Out of the North - Hardcover

Johnson, Ronald C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0917635108 ISBN 13: 9780917635106

Publisher: Plover Pr, 1991

Synopsis

The author recounts his experiences as a construction worker in Alaska during the late 1940s and early 1950s

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Johnson, a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, proves himself a skilled raconteur in these loosely connected anecdotes dating from the late 1940s and early 1950s, when he did construction work in Alaska to earn money for college. A few of the pieces are tame, like the one about a Russian Orthodox priest in a small village who asked if there were other Russian Orthodox churches still in existence: he had last heard from his superiors in 1917. But most of these vignettes are filled with "construction stiffs, badasses, and whores," people tough enough to thrive in a frontier setting. In fact, on one job, Johnson was the only man in the group who had never faced a felony charge. And the women could be equally unruly--like C. Mamie Diamondp. 92 , who ran a "bathhouse" until she shot four or five customers and her establishment was shut down. In addition to describing these picturesque characters, Johnson recounts some of his own experiences as a construction worker; meeting his wife Carol, a gritty stewardess who wouldn't hesitate to join in a brawlp. 130 ; trying to organize an independent union local; and hunting moose ("about as exciting as shooting a cow and a hell of a lot more bother").
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Johnson began working on the railroad in northern Minnesota at the age of 15. At 16 he served in World War II, then traveled to Alaska off and on from 1947 to the mid-1950s to earn money for college. Over the years he told his family stories of the working life in Alaskan construction immediately following the war--vignettes of men and women he worked with and knew, "construction stiffs, badasses, and whores" who lived a hard life, but lived it as they wanted. This book is not well written, has little thematic unity and no index, yet is full of lively, intriguing tales of frontier working people such as one might hear from a new acquaintance in a bar. Of obvious interest to Alaskans, and appropriate for larger labor or history collections.
- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plover Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0917635108
• ISBN 13: 9780917635106
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 146