Forest Service Friday

I've been writing a few news releases about the Forest Service doubleheader today here in Sandpoint. The articles tell about a reception at the local museum for present and past Forest Service employees who can swap stories, sample refreshments and view Idaho's only showing of the K.D. Swan photographic exhibit Splendid Was the Trail. After that gathering, they can move on down to the Panida Theater at 7 p.m. and watch the two-hour movie The Greatest Good: A Forest Service Centennial Documentary.

These two events represent Sandpoint's way of celebrating the 100th birthday of the U.S. Forest Service. I'm planning to take in at least the first part of the offerings. Having seen the movie here at home, I don't know if I'd want to sit through it again. The reception, however, could be well worth attending, especially to see the faces out of the past and reconnect.

I'm one of many former Forest Service employees in this area, and I relish that experience during my early 20s when I worked summers for the U.S. Forest Service engineers. The first year, my partner Sis Ballenger and I were notable novelties within the ranks. In fact, we were the first young women to work in the field (besides lookouts) for the Kaniksu National Forest. We were such a new breed that the local paper featured an article about us called "Hard Hats and Curls."

My "in" with the Forest Service came through Esther Lines, a family shirt-tail relative who worked as secretary for the Kaniksu engineers. Esther heard that the honchos were going to hire some girls to run their traffic surveys, so she let my mother know. I signed up and had me a summer job. Before reporting to work, I had to purchase some sturdy boots because the Forest Service had standards for safety.

After meeting Sis and the staff, including Vern Eskridge, Dave Lee, George Agar, Dick Creed, Howard McKay, Jim Stark, Rudy Reuterdahl, Grant Vest, and "Clearwater Norm" Allison, among others, we started our field work surveying nine miles of the Grouse Creek Road. During lunchtime, Dick Creed was always searching for huckleberries, so we just dubbed him "Huckleberry," which he's remained in my mind ever since.

The greatest good I derived from working for the Forest Service was getting to know some lifelong friends and getting to know the vast domains within the mountains around Sandpoint, Bonners Ferry, Trout Creek, Montana, and Usk, Washington. We learned the truck driver wave (one finger above the steering wheel) as we drove our various "rigs" up narrow, sometimes washed-out mountain roads. We also talked to hundreds of recreationalists during two-day traffic surveys at forest entrances near Priest Lake, Usk, Farragut, Clark Fork and Trout Creek.

During the second summer, my partner changed. Sis opted to do something else, and Chris Moon came aboard. That partnership spawned a warm friendship that I'm sure will live with each of us to the grave. I'm also sure that Chris will agree that our adventures and "misadventures" in our Job Corps Dodge Power Wagon will always rank among the most powerful memories of our lives.

We did our office and field jobs and then some. I don't know whether I should mention all the "then some's," but some of those antics involved battery acid burns that sent Chris home to get some new jeans, and unauthorized trips to Chewelah, Washington, and Canada. Don't ask me what business a couple of Forest Service maidens had at the Canadian border, but I'm sure our "lie" was plausible at the time. We did have a story cooked up for every time we took a slight detour from our assigned mission, just in case we got caught.

On our twice weekly round-the-lake missions to set up and read half a dozen traffic counters in the Coeur d'Alene and Johnson Creek drainages, we carefully timed our work load (all of about 15 minutes a day) to coincide with lunch at John and Carol Bertoni's establishment in beautiful, serene Lakeview which is situated in the midst of some of Lake Pend Oreille's most active gold and silver mining. We loved that little village along the lakeshore and looked forward to our hamburgers and visits with John and Carol.

We also got to know Ada and Devere Hannah at Usk and Flo at the Eat-a-Bite Cafe in Trout Creek. For our 12-hour long traffic surveys, we brought along ice chests filled with way more food than either of us ever needed to eat, but when you're sitting for 12 hours in a spot where maybe five cars go by all day long, ya gotta entertain yourself somehow. We were definitely no Jenny Craig's during those summers.

I won't forget the cherry seed-spitting contests on the Bunco Road, and I can never forget that same setting where several bees got down my pants and stung me right as a car was rolling into our traffic stop. At that frantic, piercingly painful moment, I was not the least bit modest about pulling down my jeans to ward off the fiendish critters. Chris and the visitors enjoyed the show.

My memories over four summers with the Forest Service could fill another book. And, I'm sure I'll be spouting out a few at the reception this afternoon. It promises to be a great journey back to a splendid time in my life. I'm looking forward to it.