RIP Rocky Fuller

Alaska's family circle of friends lost their favorite bartender, student and fishmonger on July 6th in Seattle. Rothel Hoyt Fuller II, died peacefully in his sleep, while attending the Fuller family reunion. His obiturary is in the Anchorage Daily News today.

I met Rocky in 1980, through my sister Niki, when he was bartending at Chilkoot Charlie's legendary Little Bar. Later on he commercial shrimped out of Valdez so I got to see him every summer. Rocky was one semester shy of receiving his BA in accounting from UAA. He was so happy when he passed Statistics that he said "he'd never say "Statistics" again."

One summer in Valdez somebody stole his duffle bag while he was in a phone booth talking to me. He got a cab ride out here then called the cops to report it stolen. We had a police scanner at the time. The dispatcher was on the phone to Rocky and the radio to the cops at the same time while Rocky was describing the contents of his duffle bag. Apparently the cop's were at the suspects camp and needed positive identification of his belongings. Rocky was telling the dispatcher the raunchy sayings displayed on his t-shirts and when we heard the dispatcher relay the sayings to the cops we cracked up and so did anybody that had their ears on. What Rocky really wanted in his bag were his specially made brand new shoes his was saving for when he got off the shrimp boat. When the police seized his belongings as evidence Rocky opted not to press charges as he needed his shoes back.

The last time I talked to Rocky he was willing to take a draw from his monthly disabilty check to help out a friend who needed deposit money to get into an apartment. He was that kind of guy and I was glad to have known him and proud to be one of his many Alaskan friends.

Gonna miss yah Rocky.