Northland Boom
From blood-soaked Attu in the western Aleutians to brisk, modern Anchorage on the Alaskan mainland is about 1,500 miles in space but a universe in atmosphere.
Soldiers who get "up. the chain" to the mainland once in a blue moon are amazed at the trees, the occasional sunny days, the surprising number of women (mostly Civil Service workers Or Army nurses) around town.
But nothing amazes them more than the contrast in prices. On the islands it is almost impossible to spend money--$30 cash may last a man six months--and when a post exchange does open, men will loiter around it by the hour, buying things they do not need.
On the mainland things are different. Spending money in large gobs is not only possible but obligatoiy. A chocolate malted milk in one of Anchorage's excellent drugstores costs 40-c-. Ice cream is $1 a quart. A haircut is $1.50. A shoeshine is a quarter. So is a loaf of bread or a tomato.
The main street has several liquor stores, but supplies are running low and prices are noncompetitive. The town's commonest brand of blended whiskey is something called "Tom Burns," resembling the $1.49-a-quart variety of peacetime. On one side of the street it sells for $6.50 a quart, on the other side for $5. In Alaska the customer does not ask a price; he pays it. If he did ask, he would be told: "Nobody asked you to buy it." An Army officer sold his badly whipped, broken-framed 1936 Oldsmobile to an old sourdough for $750. A few days later the sourdough stopped him on the street and said: "I sure do like that car. It was mighty nice of you to sell it to me." Top nightclub of Anchorage is the Lido Gardens, where dinner is $5 and watery highballs are 75-c- apiece. But the steak is the best that side of Chicago, the vegetables are quick-frozen and the chef gets $800 a month. The place has no orchestra (manpower shortage) but displays an elegant juke box--and the prettiest Civil Service employes in Anchorage.
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