Sore eyes

My eyes hurt today. I'm thinkin' it's cuz they've gotten too much of a work-out the past two days, searching for information, I've read a dozen times in the past several months. You see, I'm back at the "never-ending" lake story. Well, I hope our beautiful lake is never-ending, but my version of its story has got to come ashore here pretty soon.

I've been at it a year, as many readers already know from my past rantings. About three weeks ago, I took a notebook filled with 20,000 words worth of fascinating stuff about Lake Pend Oreille and its communities to the publisher's office.

I gave it to the secretary and told her to tell 'em they could have it, I never wanted to see it again, and they didn't even need to pay me cuz I was sick of it. She passed it on, maybe not with my complete message. I received a few messages on my answering machine and in my email box that it was "too long" and they'd get back to me on it. My historical account of white settlement around Lake Pend Oreille will be one segment of a hiking guide to Lake Pend Oreille trails.

Last week, the "sheriff" as he's termed by the publisher----that would be Dennis Nicholls, North Idaho's hiking trail aficionado, called and said he was coming to my house with my "fat red notebook" and we'd talk about what I was to do next. Then, I was sure the secretary hadn't exactly told them everything.

Well, after drinking my coffee and downing two of my mouth-watering brownies, Sheriff Dennis nicely instructed me to get it down to 7,000 words, insert more about whitefish, logging and railroads, cut down the stories about the communities and get it back to him by the 28th.

Dennis doesn't know I didn't go to Phoenix, so I'm figuring he can't bug me for several days. He thinks I'm out of town. I'll let him continue to think that.

In the meantime, I'm still plugging away, trying to satisfy "the boys" as I call Chris and Dennis. And my eyes have grown weary in the process. Maybe it's the Wal Mart special spectacles.

I'm most thankful that my hubby, Bill, the forester, has enough knowledge to fill in my vast gaps dealing with log drives and brailles. The latter, by the way, kept logs corraled while they were being towed across the lake.

I'll call my friend Ron Raiha to find out about the whitefish and the lucrative commercial fishing industry that kept mill workers employed during the winter time and folks back in Chicago fed with North Idaho delicacies. That is, until the whitefish population died out in the late '30s, but I'll spare you of the details.

All in a retiree's daze work! Where's the Visine?