answers,
unwittingly
provided the raw material of legend. Although the phrase has surely
fallen from
use among today's youth, few of whom are aware of anything that
transpired
prior to their last tattoo, to many of us ancient Northwesterners, the
phrase
"Pulling a Peerless" still referred to getting lost in a hurry and
staying that way.
Peerless
Price
was the only son of Tyler K. Price, a prominent local clothing
manufacturer
whose company, Peerless Products, had grown prosperous outfitting
starry-eyed
miners bound for the Klondike. After
graduating from Stanford, ignoring his father's invitation to join the
family
firm, Peerless Price instead joined the Marine Corps, where he
distinguished
himself in the Pacific theater of W.W. n. Peerless assuaged his
thwarted
literary ambitions through frequent letters to his father, vividly
describing
GI life and death on the Pacific front Tyler Price was understandably
proud of
his son's contribution to the war effort, and during a businessmen's
luncheon
at the Cascade Club one afternoon in nineteen forty-three, he casually
showed
one of his son's letters to his longtime friend R. C. Gamble, who was,
at that
time, editor in chief of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Whether Gamble
was
greatly impressed by the young man's prose or whether he perhaps
printed the
letter merely as a favor to his old friend will never be known. Either
way,
reader response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive, and so, for
the
duration of the war, every Sunday, Peerless Price became Seattle’s link
to life on those faraway front
lines.
Peerless
Price
returned to Seattle
in the rainy winter of nineteen forty-five with a bronze star on his
chest and
a stainless steel hand at the end of his left arm. In the closing days
of the
war, only weeks before VI Day, his luck deserted him when, in an
unthinking
moment, he tried to slip a booby-trapped codebook out from under the
arm of a
dead Japanese major. There are those who say that the remainder of his
life
could be traced directly back to the loss of his hand, but I'm not so
sure.
That he had returned disillusioned, embittered and no longer at peace
did not
significantly differentiate him from the thousands upon thousands of
other young
men and women who likewise shed their youth and enthusiasm on those
same
beaches. What can be said with some certainty, however, is that the war
gave
the young Peerless Price an insatiable appetite for contention and a
political
stance just slightly right of Atilla the Hun, both of which would serve
as
hallmarks for the remainder of his life and career.
R.
C. Gamble,
in his memoirs, would later claim that his offer of a full-time
reporting job
with the Post-Intelligencer had been purely a product of his great
faith in the
young Price's abilities rather than an act of patriotic Christian
charity, as
many suggested. Either way, old R. C. made out like a bandit.
Over
the next
ten or twelve years, Peerless Price ascended from an occasional
features writer
to the lead man in the metro section. From weekly first-person accounts
of dog
shows and charity auctions to a featured six-day-a-week column which
was the
first thing everyone in Seattle
turned to over coffee. By nineteen fifty-four, he had his own logo. A
caricature,
really. A little drawing of him with an oversized head, sitting at an
undersized desk, wearing an eyeshade, an old-fashioned fountain pen
wedged
behind his ear. Typing . . . with one hand.
As
is often the
case, his success was, to some degree, partially attributable to good
timing.
Peerless Price and the fifties were made for each other, or perhaps
more
likely, from each other. Like the strange decade which molded him,
Peerless
Price led a double life. On the outside, smug and self-satisfied, as
only the
victors of wars are permitted, but on the inside frustrated, perverse
and
paranoid. On one hand, fueled by an unquestioning belief in truth,
justice and
the American way. On the other hand, sufficiently
unwittingly
provided the raw material of legend. Although the phrase has surely
fallen from
use among today's youth, few of whom are aware of anything that
transpired
prior to their last tattoo, to many of us ancient Northwesterners, the
phrase
"Pulling a Peerless" still referred to getting lost in a hurry and
staying that way.
Peerless
Price
was the only son of Tyler K. Price, a prominent local clothing
manufacturer
whose company, Peerless Products, had grown prosperous outfitting
starry-eyed
miners bound for the Klondike. After
graduating from Stanford, ignoring his father's invitation to join the
family
firm, Peerless Price instead joined the Marine Corps, where he
distinguished
himself in the Pacific theater of W.W. n. Peerless assuaged his
thwarted
literary ambitions through frequent letters to his father, vividly
describing
GI life and death on the Pacific front Tyler Price was understandably
proud of
his son's contribution to the war effort, and during a businessmen's
luncheon
at the Cascade Club one afternoon in nineteen forty-three, he casually
showed
one of his son's letters to his longtime friend R. C. Gamble, who was,
at that
time, editor in chief of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Whether Gamble
was
greatly impressed by the young man's prose or whether he perhaps
printed the
letter merely as a favor to his old friend will never be known. Either
way,
reader response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive, and so, for
the
duration of the war, every Sunday, Peerless Price became Seattle’s link
to life on those faraway front
lines.
Peerless
Price
returned to Seattle
in the rainy winter of nineteen forty-five with a bronze star on his
chest and
a stainless steel hand at the end of his left arm. In the closing days
of the
war, only weeks before VI Day, his luck deserted him when, in an
unthinking
moment, he tried to slip a booby-trapped codebook out from under the
arm of a
dead Japanese major. There are those who say that the remainder of his
life
could be traced directly back to the loss of his hand, but I'm not so
sure.
That he had returned disillusioned, embittered and no longer at peace
did not
significantly differentiate him from the thousands upon thousands of
other young
men and women who likewise shed their youth and enthusiasm on those
same
beaches. What can be said with some certainty, however, is that the war
gave
the young Peerless Price an insatiable appetite for contention and a
political
stance just slightly right of Atilla the Hun, both of which would serve
as
hallmarks for the remainder of his life and career.
R.
C. Gamble,
in his memoirs, would later claim that his offer of a full-time
reporting job
with the Post-Intelligencer had been purely a product of his great
faith in the
young Price's abilities rather than an act of patriotic Christian
charity, as
many suggested. Either way, old R. C. made out like a bandit.
Over
the next
ten or twelve years, Peerless Price ascended from an occasional
features writer
to the lead man in the metro section. From weekly first-person accounts
of dog
shows and charity auctions to a featured six-day-a-week column which
was the
first thing everyone in Seattle
turned to over coffee. By nineteen fifty-four, he had his own logo. A
caricature,
really. A little drawing of him with an oversized head, sitting at an
undersized desk, wearing an eyeshade, an old-fashioned fountain pen
wedged
behind his ear. Typing . . . with one hand.
As
is often the
case, his success was, to some degree, partially attributable to good
timing.
Peerless Price and the fifties were made for each other, or perhaps
more
likely, from each other. Like the strange decade which molded him,
Peerless
Price led a double life. On the outside, smug and self-satisfied, as
only the
victors of wars are permitted, but on the inside frustrated, perverse
and
paranoid. On one hand, fueled by an unquestioning belief in truth,
justice and
the American way. On the other hand, sufficiently
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