of the Lost Boys, as I now call them (some of whom were girls), had moved on from the 736 Club, but I had plenty of friends in high school. Somehow, I got the notion that I would screen the film Woodstock for my birthday. This was back before videos were available, but I learned I could rent the actual film (which came in several reels) and a projector from a local company that rented educational films to schools.
Some friends and I hung a white sheet across a wall in the large living room at 736 and then watched in amazement as an overflowing crowd showed up. The living room became a sea of teens from all over town crowded wall-to-wall throughout the two-story house. It was like any teen party scene held at a teen’s home, except in this case the parents weren’t merely away; they were never coming back. That cold night in February, we—the youngest of the Woodstock generation—partied like it was 1974.
Dean “Andy” Mathis, hunting in Oklahoma, mid-1970s. Dean was my best friend my freshman and sophomore year of high school. He and his family were like my own before and after my father’s death.
Me and René, Dean’s sister and my best friend since seventh grade. This photo was taken in their home in Seattle in 1973, when they brought me down for Christmas. René and I remain close.
Despite a huge group of teens doing what teens did at parties like this—play music really loud and drink alcohol—the cops never showed up. That was probably because the house sat in an area partially zoned for commercial development: Al’s Body Shop was across the street, the Tesoro gas station where I worked was next door, and Mark’s Drive-In was on the corner. There were no neighbors to disturb, no neighbors to watch us—or watch out for me.
CLEARLY, AT SOME POINT, I needed rescuing. Eventually, the cavalry showed up.
One day late in the school year, I was called from class into the counseling office to find a beautiful woman with stylish blonde hair dressed in a fur coat and in no way looking like what she was—a state social worker.
Her name was Michael Giesler and she saved my life that day. She told me my seventeen-year-old stepmother had called their office, saying I was a delinquent. Considering the source, they knew that might not be true, but they did realize at last that no one knew what was happening to this sixteen-year-old orphan.
It wasn’t long before I had a court-appointed guardian to help with legal affairs, medical and dental care through the State of Alaska, and a clothing allowance. I was assigned to live at the homes of friends of my choosing.
Aside from the social stigma of my dad’s businesses and death, I must have been a pretty good teen. Or they didn’t know better. A friend once noted that I was the perfect houseguest: I always picked up after myself, dove in with cleaning, left any room better than I found it. She surmised I learned that after being a guest in so many homes.
I don’t think she meant that was a good thing.
I had little oversight, I guess, because unlike many teens in state custody, I didn’t get in trouble. I was easy to manage. Beginning the spring of 1974, I had several families whose homes were opened to me, then and forever after: Floyd and Hazel Johnson, Marianne “Mike” and Earl “Red” Dodge, and Rod and Donella Bain.
It wasn’t as if things were quiet at their homes. The Dodge and the Johnson families each had six children; the Bains had four. They were solid homes where the dads worked outside the home and the moms were housewives. But the women were, then and now, role models to me. All were smart and adventurous for the times. Hazel Johnson was a World War II army vet (rare for women back then), a member of the League of Woman Voters, and a community volunteer who read voraciously. Mike Dodge had a bachelor’s degree in physics that saw its expression in her oldest son’s graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Donella Bain was a kind and articulate person who didn’t seem concerned when her daughter brought me home one day to stay with them.
Earl “Red” and Marianne “Mike” Dodge. They took me in as a teen despite having six kids of their own.
Donella and Rod Bain, who helped care and house me after my father’s death.
Rod Bain was a school teacher and World War II hero, having been a sergeant in Easy Company—the “Band of Brothers” (part of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division) made famous in historian Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1993 book and the celebrated miniseries.
Floyd Johnson was a forester who had traveled with his family to Iran at one point for his work on reforestation. Red Dodge was then a captain with Western Airlines. Both these men were also World War II vets, and Dodge had flown dangerous bombing missions in the Pacific.
In addition, the state-appointed guardian was on hand to watch over my “business affairs.” He was a friend of a friend, a divorced father of two young children, and one of the most protective and important friends in this period of my life. Walt Morgan came from a longtime Anchorage family. He was an entrepreneur: he ran a bike shop, a janitorial service, a landscaping business, a commercial house painting business, and more. Throughout my teen and college years, I could always find work with Walt and later, whenever I needed it, a home and place to stay.
But more than anything, Walt was a devoted father, sharing custody of his two children with their mother. Some of my first lessons in good parenting came from watching Walt with his son and daughter.
Walt is one of the funniest people I know and a prankster who was always setting up elaborate jokes. When he sold his janitorial business, part of the deal said that he got the buyer’s luxury black sedan. As I walked downtown one night, the black sedan pulled up alongside me, the side windows came down, and as if it were a Mob hit, I was pummeled with snowballs.
Walt Morgan, my court-appointed guardian ad litem and friend who helped take care of me for years.
The Bains, Johnsons, Dodges, and Morgans became my foundation. I couldn’t have asked for better homes. No matter how many times I came and went, their doors remained open.
Maybe this, more than anything else, helped me grow up more or less the way I longed for—normal.
ONE RESULT OF THE Woodstock party was my introduction to a new group of people. I attended East High, but students from all across Anchorage showed up. One contingent was a group of shaggy-haired, casually dressed kids. They were into the outdoors, hiking, and crosscountry skiing. Their parents listened to folk music and the Beatles, were professionals and even politicians.
I felt instantly at home with this group. I was fond of my friends from East High, but with the death of my dad, I wasn’t drawn to the normal football game/prom/student government way of life. These new friends would take me in a different direction.
Not long after the Woodstock party, Bridget reappeared. I was living with the Johnsons when she called and announced that she had sold everything in my father’s house. Walt Morgan and I drove over to Twelfth Street, packed up my belongings, and left. I never saw Bridget after that, and I never again had to deal with the 736 Club.
It
