Whoa you calling me Tori was really weird for a second, not in a bad oh god no kinda way, but in a âwho the hell is Buckyâ kinda way
ANYWAY, gather round friends, and I will tell you the only story you need to hear if you want to really understand my home state.
Residents of Sitka, Alaska woke up to a rare beautiful clear day(it rains all the damn time in Southeast Alaska), the sun was out, the sky was blue, and black smoke was rising from Mt Edgecumbe
Now Mt Edgecumbe is only 18 miles from Sitka
And itâs a dormant volcano that hadnât erupted for thousands of years, so to see this:
was very unusual, and rather worrying.
âShit,â the Sitkans thought, âwe may be Alaskans and pretty weird about responding to danger, but even we know this might be badâ.Â
SO the Coast Guard was called!
They flew a helicopter up right away and guess what they found?Â
It couldnât POSSIBLY be:
God no, but that would be hella rad
(this is not an accurate image, there were only 70 tires in real life)Â
Turned out that a 54 year old local dude named Oliver âPorkyâ Bickar and some buddies had flown the tires up early that morning and heâd come up with the prank in 1970 but hadnât been able to do it until â74 because all the other years had terrible weather on April Fools.Â
(Heâd woken up that day, saw the clear sky and told his wife, Patty, âI have to go do it todayâ to which she replied âJust donât make an ass of yourselfâ which delights me no end)
Porky has actually warned the police he was going to do this and also informed the FAA (gotta get that flight plan approved to haul those tires up) but, and oh god I love this, TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE COAST GUARD
Luckily for him the Coasties thought this was the funniest fucking thing they had ever seen in their goddamn lives, and as it turned out, residents of Sitka agreed!
The story ended up exploding(ah ha ha do you get it? because volcano?) and national newspapers even covered it.
But Porkyâs favourite response was a letter he got after the Mt St Helens eruption in 1980 that read:Â âThis time, you little bastard, youâve gone too far.â
Iâve been told, though I canât find any sources to verify this, that when he died another fire was set in the volcano by the town to honor him.Â
And thatâs the story of how a man faked a volcanic eruption and became a state hero.Â
amandla
prguitarman
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
turnnoffyourmind
gamechangershow
romaincrisis
gummygunk
