Chapter  1

Rangoon and Those Army Guys!!

 During WWII, the Army in its occupation of India, came to agreements with the Indian Government concerning many things.  One of which dealt with the Bengal Tiger.  The Tiger was not to be hunted and only killed after all other attempts to dissuade or discourage it had failed.  Reasonable request and an even more reasonable rule, given the presence of the US Army was fighting a war, not on some sport outing for boys.

 Along comes my Dad, an on again off again MSgt in a “Hump” Army Railroad yard in Brahmaputra, I believe it was, maybe Rangoon.  What do I know, Dad told the story long, long ago.  Let’s just say it was in India.

 The OIC at the yard was a Captain with a rather magnanimous attitude toward the indigenous wildlife infesting the yards and the rail lines that were in constant need of upgrade and repair.  The yards, with its more user friendly critters, like monkeys, birds, an occasional Brahma ‘holy’ cow and the small pits infested with young King Cobras.  Had to watch where you stepped I guess.  The Captain, a fella from Yale no doubt, issued his decree that along with the Tiger, no animal would be indiscriminately ‘dispatched’ without his knowledge and consent.

 All the ‘troops’, including the Captain, lived in wall tents on the RR Yard.  With occasional Japanese Air Unit aggravation, life in the yard and rail lines was just a bit below tolerable, which wasn’t all that bad considering other Theaters of Operation in WWII.

 Back to the Captain.  We all know the saying that “shit rolls downhill.”  My dad, the on again off again MSgt, was not that far downhill from the Captain.  To hear my Dad tell it,  he had to be close as he spent a great deal of time at a brace in front of the man as stripes were alternately removed or replaced in a long series of “accepting” responsibility for your subordinates, or because said Captain was having a ‘bad day’.

 As my Dad relates the story, the wall tents had a single un shaded light bulb hanging center mast in the tent.  The “subordinates’ took umbrage with the Captain’s treatment of my Telegrapher, Dispatcher, overworked father, so they fragged him, sorry Rowdy J

They caught and released several ‘yard’ monkeys in the Captain’s single light bulb, center mast, living quarters, wall tent.  The Captain returned to his tent and discovered the monkeys had been monkeys.  They were currently swinging on the bulb cord, screeching, pooping in their fists and throwing it.  As the Captain entered his tent, they all had a new target and these monkeys were no slouch when it came to accurate delivery.  The Captain was pissed, or rather shat upon.

 The earlier decree vanished in thin air.  Monkeys became a rare sight in the yards.  Dad lost another stripe J  A few time epochs later, dad found a line section in dire need of Gandy Dancers, cross ties and rail sections, those Japanese, remember?  He dispatched the crew.

 The crew consisted of some real talent for the three day job and two NCO’s of renown Tiger Hunting prowess.  Skimpy as the details were, the crew commenced the fixin’ and the NCO’s commenced ta huntin’.  Word was the NCO’s, armed with “real” tiger rifles, the indomitable M-1 carbine, followed one another into the Elephant Grass, a tree like vegetative mass occurring in India and mistakenly called “grass.”

 A commotion is heard by the trailing NCO.  He steps forward through the ‘grass’ and discovers the other NCO is wearing a Bengal Tiger.  While his aim is true, the attending medics cannot tell tiger teeth punctures from .30 cal FMJ holes.  The Tiger was killed in the hail of gunfire.  The Indian Government, magnanimously gave the Tiger hide to the recovering NCO.  The hospitalized NCO sold the hide for one hundred US to an unknown, probably the Captain.

My dad lost another stripe J

Chapter  2

The East Low Canal

 Few things on Earth attract a young kid like water or a waterway, full and flowing or empty.  Central Washington, the Columbia Basin, had the East Low Canal, fed by waterways from the Grand Coulee Dam.  It was an irrigation canal that transformed the central Washington desert to lush thriving farm lands.  The water also brought to life the collection of lakes known locally as the “seep lakes.”  These lakes were fed by the canal water seep that resulted from rising water table fed buy the irrigation.

 Wheat, corn, sugar beets, potato and more, where once only arid desert soil had been.  It was a grand place for a kid.  In the fall, the canal was shut down and the water, except for the huge siphon concrete tubes used to cross large valleys, would empty into Moses Lake.  That was fish hunting time!

 There were several places in the canal where the engineers who built it failed to keep the gradual descending slope correct for drainage.  One, in particular, was near the Warden Caves west of town.  The caves were great for Western Diamond Backs in the fall as the snakes would hole up for the winter in the rocks.  I have plucked many a Diamond Back from the rocks and small caves.  With a pocket full of rattle snake rattles, our next stop was in the canal with the ‘trapped’ water ponds.

 If the water was low enough, you would see HUGE fish working their last days of life, swimming from end to end in the small ponds.  I do not know what they were as the water came from above the Grand Coulee and I don’t believe King Salmon can master that dam as I have never seen salmon steps for spawning fish on it.

 These fish were huge and dime bright, like a rainbow trout, but not.  One I “caught” was so large that its tail wore away after I Rube Goldberg tied it to my bike handlebars and rode back to Warden.  It was a 26 inch bike, so the fish was big.

 The canal also made it possible for the Chinese Ring Necks to abound.  I’d chase them out of my pigeon feed storage in the back yard.  My dog, Duke, would occasionally catch one as they flushed on the rise.  Duke would jump, a powerful Airedale Standard Poodle mix, and grab them before they would tower out.  I had four or five take up residence in my pigeon pen simply by hopping up on the elevated doors and walking through the “cat” gates.

 We ‘hunted’ pigeons at night.  Under East Low Canal bridges or old farm houses and deserted buildings and occasionally occupied farm structures when we had the owner’s permission.  It was a simple task to catch a pigeon.  A landing net tied on a long pole and a flashlight.  Play the beam on the bird and quickly put the net up and rattle it.  The pigeon would fly into the net.  Carried grain gunny sacks to put them in and when the weight of the bag(s) were enough, cart them home and release into a shut down coop.  Fed and watered for about a week and you could release and 99% of the new birds would stay.  The grain I fed the birds came from the Elevator rail sidings.  We filled gunny sacks with wheat, corn and peas and hauled them to the house in wagons pulled by hand.  Rail Road wasn’t very meticulous when it came to loading and handling grain.

 We fished the Lynn Coulee for trout.  It was a short bike ride from the house and always produced fish.  In the fall and winter, after the East Low was shut down, the seep into the Lynn Coulee nearly dried up and fishing became more intense the further upstream you went.  Big Rainbows trapped in increasingly smaller ponds were “caught” and headed home for supper or the smoker.

I lived a good life, one not duplicated often

Chapter  3

South Side Dairy

 I did a lot of crazy kid stuff while living in Butte, Montana.  The town is located just west of the Great Divide and the backbone was easily seen just a few miles from our kitchen window with its then prominent feature, Saddle Rock near XL Heights, the local TV station’s transmitting tower.  Saddle Rock has since been replaced by “Our Lady of the Rockies,” a beautiful sculpture and concrete likeness of the Virgin Mary, mother of the Son of God.

 Many growing hours and days were spent on America’s backbone learning all the secrets we could wrestle from her grip.  The first to view the basin where Butte is located must have been stunned.  The head waters of the Columbia River, Richest Hill on Earth.  Gold, Platinum and that ‘other’ pesky metal, Copper.  Copper became King!  In just a few years it would become the city a mile high and a mile deep with the Kelly, Mountain Kahn, the Leonard and the Apex mining law Kings and crooks.

 Butte, Montana is worth a serious study in history.  American History.  The Chinese Laborers excavating the Gold and Copper Mines in Butte were addicted to a Chinese gambling game and for the first time in America, the game called Keno was introduced.  That game later built Reno, Nevada after the silver ran out.  The Anaconda, the Knievel’s  the Knawfuls and the less serious, the Knutson’s, Dawes, Dinius, Davis, Booth, we all laid our fiery white hot brand to her, and like a lady, she refused to kill us.

 I had the inspiration to build a log cabin in my youth and I’ll wager the cabin foundation still remains where Dennis Georg(e) and I laid it near that creek in the Divide foothills.  We scouted the area well and our only concern was the lack of fish in the seep creek we selected.  The creek originated from snow runoff off the Divide and several artesian springs off the mountain.  Crystal clear water, so cold you expected it to freeze if stopped or slowed in its decent to the valley floor.  It ran past South Side Dairy, the primary supplier of un homogenized milk delivered fresh to the doorstep in clear glass bottles sealed with a cardboard stopper.  Housewife could skim the cream on top and use it for cooking.  Great milk!!  The seep creek eventually was lost as it seeped into the decomposed Granite and never made a flowing connection to Bell Creek on its way to becoming the mighty Columbia River.

 To solve the seep creek fish absence, Dennis and I loaded a copper canning boiler with Rainbow, Cutthroat Eastern Brook and feed shiners and suckers.  We slid, pushed, pulled and shoved that fish filled boiler to the creek behind the dairy and dumped it, hopefully establishing a viable fish eco system.  Our cabin was located on the south side of the creek.  I did catch fish in the creek on cabin building breaks I took.  Wonder if they are still there?

 The tales that yet lie dormant in the canyons of my mind are both humorous and sad.  Sad in I can’t go bask and humorous in I don’t know that I would.

Chapter  4

Butte Lager Brewing Company

 I was a Junior or Sophomore at Butte High, I cannot now recall.  Our previous “source” for Butte Lager was an outfit named Bertoligio Storage in Butte.  We were like birds of prey, ever watching, ever waiting.  Bertoligio was the Butte Brewing Company’s local distributor for their beer.  We came to know the scheduled delivery dates and times.  We also came to know when “product” was left unattended on the loading dock.  Sometimes a keg or two, sometimes several cases.  In actuality, we could have just bought the brew from nearly any bar in Butte, in spite of being underage.  Butte’s capitalistic system was in full swing in the ‘60’s J

 When we swept in and snatched, we never had a lack of volunteers or success.  Then the Butte Brewing Company went out of business L

 Word trickled down that the company made last ditch efforts to sell and distribute all remaining inventory before their liquor license expired.  Butte Lager was a specialty beer so we heard the company was left with an inventory that would have to be destroyed.  We had no idea how much, but our “ferrets’ were on the move, gathering “intelligence.”  We learned the company would be obliged to destroy between three and four thousand cases, bottles and cans.

 The weekend following the brewery closure and license expiration, somebody learned the “inventory” was to be disposed of at the landfill.  Four thousand cases of beer.  We dispatched “forward observers” to monitor activity at the dump.  We soon learned a dozer had cut a massive trench to the left of the refuse pile of rotting Butte debris.  Our interest peaked.

 About 7 PM that evening, our F.O.’s reported several Butte Brewery trucks began unloading “boxes” into the deep trench.  When the trucks left, the dozer started shoving dirt and rocks onto the boxes.  Once a sufficient quantity of soil was in place, the dozer rumbled over the trench.  An effort, no doubt, to crush the bottles and cans.  This continued until about 11 PM.  The dozer operator left and the salvage “experts” swarmed in.

 Our limited knowledge of physics and the laws of nature deemed a good spot to dig for “survivors” would be at the far end of the trench.  It took about an hour and we hit pay dirt.  Butch O’Leary went home and grabbed his dad’s flatbed.  We took the first 450 cases to a trail into the Butte City Water storage area up near the Highlands.

 There were several cases that were consumed during the excavation and waiting for the flatbed return.  When it arrived, we loaded another (about) 400 cases of Butte Lager and were exiting the dump.  The Silver Bow County Sheriff had blocked the road.  Those of us in cars with no passengers were obliged to wait our “turn.”

 I was in O’Leary’s flatbed and had no chance to run.  Butch and I were the first two “arrested.”  In possession, I don’t know, 400 cases of beer qualify for “possession” and intoxicated?  How in the hell did they know?  No intoximeters back then J  Well…, ya.., Butch and I had a “few.”

The whole parade was taken to the Silver Bow County Jail.

 As we processed in, questions were asked.  The most important question was who are your mom and dad?  My mom and dad were in Yellowstone, so I figured I might be safe.  I did notice the “outlaws” who had resident mothers and fathers were being released to their “care” pending lord knows what.

 When they got to me, I dutifully gave the “fuzz” my name and the names of my folks, Kerwin and Myrtle Knutson.  Someone in the background said: “Oh, that’s Knute’s kid.”  Little did I know at the time.

 Bottom line?  Sheriff could not contact my AWOL folks, so I spent the night in the crow bar hotel.  Next morning, when sober and further attempts to contact mom and dad failed, the po-leece pointed to the door and said: “get thee hence.”

 The story does not end here although it sounds it may.  I became an Alaskan Wildlife Trooper, a po-leece Officer.  I was assigned to the Investigative Support folks of IUD or OSI or whatever they were called back then J  To interview witnesses and suspects in the “lower 48,” we were obliged to occasionally transport prisoners from locations in the lower 48, back to Los-Anchorage.  In that way we could get the interviews done using money not budgeted to our “travel” account.

 The chief honcho of the prisoner transport arm of the Alaska State Troopers knew I was from Butte, Montana.  He was a good friend of mine.  Barry called me one day to see if I could get free to transport a prisoner from the Silver Bow County Jail in Butte, Montana.   I was stunned.

 I TOLD my supervisor I had to make a prisoner trip for Engalls.  I would leave on Tuesday and be back at work on Friday, at the latest.  I actually landed in Butte on a Monday.  I spent many hours running around a changed town in a rental car, re acquainting with old friends and catching up.  I made the most of it.  My scheduled “pick up” time was for Thursday Morning at 8AM.  I arrived and parked, as I was VERY familiar with where the Silver Bow County Jail was located.

 As I walked through the doors, that old familiar memory came rushing back.  I wondered if that old jail cell still existed.  As I introduced my intentions, I also revealed my curiosity about the cell I had once occupied.  There were some huge grins and I was offered a short tour of the slammer.

 As I was being ushered through the locked door to the jail, an older guy asked: “How is Knute?”  I spun around and saw he was laughing at me.  We confided and he had actually been one of the deputies who had tossed me in the clink way back when.  He still worked for the county, as a custodian I think, but he remembered me and my dad.

 It is a small world for those of us who make it so.  Life is but a game.  A game played on the stage of Life.  Our performance ‘reviewed’ with consequence, in that final Act.