Roadside friend

April 15, 2005

BOB MARTINSON/Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - You're driving down the road when suddenly you hear the sharp "dink" of a piece of gravel colliding with your windshield at high velocity, leaving a tiny divot behind.

Emery Friend is a good person to see after having one of these aggravating encounters. He fixes all types of cracks and dings that can, if left unattended, spider across your windshield.

Friend, known as "Chip" to his friends, on Tuesday was sitting near the intersection of Pittman Road and the Parks Highway in an old blue mail-delivery truck, waiting for customers to come his way.

"All the insurance companies know me now," said Friend, who lives in Big Lake but can be found sitting near intersections throughout the Valley.

Friend ventured into the windshield business after hurting his back doing all things Alaskan.

Friend, who was born in Missouri, said many people call it the "Show Me State," but he prefers to call his home state "Misery."

"I couldn't wait to go to Alaska, because I couldn't stand Missouri," he said.

First, however, Friend had to take a military tour to Vietnam in 1967, during some of the worst episodes of the war.

"I was there for seven days, until I got burnt and shot, and I didn't want to be there anymore," he said. "My whole family was in the military at one time or another."

As soon as he left the military, Friend journeyed to Alaska in 1967.

"I wanted to be a prospector and a trapper, so I headed up here," he said. When he first arrived, he had a 70-mile trap line out between Fairbanks and McGrath. Friend used his snowmachine to travel between his three cabins.

He also had a gold claim along the Steese Highway out of Fairbanks and worked at that for a time as well.

When he moved out to Sand Point to try commercial fishing, Friend set-netted and long-lined halibut. He got a gold claim there, too, finding a way to extract fine gold from the black sand, so he was able to get some gold out of that.

Friend fished on draggers out of Kodiak, gillnetted in Bristol Bay and trolled and purse-seined salmon in Sitka, Juneau and Hoonah.

"I have a bad back and a bad heart, so I decided to do this windshield thing for about the last 10 years now," he said.

"Besides, since I came up here this state has changed a lot, and I can't say for the better," he said. "I think the pipeline brought that. This was a unique place, and that's why I came up here, I really enjoyed the wilderness. I wish I could have gotten here sooner to have spent more of my life living that lifestyle."

Fixing windshields, Friend has had up to 41 customers in a day and sometimes sits all day talking with anyone who happens by. He likes it that way. "I really got into this, because I like meeting people and talking with them. Everyone's got a good story. But I'm 64 now, and I think that this might be my last year doing this," Friend said.

He saves windshields and is good at it. Friend charges $25 for the first chip and $15 for any additional chips.

Friend said the money was too slow coming from the insurance companies, so he charges this way. He can be found near Four Corners, up at the Parks and Pittman intersection, out Knik-Goose Bay Road or any other place he decides might have some new customers.

He spends several days in the same spot, so someone can see him on their way to and from work and maybe stop by later.

Contact Bob Martinson at 352-2269, or bob.martinson@ frontiersman.com.