With all the hoopla in this morning's paper about greed coming to Sandpoint, I'm taking a lazy approach and pulling out an essay I wrote for the Cedar Post high school newspaper a few years ago.
From this piece, I expect readers to come away with two thoughts---one possible explanation for why my little brother Jim might just draw from his past childhood experiences to come up with those quirky cartoons. The other conclusion: that the tone around Sandpoint continues to change before our very eyes.
I wonder if my "folksyisms" will be appreciated when the town gains its proper "ambience."
Enjoy:
I remember the scene as if it were yesterday. Nearly three decades ago while standing outside my classroom door at Sandpoint High School (now the middle school), a teacher (now a local realtor) yelled down the dark hallway to me, “Marianne, you’re nothing but Bonner County!”
“Thank you,” I replied. “I’m proud of it too.”
Don’t know if I’ve risen from the ashes yet and become a decent citizen in my former colleague’s eyes, but I’ve continued to have fun while this individual has sold plot after plot of “Bonner County” to more and more unsuspecting souls who come here thinking they’ve found Heaven. Except for January through April, I’d say they have. I’ll grant also that if they’re skiers, this place is even better than Heaven.
I’ve always considered my hometown “God’s Country” even when classmates moved from here in droves to get as far away from this podunk hole as possible. Now, many of my high school friends explore any means possible to return to what has become a somewhat secluded Eden for the cultured, the wealthy and virtually any adventurous individual escaping the evils of a society left behind. As a local who has stuck it out through good times and bad, I have to say that Sandpoint has been good to me, even when it wasn’t “cool.”
There’s a lot to be said for staying in your hometown, especially when you’re a teacher with longevity like mine. I don’t make a lot of money, but my riches come every day while grocery shopping or popping into places around town to see friendly faces of former students going about their lives in satisfying ways.
We, who grew up here, have a wealth of memories to share with newcomers who like to consider themselves natives after five years. I don’t consider these people natives, even though they might have wasted no time adopting our folksy, laid-back, leave-us-alone ways. I believe it takes a certain amount of knowledge to be a Sandpoint native, and for this Cedar Post feature, I’m willing to divulge few distinguishing tidbits.
It takes a native to remember when a jet almost wiped out Lincoln Elementary School (now the alternative high school) and all its youthful contents in 1953. Fortunately, for me, the ill-fated plane crashed to the ground in the pole yard just a block or two away.
It takes a native and an old friend to remember that Democratic leaders Carol and Gary Pietsch were once considered the Republican establishment here in Bonner County.
It takes a native to remember all the teenage romances that bloomed every September when the Bonner County Fair attracted youth from all ends of the county to the old fairgrounds where the museum now stands near Memorial Field.
Speaking of Memorial Field, it takes a true native to remember the summer evening back in the ‘70s when a huge hot air balloon descended in the skies over Sandpoint.
My younger sisters and brother were small at the time. My folks were out of town. Besides babysitting, one of my assigned duties involved picking up an easy chair which had been re-upholstered by Mrs. Rojan, a former SHS cook known to natives for her mouth-watering cinnamon rolls.
Once the chair was loaded into my Ford pick-up bed, someone looked up, spotted the hot air balloon overhead, and the chase was on. With one of my younger siblings involuntarily rocking back and forth in the newly-adorned chair, I directed my red truck toward City Beach.
No balloon.
Somebody said they’d seen it heading toward Dover.
Wasting no time and with frenzied kid still intact in easy chair, I sped through the south residential section of town. As I turned off Euclid to Lakeview Boulevard, a traffic jam slowed me down. People were jumping from their cars and racing toward Memorial Field.
Finally making it through the confusion, I realized I had not been alone in pursuing this aerial invader to our quiet little town. More than 200 other curious souls had converged from throughout the area to see the balloon land near the Pend Oreille River shoreline.
That brand of curiosity is inherent among Sandpoint natives who will tell you about the night the Hi-Dee-Ho burned down at Kootenai. Natives also have their own tales to tell about the 1967 Sundance Fire, the Winter of ‘68-’69 or the floods of 1974 which washed out many rural bridges and closed schools for three weeks.
There's much much more. So, if you want the real scoop about Sandpoint yesteryears, go as a "Bonner County" native. That is if you can catch 'em. They might just be in hot pursuit.
2 comments:
Hey, Marianne...like you, I'm a North Idaho Native. I lived in CDA from 1956 thru 1973, came back in '83 and have been here ever since. In 1976-77, I lived in Sandpoint, so my main memory is the KSPT Radio-Ranch. I was up there a couple of years ago, and there's so much development now, out north of town, I couldn't pinpoint where the Radio-Ranch "was". If you look at a lot of the "wayback machine" posts on my blog, you'll see I have memories of CDA, like you have at Sandpoint. One of these days, I wanna spend a summers' day at your unique city park. Take care.
Marianne:
Dwayne and I attended the Harold's IGA art show at the Pend Oreille Winery. We told some stories about Harold's having a shoe selection where the wine was while we were in Junior High. We also reminded people that the liquor store was in the area where the produce is located and that the whole place burned while we were in High School and that winter Christian Brothers Brandy with burned labels was available on the local black market at $3.00 per bottle. We got some funny looks-I thought some people thought we were making this up.
Tim
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