George W. Alexander III: A Personal Memoir

He was my best pal for 30 years, but that does not make me unique; George was a much-loved guy. He died at age 69 on February 23, 2000 at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor from lung failure which resulted from complications following knee replacement surgery five weeks earlier.

He was a football hero, a war hero and a legal hero. As a boy he captained and quarterbacked his Clarion, Pennsylvania high school football team to an undefeated season in 1947. He then played quarterback at Dennison University for Woody Hayes, the eventual Ohio State legend. He won the Navy Cross as a Marine Corps Lieutenant for combat heroism in the Korean War. Following the war, he received his engineering degree from the University of Michigan and worked as an engineer until he changed careers in the mid-1960’s. He earned his law degree from U of M in 1967 and practiced law in both Pennsylvania and Michigan until 1971 when he became Washtenaw County’s first Public Defender, providing criminal defense representation for indigents. He became Judge Alexander in 1974 and served with distinction in Ann Arbor on the 15^th District Bench until his retirement in 1991.

George was also a first-rate environmentalist. When he retired from the bench, he and Peggy moved full-time to Devils Elbow, their residence on the Au Sable Mainstream below McMaster’s Bridge. George became a part-time visiting judge in various judicial circuits and a full-time fly fishing guide for Gates Au Sable Lodge during the trout season. He also became a Director and Vice-President of the Anglers of the Au Sable and received the organization’s River Keeper of the Year award in 1997 in recognition of the work he and Bernie Fowler had done in maintaining navigability of the river while preserving and maximizing its large woody debris trout cover. He was a frequent contributor to The Riverwatch. He also participated actively in other environmentally focused organizations.

But the foregoing recitation of Heap’s accomplishments is too impersonal; it does not convey the man’s aura, and did he have aura! He was enthusiastic, energetic, proud of his impressive physical strength and constantly upbeat. His relentless optimism was one of the things that made him so much fun to fish and hunt with and also made him such a good guide. I must admit to some personal disappointment in Heap’s successful guiding career, because it meant we seldom had time to fish together after he moved full-time to the river, at least during the "prime-time" of the season.

It was a different story in the fall, however. We were constant grouse hunting buddies from 1970 until the last couple of year’s when George’s painful knees limited his ability to march through the woods. And I do mean march! We could be pretty focused and persistent. Heap’s brother Chuck reminded me recently of the time in the 70’s when he accompanied us on a grouse hunt and paused momentarily to relieve himself. When he zipped back up, we were gone.

Throughout the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s, Heap and I probably spent as much (or more) autumn time in the woods as at our respective jobs, only a slight exaggeration. Rain, shine, snow or sleet, we were in the thick stuff each day until dark, usually behind one or more of my dogs. We hunted places with names which are not on any maps because they were known only to us; places like "Toohey’s Tree Bird," "Jack’s Cramp," "The Old Dump," "The Bee Sting Hunt" (where an anaphylactic reaction almost turned me into George’s worst joke-of-the-week: "Shoot A Grouse -- Drag Dick"). There was also "Wounded Jaw" where a deflected number 8 pellet from my gun drilled George in the jaw. I think it was still there when he died. Sometimes we would name our covers for the owner who gave us permission to hunt, like "Grandma’s" or "The Fat Lady’s" (the fat lady said yes to George before she knew what the question was). We did not get permission from the "Banana Lady": "My husband would have a banana if I let you guys out in the woods before he got up in his tree stand".

We hunted all over the lower peninsula and some in the upper. We stayed at Max’s Pigeon River Country Cabin, at a couple of places I rented on the Au Sable in the 70’s, and at the old pre-Peggy Devils Elbow, which was much more of a camp than the residence it is today, and at a variety of out-of-the-way dog-tolerant motels. We stayed at the University of Michigan Biological Research facility on Sugar Island, at two little Manistee cabins owned by friends, and once at the Dougherty Hotel in Clare where the proprietor allowed as how most bird dogs were better behaved than his human customers.

We hunted with multiple generations of my setters and George loved them as much as I did. Once when a head-shot grouse flew forever before falling dead in a thicket too close to I-75, George climbed the fence, removed his belt (since we had no leash) and, using the belt as a leash, led Sam the setter to the thicket where she found the downed bird. He wouldn’t let her go alone near the traffic. The only time I was ever the object of Heap’s short-fused temper was the day he thought I had let my dogs run too close to highway M-66 where there was no fence separating the highway from the impenetrable swamp in which we found ourselves.

We also hunted some other fine dogs owned by Jim Foote and Mark Daane. Later we hunted some with Heap's own dogs, but Peggy was most often her "Heapie's" companion when their own dogs were afield. In recent years George's brother Chuck and sister-in-law Mackie would bring their Pennsylvania dogs and make an annual woodcock pilgrimage to the western U.P. with Heap and Peggy. They were an admirably tight filial foursome.

For all of his oft-displayed macho swagger, George also had a tender side. It was our habit at the end of the day's hunt to toast the day with a cognac "cockle-warmer" from some pewter cups we carried in our grouse kit. Over the years as various dogs died, George had their names engraved on the cups as a tribute to their memories. He remained good friends with his ex's. He and I both choked up at his wedding to Peggy, standing there in our tuxedos at Devils Elbow, certainly a first for that venerable edifice. But shortly after the ceremony, performed by Pieter G.V. Thomassen, there was George in his X-rated apron in his kitchen fixing brunch for the wedding guests.

He was a great cook and his culinary skill in his own kitchen far surpassed that which many of us have seen at the annual year-end Anglers of the Au Sable "Steak Out." George thoroughly enjoyed "performing" in the kitchen while his guests watched from bar stools. Like a skilled French restaurant server, he made it theater.

He also had a truly raunchy sense of humor. Some of his "worst jokes of the week" were seriously awful, but he told them with such animation and glee that it was impossible not to laugh.

Mary Ann and I will always cherish the memory of our time with George. I know that many readers of this memorial have similar feelings. Pat Dwyer, for one, once exclaimed during a bonefishing trip in the Bahamas that George had an unparalleled zest for living; I think Heap was singing off-key on his way to a late-night skinny-dip at the time.

George was, in a word, vital! But he is vital no more; a great deal of energy has gone out of the world and we are all diminished. RWOL

[Top] [Home]