Moose Quackenbush

Moose was an old timer from Fairbanks and was a good friend of my Grandmother Iris Bayless. I have looked and cant find any pic of him maybe someone who knew him will read this and post one. Moose would come to Anchorage from time to time and visit my grandmother, mostly around Thanksgiving.

He was a big man with a very big booming voice and a huge personality. He looked like he came out of a Robert Service poem and should be playing bass for ZZ Top or piano in the malamute saloon. He would love to sit around and tell us kids stories about Alaska back in the day. He had to be 6-6 and he was the kind of story teller who told his story with his whole body. Waving his arms about pacing back and forth like a caged wolf looking for a way out, with fiery eyes and always that long beard moving back and forth. Well needless to say we kids loved Moose and looked forward to his visits and stories.

On his 80th birthday he made a bet with a no doubt equally drunk friend that he could swim the Tanana River. Well... he could not and Moose died that day and his death was about the most fitting poetic death for one of them old timers. A man like that needed to be spared the wires and machines of a hospital ER and go out of this life as big as they lived their life.

His daughter came up from Montana and got him and took him back with her and that's were they chucked him in the clay.

Moose was not 80 years old when he died he was 70. He told everyone he was 10 years older then he really was. I remember him standing in my grandmothers living room eyes all ablaze with some story he was telling us (OMG he loved an audience) and he would beat on his chest with his open hand and say..."look at me I'm almost 80 years old and look what kinda of health I'm in. Fresh air, good food and the clean Alaska countryside. That's all you need. Just look at me."

Although we loved Moose he was just a little scary. Everything about him was so big and over exaggerated that as a little kid I was a little intimidated. He was kinda like Binky at the zoo. A Majestic animal that if you weren't too careful you may find yourself hiding in a corner and him pacing around the living room with your shoe in his mouth.