November 7, 2002

• Anchorage, early 1974

  
  

  I cheated on my taxes that first year in Anchorage, unwittingly.  I claimed Stony as a dependant, which was fine.  But I claimed unmarried head of houshold status for myself, to which I wasn’t entitled because Stony and I are unrelated.  I neglected to read all the fine print.  I was the major wage-earner in that tax year, and we were unmarried to each other, so that category seemed appropriate.  My bad.  No prob.  The difference amounted to less than $35, so it was forgiven. 

  
  

  All it cost me was a trip to the local IRS office and a morning spent with an anxious feeling in my gut.  What I got from that trip downtown was an excellent lunch at a restaurant I hadn’t tried before, Le Potage.  More than worth it, I’d say.  Nothing but soup on the menu, but what soup!  And there was fresh-baked bread to go with it.  It was eight blocks from work, but I’d walk down there, fast, at least a time or two a week, for lunch.

  
  

  I found a great place for dinner, too, and it was just a block off my route home from work.  It was The Restaurant.  I loved sitting at the counter where I could watch the cooks.  I always ordered the same thing:  abalone ala Sinatra.  There have not been many restaurants that I’ve frequented in my lifetime that had abalone on the menu; just that one, one on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, and one in Morro Bay. 

  
  

  The Restaurant was so great, in ambience, comfortable seating, the floor show of the sauté cooks, and esprit of the staff, that I would sit there sipping the excellent coffee, and fantasize about going to work there.  But I was hooked on the two jobs I had, and wasn’t money hungry enough to try a part-time swing shift gig. 

  
  

  I put in 96 hours a week and as many more, at time and a half, as were required to do the job at New Start.  I usually had six to ten hours overtime on each check, from driving clients to interviews or helping them find housing after office hours.  I had one female client who, because of digestive problems, needed a blender to process all her food.  We tried to find one she could afford at a thrift store, and when none could be found, I found a nice lady at Catholic Social Services, who cut a check for a brand new one.

  
  

  We did job search classes one evening a week, and that made up, on my time card, for the Wednesday morning staff meetings at Open Door.   I’d help people compose a resume, then I’d type it up and make copies.  Mike checked a video setup out of the state A/V pool, and we taped mock interviews and ran them back so the clients could see and critique their own interviews.

  
  

  Mike and I researched possible businesses that a proposed organization of ex-offenders could start as a place to employ the more hardcore unemployables among our clients.  We both really loved the idea of a recycling center, but all the research suggested that it would not support itself economically.  It was more than a decade before a recycling center opened in Anchorage, and it has been struggling ever since, because of the cost of shipping the scrap out to somewhere there is an industry to use it. 

  
  

  We settled on housing construction, since the area was booming.  Mike prepared a proposal to present to the Inmate Council and the Jaycee chapter at the Palmer Correctional Center, a minimum security facility where most of the inmates were serving time for alcohol- or drug-related offenses.

  
  

  Steve, my friend who worked midnight shift at Open Door, was interested in the project, and he was a Jaycee, formerly with the PCC chapter.  He and Barb, the parole office’s PR person, and Mike and I went to Palmer to tell the inmates there about our idea.  One phase of it was the construction company.  Another was a halfway house, alternative to incarceration to run in connection with the industry.

  
  

  One funny-looking man, the president of the Jaycee chapter, did most of the talking.  He asked searching questions, wanted details about the plans, and our delegation left it to me to answer most of them.  When he asked whether the men in the halfway house would have any chances to, “get their ashes hauled,” I sorta choked and sputtered, trying not to laugh at the colorful turn of phrase. 

  
  

  I said something to the effect that I supposed so, if the men could find anyone to do the hauling for them.  Mike spoke up and contradicted that, saying that most probably that would not be allowed.  Both the funny-looking guy and I looked at Mike incredulously, neither of us, I suppose, quite able to understand why that might be, but familiar enough with the system not to argue with him.

  
  

  I should probably explain that this guy wasn’t deformed or anything.  He just dressed funny.  Nobody else in that joint was dressed that way.  His style was what was commonly referred to as “plastic hippie”, only more extremely plastic than I had ever seen.  He wore jeans and a jean jacket, of dark blue synthetic fabric, not the faded cotton denim favored by “real” hippies.  There were no holes in the knees or seat patched with colorful scraps, no embroidery or flowery applique.  His pants had been slit at the bottom and turned into bells with a gusset of cloth, in the hippie style, but the edges of both pant legs and the waist and cuffs of the jacket were trimmed with factory-made decorative braid.  His patches were of the machine-made sort, too.  One patch gave his “sex sign” as Sagittarius, “inventive” with a naked couple coupling in the upside down 69 position.  Several others celebrated marijuana and advocated revolution and praised rock and roll.  They were stuck on randomly, and, as I said, the effect was comical to me.

  
  

  After the presentation, while we were milling around, Steve introduced the funny-looking guy to me as “Stud”, his ol’ jail partner.  ”Stud” stuck his hand out and corrected Steve: “Chuck, Chuck Studdert.”  He had a nice warm, firm handshake and a cute crooked smile.  He led us on a tour of the joint.  First we saw the kitchen, where he gave some orders to his helpers who were preparing lunch in his absence.  He explained that he was the current head cook.   He showed us the shed where the snowplow was that he had operated before getting the kitchen job, and then made the rounds of the greenhouse and the snow-covered gardens.  Then he led us to a long dormitory building.

  
  

  In the cubicle he called his “house”, where every available bit of wall space was plastered with nude centerfolds, and a bookshelf held classics such as The Story of O, he handed a cardboard box of various items to Steve.  Out of the box, he pulled a beautiful ceramic Hotei buddha on a wooden base with a sand-filled brass cup for an incense burner.  The figure’s robe was gold and the facial features were delicately painted.  Steve complimented Chuck on his work, and on the skill he had developed in the craft shop.  Chuck asked him to take the box home with him.  Steve explained to me that Chuck would be getting out the following weekend, and would be staying at Steve’s apartment while I helped him find a job.

  
  

  Steve ended up forgetting the box in the back of the state car that night, and it went home with me.  The beautiful Hotei incense burner (he is the patron of oracles and psychics) is on a shelf in my home right now.  Over twenty years later, our son Doug found his dad’s old plastic hippie costume in a box, discovered that it fit him, and wore it to the Talkeetna Bluegrass Festival.  Ol’ “Chuck”, whom I soon started calling Charley, lives about a mile away from here now, in a cabin owned by Greyfox.  He’s just about the best friend I have who’s still alive.  I will be having a lot more to say about him.

  • 5:23 pm
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