Pride in a neat, well-maintained house was non-existent. Many were half completed, unpainted and some had cables over the roof that were anchored into the ground on both sides to keep them in place during 100 mile-an-hour winds and the occasional earthquakes.
March 10th Raining and blowing about 80 mph with gusts up to 100. It blew down three outhouses including the schools and tore the porch off the old school storehouse. Occasionally our outer door gets blown open, then all the rest of the doors in the school are sucked open and it puts a vacuum in your ears. It blew down our radio antenna again. During the storm a loose 50 gal drum, sailing in the air of the village, hit the roof of our Quonset sounding like a bomb. Something went wrong with the regulator on the old Kohler light plant. The lights got brighter and brighter until they started blowing out bulbs one by one. We're back to Coleman lamps again. Oh Well!
March 19th Benjamin caused so much trouble, today, that Sandy had to pick him up and shake him. He was very disrespectful to me. The poor kid must have had a bad morning at home, but we just couldn't allow his profane language in school.
Sanak was known as the Isle of Free Love, however, there weren’t any sexy island maidens to make the idea attractive. Yes, it was a surf worn Pacific Isle, but it was the North Pacific not South Pacific. That surf was so threatening that no small craft could land safely on the coarse sandy beaches and there were no Bikini clad natives. All the females were always bundled up in furs and oilskins against gale winds.
Early in the school year, there was one man who quite regularly pounded on our door at 3:00 A.M. drunk, usually he just wanted to talk but once he came to my door and tried to get in. When the door was locked he pounded and pounded. I finally asked what he wanted through the slightly cracked door. He wanted to trade wives for the night. He said it was the custom and I would not be disappointed. It was after that incident that I hung up my rifle over the door of our quarters.
The Free Love Bedroom Reputation was maintained by many of the young fishermen. I hired a female to clean the school each afternoon, at the suggestion of my school agent. He said she needed an income during the winter as she was the wife of an inmate of McNeil Island Federal Prison who had been incarcerated for the last two years. She always did a good job and lived "alone" in a small house up the hill from our Quonset. I noticed that one of the local men, who I knew well as my goose hunting partner, carried in buckets of needed domestic water occasionally to her house. I thought that was friendly of him. One day she didn't arrive to work and also the next, so I asked about her. I was informed that she had just given birth to a baby. Because of the heavy foul weather clothing she and most everyone wore, I didn't even notice her condition.
My own bedroom story: In our Quonset, the wind always made the stove damper flap until we physically put a wedge in it to stop the noise. It was right over our bed so when we'd almost get to sleep, the wind would start the damper flapping and I'd say, "That's all right dear, I'll get up and fix it." Marie was closer as she slept on the outside of the couch. She would always answer, "Oh No! I'll do it." then jump out to fix it. That became a nightly ritual. One night it was louder than normal and when I said, "I'll do it." She surprised me by saying, "OK!" At that moment, I knew that I had to do my share of the household duties. Male domination in our house was forever gone!!
One of our sidelines was the hobby of photography. I brought up an old bellows camera, that used 3x4 sheet film, plus a supply of film, photograph paper, chemicals to develop film as well as the developer, shortstop and hypo to develop black and white prints. I expected to have 110volt power so brought up a printer with big enlarger lens. But when electricity wasn't available, I improvised. I rigged up my flashlight, through the enlarger, to expose the print. The trouble was, it only exposed a portion of the negative each swipe of the flashlight, so I had to experiment many times to get the right pattern to get a full print. We used the toilet closet for our darkroom. After running the prints through the three trays of chemicals, we washed them in photo-flow and rolled them onto the window glass at the end of the Quonset Hut, the only windows in the school. After they dried during the night, they fell on the floor and we picked them up the next morning and they became the photos used in this chapter.
On our Saturday half-day school we allotted a time for crafts after our regular lessons. I showed the older grades how to do photography while Marie did arts and crafts with the primary grades. My students were fascinated as they saw plain white paper magically form an image while in the chemical developer and I became the miracle man. That made up for my science experiment failures. It seems very time I tried one of those do-it-by-the-numbers experiments, from the eight-grade science teacher's manual, my procedure would somehow go astray.
I started a Boy Scout Troop and the older boys loved it. Their weekly meetings in the school were something they looked forward to each Thursday night. They had never been exposed to any serious ceremony nor any mythical stories of King Arthur and the quests of his knights of the round table as much of Boy Scout ritual stems from. They were way ahead of the book (and me) when it came sea-going skills and knot tying.
One night they came to me with a gift, a fresh egg. Marie and I hadn't seen a fresh egg in months. It was a seagull egg. We were a bit skeptical to use it but though it had a red yoke and tasted strong. Other than that, it was quite acceptable.
The Boy Scout Troop of Sanak Island
March 24th, The Garland gave us a surprise, stopping here, in calm weather, on its return trip east. It didn't go west any farther than Unalaska for some reason. Sandy brought back some ice cream he bought from the Garland's cook and we had it right away. What a treat! Then out of his black plastic bag he pulled a beef roast and later some tomatoes. I asked what else do you have in your little black bag? He wouldn't say. He told me it was like in the Swiss Family Robinson story, Mrs. Robinson, shipwrecked on an island, had a secret little black bag. Every time a member of the family really needed something, she would pull it, or a usable substitute, out of her little black bag. (A week later some lettuce and cabbage surprisingly came out of his little black bag.)
Early in our school year, the radio reception came in clear at night. We'd hear a Modesto station advertising Stan's Drive-In. There was this singing commercial, "Lets eat I'm hungry. Please don't think I'm rude. You're sweet and lovely, but I'm in the mood for food." I visualized the younger set enjoying the California good life with hamburgers, top-down convertibles, car-hops in mini-skirts and boys wearing letterman sweaters. Marie wasn't going to let that go by, so she simulated our own drive-in. She baked homemade hamburger buns then from our canned goods she brought out a can of meat balls and made it into patties. She spread on a can of spinach as substitute for lettuce and sliced up a whole canned tomato then added a sliced dill pickle. That was our drive-in hamburger celebration. Using the only available supplies we had in those days, I thought it was actually acceptable, except for the spinach-lettuce substitute.
All our students of the Pauloff Harbor Territorial School 1951
April 18th We finished our 180 contracted days. It's the last day of school!
Sandy is worse than the misbehaving kids. Today he came and kissed me right behind the blackboard, out of sight of the kids.
This was a typical schedule for teaching all eight grades together in one room.
At 9;00 one of the first graders would go out side the door and ring the little hand bell to signify the beginning of the school day. If anyone was still coming up the trail, they'd hurry to get in the door.
9;00-9;10 We'd have opening exercises that included the flag salute, health inspection and a short explanation of the new vocabulary word of the day.
9;10-9;40 Reading, Marie would combine the 1st and 2nd grade and start oral reading. Her 3rd and 4th grade would work in their workbooks. I would have the 5th and 6th read aloud on the other side of the room while the 7th and 8th would work in their workbooks.
9;40-10;10 Marie would work with the 3rd and 4th combined and I would work with