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Bullshop
06-09-2005, 11:42 AM
Maven
As I said I will let the other thread go so I will start this to answer some of your questions. You know to realy fully answer it would take a book, and actualy I have started one a number of years ago called Loosing The race. Actualy I was born in NY and lived in the town of Otisville until age 14 when I struck out on my own. So you know where I came from I will tell you I had a rough start. By age 14 I was living on the street panhandling and already had a heroin habit. This for a couple years till I landed in jail, just a cold cell but lying pressed against that cold floor with my naked body was the only thing I had to sooth the burning from withdrawl. Once out I hich hiked to Florida to finished out the winter. While there I got a job near Talihasse running a chain saw clearing land for development. I knew nothing about a saw but tried to learn fast. I didnt know it at the time but this was setting the stage for my future as an Alaska timber faller. I bounced arround the country for a few years and found I liked the north west best so made the Bitter Root valley in Montana my home. After having my fill of the poor wages paid for timber work in Montana and knowing Alaska wages were three to four times higher, and getting dumped by my girl friend I decieded I would do what most other young me want to do someday head for Alaska. When I drew my last pay check from MT I used it to buy a new saw and a plain ticket to Ketchikan. The saw, the ticket, and a few bucks in my pocket and damn the tropedoes, Again it would take a book to cover it all but I will just say it wasnt easy, but is it ever easy anywhere. It shure beat being a streat juncky in NY. Anyway that was my start in AK. It wouldnt be full time for a number of years yet. I was still based in MT for some time and just worked the logging season in AK.
There is a long list of reasons why I am here now but the biggest one has to be freedom. I have given bits and peaces of our life stile here but none on the board know how we live. We are very simple and do without many things our society deems necessary. In rural Ak it dosent matter, in America we would have many people more concerned with my business than there own and bent on causing me greef. You know the Hillary eleit would want to take my children for not allowing them to become sociatal droans and I just dont think I could allow that to happen while I am alive. So you see there is realy no place else for me. Guess I am getting back into my beliefs here so best quit, but from this small bit of my life you can see I have much to be thankfull for! If my way of expressing myself has angered anyone I will apologize now as that is not my intension. Please forgive my spelling I am doing my best. As you can figure those hard years were not spent at a school desk.
BIC/BS

Maven
06-09-2005, 12:30 PM
Bullshop, That's a fascinating story! From the books I've read about AK, many feel as you do with respect to freedom, rugged individualism (for lack of a better term), a pioneering spirit. I suppose AK really is the last frontier. (I hope it stays that way.) Btw, I presently live in Kingston, N.Y., not all that far from Otisville.

Bullshop
06-10-2005, 10:02 AM
Maven
Yes I kind of remember Kingston. Is it like about 40 miles north on rout 17? Its funny when I was there 40 miles seemed so far, but now we go 130 miles to Fairbanks for our supplies. I have a very good friend in Wortsboro. He has a nice place of about 100 acres to hunt on. It is wooded and has many deer and turkies and he says he sees bears regulerly. He was my best friend through my hard times and has remained so. I guess I was kind of like a starving cat scratching at his back door so he would feed me. His mom thought he should pick his friends more carefully.
BIC/BS

9.3X62AL
06-10-2005, 10:59 AM
Bullshop--

A great story, and thank you for sharing that here.

I share your irritation with others spending their time nosing into what I deem my business excessively. California mght cop the prize as winner of that contest. I admire your accomplishments, and if all goes well medically for the next year or so--I'll be fleeing this Marxist Theme Park and returning to the United States.

grumble
06-10-2005, 12:15 PM
I like your story, too, Bullshop!

I look forward to Wednesdays when Buckshot does his "Tuesday at the Range" postings. Since you were thinking of writing a book anyway, maybe you could give us "chapters" one day a week? Kinda like the old Saturday Serials cliffhangers -- will the train hit fair Molly? Will the villian be caught by the hero? <G>

Seriously, your accounts of life in AK are very interesting, and I enjoy them a lot.