As a boy, I heard Fairbanks old-timers lament "It's the failures who stuck around here after the gold rush. The guys with money left." Coming from men who lived in tiny log cabins, that seems like sour grapes. But there were stampeders who departed Alaska carrying bags heavy with gold. And a few former Alaskans made even more money in the states.

George "Tex" Rickard (1871-1929) a successful mining investor, bar owner and promoter in Dawson and Nome was one. Rickard re-settled in Nevada and became a fight promoter. In 1921, Rickard, now in New York, engineered the first million-dollar fight -- Jack Dempsey and Frenchman Georges Carpentier. He was one of the best-known sports figures in the world when he died of complication from an appendectomy.

On a warm afternoon two weeks ago, I took a train from Grand Central Station in Manhattan to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. I had a dozen white roses to place on Tex Rickard's grave. The 30-minute ride put me within 100 yards of the entrance of Woodlawn, and a few minutes later, I walked out of the main office of the cemetery with a map of the grounds in hand. The cemetery historian had circled Rickard's grave.

I was walking around lost when an aged stranger stopped me. He introduced himself as Al Casanova and said he volunteers at the cemetery, picking up trash.

"Can't find the guy?" said Al. "Well he's gotta be here. He didn't leave." Al turned the map upside down and sideways before conceding. "I can't figure this thing out. Dunno what to tell you."

Woodlawn is huge, more than 400 acres. I didn't prepare for my visit. Didn't pay proper attention when the historian explained the map. So I had nobody to blame but myself for becoming lost.

"Hey there are other people around here," said Al, pointing to Lionel Hampton's grave. We put a rose on Hamp's stone. "And over there, Miles Davis." We gave Miles a rose. "And over there, Illinois Jacquet." The saxman received a rose too. Miles and Illinois have gigantic stones that can be fairly called statements. Hamp's is large but simple -- with only the inscription "Flying Home."

I distributed a couple other roses more or less at random before returning to the main office. "Look," I told a staffer, "I couldn't find Tex Rickard's grave. Can you make sure these roses find a good home?"

The staffer frowned, then brightened. "I will have someone drive them out to his grave."

And so Tex Rickard got a half-dozen roses. From an Alaskan with good intentions who couldn't read a map.

-- Michael Carey

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