrows.

The little bedroom that adjoined the kitchen was built more like a lean-to than the room of a house. It was perhaps seven feet long and four feet wide. The roof slanted from a high of not more than seven feet at the doorway to perhaps five feet at the far end. Outside that far end stood a spruce tree that towered above the spare bedroom roof; it made a perfect ladder for getting up on the rooftop and I quite often would climb the tree and stretch out on the flat, inclined roof and look at the sky.

From my vantage point on this roof, however, I could also see the doghouse out back some ten yards away. And I could easily see the visiting dogs, large German Shepherds, huge Siberian Huskies, lumbering Black Labradors, some Irish Setters, and the ever present Malamutes, when they came calling on our little Beagle.

Thus it was that one summer morning, very early, before anyone else was awake in the house, I got out of bed and slipped into my clothes, grabbed the bow and the quiver of arrows, and climbed the tree to the roof of the spare bedroom. I did not have to wait long until a stray Shepherd came to visit. He made all the usual advances and this morning the Beagle was not interested. She kept turning away from him, but after she got to the end of her leash she ran out of maneuvering room and he started to make his final advance.

Just as he raised up on his hind legs, his front paws on her front shoulders to hold her still, I raised the bow and took aim at his huge chest. As carefully and as quietly as I could, and knowing that I would have just one chance to shoot at him, I pulled the bow string back as far as I could.

I sighted along the arrow just as I had done the past months in practice, and let fly the steel tipped shaft. It struck him in the neck, passing through his throat and protruding out the other side. Without a bark or whine he quickly extricated himself from his lover and took off through the woods. I jumped down from the roof, loaded another arrow in the bow, and raced after him.

A full grown German Shepherd is a fearsome beast; I have seen packs of these roaming dogs attack another smaller dog in the street in front of our house and literally chew it to pieces in minutes. It seems that the smell of the blood drove them into a vicious frenzy. Even their owners wouldn't try to step in to protect the little dogs from the attack of the pack for fear of becoming their victim, as well.

Now I was chasing a wounded dog that could just as easily chew me to pieces, but in my excitement I didn't think that the last place I should be going - without even telling anyone that I was up - is into the woods after a wounded seventy-five pound dog. But the thrill of the hunt made my heart pound harder and my legs run faster. I chased it through the tall trees along the top of the hill, then down the slope towards the bog in the Skunk Hollow flats. Ahead, running slower now, I could see him struggling through the low branches and bushes as the spruce gave way to the alders of the creekside.

Finally he stopped, caught by the arrow between two small trees. As I approached I could see his head and upper body held high, his front legs pawing the air in desperation, his hind legs straining to push him past these obstructions. He wasn't conscious of my presence there and he continued his vain struggle, slowly losing energy and slowly sliding down the trunks of these two trees until, at last, he lay prone, and quiet.

I walked around in front of him; his chest was no longer moving, his body was motionless. Carefully, I took the arrow from the bow and, standing as far away as possible, leaned towards him and poked his nose with the sharp, steel point.

He didn't respond.

Believing him to be dead, I approached him as one might approach a lion shot on safari: Cautiously, quietly, intently. Trusting that, even if he were alive, he still could not get past the two small trees with the arrow still sticking out of both sides of his neck, I poked him again and again with the arrow I held in my hand.

Still no response.

OK, brave hunter, I thought to myself, now how do you get the arrow out of him and back into the quiver so nobody knows you were out here this morning? The tip and shank on the end that had pierced his throat were covered with dog hair and dried blood. To pull the arrow all the way through his neck would coat the whole shaft with this red mess; and because of the design of the tip I certainly could not pull the arrow out backwards.

I had created for myself a real quandary. But then I found the answer. In my pocket was my little pen knife, the kind kids always carried around for whittling or playing mumblety-peg. I wasn't a whittler, but I played a mean game of mumblety-peg. After being thrown into the ground so many times from the game the knife's blade was no long sharp, but it had to do the job.

Overcoming my fear that the dead dog would rise up and bite me, I grasped his neck fur with one hand and stretched it taut, and with the knife held in the other hand, sliced his throat from the arrow outward. Then I lifted his head and wiggled and jiggled the arrow through the tissue till it slid out.

How proud I was at that moment: No trophy head on any club wall created more pride in the hunt and kill than I felt while holding up this bloodied arrow.

Shortly after this incident occurred I was stringing the bow, with one end held firmly in the notch of the bunk bed and me pushing with all my might on the other end, and applied too much pressure on it. With a snap, the fiberglass splintered and broke. I was left holding a stubby piece of curved resin while the balance of this expensive weapon dangled ingloriously from the bedpost. My brother has most likely never forgiven me for breaking his treasured bow.

I never killed another living thing with this bow and its hunting arrows. Nor have I ever forgotten the feeling of power it had given me during that one, brief episode on the rooftop.

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From my hilltop perspective, the valley we called Skunk Hollow offered two areas of interest: The frequent police trips up the muddy main road, and the fenced storage yard of World War II military hardware.

Rumor had it that there were constant knifings, fights, rapes and beer bashes going on down below me, and I would often spend hours high up in a tree in which I had fashioned a sort of crow's nest, scanning the little community with my binoculars. While I saw a lot of adults walking about, fixing cars, hanging out laundry, chasing after kids and dogs and other usual activities, and saw a lot of little black children playing in the road and in the mire of the valley, and I often saw police cars slowly bumping their way up the narrow path of chuck holes and rocks, and even sometimes saw an ambulance maneuvering the road that was little more than a trail, I never saw anything that would substantiate the rumors of bashes, rapes, fights or knifings. And believe me, I spent hours of my youth looking for any evidence I could find.

Of course, I never went down into Skunk Hollow to look for any of this evidence first hand; all my research was done from the safety of my perch near the top of a tree a hundred yards from my back door.

But I did venture into the valley for another purpose: Stacked on a graveled lot, surrounded by a high barbed wire fence and the acres of sink holes and quagmire, was the greatest collection of old military jeeps, trucks, artillery, fighter planes and other hardware that any youngster could hope to see. While in my treetop lookout station I would scan the storage field, seeking out particular items of interest to me, then, early in the evenings when it was getting dusk, I would sneak through the woods to the edge of the wetland and, crouching and wriggling as I had seen Marines do in the movies, I would slowly make my way across the morass to the fence that separated me from my desire.

Often, on these evening forays, I would crawl under the fence and, ever alert for any guards or dogs, clamber over all this equipment. By the hours I would sit inside the cab of a truck, or the cockpit of a P-51, or behind the wheel of a 4 X 4 Armored Personnel Carrier. It was better than dreaming: For not only could I imagine myself fighting the Krauts or the Japs, but I was in the vehicle of destruction itself, shifting its gears as I climbed the mental mountains, or pushing forward on its stick as I raked the imaginary enemy with my wing mounted machine guns.

Walter Mitty never had it so good.

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Not everyone has warm and cuddly memories of grandmother. I know I don't. This is just one recollection of mine.

We lived in a very small house, even for those days, even for that place. The four main rooms included a cramped master bedroom, a pathetically small living room, a kitchen that saw extra duty as dining room and wash room - plus storage for all the tools my father needed to have 'at hand' and all the toys we kids wanted to play with - and the 'extra' bedroom which we three boys shared with our maternal grandmother. Jammed into this undersized nook were two sets of bunk beds and two old, dilapidated dressers. Another dresser or two occupied the front entry hall that would have been too small to walk in even if the dressers had not been there.

My brothers, being older than I, were lucky. They didn't have to go to bed early like grandma and I did, so they didn't have to hear her singing her church songs to herself or hear her scratching her legs after she took off her heavy, elastic stockings. I was told not to complain about the singing or the scratching because she was old and all she had left were her songs. And she had to wear the thick armor-like hose because she had varicose veins. I had seen her legs - the veins were blue and grotesque and I secretly hated her for having to wear those stockings that caused her to scratch every night.

I would try to go to sleep right away so I didn't have to hear her voice or the sounds of her ancient nails digging into leathery skin. But it never worked, and I would lie awake for hours it seemed, listening, and hating, and stifling my rage.

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Over the several years that our family lived in this house the neighbors were treated to the sight of an ever-changing collection of motor vehicles parked on and about our driveway.

My dad owned a maroon 1952 Buick Roadmaster four door sedan that he purchased from my brother Dick who bought it one year old from a friend. That car lasted us for many years and became my favorite car - to borrow for dates or showing off to my friends - when I first got my own license. If I ever told all the stories of what happened while I drove that car .....

My brother Ernie drove a 1953 green Buick Special four door sedan. This Buick had a three speed column mounted stick shift whereas the Roadmaster had an automatic transmission so my mother could drive it. On several trips I made with Ernie from Anchorage to Fairbanks in my pre-licensed years, I had the opportunity to sit behind the wheel of this fun car and grind my way through the gears.

Today, of course, you can leave Anchorage and fifty minutes later land at Fairbanks, 261 air miles away. But back then this was an arduous, 400 plus mile trip over mostly gravel roads that beat, shook and rattled your car and your body like a Shiatsu masseuse!

When Dick sold my father the Roadmaster he purchased an old Ford - might have even been a vintage Model T or Model A. I remember this car best for the fact that on one trip Dick and several other family members made down the Kenai Peninsula when that highway was all gravel, they blew out several tires and, not having enough spares to handle all the flats, fixed the tires with baling wire! Don't ask me how they did it.

In addition to the automobiles the family also had two pickup trucks: A 1952 Dodge half ton and a huge 1947, dark green Studebaker three quarter ton. The Dodge must not have made much of an impression on me because I remember little about it. But the Studebaker ... it was my obsession! It sat up so high on its oversized tires and reversed shackle springs that, even as a youngster, I could see over all the other cars on the road. The springs and shock absorbers - if it even had any! - were so stiff that with every bump I would bounce up and hit my head on the headliner. But that was small price, indeed, to pay for the joy of riding in this monster truck.

The Studebaker had big running boards that extended from the front fender to the rear and were wide enough we could have easily carried a dozen people on each one. The tailgate was secured by two metal chains that had, at one time, been covered in rubber. When we bought the truck these rubber covers had worn off, and as we drove over the graveled Alaska roads these chains banged and clanged noisily with every bump. Eventually, tiring of the constant racket, we covered the chains with pieces of garden hose. This worked just fine.

In those days, vehicles tended to be pretty utilitarian, and the Stude, as Studebakers were known, was no different. Wipers were vacuum powered and operated in reverse to the need for wiping action. That is, when you stepped on the gas to accelerate, the wipers slowed down or sometimes even stopped in mid-wipe. Headlights, while having a low beam and a high beam, were so underpowered that they seemed to be more a convenience for locating your vehicle at night when the lights were on than for actually seeing in front of you as you drove down the highway on a coal black, Alaskan winter night.

Studebakers were generally considered ugly: They didn't have the stylish lines of the General Motors cars, or the Ford trucks, or the top of the line Chrysler Imperials. The cars were bobtailed front and back and you couldn't tell which way the car was facing unless the headlights were on.

But every Studebaker, car and truck alike, had one feature that even few present day vehicles have: A hill holder brake. This was an extra brake cylinder that held the brake for you until the clutch was released, and kept you from rolling backwards as your foot hopped from the brake pedal to the accelerator. We found this hill holder to be worth its weight in sandbags on icy hills because we could gently release the clutch to avoid spinning the wheels without simultaneously sliding down the hill.

The regular, column-mounted three speed transmission had been replaced by a floor mounted four speed: Three regular gears and a "creeper". First gear, as well as reverse, was at such a high ratio that even with the engine racing the truck hardly moved. At idle the truck would "creep" forward at a slow walking speed. On occasions we would get out of the truck with it moving along in first gear and load branches or whatever we needed to into the truck bed, then climb on the running boards and into the cab, shift gears and continue on our way. As a youngster in total awe I was convinced that, in "creeper", this truck could have pulled our house down the street.

Above both running boards were mirrors; not the dinky little mirrors you commonly see on the pickups of today, but huge rectangular mirrors like you might find on a Freightliner. These mirrors stuck out a foot and a half, at least. From the driver's seat, though, you could see everything behind you for miles.

As a youngster I would sit behind the wheel of this beast as it sat in the driveway and "pretend" drive over every road I knew: The Richardson Highway to Fairbanks; the Seward Highway; the Kenai Highway; the road from Palmer to Wasilla Lake; Rabbit Creek Road; and on and on. No street in town or roadway on which I had ever traveled escaped my daydreaming when I sat perched on the edge of the seat, my feet barely touching the pedals, my line of sight below, not above, the top of the black steering wheel.

The rapture happened for me one summer day when I was thirteen and my brother Dick saw me sitting in the truck cab, mentally steering myself all over town, and asked me if I wanted to really drive. Really drive?! Did I ever!

My parents were at work and he said he would get the keys and let me back up and pull forward, just in the driveway. The prospect of getting to actually drive this truck, even if only a couple of feet, was overwhelming. I put the key in the ignition and tried to start the engine. But my foot wasn't long enough to reach both the clutch and the starter, and in this truck you had to have the clutch depressed when you pushed the starter, on the floorboard just several inches away from the clutch. Dick or my dad had no trouble using one foot on both while keeping the other foot on the accelerator pedal.

But I knew right away this would not work for me. So I moved the gear shift to neutral, put my right foot on the clutch and with my left foot, pushed the starter. The engine roared to life and my heart must have skipped several beats at the sound. I was actually going to drive my favorite truck!

Slowly, carefully, I shifted into "creeper" and let out the clutch. I didn't even touch the gas pedal because I knew from many years of "copiloting" in this truck that it would move ahead even while idling.

And it did. Inch by inch it crept forward. All the while Dick stood in front of the truck watching my slow progress. Then he shouted for me to stop and put it into reverse. I did this with no problem; again, because I had many years of watching and many years of repeating each one of these moves while I drove the truck in my daydreams.

Backwards and forwards I went, shifting from "creeper" to reverse and back again. After a little while of this I wanted more: I wanted to turn the steering wheel while creeping back and forth.

Putting it in reverse again I started backing out the driveway. But this time instead of just sitting on the edge of the seat and looking forward at Dick while I backed up, I did what real drivers do when backing up: I turned my body so I could see out the back window. Partly standing up so I could really see where I was going I slowly turned the steering wheel to begin backing around the edge of the house.

Ever had the feeling that something wasn't quite right but you couldn't put your finger on it? I had that feeling as I inched down the driveway in reverse. Something wasn't quite right, but what? I stretched even further so I could peer out the window to make sure I was turning around the corner properly, and everything looked all right. The side of the truck was about a foot from the house and I was turning the wheel more so I wouldn't back into the drain ditch that separated the front driveway from the road. Everything seemed just right.

And then I heard it.

Scrape. Scrape. Like something being dragged across lumber.

Creak. Creak. Snap! Like metal being strained to the breaking point, then breaking.

"Stop. Stop!" Like Dick shouting at me from in front of the truck.

The truck never slowed; it just kept creeping backwards around the corner of the house. Dick was now pounding on the truck hood and shouting at me to stop. I tried to think what to do but I had never had an emergency in all my daydream driving and I couldn't get my mind and body to coordinate. It was like I was in a trance. Or was having a dream. Or a nightmare. The truck just kept creeping.

Finally Dick jumped up on the right side running board, leaned in the window and knocked the gear shift lever out of gear. And by this time I had regained some semblance of consciousness and put my foot on the brake.

But it was too late. The damage was done. For while I was looking out the back window and feeling so good about my driving I had backed too close to the house and had caught the driver's side mirror on the wall, scraping the wall first, then breaking the mirror off the truck door.

I looked out the door window to where the mirror had been just moments ago - and no mirror. Slowly I opened the door and stepped onto the running board, then onto the gravel driveway. The mirror and its foot and a half long supports lay on the ground several feet in front of me.

And my life lay in ruins at my feet.

What do I tell dad? The words blasted in my ear and seared my brain. Over and over: What do I tell dad? Then I realized that I wasn't thinking this, Dick was on all fours on the truck seat and shouting at me out the open door. "What do I tell dad?" he screamed over and over.

I stood there dumbfounded. How would I know what to tell our dad - I had never before broken the mirror off our pickup.


Like our ’52 Buick Roadmaster model 72R (Photo taken from the Web.)


(Photo from author’s collection)
David L. Brown with ’47 Studebaker nose; in front of East 15th house c. early ‘50s.

(Not the author's photo: taken from the Web.)


(Not author's photo) A postcard of Anchorage in the mid-1950s.

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Our house was a very small two bedroom one bath modest home of shiplap construction. It had a kitchen that had a small eating area, and sported a front entry that was almost big enough to walk through without having to turn sideways. It had a half basement that could be entered from the outside or from the master bedroom; the cement basement wall had been cut through with a Star drill so we had access to the pipes under the rest of the house. This came in handy during the winters, as we would frequently need to take a blow torch under the house in the mornings and thaw out the pipes before we had any running water in the house. We also used this earthen basement all year long as a root cellar for storage of perishable foodstuffs.

To the east of us was the basement home of DC and Francis Prator and their family of four children: Daughter Melba who was one day my senior; daughter Donna who I think always had a crush on me; daughter Leah and son Mark who were both just tiny. They had cleared the woods not just where they built the basement - and where they also intended to build their permanent home - but for several hundred yards down the hillside also. And in this clearing they planted berries.

Thanks to their industriousness, I grew up around a wide assortment of high-bush, low-bush and runner-type berries: Strawberries, raspberries, salmon berries, high and low bush cranberries, blueberries, and currents. There were most likely many more varieties that I cannot remember. But the memory is very clear on one point: Along with Melba and Donna, I could squeeze between the tight rows of berries in late summer and feast on such a mixture of sweet and tart fruits that I would often end up sick from gorging too much.

We were always encouraged to eat the ripe berries right from the bushes, and it was many years later, when I had only store-bought berries to eat, that I learned the dusty grit I remember on the Prator's berries was not a part of the berry itself. Even today, berries don't taste right unless there's just a little brushing of dust on top!

When, at the end of the season, all these berries ripened, we would gather all the mixing bowls, pots, pans, jars, buckets and other clean, empty containers we could find and fill them to overflowing with ripe, juicy berries. The Prators shared their bounty with us each year, (or did we buy from them, I wonder) and both families had in our basement larders every winter the preserves and jams made from that summer's freshly picked berries.

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But the Prators were not always so generous.

The summer we moved into this house I immediately noticed the large vegetable garden planted on our property just to the west side of the driveway. Having been around a large farm at the Jesse Lee Home for the past several years I had all the knack and innate understanding of every sidewalk superintendent: At the Home I was too young to do any of the farming, but I got to watch the harvesting every fall, and I certainly knew how to eat everything from the garden!

All throughout the summer I watched the Prators, from whom we had purchased this house, tending the garden. Not realizing that this was their garden before we bought their house, I thought it most neighborly of them to tend our garden. And in amazement I watched the potatoes, carrots, cabbage and lettuce, amongst other delectables, growing noticeably every day. The growing season in Anchorage, while short in days, is extremely long in hours. Daylight hours that far north extend nearly around the clock in summer, and the plants really thrive on the long summer days.

Farther north, at the university in Fairbanks, some of the world's largest vegetables have been grown: Cabbages and heads of lettuce well over fifty pounds, and potatoes the size of footballs.

While in Anchorage we never saw our vegetables achieve such gigantic proportions, the speed with which everything grew was amazing even to the most seasoned farmer. But to a child, watching plants grow inches virtually "over night" made a lasting impression unequaled even by National Geographic's time lapse photography.

Now, while all this growing was taking place the city work crews were busy digging up the street in front of our house to lay water and sewer pipes. Day after hot, dusty day they labored before us. For several weeks we couldn't drive on East 15th to our house, but had to park at the corner of 15th and East G and walk along the piles of gravel the men had made as they dug their trench down the middle of the street.

One of the little neighbor girls who lived on the far side of the Prator's property delighted in helping me sell lemonade to the workmen. And I delighted in showing her just how smart I was in our dealings with these men. The smarter I was, the more she seemed to like me. I became delirious with her affection and did everything I could to make her like me.

As the summer progressed it was not enough to simply sell lemonade; I needed to earn big dollars and show her my true entrepreneurial spirit. I needed to hatch a plan that would ensure her continued devotion to my intellect and skills.

So I began asking the workers if they would like to buy grocery bags full of freshly harvested potatoes for ten cents a bag.

Would they?!

I was immediately mobbed by the whole crew. Everybody wanted as many bags as I could fill at ten cents a bag. Some guys even gave me a tip! The little girl seemed impressed, and I kept digging and selling the potatoes as fast as I could.

Within a few short weeks I had dug and sold every potato in the field and had made some incredible amount of money - perhaps nine or ten dollars.

Of course the purpose of all this digging and selling and getting paid was so I could take this little girl with me to the Piggly Wiggly market two blocks down East G Street and buy her a Popsicle or a bottle of Coke or Pepsi. And this I did every day. Or sometimes several times a day.

The money went out as fast as it came in, but I seemingly had an unending supply of dimes: The workers just kept buying potatoes.

Until they ran out.

Now the little girl didn't seem to come around nearly so often, and now, one evening, the Prators asked my parents to visit them next door. It seems that all their potatoes - the same potatoes I had seen them tend during the summer - which they had planned to store in their root cellar for consumption by their family of six throughout the long winter when vegetables are available only in a can, had somehow disappeared. In a land where everything that is sold on the stores' shelves arrives by boat at Seward and reaches Anchorage only at great expense after a long trip by truck from that distant seaport, in such a land the fruits of a family's farming labors might mean the difference between eating and starving. Or, it might make such a difference in a family's budget that they could afford more than just eating.

The Prators were not at all happy that their potatoes had disappeared in a matter of weeks.

My father confronted me about the potatoes. Proudly I admitted having dug and sold the potatoes and having made some fabulous sum of money from my endeavors. Then he told me that the vegetable garden belonged to the Prators, and that they might now starve because I had sold all their potatoes. He said that he had had to pay them for the value of the potatoes, and that I now owed him for the money he had paid them.

Of course, I was broke, and about to learn some lessons about property rights, repayment of debt, and the fickleness of young love.

Not having the money to pay him for the value of their foodstock, he told me that, from now until the debt was repaid, whenever the family had dessert - which was every night - I would get no cookies, no pie, no cake, no ice cream or whatever other dessert was served to everyone else. And whenever the family went out to eat and ordered dessert, I would forgo dessert then also.

For a boy with an insatiable sweet tooth this was a punishment worse than execution by firing squad. That evening after a dessertless dinner I told my little playmate what had happened and the punishment I was to receive for having lavished my every dime on her.

She was completely indifferent to my plight.

© 3/28/98 Gene Brown