THE GIANT OF PIERCE, IDAHO
William A. Wisdom

In the summer of 1953, between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I worked for the Forest Service in Idaho. It was here that I first grew a beard, a common fashion statement in the region. The base camp for our crew of 20 or so was at Musselshell Creek, some eight or ten miles into the wilderness from the Ranger's headquarters at Pierce. We spent our time either cleaning up after loggers or fighting modest forest fires. Otherwise, there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the work week.

But there was plenty that was noteworthy about the town of Pierce. It had a resident population of some 200 or 300, and a Saturday night population of over 2000--made up partly of Forest Service workers but mostly of loggers from miles around. The sheriff of Pierce would stride up and down the middle of the road with a six-shooter slung low on his hip. (Rumor had it that he only used it to warn speeders to slow down.) The paved road from Lewiston into Pierce ended in the middle of town. From there on over the Bitterroot Mountains into Missoula, Montana, the dirt road was closed by snow for about half the year.

The "commercial" part of town was three or four blocks long. There were a Post Office and a general store, the Forest Service building, two churches--one Protestant and one Catholic--five brothels, and twenty-two bars, some of which served food. The bars could rather easily be graded from low to high. At the top end was the chrome, glass, and polished oak establishment where the executives of the big logging companies could take their families. At the bottom was a place with sawdust on the floor and a plank laid across two barrels to serve as the bar. It was here that I once saw the burly barmaid drop a particularly unruly patron to the floor with a baseball bat. "Somebody get him outa here!" she said; and two men dragged him out to the sidewalk by his heels.

I was sipping a beer in one of the middle-level bars one Saturday evening when a vise seemed to close on my shoulder. I looked to my left, and saw that a grizzled logger, perhaps 6'6" tall, had his hand clamped on my shoulder. Without a word of introduction or greeting, he said with a barely intelligible slur: "I can shee, jesh by lookin' acha, thatcher a Jew!" "Oh, no, sir. Not me. No, indeed; I'm not a Jew. I'm a Lutheran." Squeezing a little harder, he said, "Of coursh you're a Jew. I know a Jew when I shee one." He might have been making some sort of reference to my beard, though half the people in town had beards. No, I seem to have been singled out, no doubt for some unspeakable anti-semitic abuse. "C'mon! Yer a Jew, ain'tcha?" He was squeezing even harder, and I thought I'd better "confess". "Well, you're very perceptive. I am indeed a Jew, as you thought."

But he didn't stop there: "And wush more, I can tell that yer a . . . rabbi!" "Oh, good gracious, no. You were right about my being a Jew. But I'm certainly not a rabbi. No, not a rabbi, I assure you." The vise closed even tighter. Leaning down, with his face right in mine, he continued: "Listen; don't tell me yer not a rabbi 'cause I can shee that yer a rabbi." I now feared more for my shoulder than for whatever else he had in store for me. So I said: "Well, right you are. I am a Jew, and I am a rabbi." He leaned back, smiling broadly as he relaxed his grip. "Bartender," he said, "bring two beers for me and my good friend the rabbi!"


Copyright © 2002, William A. Wisdom