Local's youth marked by trains

Dec. 15, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

MAT-SU -His first train ride was in utero, and a few days later, his mother brought the newborn Larry Wade home to Sutton by train, six years before he derailed one.

The way he heard it, the hospital in Palmer had burned down, so his mother had to go to Anchorage for her first-born's birth, Wade said. World War II was on, and after boot camp at Fort Richardson, Wade's father worked at coal mines in the Sutton area, a specialty trade that kept the heat and lights on at the military bases.

Steam trains made regular daily runs to the mines when Wade was growing up.

&#8220I used to be fascinated watching trains,” Wade said. &#8220They used to stop for coal and water in Moose Creek and stop for lunch. They'd take me up to Jonesville with them then drop me off on the way home.”

Wade remembers putting pennies, dimes and then rocks on the tracks, collecting the flattened results. But he upped the ante, putting ever-bigger items on the tracks. He was about 6 years old, he figured, when he dragged out one of this father's traps.

&#8220It derailed the train,” he said. &#8220I got a chewing out and they had to get huge jacks to get it back on the tracks. Any normal kid would do it. You can't stop at pennies.”

When he was young, Wade said, he got a lot of &#8220What were you thinking?” remarks from adults around him.

Retired from the oilfields for 10 years, Wade remembers his first job as a 10-year-old.

&#8220I was working for my uncle cutting right of way for MEA,” he said. &#8220I think we had Swede saws, axes and a big old Studebaker truck. Every once in a while, I got to move the truck and I thought, ‘Oh my, and I'm getting paid for this, too.'”

He also made money working for farmers during the harvest in the Palmer area, throwing hay and harvesting potatoes, carrots and silage. Harvesting silage was fun, he said, driving the old truck alongside of the tractor, watching the guy dump it in a pit with a John Deere bulldozer, and watching the cows drink from the pit and get drunk in September and October.

&#8220We just watched them stagger around,” he said. &#8220They usually wouldn't quit drinking until they were on their lips.”

After Wade latched onto a good job in the Cook Inlet oilfields, an electrician friend got him a job building a drilling rig in Singapore.

Once the drill rig was built, it had to be towed to the Persian Gulf, and Wade got another surprise. His friend got seasick, so Wade would be the only electrician on the rig for the 54-day journey. Wade had a ready answer when the &#8220tool pusher” asked what supplies he needed for the trip.

&#8220I said a pallet of flashlights and batteries. We'll be in the dark by the time we get there,” he said. &#8220But we made it, and the lights were still on when we go there.”

But after arriving in the Gulf, his boss found Wade helping a laborer fix a mud pump, and that ending his career as an electrician.

&#8220He said, ‘Ah hah! You're a roughneck.' So him being the boss, that's what I was,” Wade said. &#8220I ended up having to work for a living.”

As a roustabout, Wade said, he worked in the oilfields of America and up on the North Slope, when work was &#8220wild and woolly” on pipeline construction.

&#8220You'd have to get off work and go to town to sober up,” he said. &#8220There was every drink and drug known to man. You'd party for 12 hours and then suffer for 12 while you worked. It's amazing it ever got built.”

After seeing a lot of the world, Wade retired where he was raised.

&#8220There's places I've seen that are just beautiful, and places I would to back to,” he said. &#8220But they were all lacking something. Maybe it's just the wide open spaces and the ability to get lost and be stupid.”