Two-thousand words and approximately eight minutes of reading time.
What if I asked, "Have you driven a taxicab in Anchorage in 1972?"
You arrived in Anchorage in June. Egads! You were too early for a job working on the 'Trans-Alaska Pipeline,' because the US Congress hadn't approved it yet. You had scarce resources, and you were, maybe, a skilled surveyor, plumber, cook, welder, or whatever. Still, you were counting a union hall dispatch and leaving Anchorage for the pipeline project immediately upon arrival.
Instead, you are faced with paying for food and a roof over a bed until you could get dispatched to a job, hopefully on the pipeline, not in the local area. Because of the difference in hours, the pipeline means more money, lots more money.
You, the Pipe-liners from the lower 48, believed the late-night TV hustlers and hucksters, so you paid for many kinds of unavailable services, such as early hiring, due to a partial agreement of the Congress. This story sounds almost like the illegal's stories of the cartel fees and lies experienced by those attempting to cross the US border.
You arrived as a total stranger, unemployed, broke, with no room, and were stuck in Anchorage. The US Senate couldn't yet resolve the debate of the 'Pipeline' Bill,' to get it onto President Nixon's desk at the White House. You'd placed yourself in jeopardy and needed to work to save yourself from a failed attempt at a job on the pipeline in Alaska.
I was spared this tale of woe because I had a taxi cab that rapidly became a fleet of taxicabs only because of the timing.
In my high-level Blue Chip corporate job, I saw Alaska as a way to remove myself from the 'Rat Race' of people like me, fresh from the NAVY, educated on the GI Bill, and who were full of whatever thirtyish-year-old problem solvers do that leads to success.
My grandfather was an 1898-1899 great plains farmer's youngest son in the early U S immigration of German, Ukraine, Polish, Croats, and Russians through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana, as far west as Idaho. When he left home, he caught a freighter from Seattle to Juneau as a professional hunter. He regaled me all my life with tales of those nights and days in the wilderness he could describe so colorfully. He cocked my trigger to jump on the first opportunity to work and live there.
On my first day in the Alaska corporate job, I wore a dark suit, red tie, black wingtips, and stone cufflinks. When I walked in at 8:00 am, I was greeted by the staff with a pair of large librarian's scissors which promptly trimmed my tie and shirt's cuffs with the cufflinks. The office staff presented me with a polo shirt, a pair of Chinos, and Sorrels. Each had a different type of snow scraper and snow brush inserted.
The people of Anchorage were relaxed, steady, supportive, and able to think independently as long as I worked there. They would prefer word games to dice games during Happy Hours in the saloons and drinking halls. Brain-twisting problems were shared and toasted. To get a single dice roll of Five Aces was a free drink. A great place to step away from that 'Rat Race.'
My last day on the Corporate job was in November 1975. I was presented with a Helly-Hanson Rain Slicker and Bib Rain pants. From the Nome office, I received Hand-beaded seal skin mocassins lined with caribou chest hair. The gifts were from the staff in the offices where I was associated. The Anchorage crew presented my tie and cuffs with links in a shadow box.
I left that job around 10 am and at 6 pm started my official self-employed first shift driving a taxicab for my new boss, ME!
On my first night, I caught a call at a restaurant at around 11 pm. It was cold and windy, and the ice was windblown and slippery. The sand trucks couldn't keep up, so it was treacherous to drive around. But that was the taxicab business. It went smoothly that night until I stopped at the restaurant for 'Gloria,' the fares name.
A strikingly beautiful blonde came out, wearing a long fur coat, and asked if she could go to the airport to meet someone. Of course, we did that, and at the airport, an equally beautiful black-haired beauty, also a twenties-something, came to the cab and got in the back with the blonde.
They gave me the name of a notorious after-hours club and the passcode they had for them being cleared for admittance. When I dropped them, the black-haired beauty said, "Driver, start your engine!" She sounded like a NASCAR fan.
The blonde reached over my right shoulder, dropped a $100.00 bill on my lap, and said, "Driver, I will be back to get the change. I am looking forward to searching you for it if necessary."
The black-haired one said, "Hide it well since she means to find it."
"Don't go away."
I sat outside the club in the cab for a three-hour wait, clearing the snow off once an hour. The meter was running the entire time of my wait and had registered $89.00 on the meter when the blonde stood at the entry, signaling with the crooking of her finger for me to come there. It had snowed about four or five inches while I waited, so she wanted me to carry her to the cab.
I started to wrap an arm around her waist and under her knees when she stopped me and said, "We... by the way, what is your name? I do not let a man carry me. So for this task, we will pretend you are a female, okay? Give me your female name, Driver."
Since I hadn't thought about such a thing, I said, "You name me, and get it right, okay?"