Stan Resnicoff - Sleetmute: A True Story of Alaska

Stan Resnicoff

Copyright 1999 Stan Resnicoff All Rights Reserved

ePub ISBN 978-1-4675-4546-4

For Nick Fogey

For Roger Smith

1966. One summer job I had during my college years was driving a delivery truck for Friendship Dairies in New York City. Every night, from midnight to about 8 am, I drove my route in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens delivering about 50,000 pounds of cheese. It was a hard job but it paid well and at the end of the summer I was able to buy a brand new 650cc Triumph Bonneville motorcycle.

The bike was beautiful but it was my first bike and a bit much for me in New York City in those pre-helmet days and when a week later the bike was stolen, it probably saved my life.

Amazingly I had bought theft insurance and when I got my money back I went to visit my friend Richie Mishkin who that summer was working at the 79th Street Boat Basin. Who even knew there was a marina in Manhattan at that time? Anyway when I showed him that I had fourteen hundred dollar bills, he quickly snatched them out of my hand and just as quickly gave them to some guy and said to me, with a big smile on his face, WE own a boat!

And we did. It was a 1939 38 foot Matthews wood yacht. Since the only other boat Id been on up to this point was a rowboat I was in shock (but fascinated). I also now had NO money left for rent or anything else so it looked like I was gonna be living on this boat, which also happened to be kind of illegal at the time.

My parents were so disappointed, but it turned out that living on the boat right there in Manhattan turned out to be an adventure and a half. It was a whole new set of experiences and inspirations, and it even seemed to help me do well in design school. It was better than great, it was exciting!

Except: during the winter, living right on the Hudson River, it was cold. Very very cold. Crying cold. Spring and Summer more than made up for it but still, during those winters, I vowed that someday, if I could, I would never be cold again.......

I stared at the form. I was applying to VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). I would be graduating in six months. It was 1968. I was 24. Vietnam. This might be a deferment.

I stared at the question. After years in New York I hated the cold. There was only one place I wanted to go. It was a fantasy but I was young and I thought I knew everything. I figured that if the federal government had VISTA in any state they had to have it in ever y state. I had nothing to lose. I wrote in big letters:

I submitted the form.

I graduated three days ago.

I now had a Bachelors Degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Life was good.

I opened my mailbox. The first letter was from the Selective Service: U.S. Army. Inside were instructions on how and when to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and two subway tokens.

The second letter was from VISTA. I had been accepted into one of their programs.

Two letters. Both from the United States Government.

It was no contest.

Five days later I left for Alaska.

Of course you dont get to Alaska just like that. Its the Government. First there are four weeks of training in Oregon.

I arrive. Me and my big duffel-bag. Now, Im expecting that all the other kids in my group are gonna be like me: apprehensive about being sent to Alaska and really concerned with this cold stuff. How wrong I was! Everybodys acting as if theyve won the lottery. Found the Holy Grail. Alaska! Their eyes glossed over as they mouthed the word.

They also all seemed big. They talked about Eddie Bauer so much I thought he was one of the kids in the group. Some of them wore knives strapped to their legs. I realized that they all WANTED to go to Alaska. It was their fulfillment of a lifelong dream. I couldnt believe it.

We went through weeks of potentially meaningless community development workshops. Not much said about Alaska. The Oregon police even had optional gun training. I didnt go because I wasnt planning to shoot anyone or anything. I kept my head low. My only objective was to survive training.

To add insult to injury, in the next room VISTA was training people to go to Hawaii. I could see them. They were all wearing shorts and those colored shirts. None of them had knives strapped to their legs. So close and yet so far.

Half the group didnt make it through training but those that did, including me, landed in Anchorage Alaska on July 24, 1968.

The day we landed in Anchorage was the day they announced the discovery of oil in Alaska. The oil was nowhere near where I would wind up going, and had nothing to do with me but it was three pretty big letters for a newspaper headline.

After we arrived in Anchorage VISTA gave us each 230 dollars to buy extra cold weather gear and supplies. I drifted around the stores. I came to a gun counter. VISTA kept saying that we might need to have a gun. Something about being out of the village picking berries and running onto a bear. It sounded unlikely to me. Besides, I knew nothing about guns.... except...staring me in the face was a shiny beautiful six-shooter a cowboy gun with its revolving barrel, engraved leather gun belt and holster and, the piece-de resistance, the leather lace that ties around your thigh to hold your gun in place. Ooooooo.

In the conversation that followed I learned that I could, legally, buy this gun and wear it out on the street. Unbelievable. I paid the man, belted up, and walked out of the store into High Noon.

Now maybe people in Alaska had rifles or even had pistols with them but I was the only moron packin a revolver (with leather thong) and walking around town like a gunfighter....arms slightly bowed....fingers twitching. Billy the Jew. Im very lucky somebody didnt just shoot me as a public safety issue. They would not have been convicted. I was a major asshole.

VISTA was so disappointed in me. Not only did I blow my money but this gun was just the wrong thing to be wearing in an Eskimo village. Made you look like a lawman. They told me not to wear it when we entered the village. I said OK.

I felt that I was doing well in VISTA training and Alaska was more than interesting. Even Anchorage seemed like the frontier the wild, wild west. It was, however, still summer and an Anchorage hotel room wasnt exactly an Eskimo village in winter at fifty below.

The Alaska VISTA trainers all seemed surprised if I mentioned in casual conversation that I hadnt applied to come to Alaska and that I wasnt particularly fond of the cold. I had to be careful about what I said because the trainers, as you would expect, treated Alaska not as a place, but as a religion. I still didnt want to be thrown out of the program, and like I said, Alaska was fascinating.