PARKS & GLENN: Coffee with the Carneys

WASILLA — Brothers Pat and Doug Carney meet for coffee most mornings at the Mocha Moose cafe in downtown Wasilla. They show up early, meeting the day along with any other family members who stroll in.

Raised in Southern Ohio, eldest brother Pat travelled on the brand new Alcan Highway in 1949, setting off on the adventure which would define his adult life. Having previously accepted a job with the U.S. Boundary Commission, he arrived while Alaska was still a territory. He staked a homestead claim on his 21st birthday, ultimately amassing over a thousand acres of real estate in the foothills of the Talkeetna Mountains.

He would become a husband, father of nine children, a successful dairy farmer, and a reluctant statesman. Now 88 years old, Pat’s magnetic nature still cuts a bright figure, with sparkling blue eyes and tousled white hair, his long limbs dressed in layers of flannel clothing. His easy authority makes sense, as the eldest of 11 children. He agreed to our interview on the spot, and greeted brother Doug with the instruction the paper wanted a chat. Political topics tend to rule these morning gatherings, with everyone from Sarah Palin to Vic Kohring to Donald Trump taking their turn at being assessed. They’re genteel yet blunt, finding resigned exasperation at the times their advice was ignored only to be vindicated decades later. For example, Pat Carney’s dogged insistence in the early 1970s that the Parks Highway ought to run either south or north of town, rather than force heavy traffic through the middle of Wasilla. This tendency to take vocal stances would become an avocation when he served as District 26’s Representative to the Alaska House from 1979-1994.

“I got involved in politics a little bit and realized we had some real bums in office,” he said. “I had no interest in politics in my head, y’know, but my friends said, ‘you could beat him’, so I filed for office.”

Pat describes the political environment at that time as penetrated by corruption. “If you’re in politics and somebody comes to you with a crooked deal — if you’re a smart politician, you don’t give ‘em a yes or no answer,” he said. “However, I took great delight in answering them, ‘are you out of of your mind, you crooked sonuvabitch?’ So I made some serious mistakes.”

As for the building blocks of what they estimate to be a hundred family members currently living in the Mat-Su Valley, he recalls sitting at the Carter family home on Lake Lucile in the early 1950s, vaguely recognizing three men walking downhill near the post office. All carried duffel bags. They were indeed his cousins, who had departed Ohio in search of their storied Alaskan relative. Their journey was interrupted by two flat tires and a hole in their car’s gas tank, causing them to park it and hitchhike the rest of the way through Canada.

“I had a 10x12 cabin, and here are three grown guys. What a mess!” Pat said. “They ate everything in the cabin.”

The cousins found work from local taverns to Independence Mine to the upstart Experimental Farm, doing whatever it took to establish roots.

Tracing the Little Su River out of town, Schrock Road soon received another crew of Carneys, as his parents and younger siblings came North to homestead as well.

Doug elaborates, “They kinda harbored an area for Mother and Dad, and as we arrived, that was the first I recall hearing the term, ‘the river rats.’ Doug describes his own coming of age and the raw vitality of tending to their family’s land, echoing a passage from John Steinbeck’s work.

Brother Domonic Carney has recently published a book titled “We’re Going to Alaska”. The author’s website teases the story as ‘two years of preparation and 38 days of travel required to move a family of 7 children, two screech owls, three dogs, two uncles, and two cousins from Northeastern Ohio to Wasilla, Alaska in the Matanuska Valley. The trip was made in two vehicles, a 1949 Lincoln sedan, and a 1947 Ford 1 1/2 Ton truck pulling a four wheeled homemade "camper". Ages of the children ranged from 2 to 15.” Domonic Carney has another biographical book about his experience as a rural Alaskan attending Dartmouth College.

Pat relays his pride in brother Doug’s education and subsequent teaching career, as their childhood experience hadn’t prompted much thought in that direction. “I tried to put into their (younger siblings) minds this notion of education, as our family… didn’t have those ideas — We were hillbillies,” Doug clarified gleefully.

The Carney brothers are equal parts poetic and pragmatic in their descriptions of their families’ trials. Their childhoods colored by the Great Depression, they still speak with gravity of such lean days.

“Our father was a hobo. He had to leave Ohio for California while Mother was pregnant, he set off looking for work,” Doug said.

Pat mirrors Doug’s tenderness, offering, “I can still remember the impact of the day he returned.”

These are men who lean forward while dissecting politics, in a sort of strategic huddle. When it comes to family stories, both tend to recline, as if the memories are washing over them. Particular achievements bring a chuckle or beaming sigh. Says Doug of daughter Michelle Overstreet’s MyHouse MatSu project, which has become the premier force for local intervention with at-risk youth, “The lesson there is, don’t tell a Carney they can’t do something.” The independent non-profit is now in its sixth year, outlasting naysayers who decreed it unsustainable.

Doug and his wife Florene have raised three children and retired from local teaching together. They now cultivate their shared love of botany with Snowfire Gardens, an outdoor events venue along Fairview Loop which is booked solid with weddings and other summertime celebrations. He summarizes Wasilla and its surrounding area as “a great place to grow up, excellent place to raise a family.”

Pat checks the time, revealing a wristwatch held together by duct-tape before climbing into his powder blue BMW. Pat reports that he walks a minimum of a mile each day, crediting an acupuncturist with turning his attention to natural remedies for the common ailments which come with age.

As we part ways, he gestures up Lucile Street and describes the roads he has built and still maintains, allowing access to Bald Mountain recreation. The pristine setting he has enjoyed for nearly seventy years is now often overrun with ATV and shooting range traffic. He has considered erecting barricades or somehow blocking traffic.

Pat sets off for his daily mile with a most diplomatic analysis of modern Wasilla where it visits his backyard: “I didn’t come here to put up signs.”