Here's to The Troll

I read in the paper this morning that my friend Pat had died. She's also known as Patricia when speaking of her brother Patrick-----McManus, that is. And speaking of her brother Patrick, he has immortalized his older sister as The Troll.

I never knew Patricia, The Troll, until the early 1980s, but I sure knew Pat Gass. When I read her obituary this morning, I chuckled. I know it's not nice to chuckle when learning of one's passing, but my friend Pat would appreciate those smiles because they grew out of good memories spent with a very funny lady.

I've known Pat Gass since I can remember knowing a lot of people. She lived over on the highway near the Bronx when I was growing up on North Boyer. Her son Mike was a classmate and friend of my brother Kevin. In fact, the two of them, along with Dickie DeGroot got into their share of mischief in the neighborhood.

Some of it might have to do with Werner Paulet's ice cream truck, and some of it might have to do with ex-lax inserted into pilfered ice cream bars. I don't know the whole story, but I'm sure a few readers out there could add some details and piece it together.

The Gasses and the Tibbs family were members of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, so it seems like I first got to know Pat through church activities. She and Mother were good friends. I also remember one day when Mother came home with a treasure, given to her by Pat. It was the recipe for the Driftwood Restaurant's (located just across the Montana line and now known as the Boar's Breath) French Dressing.

Somehow Pat, who was always known for her good cooking, had befriended the owner, always known for her wonderful meals and delectable pies. Somehow, Pat got that recipe and passed it around to friends. From that day forth, many of our salads were coated with yummy homemade Driftwood French dressing. I still remember most of the ingredients in the recipe and make it myself occasionally.

Pat's daughter Lynn was and still is a horse nut. Most horse nuts in the neighborhood belonged to our Schweitzer Valley Dwellers 4-H Club, which Mother led. Pat helped out with special events. I'll never forget the horse show day when my mother and Pat Gass sat in the old white announcer's booth down at the old fairgrounds and laughed themselves silly-----especially when an unnamed (for my protection) young boy came sauntering up to the announcers' stand blowing up a condom---just like a balloon.

He'd found it near the bushes, along with some others still in their packages, at the nearby City Park. There was a lot of shrieking, punctuated by grabbing those rubbers from the hands and mouth of said boy. I thought those two women were going to roll out of that announcer's stand, and I'm sure the horses passing by got a bit distracted too.

I also laughed myself silly with Pat one day. This occurred after I knew that she was Patricia and that she was The Troll. She had always mentioned her brother Pat who taught at Eastern, but that had meant nothing to me. Then, one day, a student Gary Neu asked me if I'd ever read any Patrick F. McManus stories. When I said no, he promised to bring me a book the next day.

As promised, the next morning he walked into English class with Patrick F. McManus' first book A Fine and Pleasant Misery. I read a couple of stories to the students, and I was hooked. That was my first introduction to The Troll (the seemingly vile older sister who inflicted fiendish treatment on her poor, helpless younger brother).

It was not until later that discussion of the book and its stories eventually connected the dots in my head. I was amazed that this famous author had lived just down the road and across Sand Creek from me and truly amazed that his sister was someone I'd known my whole life---and, that SHE was The Troll.

Well, The Troll wrote a cookbook, published back in 1989, and I got to write about her in the Spokesman-Review when the cookbook hit the bookstores across the nation. It sold 100,000 copies almost immediately. To prepare for my feature about my friend Pat, I arranged to meet her at Connie's Restaurant. It was there that we laughed ourselves silly.

I think we were almost on the floor and about to be invited out the door when she told the story about "fried baloney slices" for dinner. I think it was the method she used to mimic her mother's big build-up toward a night with the family "delicacy" for dinner back when they were pretty poor. Pat kept mimicking Mama McManus while I kept laughing and snorting harder and harder. Eventually we were both getting really loud, and by that time I was crying and my stomach hurt.

We never did get kicked out of Connie's, but I've always gotten a kick out of visualizing those nights at the McManus household when that special treat of "fried baloney slices" was on the menu.

I have Patricia, Pat and The Troll and that poor little brother to thank for my own immersion into the world of authordum. One day a couple of years after I'd taken over the Cedar Post at Sandpoint High School and I found myself spending most weekends at the school and many school nights wide awake, I determined that something had to give.

I called Patricia and asked if she could convince her brother to read a couple of my stories to see if they would be publishable for magazines. The motive was to find a way out of that huge teaching load. She later called back (probably after beating her little brother into submission) and told me to polish up four stories, bring them to her, and she would see that Little Brother read them. I stressed to her that if they were "garbage," I wanted to know that too.

Seven months went by. I heard nothing. One day she asked if I'd heard from him yet. When I said no, it was a short time later that she called me and said she had received a letter "from that brother of mine." She told me to come and get it and read it. I still have that letter tucked away with the manuscript for Pocket Girdles. In it, he encouraged me to write a collection of my stories and told me that they were funny and nostalgic and could certainly play to a national audience.

Later, when the book was published, endorsements from Patrick and Patricia appeared on the back cover. And soon thereafter, Patricia organized my very first author signing at St. Joseph's Catholic Church. In fact, I just wrote about that signing event in a posting last week.

I have many more wonderful stories to share about Patricia, Pat, The Troll, but I'll just reflect on them personally and when I do, I'm sure there will be plenty of chuckles and a few tears. Tears come out of total hilarity, and other tears evolve from a deep sense that someone who made a profound difference in my life is in a better place.

And, it could be that she and her friends up there are erupting with laughter. Do they serve fried baloney slices in Heaven?