The shifts weren’t all that bad. It certainly wasn’t rocket science. Dishes come in. Dishes get washed. Dishes get put away. Repeat one thousand times over the course of a summer. But there was an art to it. I quickly devised a system to efficiently sort and wash the stuff as it came in. It’s easier to do a whole rack of plates. Like-minded shapes, you know? Whereas my colleague Tyler Fanning applied a “go apeshit and wash whatever comes in as it comes in” policy, I was scientific in my approach, quickly getting the numb-nut servers to adhere. It made sense for them, too. And when servers would just shuck stuff into the pit?
I had ways of getting my revenge.
The dishwashers are at the very bottom of the kitchen food chain and always get the shitty end of the sprayer nozzle. I was the last one to leave the kitchen.
I’d clean my pit and shut it all down when some fuckhead server would throw one last coffee cup in, screwing the whole thing up. So here’s what I would do:
I’d pour a little splash of milk in each of the servers’ reach-in coolers, which meant, during final inspections, they’d have to pull everything out again, clean the milk up and put it all back in. Any of you guys remember that? I sure do.
It’s the cooks who stayed with me until the end each night, helping until the last dish was done. I’ll forever love those guys. A team effort to the end. That
meant the world to me. When Tyler and I became cooks in 1998, we did the same for our dishwashers each night.
I need to thank Manager Tom for allowing me to wear my Walkman when washing. Sure, it was against Princess Tours policy, but once we left the yard, we were on our own. Some managers would scoff at this, but Manager Tom leveled with me. “Wear them, man. No sweat. Just get the job done and we’re good,” he told me as he put in another chew. He had his vices. I had mine.
Those mixtapes saved my ass every shift. Thanks for being cool, man.
The summers were beautiful up there. The temperatures never really broke seventy-five degrees, which was great weather for riding bikes and
skateboards around town. I’d hit Mammoth Records, the bookstore downtown, and go catch a movie at the theater where Northern Lights hit Route 1. I’d rent time on machines at Kinko’s to design stuff, storing work on Zip disks. This is how I survived my summers up there.
I always had this sinking feeling that I was whiling away my youth in pursuit of Alaskan greenbacks. I mean, I was, but this was the only way I’d be able to get a
machine that first summer. By my second summer, I started lugging the
machine back up there with me so I could work. I would make T-shirts for the train workers as a way to supplement my summer savings. I remember making four trips on my bike to that screen printer to get all the shirts back to the
house.
And for the record, Fred Green, I hated the job up there more than you. Now it’s in print, bud. Two left shoes.
Back Down to the Lower 48
I got back down to Bend with my $9,700. And dropped the whole wad on my very first design rig: a Power Computing PowerTower Pro 180 MHz
computer, a Power Computing monitor, a color scanner, a Hewlett-Packard laser printer and the Adobe Illustrator student edition. Everything else was pirated.
I remember putting in the order for the computer with a local reseller in Bend.
I had already ordered the monitor, scanner and printer. He called and told me that he was on his way to deliver the computer. I had worked five months washing dishes for this moment and was so excited for the delivery. The guy pulls up in some shitty four-door Dodge Sadness. I was watching through the blinds. He parked, jumped out and opened the car’s back door to grab the computer. There was my machine, just sort of lying on the seat back there. I was fuckin’ horrified.
I remember setting it all up that night, so proud, so excited and so ready. That’s when my new life in design started. Now I had all the tools at my disposal.
In no time, I had more than enough work to keep me going. One job from Lance Violette at Scott Snowboards was enough to float me all winter long. He gave me my first shot, and a taste of what was out there. I did product icons for an upcoming Scott catalog.
I ended up doing four summers up there. Surprisingly. After that first summer, I swore I’d never go back. But of course, one gravelly-voiced, sagelike cook named Chris Rosemond had these words for me: “Alaska is in you now. You can leave it, but it’ll never leave you.” Something poetic like that, and I remember rolling my eyes, counting down the hours until I’d get to hop that flight back to the Lower 48. But on some level, he was right.
I still get a little fidgety in late April each year, thinking about heading back up to the train. What a beautiful, pristine place Alaska is.
Leaner, meaner and counting down the days to go home. 1996.
Dishpit sketch…
…and then inked. 1996.
Butter tray postcard illustration. 1996.
Found this rock in Anchorage’s mud flats, and tuned it up. 1996.
Strawberry jam packaging postcard illustration. 1996.
Worked an entire summer for this machine.
Summer On The Rail kitchen zine. 1997.
“Fruits of the Forest” pie packaging postcard illustration. Rare Dinosaur Jr-inspired use of the color purple. 1996.