Ole Jacks

On Tuesday I had seven hours from the time I arrived in Anchorage from Pilot Station, AK where daughter lives until my flight back home to Illinois. So I left the airport, took a cab to downtown and explored a bit of the city. I visited a museum and then walked down the street to the mall. I visited every floor but I am not a mall kind of guy. I left the mall from the 5^th Avenue exit. I immediately saw a sign that read “Fur Alaska”. I found my way across the street and entered the shop. There I met “Ole Jacks”. That is how introduced himself when I asked his name. He said I used to be “young Jacks” but now I am 80 so I am “Ole Jacks”. The store appears a bit cluttered. One whole wall is covered with newspaper clippings and pictures from times past. Jack himself is sitting in a tiny passage way between two counters partially hidden by a stack of magazines. We begin to visit and he tells me his story. He is native Alaskan. He has lived here all his live except for the time he worked for President Truman during the Korean War. When he came home he went in the fur business trapping and buying furs, selling some and making others into clothing. He got his pilots license so he could travel into far away and remote places in the Alaska interior to buy furs. Alaska is God’s country he tells me at least a dozen times. “Ole Jacks” is good at what he does. I am guessing that fur coats are his specialty. He has made fur coats for Presidents Ford and Reagan and for a Japanese president and for former Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev. He proudly shows me a picture of Brezhnev wearing his coat in the presence of President Ford. “If I can measure a man I can make it fit” he says. He asks about where I am from and what I am doing in Alaska. I tell him I have come to visit my daughter who is a teacher in Alaska and he is interested in how she is doing. We visit for probably 20 minutes. I am pretty sure I cannot afford one of his fur coats. He must know that as well because he does not try to sell me one. Before I leave he says “I think you are a salt of the earth man from Illinois”. I am thinking this man is a salt of Alaska’s earth. I have traveled a lot of places and what I enjoy most about travel are the people I meet, often by chance encounter, along the way. Cab fare from the airport to downtown cost me $40 but meeting Ole Jacks is far more valuable than that. If you go to Anchorage you ought to stop in at Fur Alaska 329 W. 5^th Avenue. Maybe Ole Jacks will be there.