Jack Chisholm quit fire job

[Note in ink with the letter:]

Snoqualmie Falls Wash
April 29, 1943
Dear Mrs. Parker
Please address the enclosed letter and send it on to Herb after you have read it. Its just the shavings off my grouch but I hope it doesn't start anymore grouchies.
Jack Chisholm

[another note printed in pencil]

Apparently this was never mailed -- I found it in the unaddressed envelope with only my return address on it. Maybe Herb came back then.

[letter]

Snoqualmie Falls, Washington

Dear Herb

What's it like to be Chechako again? You know there are times when I wish I was along with you, mosquitos or no mosquitos. Even Ben seems to wish he had gone along though he was doing nicely at the fire hall the last I saw him. He and the new boss got along very nicely--much better than I and the new boss.

I have been thinking about you a lot this spring and imagine that you would like to know how things have been going with the fire gang since you have been gone. Well I have a lot on my chest that needs unloading and knowing how slow Alaska mails are you can't get back at me for a month or so.

Just before you left there was a short hot spell. Johnny Bruckart called me at the lookout and wanted me to start warning all the farmers and such against dry weather. Well before I left the LO I saw smoke and spent a week fighting fire. I had 10 fires in six days, mostly alone. Then Mac hired Ben. Ben said "$175, start now, and stay on the job once I am hired." He got all he asked for. Next day Gus went on at the same wages. At the time it was understood that I was to be District warden as Jake and Otto still refused to return to work. Mac tipped me off that probably some one else had been picked and that I had better stay on my old job. The assistant job might involve staying at the fire hall etc. Well I didn't want any assistant job nor Distric warden job unless they paid what they were worth. Fat chance! Any way Mac had me call Cowan and make arrangement to see him and get the thing straightened out.

Cowan said come in the next day between 2.30 and 3 o'clock. I stepped out of the elevator at 2.30 sharp and met Cowan leaving. We went back to the office and in a nice fatherly way he explained that they thought I had not enough experience and they had decided to put a man by the name of Forbes over me for a year while I learned the ropes. This man was to be used elsewhere but they wanted him to have some District Warden experience first. This man has been a CCC sup., a civil (uncivil I found later) engineer, and a leutenant in the last war. That adds up to a pretty strick boss but when you add a long experience as logger and government forester to toughen him up. Well it could be good or it could be bad. Any way I said that the only excuse I had for working under such an arrangement was to learn the boss job and as this was to last for a year only OK but if I was just to break in a boss to be over me I was prepared to argue. (Mistake number one as Ben calls it. I should have argued.)

When I asked what the wages were to be he pulled out LAST YEARS schedule which showed from 145 to 175 a month. Why, I said, I expected to get that on the patrol job (knowing that Gus and Ben were getting it) and figure around $200 for this job. Well Cowan just hemmed and hawed, said the budget hadn't been made up, that I was a new man etc. and left it at that. I found out a couple of days later that that the new schedule was hanging up already in other fire halls.

Ben and I went on working and finally toward the last of the month of March the new boss showed up. He seemed a pretty good sort, a bit tight lipped and somewhat overbearing which might just be a mannerism. He explained that Goodyear had given him full authority to reorganize with whatever number of men he required, also he wasn't going to have to lookup the men when he wanted them--they were going to report at the hall every morning, and planned out the work so that in a few days Gus, Ben and Leonard and I would straighten up the fire hall, get all the tools in shape, clean out the roads etc. and be out of work before the regular fire season got under way.

When I asked him, well meaning enough, if he weren't sent up here to help reorganize the out fit he says No. He was sent to organize it. That made it plain enough for even me to see.

When I explained that I could not prophosy where I was to be or what I would be doing at any given time because I never knew myself what was going to turn up five minutes after I left the house we started to tangle. We never did get that one straightened out. I still don't know nor does anyone else.

When I said that if he intended to get all the work done he planned he would have to get another crew because these men couldn't do it his eyes popped a little.

There were other things like knowing before hand if the men were to expect the same work conditions they were used that caused a little debate but I just wanted to get those things straight at the start. Now don't mistake me. My idea was just business from the stand point of the fellow that knows he is expected to do most of the work as I knew I was. There was no fur flying or hair pulling although later he accused me of having a chip on my shoulder all of the time.

At the end of the month I refused to sign the payroll when the assistant job showed only a five dollar boost while the others were up twenty five. Forbes took my claim to Olympia but came back without any raise so I quit that job ("on the spot" as he wrote to Goodyear) but did offer to take my old job back if I could get the same pay as Gus and Ben, and Davis got the same. Forbes got mad about my trying to bluff Davis in with my claim and said he would handle Davis separately.

Anyway he did send mine in at 175 although he had a letter from Cowan saying that no more men were to hired above 170. He also slipped up on Davis later by forgetting to tell him that he was getting only 170 until after had had worked a few days so Leonard called him and his wages were sent in a 175. So far so good. There were four of us old men getting the same wages for the same work.

Things went along smoothly for a few days. I wrote permits in mine and Joe's districts. By the middle of April I had written nearly as many as I usually write in a season (about 170). There were 53 last week and I had a list of fifty more that wanted renewals or new permits. I was busy working in a lot of unfamiliar country. I worked every day for seven weeks except three days I was sick and phoned out permits and wrote fire reports, and one Sunday when I just filed a saw that needed jointing and setting and worked by telephone to get a new crew on the Duvall lookout. I also had four days with pay coming from the time we aren't on Snoqualmie Lookout as we had worked steady from the first of the year without relief.

Saturday the boss said he would take a new crew on Snoqualmie lookout Monday from Auburn and I was to go up Tuesday and train them a little and show them some about keeping a regular schedules so that they could handle a 24 hour shift. I was also to bring out the man who had been up there as he would be left the first night to help the new folks.

Sunday there were permits from Beaver Lake to the top of Newcastle hill and Hobart.

Monday it poured rain and I took a day off. Davis brought some supplies for the new lookouts (who turned out to be from Snoqualmie as the Auburn friends fizzled.)

Tuesday, I brught out Ketchum from the lookout and was told to expect Forbes at the hall at 2 o'clock. He hadn't showed up by 4, and the Sultan men got impatient and left leaving a note on the desk for the boss. I figured that did well enough for a report. Wednesday the car was broke down and I spent a lot of the time with it at the garage and wrote permits beyond Pine Lake in between times.

Thursday there was the list of fifty permits to write. I wanted pretty badly to go to town to get a new pair shoes made but decided to wait for the next rain. While I was shaving I got a telephone call.

It goes about like this.

"Hello" "Jack?" "Yes" "What's the matter with you. Are you sick" -- real grumpy and sarcastic. "Why no. What gives you the idea I'm sick" says I, kind of wondering like. "Well you didn't report so I supposed you were sick. I want to know what you are doing." "You haven't set any time to report and I am taking care of my district." I am just beginning to get a little huffy. "Well I want to know what the Hell you are doing" (This is the real thing and draws sparks.) "I was working the car and writing permits." "I suppose you were writing permits yesterday in all that rain." The words are simple enough but the voice says I am a liar and a loafer. "Yes. You hold them off from burning when it's dry. They have a right to burn when its wet. And you can't talk without making somebody mad." (He had had a similar conversation with a fifteen year old boy I had on the lookout. The boy quit right then.) "Come up to the hall this morning and get this thing straightened out." "Alright."

There were a few bits that I have forgotten but that is the gist and highlight of the conversation. The upshot was that I took my reports to the hall so he could read them (after he had signed my payroll and mileage reports). I just said, "You have the wrong man on the job", signed the paysheet, checked in the tools and left. There was no debate. What goes on from here you can guess as well as I.

Herb that seemed to me to finish busting the old gang. It was pretty well torn apart before but I had a slight hope of knitting it back together. Jake had long wanted to quit the Head job and take a lighter patrol job. He could have staid home that way. We had four Wardens and Albert Moore could have taken my place. Wanted rather to take the South fork but is out now and a bit sore too. Otto has been sick this winter. The bucking was too tough for him. Dietrick is gone but Davis took his place. Platt is gone but not missed. I was plenty peeved when I found that they had piddled along so long that you were gone before deciding what my job was to be and before they offered a decent wage raise. Boy you don't know how Ben and I missed you this spring. We figured "well he'll be back next year anyway". We had lots more of the same kind of ideas about what might have been if.

Well I kind of thought you would like to know that you didn't miss out much by going North this spring with a good job. Ic ertainly hope you can make good on it while the getting is good.

For myself I have two jobs now. I saw wood in the daytime and hunt bears at night. The wife says I sleep on both of them.

We had a heck of wind the day after I quit and it blew us two good wood logs. One is at the top of the hill where gate used to be below Dad's place and the other is in the field where Gensen used to sleep. The first one crossed the road and it took a days sawing to get the road opened. We got over five cords out of the little end and are starting on the big end now.

While Dad and I were sawing wood the old bear came in and smashed a hive of bees. He had knocked one over before but this time he came in daylight. The next evening Dad saw him with his head in a bee hive. Dad shot through the hive but the bullet must have passed under his throat. The bear came back several times after that but always in the dark. Before Dad saw him in daylight he was walking right up to him in the dark while the dog was barking but after he found out that it was as big as a horse and snarled and growled every time he was chased away he decided not to go so close anymore. I staid up there several nights and never took my clothes off for about four days. Every time the dog said "bear" I was out and the bear came every three hours during the night but I never got a sight of him. The dog has learned how to hold him off from the bees and the barn where the new calf is but the bear sounded awful savage the last time I went after him about four in the morning.

The brush is awful thick right close in around the folks place now. Dad has fired about eight shots at the bear in the dark so he may have a few sore spots to make him irritable. The dog drove him right through the pond one night.

Do you have bear trouble where you are?

Let me know how you get along Herb and the best of luck until we meet again.

Jack

PS. One day I was talking to Ben and said that I thought that Ted and I should make good partners on the fire job. Ben was just as solomn as an owl when he said "You two would never make it. Him with his German temper. And you! Why if the two of your blew up at the same time there is no telling what would happen."

There are times when I think Ben uses pretty good judgement.

Letter from Jack Chisholm to Herb about quitting fire job and about the bear

Jack Chisholm, 1920s

Notes

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