 Another true Alaska story... by George Miller June 11, 2002
The larger camp was a dry camp, that is, there were to be no alcoholic beverages in the logging camp to slow the flow of well-tuned loggers, or hamper production in the woods. Men with hangovers just could not get out the logs as well, plus, they were possibly at odds with one another over some drunken incident barely remembered from the previous evening. Not only that, but the after effects were a hazard, creating a ripe atmosphere for accidents in an already very dangerous profession. Your wits had to be sharp to stay alive on a high-ball logging show. So, it was a dry camp and the boss was at watch through his front window, which was right at the dock where float -planes tied up during grocery, people, and mail deliveries. He knew some people would try to smuggle booze into the dry camp in various ways and kept a close eye on the traffic at the plane float. Our construction camp was not dry camp. This meant that whiskey and beer were readily available at the bunk- house or at several small trailer houses where the home-guards (those who had their families along) were living. Just as you might imagine, when the grocery plane came in for that small camp the boss of the big camp would get an eye full of many cases of beer and bottles of whiskey being unloaded in full view of the whole dry camp. He would personally stand guard on these items lest anyone from his camp be tempted to try and get some for their own use. We at the small camp would load the pickup with the booze, along with the few groceries which were thrown in for appearance sake, then we would drive through the big camp and on out to our small one, knowing we were torturing those who were deprived. Later at night though, some would slip out under cover of darkness and knock softly at doors in the construction camp to pay double or triple prices to slake their thirst. At the construction camp the road boss was a wild, hard driving, man named Tom. He had flaming red hair, insane blue eyes and an explosive nature about him. He also had a superiority complex, which placed him at a TEN, and the rest of sluggish, mindless, humanity at a resounding ZERO. At breakfast he would remind the whole crew just what total ZEROS they all were, compared to him, and why he was able to do all our jobs far better than we ever would. He would literally rave and faunch himself into a foaming hysteria, which drove the rest of us crazy and created an atmosphere which was so tense even the wolves howled at night with an extra tinge of anxiety. Bears, who normally would be right outside the cook shack, would wait extra long to come aboard the float camp at night, I suspect, to avoid Tom's screams and rants that cut like a chainsaw through the otherwise peaceable woods. Tom was driven to produce more road, faster then anyone, or else. So he rode the crew hard, with no letup, to achieve his production goals. Then Tom decided he had to go to town on a Friday night to take care of business and return on Sunday evening. We all had a day or so of blissful peace, then Tom's return plane buzzed the small camp so I went down to the big camp to pick him up. It was a cold spring day, windy and blowing rain. The plane landed, taxied over and nudged the floating dock. The pilot jumped out and secured it by a wing rope, while looking over his shoulder like a hunted fugitive. Out the plane door came Tom, wildly, exotically drunk and raving at the top of his lungs at the pilot. He stepped onto the first float log, slipped off and went under water. The pilot smiled, jumped in his plane and idled away to take off. Pretty soon Tom surfaced, screaming and cussing like he was getting rich doing it. I reached for him, got him by the shirt and attempted to beach him on the dock. I was met with screams of, "Leave me alone you complete ZERO, I don't need your _____ing help! He took a swing at me so I was forced to let him go back for another swim. He soon came back up, looking sort of white and shocked, sputtering and grasping for a hold on the slick log. I tried again to drag him out and was met with more high-pitched incoherent words and yet more violence. Alas, I could not keep my grip on poor Tom so down he went for the third freezing baptism. You may be worried, thinking hypothermia and the like, but since we had never heard of those types of things in the small camp it did not come to mind. What did come to mind was that Tom was so far superior to all lower forms of humanity, that he would not really need air, or warmth, like the rest of us, but could stay under all day if need be rather than accept my help. But I was wrong, after a very long time he came up again, this time sort of an off-bluish white hue, and not screaming, or trying to punch me out. He just allowed me to slide him out onto the dock like a halibut, drag him up the short ramp to the warm truck, and get him home to his bunk. The whole camp was in a state of anticipation the next morning when Tom walked in the cook-shack. He looked a bit pale and wan, a bit down in his shoes, and seemed at first glance a little docile. Then he yelled, "What are all you ZEROS looking at," And we knew he was not tamed yet. The boss soon delivered a new pick-up to camp for Tom to drive around in screaming as he oversaw the road jobs. He parked the shiny, white, deluxe model Ford near a log pile, jumped on a D-8 Cat, and took off to move some trees away from an area we were preparing to drill and blast. Here he came, down the hill with a bunch of trees, at the top speed for that machine. He turned onto the road raised the blade of the cat little and while looking backward over his shoulder, smiling at the bragging sized load of trees he had, horribly ripped the cab off his new Ford with the blade of the speeding D-8 Caterpillar. I was a witness and he knew I saw him, so there was not a way to pull the wool over the eyes of the ZEROS, or the boss, as to how this huge, mindless, blunder happened. There was a new club started in the small camp. The ZERO of the Month Club. A poster was created, listing the work force names, and allowing for a prize for the most outstandingly wacko stunt of stupidity each month. We unanimously gave Tom the grand prize for the year, in advance, setting the benchmark for all crews in the future to try and outdo. When that camp went out of business, Tom was still the champ. Notably, Tom tapered off his use of the word ZERO, and finally quit pinning us with it. It may have had something to do with the ZERO of the MONTH CLUB, poster being fastened to his bunk door for the remainder of the construction season, with his grand prize ribbon glaring at him every time he used that door. It looked like the taming of Tom had finally come to pass. The wolves and bears must have breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps even the clams were less anxious as Tom became a more thoughtful and tame road boss.
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