Auto-biography of Jerry c russell The Early Years

During the seventies we sold fifteen or twenty more systems patterned after WEPCO. These were all over the United States and many foreign countries. During the seventies and eighties I traveled to almost every country in the world. I was all over South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Japan, China, Scandinavia etc. The oldest boys, Steve and Mark went through school in Columbia Heights. Both were in the national honor society when they graduated from high school. Steve went to the University of Minnesota taking economics and Mark took Electrical Engineering. Steve got restless and moved out when he was a sophomore in college to live in various apartments with various girlfriends. Mark moved out his senior year.

I was in Spain many times as over the years we had lots of business there. One trip ,in the late eighties, we were selling a system to a company that had been formed to be the pool of all utilities in Spain. We had to visit all these utilities and make a presentation. Each utility went to special efforts to entertain us at the best restaurants and to show us the local sights, so it was a very special trip that took three weeks. When we visited Oviedo I went back to the hotel Principado where I had stayed twenty years ago, and when I walked into the restaurant the waiter recognized me as he had been my friend then and spent much time explaining the menu to me. I tipped him a dollar each day which at that time was a days wage. When we landed in La Coruna, a executive picked us up in a Mercedes limousine. As we were driving into town I told him I had been there twenty years ago. It turned out this guy was Senior Quiroga’s son. Senior Quiroga was the president of the company that I had dinner with. Senior Quiroga had died and there was a huge monument we visited at a town the family owned near the Ballizar power plant. Also I asked about Hyme Urou and found out he had just died of cancer. It turns out he was the top technical guy at the utility and was much revered by everybody. The executive was much impressed and he really treated us like royalty. We spent the night at the small village the family owned in the mountains. There was a villa full of price-less antiques with a large cadre of servants. They had there own hydro generating plant and the family literally owned the whole town. When we visited the large under-ground hydro plant they took me to the equipment room where the equipment I had installed twenty years ago was still in service. I don’t think the people with me believed the story until I opened the cabinet and pulled the drawings out of the instruction book. I had signed all the drawings. Senior Quiroga junior wanted us to stay a extra week and he was going to take us sailing to the coast of Africa in his yacht. We enjoyed very much the next few weeks being entertained across Spain.

Roberto Delariva and I went to China to give a seminar in the mid seventies. This was before China opened up and it was a very interesting trip. There were no private cars in Bejing, only thousands of bicycles. We caused a stir when we walked through Taineman square as most had not seen white people before. They assigned each of us a government guide and an interpreter. They interpreted the seminar, but unfortunately the interpreter could not understand Roberto because of his Spanish accent, therefore I had to do the whole week seminar. After a few days I noticed one of the people seemed to understand everything I said so during a break I talked to him. He was a PHD from University of Wisconsin, Dr Wu. He spoke perfect English and understood the technology. Unfortunately this was during the cultural revolution, so he was at the bottom on the pecking order in China. Farmers and laborers were the elite, and got the best housing etc. Finally I was able to convince the interpreter to let Dr Wu interpret for me since he understood much better. After the seminar they had a state dinner for us at the Forbidden City. I asked that Dr Wu attend but they said he wasn’t allowed since he was a intellectual. Out chauffeur would be there. I said I wouldn’t come unless Dr Wu attended, so they let him although he was so far down the big round table I hardly saw him. They took us on a tour of the great wall, and other sights. I was most interested in their steam trains, as I hadn’t seen one since I was a kid.

During this period I made several trips to South Africa. This was a very long (18 hr) flight from New York, we stopped to fuel at a island off of Africa in the middle of the night. I gave several seminars with ESCOM the state utility there. Since I was there in the summer,(winter there) it was always dark when I went to work and dark when I got through, so I never saw much of South Africa. After three trips like this I told the country manager Al Loyd that I wasn’t going to come anymore unless I got to see more of South Africa. As a result he set up a spectacular trip for me at the end of my latest seminar. He chartered a twin engine airplane for me and flew me around the country. We went to a private game reserve near Kruger Park. We had to buzz the landing strip to scare the Impala off the grass runway. The pilot waited three days for me while I was treated like a king at the game reserve. I had a private villa made up like a grass hut, free booze, great food and entertainment. They assigned me a private guide who drove me in a Land Rover over the game preserve. He sat in a seat mounted high up in the air spotting game and telling the driver where to go. We saw every kind of African animal you can think of, dozens of different types of antelopes, deer, water buffaloes, crocodiles, lions, elephants, rhinos, etc. It was spectacular. They teased a large rhino until he charged the land rover and chased us a half mile or so. The same with a bull elephant. One night they took me out to a bamboo enclosure where there were lions. We sat in this enclosure looking out where they had killed a Impala and left it hang in a tree. The lions came up to feed, and they gradually brought up the lights so we could watch from not more than forty feet away. We had to wait until they were done and left before we could get out. On the way back to Johannesburg the pilot let me fly the airplane and as we approached the airport I saw the largest airplane I had ever saw approaching the airport. It was monstrous and appeared to be hardly moving. It turned out this was the inaugural flight of a 747 to South Africa. I had never seen one before. On the flight back from Johannesburg to Rome we had to land at Nairobi Africa. They warned us not to get off the airplane, although most passengers did as we had been on for so long. In order to get back on we had to be strip searched by black irregular looking soldiers. One of the ladies had a fit as there was not much privacy, they were going to arrest her but the flight crew got her out of it but she still had to strip. It was not long after this that some Arabs high jacked a EL-AL plane and flew it to Nairobi, where there is almost no law. The Israelis sent in a commando team to the airport and rescued the plane and crew while shooting up many of the airport security? police.

During the next ten years I took many interesting foreign trips, to almost every country in world. We spent quite a bit of time is Australia, and the far east and I went around the world several times. Had a good time for a week in Perth Australia, on the west coast.

The Early Island years

During the late seventies and eighties we used the Musketeer to go to the island almost every week end in the summer and every other in the winter.. Usually I took guys from work for two trips or so and then Toots and the kids. We usually flew up Thursday or Friday night and back Sunday. The weather did not stop us very often, although we did fly with some low ceilings. I knew the route so well I could go pretty low without getting lost. The airplane was great during this period with little trouble. I did the inspection work myself and had it signed by a friend who is a Aircraft Inspection license. One winter Sunday with the temperature around 40 below, we heated the engine and took off from International Falls, as I started to leave the airport area I noticed oil on the windshield. I turned around but before we could get back to the field the windshield was covered. I was able to land looking out the side window and slipping the airplane. It turned out the crankcase vent had plugged with ice and the pressure had blown out the propeller oil seal. Took the airplane in Einardsons hanger and replaced the seal in about two hours and still made it home. One trip coming up with grandma and some of the kids, I heard a plane on the radio that was lost around the Falls. Einarson was trying to help him on the radio but didn’t know where he was. In listening to him I thought I knew where he was so we diverted over into Canada to try to help. Before I could get in the area he ran out of gas and went down. I began to get his emergency locator beacon on the radio, so I detuned the radio to try to peak the signal as we went in the area. We were able to see them crashed on the ground. The airplane was destroyed and they were laying and standing around it. I called Einarson and we stayed over them directing the ambulance to them. Nobody was killed but several were in the hospital for a while.

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

When we took our first trip to the island we went in the new red Lund boat that we had just bought. Got it at a discount by going through Gibson’s brother who was a friend of the Lund family, who were from Wadena MN. We took some building materials with us figuring on starting to build a small cabin. When we got there we took a good look at the old log cabin and decided we may be able to fix it up instead. The floor and roof were partly missing, it was full of bat shit, and the foundation logs were rotting. However we cleaned it out rebuilt the roof and the floor and gradually fixed it up. We used the building materials we brought to build a outhouse, that we at first used both as a toilet and to store our tools. We brought in a gas oven we got from John Hulen as they had replaced theirs, and propane tanks. On a trip a few weeks later with a bunch of guys from work, we hauled in a gas refrigerator and installed gas lights. We took the old rusted wood stove out and put in a new steel woodstove. By the end of the summer the place was very livable. We were in there a lot the first few years both during the summer and winter. It was cold in the winter as there was no insulation in the log walls and the floor was not tight to the walls. The stove would heat it all right but the temperature difference between the floor and the ceiling was extreme. We could be roasting at eye level and there would be snow on the floor. After a few years we decided to build a porch on the front of the cabin. We got the lumber from the sawmill Pearson had been running up the lake. It was rough cut, but strong. We built the porch which greatly increased the comfort of the place especially in the summer. The porch is well built, and will probably be there long after the cabin has fell in. About five years later the kids decided they wanted to build a big tree house. We convinced them to build a smaller tree house, and we instead built a small outpost sleeping cabin. It is very comfortable to sleep in during the summer as it is open on the front, just covered with screen wire.

We did still have lot’s of exciting things happen even crossing with the ARGO. We went through the ice a half a dozen times. The first time was when we were crossing at night with the cab on.. Mark and Gibson were aboard. As we approached the island, the front dipped, and water splashed over the front. We had driven into a big crack and were floating. We moved across with the tracks spinning, to the other side but it wouldn’t climb out. We took the wooden cover off since it would float, and it was decided somebody had to jump out on the ice to anchor the cable from the winch. Naturally I was elected, so I stood on the front of the ARGO and dove/slid forward on my belly. Fortunately the ice held and I was able to anchor the winch and get us out. Another time I was testing the ice with the ARGO before taking off from it with the airplane. I went through with the front of the ARGO and as it was at an angle began taking on water. I went to the back and jumped up and down to break it through also. Finally it broke through also and the thing was level so we stopped taking on water. However we were in a hole in the ice the size of the ARGO and it wouldn’t come out. Gibson was on the shore about 200 yards away. On instruction he got a took a rope and came out on the part of the ice that was solid and was able to throw it to me. I then fastened the rope to the rear hitch of the ARGO and with him pulling on the rope and me in the front to raise the rear, it climbed out backwards. Another time Toots and I were coming out in April when the ice was starting to get soft. It seemed thick enough so we started off across the bay with a load of lumber. Out about 200 yards from shore we got stuck in slush. I got out and went around in front to try to push, but when I lifted on the front of the ARGO my feet went through the ice, Fortunately I had a hold on the ARGO so I could pull myself out. However the force broke the front of the ARGO through. Again I had to force the rear through also to level the machine. We were now 200 yards off shore with a load of lumber, Toots and the dog, Mitzi. I laid the lumber out on the ice from the ARGO and we were able to sneak off on it and work our way to shore on foot. We then had to fight our way back through the snow and bush to Stan’s resort. Then I had to figure out how to get the ARGO out or it would freeze in. We went to Fort Frances and bought 300 yards of rope, and I got my cross country skies. After working our way back to a point on shore near the ARGO I tied the rope to a tree and walking on the skies, worked my way back out to the ARGO. Then by fastening the rope to the end on the winch line on the ARGO, I was able to winch the ARGO out. I had to reconnect the rope and the winch several times as we kept breaking through the ice for the first 50 yards or so. Toots swore she would not go up again in April, although it was only because of the unusual ice conditions that winter that caused the problem