"Gotta Have a Sense of Humor"

The humor of Loren Stewart, owner/publisher/editor of the Cheechako News, more than once highlighted the occasional absurdity of peninsula life.

GOTTA HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR

2008-2013

Evel & Awful

The comparisons were obvious and understandable. Evel Knievel, famed daredevil motorcycle rider, planned to jump over the Snake River canyon in Idaho on Sept. 8, 1974. The previously unknown Awful Knawful planned to jump over Beaver Creek in Kenai three weeks later, on Sept. 29, 1974.

Knievel planned to make his jump in a two-wheeled, steam-powered vehicle that he had painted red-white-and-blue and dubbed the X-1 Skycycle. Knawful, whose budgetary considerations forced him into a slightly lower-tech operation, planned to make his jump on a three-wheeled, specially designed tricycle. Both would take off from a ramp—Knievel’s aimed skyward, and Knawful’s earthward.

For publicity, Knievel hired Bob Arum’s company, Top Rank Productions (which usually promoted boxing matches), to put the event on closed-circuit television and to arrange all the financing for the jump itself. Knawful employed his press agent, Royce Adams, to get the word out, and subsequently a brief article promoting the jump appeared on the front page of The Cheechako News three days before the event. The Cheechako promo ended with this ringing endorsement from Adams: “This is no joke. A special ramp is being built for the jump.”

Evel Knievel in the X-2.

Knievel hired aeronautical engineer Doug Malewicki to build the X-1 Skycycle, which was powered by an engine built by former Aerojet engineer Robert Truax. After a test launch in 1972, Truax built a second Skycycle, dubbed the X-2, which is the vehicle Knievel climbed into on Sept. 8 two years later. Knawful used assistants, too. He employed Joe Ross as his engineer and had Harry Axson, Jay Lietzke, and Mike French construct a 64-foot-long, 20-feet-high wooden ramp from which to launch his attempt.

Knievel launched at 3:36 p.m., Mountain Daylight Time. As a huge television audience watched, the steam that powered the Skycycle engine was superheated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and the force of the blast-off created immediate problems: The drogue parachute deployed too soon because the bolts holding its cover stripped out, and the subsequent drag failed to allow the rocket to land properly, even though the X-2 reached the full three-quarters of a mile across the canyon to the north rim. Instead, the chute caused the rocket to drift backward, and it landed on the river bank on the same side from which it had been launched.

Knawful launched at about noon, Alaska Daylight Time. In front of a crowd that may have been generously estimated at 300 onlookers, Knawful got rolling. A Peninsula Clarion article (with two black-and-white photos) the following week said that Knawful’s “gravitationally powered” vehicle zoomed down the ramp, but this launch, too, was imperfect: The “precision instruments controlling the parachute malfunctioned,” wrote the Clarion; consequently, Knawful, whose effort had been sponsored by the Kenai Peninsula Racing Association, dropped right into the drink.

According to news reports, if Knievel had landed in the Snake River, he would have drowned because of a malfunction with his jumpsuit harness. As it was, he survived the jump with only minor injuries. According to the local papers, Knawful splash-landed in the center of Beaver Creek. The Clarion claimed that Knawful then “swam for his life,” and the Cheechako added that he climbed out and exclaimed to “autograph hounds” that he’d make it all the way across the following year.

Knievel went on to more fame and more big events. And, although Knawful claimed that more daredevil stunts were in his near future, he never made quite so big a splash again.

The Job No One Seemed to Want

The difficulties began innocuously enough. On the front page of the Saturday, July 19, 1969, edition of The Cheechako News, was a four-paragraph story entitled “Harrison Attends Last Council Meeting.” In those four paragraphs, readers learned that James W. (Bill) Harrison, who had been Kenai’s city manager for four years, was resigning to accept a similar job in Silver City, New Mexico.

Kenai Mayor Eugene Morin and members of the city council lamented Harrison’s departure, but they unanimously agreed to craft a letter of recommendation for him and send him on his way with hearty thanks. Harrison’s last official council meeting took place on Wednesday, July 16, and after he departed, his position was filled on an interim basis by Nels Kjelstad, who became acting city manager while the city sought a candidate to take the job permanently.

Forty people responded to the job search by sending in their applications. By the time that the council had winnowed that number down to 10, seven of the 10 were still interested in the job. The seven remaining applicants were then reduced to three, each of whom was brought in for an interview on Tuesday, Sept. 16.

During a special session on Sept. 18, the council unanimously selected Raymond Barth of Galt, California, as its choice. Barth, who had been a Galt city administrator for the three previous years, and who had spent about another decade in administrative posts elsewhere in California, accepted the job.

On the night of Saturday, Oct. 25, Barth arrived in town. On Monday, Oct. 27, he boarded an 8:30 a.m. flight and returned to California. In a note to Mayor Morin, he said that his wife, who was set to fly to Alaska a few weeks hence, was “extremely ill,” and so he had left to be with her.

Barth, who had not even been in town long enough to take the oath of office, was replaced by Kjelstad, who once again became acting city manager.

Then, on Tuesday, Nov. 18, it was announced that the city had voted unanimously (again) to hire Fred W. Baxter of Victorville, California, as its new city manager. Baxter, who was the Victorville city manager and who had held prior administrative positions in California and Korea after a 20-year Air Force career, accepted the position, which would pay him an annual salary of $22,872 (rising to $24,012 after a 90-day probationary period).

Baxter arrived on Sunday morning, Nov. 30, and was sworn in at the city council’s meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 3. The Cheechako reported that Baxter said he “had wanted to come to Alaska for several years,” and that he was “looking forward to hunting in Alaska.” Of his first impressions of his new home, he said that people “seemed much nicer here than in California.”

But on the front page of the Saturday, Dec. 13, Cheechako, this headline blared: “Kenai May Be in Market for City Manager Again.” On the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 9, Baxter had pulled his car out of the parking lot at Larry’s Club and struck another vehicle moving along the North Road. He was cited for failure to yield the right of way. Afterwards, according to the paper, the “innuendoes” began.

Apparently “certain city councilmen” began to make insinuations, and Baxter didn’t like them. On Friday, Dec. 12, he arranged for a letter to be passed on to the mayor and then boarded a plane back to California. In the letter, according to the mayor, Baxter said that he “felt it was in the best interests of the city” that he resign.

Morin was disappointed in Baxter’s decision and refused to accept his resignation. He made a personal call to Baxter in California, asked him to reconsider, and gave him 24 hours to think it over. But Baxter never called back, and so the Kenai City Council went looking again while Kjelstad resumed his now-familiar duties.

Kenai finally found its man a week later. In a Saturday, Dec. 20, Cheechako article titled “Kenai Has Another New City Manager,” the mayor announced that it had accepted Baxter’s resignation and had agreed unanimously to hire Ormond O. Robbins, a manager with the Federal Aviation Administration in Anchorage. Robbins, who had previously held the same FAA position in Kenai, claimed to be delighted to move back to the peninsula.

And the City of Kenai had a Merry Christmas after all.

The Judge’s New Desk

Kenai Deputy Magistrate Jess Nicholas was familiar with roughing it, but in 1960 he decided he’d had enough and so he let someone know about his needs.

Judge Nicholas and his later-to-be wife, Carolyn, had come to Alaska in 1944 to do federal government work. They married in Anchorage in 1952 and in 1956 homesteaded in Cohoe, where they lived in a small log cabin and then completed a hand-dug 32-foot water well in early November.

Kenai Magistrate Jess Nicholas in 1970.

The Nicholases had no electricity until almost a year later, and at first they had only one electrical outlet, which was fine by Carolyn because it meant she could plug in her waffle iron and indulge in one of her favorite foods.

When they moved to Kenai in 1960, after Jess was appointed magistrate, they rented a small cabin with only cold running water but no bathroom until they moved into a Quonset hut, with all the amenities, that was owned by Ed and Joanna Hollier.

However, Jess’s accommodations in his first office—in front of Seamans’ furniture store in Kenai—left something to be desired. And in the Aug. 13, 1960, edition of The Anchorage Times, a portion of Nicholas’s official letter of complaint was quoted: “The reason I need a desk is because I don’t have one. I was using a card table; however, after two months of using it, the owner demanded it back. Presently I am using a Blazo box for desk, table, bench, etc. If you do not know what a Blazo box is, it is a wooden box that the Standard Oil Co. ships two five-gallon cans of Blazo gasoline to Alaska in. It made such a unique bench for a judge that two officials of Standard Oil have taken pictures of it to use in publications printed by that company.”

A short time later, Nicholas received a real desk.

As a reminder that things aren’t always easy, however, Carolyn Nicholas had an even more trying experience the following year. According to her story in Once Upon the Kenai, she had gone to the Soldotna clinic of Dr. Paul Isaak deliver her first child, Tom, on a warm June day when she learned that there would be a delay.

A local teen-ager who had been zigzagging on a downhill stretch of the Kenai Spur Highway between Soldotna and Kenai had flipped his car, been ejected from the vehicle, and landed on his back on the pavement in the glass from his own windshield. In the clinic, Jess Nicholas and Dr. Isaak hoisted the boy onto the operating table, where the doctor stood carefully extracting the pieces of glass embedded in the boy’s backside.

When Carolyn’s labor intensified, Jess helped Isaak move the boy from the table so that Carolyn could climb on and give birth. Tom was born at about 9 p.m. “After the delivery, the table was occupied by the young man,” Carolyn wrote. “The next morning as I was getting ready to take my baby home, I said good-bye to him, but all he said was, ‘So it was you that made me have to be removed from the table.’”

Unintentional Irony?

The Good Friday Earthquake struck Southcentral Alaska on the afternoon of March 27, 1964. Lasting nearly five minutes, it was the most powerful temblor ever recorded in U.S. and North American history. Less than one month later came the debut performance of the senior class play at Kenai Central High School. On the nights of April 17 and 18, the seniors performed in the comedy “All Shook Up.”

A Spoonful of Humor Helps Pay the Bills

Running a newspaper in a small community has its challenges—including the maintenance of the profit margin. When the central Kenai Peninsula’s first regular newspaper, the Cheechako News, found itself drowning in red ink in 1969, publisher Loren Stewart took action by trying to brighten a dire situation with a little levity.

On page one of the Friday, Jan. 31, edition, Stewart created a boxed-in open letter to his readers. The letter, entitled “We Got Troubles,” made clear the seriousness of his situation while keeping the tone light-hearted:

“The Cheechako News is having tax trouble because it has far too many receivables. If everybody who owes the Cheechako News a bill would pay their bill, the publisher and his family could pay their taxes, buy a new car, and take a vacation to Hawaii. If half of the people who owe the Cheechako News would pay their bill, the publisher and his wife could pay their taxes and buy a new car and go out to a restaurant for dinner. If only one-third of those who owe the Cheechako News paid their bill, the publisher and his family could pay their taxes and stay home and eat beans. Send your payment in today and at least keep us in beans.”

In the next issue (Monday, Feb. 3, 1969), Stewart again addressed his readers with a boxed-in page-one open letter—again with a sense of humor, but this time with better news. The letter, which was entitled “Have Beans and Friends,” made the following pronouncements:

“Thanks to our many advertisers and good friends who responded so promptly with payments on their accounts, we have managed to keep in beans. We especially thank Galen Gray of Tanglewood Supply in North Kenai who not only sent a check for the entire amount of his January account (for which he had not yet been billed), but also for the basket of beans, ham hocks and the onions which accompanied the check. The Cheechako News has arranged for short-term financing to take care of its immediate tax problems, but still needs to collect those outstanding accounts to assure that the business will remain on a stable basis.”

Stewart went on to thank the many readers and advertisers who had telephoned the newspaper office with offers of physical and financial assistance, and he said that he hoped that he had been able to put this fiscal emergency permanently behind him. And he concluded with this line: “It is a GREAT, GREAT boost to morale to find we have so many friends.”

The Cheechako survived this financial adversity and continued to publish until the mid-1980s, despite competition from the Peninsula Clarion (starting the next year), frequent changes in the number of issues published per week, and eventually a change in ownership, name, and format. The last day for the newspaper occurred in March 1986 when the then-Soldotna Sun set for a final time.

Not as Funny the Second Time

The small headline befit the small item on page one of the Cheechako News on Feb. 26, 1960: “Kipp and Craig Autos Collide.”

Beneath the headline was a single paragraph: “An icy corner at Cook and Main in Kenai was the cause of an accident last week. Clarence Craig of Soldotna was unable to execute a complete right turn because of the ice and his left fender hit the left fender of the oncoming car driven by Clarice Kipp of Kenai. Both autos needed to have fenders bent out before they were able to drive away.”

Fifty-one years later, Kipp still remembers the incident. “There was a filling station on that corner. And I think I must have been driving the pickup,” she said.

Kipp and her husband, Glenn, came to Alaska in 1954, residing in Anchorage until they moved to Kenai the following year. Both of them were prominent in the Civil Air Patrol, and Clarice was active in the area Homemakers Club.

A week after the incident at Cook and Main, Glenn was out driving the pickup around when an eerily similar set of circumstances presented itself. Loren Stewart, owner of the Cheechako and known for his quick wit, wasted no time in drawing the parallels for his readers.

On page one of the next issue of the paper (March 11, 1960), this headline and brief story appeared: “Kipp and Eagle Cars Collide.”

“An icy parkway in front of Peninsula Builders (across from present-day Kenai Electric) in Kenai was the reported cause of an accident last week that again involved Glenn Kipp’s battered auto. Rex Eagle’s auto was the other car. Glenn, who had considerable comment about the accident that occurred last week when wife Clarice was driving, has been unavailable for comment (this time). It is reported that in case of questioning he intends to take the Fifth Amendment.”

Clarice laughed heartily when presented recently with this second news item, even though she said that Glenn’s accident resided less clearly in her memory than her own.

Wobbly Reminiscence

Author’s note: Many of the details and all of the quotes in the following story come from an anonymous nostalgic remembrance printed in the Cheechako News in early January 1980. Although the account is uncredited, it appeared near some other history-flavored articles written by publisher Loren Stewart about early homesteading life on the Kenai Peninsula. Stewart, who came to live in Ridgeway in 1948 and founded the Cheechako in 1959, almost certainly penned the piece, which was entitled “Irish Whiskey & Fishing Trip.”

When the tracks in the fresh snow left the graveled Sterling Highway that late afternoon in mid-winter 1949, they formed a fresh clear path down the crude three-mile road Bob Mackey had cut to his home on the Mackey Lakes. So the two late arrivals to Mackey’s social gathering—an ice-fishing party—followed those footprints, and followed them easily … at first.

Soon, however, the tracks began to wander, and the two travelers later distinguished a disturbance in the snow indicating that the person ahead of them had fallen. Sometime afterward, they discovered evidence of another fall, and lying alongside that small snowy crater they spied an empty Irish whiskey bottle, which told them all they needed to know.

Lawrence "Mac" McGuire outside his Soldotna homesteading cabin.

“McGuire!” they said in unison.

They knew they were trailing Lawrence “Mac” McGuire, a transplanted Irishman (from County Donegal) who a year earlier had become one of Soldotna’s first homesteaders. McGuire was a man who loved his cabin across the Kenai River bridge from Soldotna, loved to welcome company to his door, and loved a bottle of good Irish whiskey.

The two travelers continued their journey, and additional evidence began to present itself: More blemishes in the snow indicating more tipsy toppling. A single glove. A wool hat. Another glove. And then McGuire himself.

They found the wiry Irishman “lying peacefully in the snow, with an opened, half-empty bottle of Irish whiskey in his bare, blue hand—and what is more, he hadn’t spilled a drop.”

Although McGuire may not have realized it, he needed to be rescued. The two travelers “half-carried, half-dragged” him to Mackey’s cabin, where they “poured some hot coffee in him and stuffed him into a sleeping bag.”

Then they left him alone in the cabin and joined the ice-fishing festivities out on the lake, hoping in the meantime that McGuire survived the night and avoided pneumonia and the loss of any frostbitten fingers or toes.

The party on the lake went late into the night, and eventually everyone returned to the cabin to find the “indestructible” McGuire sleeping comfortably. The other partiers crawled into sleeping bags arrayed on the cabin floor and sacked out, intending to snooze until about noon the next day.

However, the well-rested McGuire was up and energized before daybreak, shaking awake his friends to offer them the coffee he had brewed and the bacon he had fried.