Bio: Kitchen Help, 1977. Descriptor: From Southern Indiana to sleeping in a tent cabin, being a hippie at the ranch, and how saying ‘God Save the Queen’ helped catch cutthroat trout.
Eric’s Story: A friend and I went west from southern IN after graduating high school in 1977. Our first night in Jackson Hole was spent in a tent on the town hall lawn. We saw an ad in a local diner for kitchen help and waiters at White Grass and applied. Frank Galey hired us that same day. We stayed in one of the tent cabins up the hill from the bath house and Main Cabin. The creek behind our cabin was ice cold and we would put our beer in a plastic milk crate in the water to keep it cold. The days were long; up at 4:30 to make breakfast for the hung-over cowboys and then for the guests. After a 2-hour break, used for a shower in the unheated bathhouse and maybe a little laundry, it was time to prepare and serve lunch. Each afternoon we had about 3-4 hours to kill and I would often go up to the Snake River at Moose and fly fish. Caught many a cutthroat that summer. I recall one day a game warden came floating by in a kayak. I was missing a lot of strikes and his advice was “…when you the feel the strike, say “God Save the Queen” and raise your rod as if tipping your hat.” Worked every time. After dinner we would clean up the kitchen and prep for the next day’s breakfast. Evenings were spent hanging out at the girl’s trailer to watch the only TV we had access to or going to Blackie’s Fish Creek Inn at Wilson. I have fond memories of the other kitchen and cabin help who were my contemporaries. Curly and the other wranglers wouldn’t have much to do with us long hair hippie types. In fact, Curly would’ve been better named “Surly”. He was not a happy man. But what a beautiful place to be in our wonderful country. I was saddened to see how it had fallen into disrepair after Frank’s death but now heartened to see it being restored. I hope to make it back to the area some day and spend some more time in God’s Country.