Chapter Five – “Cookie Run”
(Part One)

My very first flight for Wien Air Alaska was on my 28th birthday, 1981.  I was a reserve flight engineer, which meant I was on call to fly whenever I was needed.

My very first call came for me to show up, not at our airport operations, but at our dispatch area which was a couple of miles away at the opposite end of the airport.  I had no idea why when I got there, but was excited to learn that this would be no ordinary flight; we were to fly a photo mission.  There would be our plane, which would be a B-727 and one other Wien plane, a B-737.  A Learjet was to fly alongside us to get some pictures which would be used for advertising.

I had barely even gotten a glimpse of Mt. McKinley since my arrival in Anchorage, as the weather had been cloudy and dismal.  This day was chosen especially, however, when the forecast showed clear skies in the area around the mountain.  So off we went.

We circled the mountain too many times to remember now.  The captain showed me the orange specks on the mountain which were mountain climbers.  We flew at just 18,000 feet, well below the peak, which is officially at 21,320 feet.  What a beautiful introduction to this most majestic of peaks, known to Alaskans more commonly as Denali—The Great One.

Sometimes I got called to do a run up to the North Slope, which is how Alaskans referred to the north coast of their state.  We would fly to the small village of Point Barrow, northernmost point in the United States.  This was where one of the world’s most famous aviators—Will Rogers— had crashed on takeoff in 1935 along with humorist Wiley Post.

Other times, we’d stop at Deadhorse, Alaska, and even stayed in the lodgings that were there for the oil workers.  One night, my first time there, I went out the back of the housing facility on a very short layover of less than an hour and knelt in the snow, watching my first full-blown display of Northern Lights.  On the flight back to Anchorage I wrote a song called “Alaska Nights” which would later be broadcast on the radio when I was invited to be on a popular local talk show.

Still other times, we’d fly up to the Arco Oil facility and have all day there while we waited to fly workers in the other direction.  This was a flight very popular with the pilots, as it meant very, very good eating.

The facility itself was luxurious, with its own theater and library.  But the best thing of all was the food.  The dining room would rival some of the best food in the finest restaurants with prime rib, fish, cheeses, a dozen different salads, breads and even lobster.  And the desserts?  Don’t get me started.  Cakes, cookies, mousses, tarts, brownies—it was fantastic.

As a sort of cruel joke, there was a scale at the exit to the dining room, with a sign that said something like, “Did you eat too much?”  The answer, of course, was a resounding yes, and not only did we eat too much, we were given large brown paper shopping bags and invited to carry home whatever we could.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, in the hallways of these facilities were popcorn carts and soft ice-cream dispensers.  Nobody manned them—you just helped yourself.

I never had any trouble amusing myself for several hours while waiting for the return flight home, but my favorite thing—other than the food, of course—was the fact that there were pianos throughout the facility.  I’d had to sell my piano before moving to Alaska and I never missed an opportunity to play my heart out for hours when I was fortunate to get an oil run.

The first time I ever flew as a pilot for Wien to Salt Lake City, I attended a concert at the Mormon Tabernacle and was reading the program later that day. The program included the startling fact that there were over eleven thousand pipes, but I counted exactly thirty-seven.  I just had to know where the rest of the pipes were, and wanted to see what over eleven thousand pipes could possibly look like. 

On a whim, I found a phone book and looked for the organist’s name, which unfortunately was very generic-sounding and most likely difficult to pinpoint. I was right about the name and there were about a dozen identical listings but, to my delight, his name was distinguished by the word “organist” after it. I hadn’t expected that.

I called, and when he answered laughed when I asked my question about the pipes.  I said, “My name is Meryl. I’m a pilot for an airline up in Anchorage called Wien Air Alaska.  Have you heard of it?”

“Yes, I have!” he exclaimed. “We have a son in Fairbanks and he flies on Wien when he comes to visit. We’ve flown on Wien, too, when we’ve gone to visit him!”

“Good,” I said. “Here’s the thing: I attended your concert today at the Tabernacle and I really, really enjoyed it. But I’ve just got to ask you, where are all the pipes you can’t see? Are they behind the main organ?  It mentions the number in the program but it doesn’t give any explanation.”

 “How wonderful you called,” he said, “I’m really glad you enjoyed the concert. I have to tell you, nobody’s ever called and asked me about where the rest of the pipes are. If you’ll come by tomorrow after the 11:00 AM concert I’ll take you on a personal tour and show you where they hide more than eleven thousand pipes.”

I was ecstatic. I showed up and he did take me on a tour—just him and me. He had me stand inside the very largest bass pipe—thirty-two feet high—while he played some notes. The vibration was incredible and, being highly ticklish, I stood giggling in the pipe while he played.

The smallest pipe was tiny, just three-quarters of an inch. All these “invisible” pipes were just in back of the main pipes which, he informed me, were mostly just a façade. Some of them were real, but many were put there for aesthetic reasons, for symmetry. I had just assumed they were all real and that they were all visible, until I read the program notes.  There were, he informed me, a total of 11,623 “speaking” (as opposed to just for decoration) pipes arranged in 206 “ranks” (rows).

He also showed me the jet turbine, or “organ blower,” behind the sound proof door when I asked him how in the world enough air was generated to drive the organ. “Just like the engines on the jets you fly,” he commented casually. I was astonished. I knew there must be something elaborate, but had no idea the volume of air actually required.

I told him I couldn’t imagine playing an organ of that magnitude, and he asked me if I’d like to try it! I’m not a Mormon, but he didn’t ask and I doubt he would have cared. Other Mormons have since told me that it was highly unusual—unheard of, in fact—for the organist to have allowed a non-organist for the Mormon Church play the organ, and I believe it. He not only let me play around with it, he actually cleared the Tabernacle for me to give me some privacy. Or, just possibly, he didn’t want anyone to think he was the one playing.