Seven days and counting

Hooray for Lew Mulligan who wants to hear about pumpkins, the summer and the Bonner County Fair. Lew is not alone, although I'll admit to enjoying some good monthly dirt from Lawrence Fury and a frequent assessment or two from my friend Erik Daarstad who can't believe what's happening to his adopted community. I say to Erik, "Imagine what it's like for us dumb natives, if you think you're feeling bad."

Lew wrote a thoughtful, plain-spoken piece which appeared in the midst of all the "y'oughta's" in today's local letters-to-the-editor. His comments probably mirrored the vast majority of Bonner County citizens who are getting sick and tired of trying to avoid the eye pollution, noise pollution and telephone pollution of one of the most vindictive election campaigns I've ever witnessed. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does---from the bottom up.

Cathy McMorris has been killing veterans in hospital parking lots. One senator in Virginia is accusing a Senator wannabe of writing lurid, sleazy stuff in his NOVELS.

Butch Otter is NOT selling off Idaho as Jerry Brady claims.

Lewis Rich DID NOT HAVE sticky fingers with those Karl Dye signs on the Daily Bee paper machines.

"Oh yes, he did," David Keyes claims, based on evidence from Daily Bee spies strategically seated with hoods over their heads in cars with tinted windows, watching the machines around town.

And that Sali guy----he's a plain "frickin'" idiot (I've never used "frickin'" before; feels kinda good) and he's claiming abortion leads to breast cancer. That Micron guy is gonna get those San Francisco and New York liberals back in power.

Oh yeah, I forgot: Iz it Jerry Brady in Idaho or iz it that mustachey cowboy with all the kids and the loyal wife in Washington State----both THE TAX MEN---who plans to charge taxes for my funeral? I'll have to find out soon so I know where it's cheaper to die.

But then again, what difference does it make? They've told us from Day One that two things we can count on in life are Death and Taxes. With this new election-time claim, maybe the maxim needs to modified: The two things we can count on in life and IN DEATH are death and taxes. But then again, the redundance in that statement begs for some editing.

Speaking of editing, I'd like to do some to about 90 percent of the campaign ads. I'd like very much to have all candidates follow the model used by some folks for whom I plan to vote: The ads would go something like this:

• Here are my strengths . . . .

• This is what I'd like to do for you . . . .
• I would appreciate your support because if I am elected to office or am returned to office, I will strive to serve you to the best of my ability.
• I will continually communicate with my constituency.
• I will make difficult decisions when needed and will stand firmly behind those decisions.
• I will work professionally with other office holders--regardless of their party affiliation,--to do what's most sensible for the majority.
• I know that I cannot satisfy all the people all the time, but you can count on my consistently doing my job with professionalism and common sense.
• I will not stoop to childlike behavior toward my opponents no matter how low they go to smear and back stab me. You can count on me to take the high road no matter what.
• I thank you for your vote, and I hope to honor your faith in me by doing my job in a professional, nonpolitical manner.

A few office seekers this year have stuck to the above principles in the maze of slimy strategies employed by far too many candidates and their so-called "public relations" firms which keep insisting that negative campaigning works with the voters. I often wonder if these people feel proud when they see their sleazy, gutter-style attack ads playing over and over and over. Maybe it takes no conscience or self respect to get elected.

Nonetheless, in seven days it will all be over for a few months before an even more intense and nasty Presidential election leads the way in once again pounding into our heads what creeps we have running for public office.

For now, my votes go to the candidates who take the high road, and I'm really anxious to see who grew the best pumpkin in Bonner County.

The crunch of snow; a new routine

The rain had stopped. I had just urged my five plastic skeleton heads with their wiggly eyeballs to stand at attention in the front lawn near the house. As I worked with the insubordinate Halloween soldiers, the breeze was earning its way toward a promotion into full-blown wind. Apparently, it impressed the gods upstairs because ten minutes later, I looked out the sliding-glass door to a wild blizzard.

Almost instantaneously, the leafy green carpet had turned white. The weather forecasters had said for two days we were going to have snow. Once more, I'd figured they got it wrong. We had rain most of the day, but the afternoon had turned dry. As I saw it, the brief rain storm after dinner would be followed by a cold crisp day, and the snow would remain in the mountains to the east and the west.

The weather forecasters got it right. For a couple of hours last evening, I returned to the sliding glass door and flipped on the outside light in amazement. With each trip, I also felt really relieved that yesterday marked the beginning of barn stay for Rambo and Casey. As the snow whirled furiously at the whim of a determined wind, both of my boys stood snugly in the barn with plenty of hay and with heated water within each of their stalls.

I was glad. All cats had reported to the house. Dogs lay on the hide-a-bed in the garage. Everyone could take a long winter's nap, secure that we were all warm and protected from this first blast of winter. While watching the 6 o'clock news, I wondered out loud to Bill if this would be a winter like the one we endured ten years ago when it started snowing on Halloween and couldn't figure out how to stop until nearly April.

Roofs caved in that year all over North Idaho, including the auditorium roof at Sandpoint High. That disaster extended our Christmas vacation. That was also the year that I had gone to the emergency room one fall day after Rambo and Casey had gotten out and gone to visit the Feists. While leading them back across the field, I had my hands full as Casey was more than anxious to get somewhere fast.

My friend Jean---are you reading this, Jean?----stopped along the road to visit when she saw me out in the field rounding up the two yahoots. She probably still doesn't know what happened later. Casey got his feet caught in a downed board gate. While trying to free him, I went down on my knee unlike I'd ever gone down before. I heard and felt something snap. With horses running all over the place, I tried to get to the house. Eventually, I was crawling cuz that knee hurt so bad.

I called my dad who couldn't figure out who it was at the other end. Apparently, my usual deep, mellow voice wasn't sounding so mellow at the time. He finally figured it out, called 911 and headed for town with my mother. All emergency vehicles that could make all the noise in the world soon descended on our place. Somebody eventually got the horses back into their corral, and I eventually came home from the emergency room with a knee brace and crutches.

What does this have to do with the winter of 1996? We had all that snow, and I could not cross country ski once during all those months cuz of that darned sore knee which required about nine months to finally heal.

This morning, I once again led Casey and Rambo to another pasture. They had not escaped this time, and their behavior was much more satisfactory than that September day ten years ago. They walked side by side like gentlemen toward the Ponderosa Pasture, and as they did, I could hear crunch, crunch, crunch from the blanket of frozen snow that now covers the ground.

The day promises a blue sky, a crisp, calm air and a whole new scene to behold here at the Selle Lovestead. Also, the daily routine for another winter has begun. Each afternoon before dark all will snuggle into their warm winter's nest, and each evening, I'll be glad that we have such wonderful facilities for our animals as they happily adjust to the winter routines in their new home.

Each morning, we'll all emerge from our nests to see just what the winter offers here on South Center Valley Road.

Now, if I could just get those skeleton heads to remain at attention when I plug in their lights for the ghosts, goblins and guests who come by to visit on Halloween.

Nobody told the animals

To all loyal readers: Pardon the delay. I wrote this very early this morning, but apparently the blogger gods fell asleep on the job. Nobody told them about the time change either.


Pardon me if this is brief today. For some, maybe that's probably a blessing. Whatever the case, I must hurry with this posting. The sun is coming up as I type when yesterday it was dark. My mother has already called this morning---at 6:17. That was her second call of the morning. She also talked to my brother in Missoula earlier. Missoula is an hour ahead of us.

Mother hadn't changed her clocks, so she's been up, she's eaten her breakfast, and she was ready to gab much earlier than usual. I hadn't quite finished reading the Spokesman when the phone rang. I'd made it to the Outdoors Section and had just finished a story about a lady who got flashed by lightning while on a hike this summer.

I'd read that story shortly after learning that the milfoil problem in Lake Pend Oreille will soon go away because some people blessed the lake yesterday afternoon. I still haven't learned if Idaho won its game in Hawaii because things in Hawaii happen three hours later than things happen in Idaho. Compounding the problem is the time change so maybe it was 2 a.m. this morning before the Idaho-Hawaii game ended here in Idaho.

I expected Annie to let me know. After all, she's in Hawaii, and on Friday she told us she's even staying at the same hotel as the Vandal football team. You'd a thunk she would have taken that fancy camera, snapped some pictures of the game and posted them on her blog, thus scooping both the Spokesman and the Bee who have to wait until tomorrow (for the Spokesman) and Tuesday (for the Bee) to let readers know what happened in the game.

Somehow, Annie's slipping on the job. It could be all this time change stuff has played havoc with her schedule. If so, I'll forgive her. I hope she's changed her watch so she'll know what time to get on the plane at 4 o'clock Idaho time so she can get back to Seattle at 10 o'clock Seattle time. I guess that's the same as Idaho time, right?

This time-change stuff does create a lot of problems, and that's precisely why I said this posting was going to be short. This morning I don't have the luxury of typing in the dark while my two horses wait patiently out there in Pasture No. 2 for me to come out and take them to the Ponderosa Pasture for the really good eats.

Casey's been out there pacing the fence and looking toward the house since before I sat down to type. The sun has been shining on the mountains, and he knows it's well past time to get to Ponderosa Land. Nobody told the animals about the time change, just like nobody reminded my mother whether to turn her clock backward or forward.

Now, if I wanted to ensure that she wouldn't be calling me tomorrow at 6:17 a.m. before Blog Posting for the morning gab session, I could have just told her to Spring Forward. But that wouldn't be nice, and I'm always nice to my mother.

Furthermore, it wouldn't do me a whole lot of good with Casey, cuz nobody told those animals to Fall Back.

Gotta go!

Farewell, Jean

Within a two-minute time frame late yesterday afternoon, I received two notes letting me know that Jean Brown had passed away. I'd heard only hours earlier in the grocery store that she was fading quickly and that her family was gathering.

I also heard that, in spite of her declining health, Jean's robust sense of humor remained intact. While awake from a slumber, she reportedly said something to the effect of, "If I'd known so many people were coming, I would have had a guestbook."

Well, Jean, I'm sure your guestbook will need a few inserts over these next few days as your family, friends and fans---while bidding you adieu---remember how you touched each of them personally.

Jean Brown was a Sandpoint matriarch---not only to her loving, adoring family but also to the community of old-time Sandpoint. Jean's passing closes one more chapter in an era when virtually everyone in town knew the Brown's, and the Brown's knew their town.

Folks knew the Browns because Jean's husband had established the expansive Pack River Lumber Co., which employed a majority of Sandpoint residents at its area mills. The town also knew the Browns because of Schweitzer, which Jim Brown helped establish back in the early 1960s.

More importantly, than this domination of local industry, the town knew the Browns because of their generosity and their philanthropy, especially when it came to the church where they worshiped, St. Joseph's Catholic Church on Oak Street.

It was in that church that I became acquainted with the Brown family. When you're little and you live in a small town, you notice when someone has your same last name. It was easy for me to identify with Bobbie Brown, Jean's eldest daughter, when she was my first teacher. I was five at the time. I met Bobbie while attending my first Sister School session. Bobbie was helping out the nuns by teaching us little tykes some Bible history.

That connection stuck with me, especially when I moved on into grade school and eventually met Jackie who was a year younger than I. The in-town Browns were rich, while the out-of-town Browns were not. That didn't matter. Over the years, a friendship sprouted. That friendship has thrived for my entire lifetime.

I probably know Bobbie the best of the Browns, but I always had great respect for Jackie, as did my mother who sang in the church choir under Jackie's direction. Later, when Jody and Patti came along, I thoroughly enjoyed teaching Patti and following her travels as she began a farm life over on one of Pack River's ranches in Montana. Jody became a nurse, and she tended to my mother's needs a time or two at the local hospital.

As the years went by, I had the opportunity to return the teaching favor to Bobbie, several times over with five of her six children. For some reason Jean Pierre, who graduated with my daughter Annie, never made it to my classroom. But Gabbie, who's Willie's age, served as my loyal and thoughtful English aide one year during her high school career. I teased Danielle, the oldest, that she sure looked a lot like Tatum O'Neal. She may still remember the lollipop I gave her at the time. That was when she was an adorable little girl dubbed to carry the flowers at a high school Homecoming.

I laughed a lot with Joelle through a rather tough personal year (the year of our house fire) and introduced Suzanne to art of photography. Nicole brought me back a squirt-gun toilet from one of her family trips; I had to confess to her a few years later that I'd given the squirt gun to Ben Stein's son Tommy when they came to visit my classroom.

Speaking of that house fire, I found the note this summer that Bobbie wrote to me when our house burned down. "Come and go through my closet," she wrote. "There are a lot of clothes in there I can't wear. You're welcome to anything."

I tell these stories because these are the influences Jean Brown had on me, albeit indirectly through her children and grandchildren. I often viewed Jean from afar as she walked into Mass every Sunday, found a pew and gave a big smile to whoever sat next to her. I often saw her as she pulled up for Daily Masses at St. Joseph's. And, I'd hear what Jean thought about things via Fr. Tim O'Donovan, one of her closest friends. Fr. Tim often reciprocated and shared my thoughts with Jean.

A few years ago, Jean was honored in Sandpoint's first class of Women of Wisdom. In her characteristic way, she was so humbled and almost reluctant to be named along with Pat Venishnick, Mary Parker, Dr. Mary Pepper and Ann Cordes, among others. I had the honor of being the guest speaker for that first event. My speech included little snippets about many of the women being honored, including Jean. She called me later to let me know how much she had appreciated my thoughts.

So much will be said, so many memories will be revived in the next few days as the town says good bye to this grand lady who lived with such dignity and with genuine caring for the people who made up the heart and soul of oldtime Sandpoint. She could travel with the high society of the Spokane elite, but she always kept the best interests of the common, everyday ordinary people close to her soul. And, whenever possible, she acted upon their needs very quietly.

Truly the mark of a great woman. Farewell, Jean. Your guestbook will reflect your good works of a life well-lived on this earth.

Best Damn Pumpkin Dessert, Period!

Sue Brooks is one of my foreward friends. She doesn't send jokes. She doesn't send recycled stuff you've seen a thousand times, and so far, I've never received a foreward which threatens that if I don't send it to 13 other people within 30 seconds something bad might happen. Sue often sends thoughtful messages. She's a local realtor who's done well with her sales. She's upbeat, positive and caring.

So, when Sue sends me a foreward, I usually check it out. This past week I received a recipe from her with the comment "By popular demand." I knew that the Women Honoring Women were having a fall luncheon this past weekend for all Women of Wisdom honorees cuz my mother was supposed to go. The Louisville travel schedule got in the way of her attending.

Anyway, I have a feeling Sue's recipe must've been a hit at the luncheon. She simply called it Pumpkin Dessert; I call it the Best Damn Pumpkin Dessert Recipe, Period. That's because I took a special trip to town to get what ingredients I didn't have. Then, I spent part of a sunny afternoon inside mixing up the stuff and putting it in the oven for its 50-60 minutes of cooking. I then went outside, did some projects and got back inside precisely when the oven timer went off.

About 60 seconds later, I was scooping out a sample from the corner of my baking dish, globbing on some whipped cream and eating 325 degree pumpkin dessert. Now, it tasted good, but that's not a good idea, even if you just can't wait to try it.

My advice is to go find another outdoor project lasting at least an hour while your dessert sits in the refrigerator and cools off. Then, the remaining dessert from which you took the sample will not look like a pumpkin-colored mud flow. Pumpkin-colored mud flows look too much like something else. So, leave it alone until it thoroughly cools, and then it will set up.

Once that happens you'll be returning time after time to the frig to chop off just another little bite to remind you just how really good it tastes. And your husband having tried it the night before will scoop out half the pan for his lunch the next day. I guarantee the supreme goodness of this dessert, and I thank Sue for passing it along.

Here's the recipe:

CRUST:

1 Box of yellow cake mix (Reserve 1 cup and set aside)
Add to the cake mix 1 melted stick of butter or margarine, 1 beaten egg, and ½ cup of chopped walnuts. Mix well. Spread mixture in a 9x13 greased baking pan.

FILLING:

Mix together: 1 large can of pumpkin, 4 beaten eggs, ½ cup of brown sugar, ½ cup sugar, 2/3 cup of Evaporated milk, 2 ½ tsp of cinnamon, 1 tsp of nutmeg, ¼ tsp salt. Spread the filling over the crust.

TOPPING:

Mix together until crumbly: the reserved 1 cup of cake mix, ½ cup sugar, ½ cup of walnuts, ½ stick of softened butter or margarine. Crumble the topping over the filling.

Bake @ 350 for 50-60 minutes. Cool and serve with whipped cream on top.

Now that I've passed along Sue's recipe to all of you and since Bill is probably downstairs scooping up the last of the Best Damn Pumpkin Dessert, Period, I'd better hurry to town and grab my share of yellow cake mix before Yoke's runs out.

Special Note: If you end up liking this recipe, you may also enjoy reading my three humorous books, all available at www.amazon.com.  Heck, one even has Idaho potato recipes.  For more information about the set---Pocket Girdles, Postcards from Potato Land and Lessons with Love---which would make a nice, inexpensive and family-oriented gift for any occasion, visit my website at www.mariannelove.com.  Also, I'd love to have your follow my blog; there's a posting every single day.   Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy the dessert! ~~~~Marianne 

Fence friends

Everybody needs a fence friend. Jim Vanicek has told me that twice now. Bill met Jim within the first week that we'd moved here. Jim pulled up next to him at the stop sign near Selle Road, introduced himself and said, "Now, Jeff always told me when he had the electric fence on." I guess his comment was an overture for the Loves to do the same.

Well, our neighbors to the south don't need to worry. We're never going to tell them when we have the electric fence on cuz we're not going to turn it on, ever. Well, we will string a wire around Rambo and Casey's barn pasture up here by the house, and we'll turn on the charger occasionally, just to encourage them to stay away from the fence. We've followed that practice over the years.

All tolled, our fence charger usually works about two hours a year. That's about how long it takes for one of our geldings to hit the wire, recoil, look highly insulted and stay the heck away from the fence for at least a couple of months. We've usually had to turn on the charger once in the spring to establish ground rules and once in the fall when pasture grass has diminished and pickin's look much better in the lawn.

The previous owners had goats. So, the previous owners had a monster fence charger which ran mega jolts through five wires along the perimeter of the 20 acres and across every one of the seven pastures. The 4-foot high fences kept the goats in and the neighbors nervous. It's that last part that bothers me. Electric fence makes me nervous cuz it's taken only a couple of hits in my lifetime to know what a whallop it can pack.

We're NOT going to have that all over this place, I announced almost immediately after moving here. I know enough to stay away from those wires, but I don't even want to think about them. The set-up reminds me too much of being in a prison, not that I've ever spent any time there. The intimidation factor of a potential electric shock from a fence 30 feet away is more than I want to deal with on a daily basis. Therefore, we're on a mission to gradually replace all goat fence with higher non-electrified smooth wire.

So, neighbor Jim never needs to worry. He has a fence friend here at the Lovestead, and his kids can walk along their lane bordering our woods without worrying about that fence coming over and biting them.

Jim uses the lane between our place and his Yak pasture for his snowmobile and his motorcycle. He also mows it with his riding mower. That's what he was doing one night while I was out for a walk in the woods. While my dogs proceeded to dig a hole halfway to China, Jim and I talked and talked and talked and agreed we could be fence friends. He brought that agreement up again last night when I invited him and his wife Tracey to drop over on Halloween.

Jim's a fence friend and so are Bev and Ron. They're our neighbors directly to the south. We can see their house from ours, but both parties pretty much mind their own business. The other day, however, I was out trimming the witches' limbs from the lower parts of our trees when I saw Annie Dog walk through the fence. She had heard Bev and Ron walking along their driveway so she thought she needed to go visit. When I yelled at Annie to come back, they saw me and came over to the fence---very carefully.

"Is that thing on?" Ron asked.

"No, and it will never be on," I assured him.

"Good," he said.

We gabbed for about twenty minutes, during which they told me of their efforts to build a pond. Their hope is to provide a sanctuary for the dozens of deer who hang out in the neighborhood. They've also seen a moose travel through their land, so they're hoping birds and four-legged critters will find a nice place to spend some time. That is, if they can get the water flowing. The well digger had gone hundreds of feet yesterday without much luck. So, we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I've learned that Bev makes a good batch of molasses cookies and that they're car nuts who belong to the Injectors Auto Club. I've also learned that they're very nice people. It was that fence visit that inspired the idea to invite my fence friends and other close neighbors to come for treats next week.

During their visit, we won't have to talk over the not-so-electric fence, but I'm sure the gathering will go far to make some darned good neighbors.

A visit to yesterday

After yesterday's excitement of learning about the ambitious restoration of what I call the old junior high, what others call the high school, what some call the Ninth Grade Center and what even others remember as their Sixth-grade Center, I paid a visit.

There's a fence around the front of the building, suggesting that the public ought to stay away while construction workers throw debris from the third story to the ground below. The work on the front-face windows continues. Seeing this, I drove around to the Pine Street Annex and parked. I figured the contractor must have an office inside where I hoped to meet him for that big promised hug and thanks. I also brought a Pocket Girdles book along, just in case.

Walking down the hallway of the old junior high annex for the first time in years, I saw unfamiliar business names on the roster. My first impression was that I've hardly kept up with the professional and business additions to my home town. At the end of the hall in the same area where a very young and handsome Jack Bloxom (retired NIC baseball coach) taught us eighth-grade history, there's a financial services office.

Rather than going on a wild goose chase through the building, I decided to walk in and ask about the contractor's whereabouts. I waited a minute before Kevin Younger walked from his desk and told me that Brad Scott operates out of his home but can usually be found on the site. Kevin encouraged me to go ahead and look for him by going through the back door into the old gym. I reassured Kevin I could always apologize for my stupidity if someone discovered me there and ordered me out.

Off I went into the past. Well, it didn't look exactly like the past because there's lots of equipment and debris sitting around the gym area, but that famous running track that circled the above us in the bleachers as we ate our sack lunches by day and hoped a lot by night at the Friday-night dances----it remains intact. I walked across the layer of floor boards lying beneath the once-spit-shined surface where prospective athletic stars like Smoky Chubb and Mike Parkins dazzled us teens with their basketball savvy.

A tinge of guilt caused me to tiptoe quietly and carefully across the gym, past the boiler room, then past Betty Cross's health classroom and up the small set of stairs toward the lobby where so many students entered the school each morning and headed up or down for their first-period classes. Like a deer snooping in an off-limits garden, I chose each step carefully, surveying my surroundings as I walked up those same stairs where Charlie Stidwell stood each morning for belt and short-skirt checks.

Again, I had to step around debris while walking down the hallway by the office where Mrs. Keiski read the Bible every morning. Then, there was Room 14 at the end of the hall. In that infamous room Miriam Buck shared her algebra papers with a large group of us nearly every morning. Many of us just didn't get algebra.

Our teacher scared the beejeebers out of us, and we knew we dare not show up to class without a completed assignment. Miriam was smart. She got algebra, and she was generous with her assignments. I'd venture to say that many of us would never have passed algebra, had it not been for Miriam. Sadly, she died a few years after we graduated from high school, so we never really got to tell her how much we appreciated her generosity with those papers. We were too desperate as ninth graders to think of such things.

I could hear men's voices around the corner from Room 14, but upon turning, I saw no one. I wheeled around, worried that some construction worker would appear out of nowhere and yell at me to get out of the building. But, as I returned around the corner, the hallway remained empty. I chuckled to myself that getting yelled at for an indiscretion would seem perfectly normal in this setting. That had happened a time or two before.

I retraced my steps and soon decided it was probably best to get out of here. Besides, I'd gotten a view of the old building for the first time in more than 25 years. That was probably more than most people could brag. Back down the stairs, I again passed Betty Cross's health room where she always kept that creepy skeleton which helped us learn anatomy. The skeleton's gone but not the blackboard.

"Aha," I thought. "Maybe I can get permission to come down here and use the blackboard for an idea I have for my Lessons with Love book cover. The trip had not been in vain, even though I hadn't met the owner.

As I stepped back into the gym, I felt one last urge to walk over toward the lunchroom and then into the hallway near that God-awful girls' locker room where the herd of us awkward, hopelessly modest 14-year-olds had to strip naked and take a shower every day after P.E. That dingy place always gave me the creeps because it reminded me too much of the showers where Germans exterminated Jews during World War II.

As I neared the infamous locker room across the hall from Priscilla Judge's English classroom, a tall young man walked down the stairs toward me. He looked harmless enough and didn't seem too concerned of my presence. I introduced myself and learned that his father is the contractor. Having thought about that building and its restoration all day, the adrenalin of the moment rendered me nearly speechless. I had so much to say to him that it was hard to know where to start.

I think he got the message that I was excited about the upcoming revival of my old school. He walked with me to the car where I gave him a copy of Pocket Girdles and asked him to encourage his father to read the title chapter and "The Nuts and Bolts of Junior High Choir." I even pointed out and explained to him the importance of the Whatnot Shop. He'd never heard of the place.

Matt Scott seemed genuinely pleased with my visit and told me to come back and look around any time. By all means, he said, feel free to use the blackboards. I'll take him up on that offer, and when I do, I'll carry along a copy of our alumni Cedar Post with Kyle Delamarter's wonderful story of our junior high principal Charlie Stidwell. Maybe his dad will get some ideas for naming that restored auditorium or the gym-floor banquet room.

I love taking visits to yesterday, but yesterday's journey through that grand old school was superb.

Good-news developer

It's become the "D" word around Sandpoint. Over the past few years as we've seen several structural historic icons around our community obliterated to make room for new construction, we tried-and-true locals have begun loathe the word "developer" and its meaning. So, it's always good news when we can read about a developer who shows respect for history and who has the means to preserve pieces of our past that have been so important to the community.

We've seen this with the beautiful restoration of the old post office on North Second. We'll be seeing it again soon when the old city hall on Second and Main gets restored by a Seattle architect who's doing the same for the historic Beardmore Building in Priest River. Over the past few weeks, we've been seeing exterior work on windows, and now we read officially that a developer named Brad Scott is restoring the old high school on Pine and Euclid.

Hallelujah!

His plans for ornate three-story brick structure, which housed hundreds of Sandpoint students through decades of school years, call for a banquet room in the old gym (complete with the running track above), a coffee shop, an elevator and offices. He hopes to restore the third-floor 500-seat auditorium into a facility that will house weddings, musical performances and civic events.

From what I read this morning, he's had his eye on that building for several years and has fallen in love with it. I don't know Brad Scott, but he's a hero in my book. Unlike many other developers who've all but stamped out every visual memory of Sandpoint's past in their ruthless march to make their fortunes, this man is demonstrating a caring respect and appreciation for a structure close to the hearts of thousands of present community residents and natives who have moved elsewhere

I think of my own cherished memories during three years spent as a student at what we called Sandpoint Junior High School. Many are documented in my first book, including my youthful indiscretion of participating in a methodical plan to remove the nuts and bolts from the auditorium chairs. We were supposed to be studying each sixth hour during a lull between choir concerts with our teacher Dona Meehan, but as precocious 12-year-olds our youthful minds led us astray.

I got in on the dismantling project after noticing that several of my classmates who'd come into the auditorium at the beginning of class were nowhere to be found DURING the class. I learned later that immediately after Mrs. Meehan took attendance and began tending to her musical planning, these classmates disappeared under the seats and began removing those nuts and bolts one by one.

The next day I decided to participate. I could never restrain myself when involved in such impishness; hence, within minutes, my giggles gave me away. Mrs. Meehan heard me, then she caught me---down on all fours with a screw in my hand. A bunch of seventh grade girls got the lesson of their lives when Mrs. Meehan brought our principal, Charlie Stidwell, into the auditorium the next day to reprimand us.

Anyone in Sandpoint during those days knows that a reprimand from Charlie was never on anyone's list of "things to experience." He lectured us and charged us with the challenge of doing something positive to make up for our vandalism. Each of the guilty parties picked a project around the school, which when completed would be inspected by the powers-that-be. Then, they would decide whether or not to tell our parents and whether or not we would ever be allowed into honor society.

I dusted Mrs. Meehan's piano. I learned a lesson that stuck with me from that time on. That magnificent auditorium served as part of my training ground for life----in one way I learned never to sing in public again, in another, I learned to avoid any further temptations to be part of the group when the group was doing something naughty but (in our teenage minds) fun. It just wasn't worth it to live in the fear that Charlie and his troops could impose on us.

I went to dances in that first-floor gym where mostly girls danced. I prayed one Friday night that Greg McFarland would come to ask me to dance. I thought my prayer had been answered when he came directly my way but asked Karen Arndt who was sitting right next to me. He had the nerve to break my heart after I had bought him Good and Plenty's---his candy of choice.

I learned how to enunciate my words clearly and that it's "inCOGnito," not "incogNITo" from Ann Curtis in her third-floor speech room. I trapsed to the Whatnut Shop across the street every noonhour for nickel and dime candy. Corn nuts were the rage at the time. I'll never forget all the assemblies and concerts we attended in that auditorium and, fortunately, never fell out of our vandalized seats. And, of course, I endured the famous "pocket girdle" debacle in the hallways, the bathroom, Mr. Chronic's science room and the annex.

So many memories, and those come from one individual alone. I cannot fathom the infinite numbers of stories that unfolded during the years when that building served as the foundation for so many young people's lives. The knowledge that its glorious past will be brought back to life for scores of future generations with such meticulous care is about the best news I've read here in Sandpoint for a long time. I'm sure that I'm not alone in my excitement.

I'm looking forward to meeting Brad Scott one of these days. I'll walk up to him, give him a big hug and say "thank you" for being a foreward-thinking, wise developer with a vision embracing what's so near and dear to many of us who have mourned as vital remnants of our area history slowly disappeared.

Instead of the "D" word, I think of Brad Scott and his plans for the old high school as a big "A-Plus."

Special Note: Speaking of preserving, Miss Annie Love flew to Honolulu yesterday morning, and she's already snapped some neat photos to preserve her memories. She'll be adding to them all week, so if you like fun photography and Hawaii, bookmark (http://www.nnlove.blogspot.com)

Jokers

I listened to some good jokes yesterday. Bill's first boss from the Forest Service "The Boz, " came to visit us with his wife Jill. Within five minutes of sipping coffee and eating cookies in the living room, The Boz started with a good one where a lady has learned etiquette. Instead of saying F--- Y--, she substitutes her reactions with "Isn't that nice?"

As I listened, it struck me that it's been a long time since I've gotten into a good joke-telling session. In my carefree youth, I considered myself a premiere joke teller. In fact, my friend Laura used to get mad at me because I often told dirty jokes, so I was always as careful around her as I was with my parents. After all, the first and one of the few times the "F" word ever dribbled out of my mouth, I got a great big spanking.

It was a Saturday night before televison. We three older siblings were the only siblings at the time. We were entertaining ourselves in the kitchen by coming up with words that rhymed with whatever word someone shouted out.

It soon occurred to me that if I just went down the alphabet, I could come up with the words much faster. Hence, if a brother yelled out "near," I'd go "beer, cheer, deer, ear, fear," etc. Then, one of my brothers shouted, "LUCK!" Of course, I immediately jumped in and hardly got down the alphabet before my dad came in the kitchen, spanked me and said to never do that again.

I had no idea what I'd done wrong until the next year at school when someone wrote that bad word in big black letters on the white portable outside Lincoln School. It turned into a school scandal until the culprit was nabbed and punished by our principal Marvel Ekholm.

After I heard about this graffiti crime, a fast track back to the night of rhymes in the kitchen suddenly revealed the motive behind my dad's madness. In spite of their threats to wash our mouths out with soap, I eventually learned and utilized some naughty words. My favorite started with and "S." It seemed to work well for everything. Occasionally, as a talking-under-my-breath teen-ager my folks would accuse me of using that "S" word. They were right.

Along with naughty words came the good jokes, and, at school I reigned as one of the better joke tellers. I loved telling them because I loved laughing. And, when others would laugh, that just made my day. I enjoyed one especially good audience, my friends, Carolyn, Greta and Joan. The highlight of our noon hours at Sandpoint High School was gathering after lunch in front of our lockers in the main hall, exchanging those jokes and giggling our heads off. I always made sure my friend Laura was never around because I still wanted her to be my friend, in spite of my soiled mind.

Once a joke hit the school, it traveled fast---almost as fast as the the line-up that Boots sends to me every morning. As a dial-up computer user, I'm not a fan of forewards, but there are a few foreward people on my list who send on some whoppers. Boots is one. Kathy is another. My daughter-in-law ranks right up there because she's pretty selective with what she sends, and most often her stuff elicits a healthy thigh slapping. Whenever Boots, Kathy or Debbie send me stuff, I foreward it on to one of my brothers, my two kids and to my friend Ann G. who can giggle with the best of them.

Now, after yesterday's living room joke exchange think I've found me a new foreward thinking computer geek from Bonners Ferry. He's a dial-up man, but he doesn't mind waiting for downloads if ya send him a good one. So, I sent him the one I received from Kathy last week, which gives you a cataract test. I won't describe the punch line.

Within minutes of when The Boz received my foreward, he'd countered with a good one about the dangers of cooking with bacon grease. It's been a long time since those noon-hour encounters with my classmates when a joke was exchanged by word of mouth and the ensuing giggles could be heard clear down the hallway.

Only my cats can hear me now when I LOL upon receiving another good cyberjoke. But it's a great feeling knowing there are other jokers out there who know a good one when they see one and feel the need to share. With these folks at the keyboard, I can count on at least one belly laugh a day. If only I could bring Joan, Greta and Carolyn on board, we'd have a really good time.

For now, I'd better get busy and send that "bacon grease foreward" on to Boots, Kathy, Kevin, Ann, Debbie and the kids. It's nice to have a new joker in the cyber-comedy circle. Welcome aboard, Boz.

Forget the smorgasboard; give me a menu

I hate buffet lines. My family knows that after years of my reminding them that nothing drives me bananas faster than getting stuck in a line with anxious, hungry people behind me and having to make split-second decisions on what I want to eat. The mere thought of such situations turns me into a tailspin.

First of all, when I go OUT to dinner, I figure I'm doing so to avoid work. I don't mind leisurely looking over a menu while comfortably seated at a table with others who've come to relax while they dine out. I like good service and generally see that it is amply rewarded.

After receiving indoctrination from Annie, who's worked in the service industry, nobody in our family gets away without giving a good tip for good service. Of course, having Annie who's worked in the service industry, elicits another reaction too----lousy service, no tip. We're never quite so rigid as Annie tends to be in that category and usually do give something.

Back to those smorgasboards. I have a terrible time deciding when faced with a large spread of yummy looking dishes. I always feel like I'm being pushed through the line, so by the time I get to the end, I'm usually carrying two plates full of food because everything looks just too good to pass by.

Of course, at this point, I must add a third reason I hate smorgasboards. That was the 40-plus pounds I carried around for years because of taking two plates of food, simply because I didn't want to miss out on the good stuff or hold up the line making my decisions. We all know that those buffet folks figure that if you take it, you eat it.

So what does getting fat and hating smorgasboards have to do with anything on this lovely Sunday morning? Well, that's how I'm seeing life these days. It's one big buffet, every day, and I'm having a difficult time making choices. Rather than a group of hungry people standing behind me in line, I've got ol' Father Time urging me on, reminding me to make the most of every day cuz, after all, this is the fourth quarter of life.

I've noticed myself feeling like I'm in the buffet line virtually every day since we moved here. The smorgasboard of daily things that I could choose to do is just too vast. Do I want to work inside and finally get those pictures up before the next houseguests show up? Would I rather go tear apart that compost pile? I know we need groceries, so I really should go to the store.

My friend Ann gave me a book to read and some magazines to peruse. My teaching friend Alma sent me some of her stuff to look over. I need to send some wedding presents which are long overdue. I still haven't made those last-minute changes in my manuscript. Every time I walk through the garage, I figure there's no more good excuses for those leftover boxes to still be there in stacks on the far wall. I've still got paint and there are still wooden gates and fence braces to paint.

On any given day, I face this wide assortment of "to do's," and on any given day, I find myself stewing over what to do first. Of course, mixed in between are all the outside duties that have landed in my way---deadlines, meetings, trips to town with my mother. I have such a hard time deciding that sometimes I actually find myself wishing for the good ol' days.

Those good ol' days ended about 4.4 years ago when I no longer had to follow the school-teacher lesson plan ritual of living life. Everything revolved around the schedule and scheduling life down to the very last nanno-second. All this was necessary to stay reasonably on top of my teaching responsibilities.

As the career moved on, my days spent planning and scheduling started earlier and earlier each morning and extended to seven days a week. By the time, I retired, my wake-up time on nights when I DID sleep varied from 2:30 to 2:45 a.m. Everything was so scheduled during those years and had to be so scheduled, that there was no room for smorgasboard days when I could pick a variety of items to fill the hours. I guess I liked having the routine dictate my day for me. Then, I retired. A full plate of possibilities awaited.

The difference generally involves personal choices rather than those chosen for me. And, therein lies the problem. I guess I'll work my way through this. One solution that helps is making a list and checking it twice. That disciplines me to stay on track, but then again, I kinda like to have flexibility too. I'll figure it out eventually; in the meantime, that gives me one more item on my "things to do."

When it comes down to it, I think I still prefer this dilemma over the old days of always having to be at a certain place at a certain time for a designated amount of time. I always had to be rigidly organized and stick to the plan or it seemed to all fall apart. I don't miss that.

But, here I am sitting at this computer wasting time talking about wasting time making decisions about how to spend my time more wisely and for some reason I'm feeling a nudge to get off my duffer, get downstairs and get started deciding how I'm going to use this Sunday wisely.

What a problem! I know one thing for sure. I'll not be spending any time today in a buffet line.

Saturday Slight

Special Note: You read it in Slightdetour first. After writing my blog posting, I received a call from my sister Laurie. She had received a call from Louisville from our sister Barbara. This "news just in" has a major headline: Sandpoint's Merisa Turnbaugh has won a national championship.

Merisa, who lives north of Kootenai, just won first overall individual youth horse judge at the Arabian National Horse Show in Louisville, KY. She not only took first overall individual for the Arabian youth category but also placed first overall in all categories---including 4-H and college judges. Merisa, the daughter of David and Angela Turnbaugh, is 15.

As part of her winnings, Merisa will bring home a brand new Western Saddle with 2006 National Champion Youth Judge engraved on the stirrups.

The team of Merisa, Natalie Berve, Margo McBirney, and Kelly Grant placed second overall and won several seconds and individual ribbons in halter, performance and oral reasons.

Way to go, ladies, and congratulations to their devoted coach, Barbara Tibbs.


Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, along came yesterday. I was wishing Annie could be here to snap photos with that fancy new camera. After two days of thorough washing, the autumn leaves were exploding with dramatic color and rich landscapes all along my travels were begging for artists and their brushes.

I think the most striking scene of the day was the decidous grove of tall, evenly-spaced trees dressed with at least half a dozen hues of brilliant reds and yellow foliage at the University of Idaho Experiment Farm on North Boyer. Maybe it's not too late to take my camera into town this morning to catch the sheer beauty of that grove which not even ten thousand of my words could begin to describe.

Anyway, we've got to enjoy this last week of color because the interminable gray will be here all too soon. It's Saturday and time for another assortment of slights.

• Bill's going pheasant hunting today. He missed a rooster last week. His pheasant hunting so far rivals my lifelong desire to find just one arrowhead here in Bonner County. He's been out many times and has seen many pheasants but has not yet bagged one to bring home for the scrapbooks. Today he's taking Annie Dog with him. She's arthritic and tires easily, but she loves to go and she's definitely a bird dog. I'm sure he'll see that she doesn't get too tired in their wanderings around Boundary County grain fields.
• As I type, there's a group of nervous expectant young women, their coach and their entourage sitting at an awards breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky. Yesterday they spent an 8-hour day judging horses at the Arabian Nationals. In this national competition, they judge halter classes and performance classes. Then, they must give at least two sets of oral reasons for their placements in designated classes. My sister Barbara is their coach, and they've all been preparing for this event for several months. We, of course, hope that maybe this will be the year that they win first place. One year an individual on Barbara's team won first place for her high score, but the team has never placed first. They've won lots of other categories over the years, but the elusive first-place team would be oh so sweet. We'll know in a few hours the results. Regardless of how they do, this event is like many others involving intense competition: the journey with all its friendships developed, knowledge gained and lifetime skills acquired will win out in the end.
• Bill has been planting baby trees at the Lovestead. He received a shipment of cedar and fir trees from the UPS this week. For several days in advance, he worked some areas with the rototiller for site preparation. The first night when darkness came, he'd used up all the sites prepared and still had half the trees to plant. So, he came home early yesterday afternoon and continued the process until his supply dwindled to 20 seedlings. I'm sure we'll find a place for them to have a permanent home. The big challenge, as my sister Laurie sees it, is for him to clearly mark all those babies so that when his wife charges through with the brush hog, she misses them. I have promised to do my best.
• The letters before election section in the local blat appeared today on a day not designated for letters to the editor. I was glad to see that we had two grand finales among the offerings. After being told what rot-gut sleaseballs or brilliant wizards we have to vote for, we got to read about dog poop and tunnels. I don't know if one is more important than the other, but they both involved transportation paths in, around and under Sandpoint. People are supposed to pick up their poop while walking their dogs and Lawrence Fury wants to know where all the other piles are going to go when the digging begins on the now-famous tunnel project under downtown. These last two letters gave me great relief and satisfaction that when the election ends, Sandpoint will still be piled higher and deeper with plenty of B.S. to last through the long winter months.
  
• Then, there's the newspaper report about Larry Stone's leaky faucets. That's what the Council told him could be the problem when he griped about his $130 monthly water bill during a hearing about upcoming water and sewer bill increases. Well, Bill had to add to his misery this week by taking our Oden Water Assoc. Certificate into the office--- rubbing it in to Larry that we have escaped the estimated 15 percent increase soon to be imposed on city residents. I wonder if Larry has hired a plumber; maybe the $130 bill would be cheaper.
  

It's time to go. I'll be heading into coffee cult this morning and hoping there's some good gossip to go along with the coffee. Hope everyone has a glorious weekend.

A Louisville rendezvous

I've already received a call from my mother this morning. It came before 6 a.m., so I was worried that something was wrong in Louisville. After all, Laurie and I had just visited with her via cell phone all the way from my house to Slate's Restaurant last night. We had to stop Mother almost in mid-sentence to tell her we'd arrived at the restaurant and would be going inside now.

It was difficult to bring the conversation to a close because of her enthusiastic need to tell us all about the trip so far. We know the weather is disgusting because the 98 percent humidity is doing a number on her hair. We know that earlier this week she picked out the champion in one of the classes at the Arabian Nationals. The area around Louisville and Lexington with its story-book horse farms is beyond beautiful.

We also know that Barbara has thought of everything, even a novel foot rest made from a belt for her wheelchair which came without foot pads. I also know, from her call earlier in the day which came to me while I was in the museum restroom, that she's having the time of her life. Her bubbly voice told me so.

Today Mother has a really special day in store. Her friend from a Sandpoint of long ago is driving nearly a hundred miles from south of Lexington to come and visit for the day. That's why I received the early-morning call. Barbara had not thought of everything this morning; she'd gone off to today's youth judging contest with the hotel pin which would allow Mother's friend into the room. I told Mother to call the desk, but she insisted that Barbara had the pin and she wanted her cell phone number.

I'm sure the problem will get worked out and that Karen Hayden will, indeed, find her way into Mother's hotel room.

"We're just going to gab all day," Mother told me last night. Karen is the daughter of our first family doctor in Sandpoint. Her mother Marge was one of Mother's very best friends back in the late '40s and early '50s after both families arrived in Sandpoint shortly after the war. Apparently, Mother's Christmas Day 1945 arrival by train preceded that of the Haydens because Sandpoint had no doctor.

That's why my brother Kevin was born at Sacred Heart Hospital in 1946. Later, however, when Kevin had an eye infection, a Dr. Wilbur Hayden, fresh from the war, treated one of his first patients in Sandpoint. A friendship was born. Dr. Hayden's first wife Marge was an artist like Mother. They hit it off and remained friends, even after the marriage ended and Marge moved away. In the meantime, Dr. Hayden became friends with my dad; they were hunting buddies.

I can remember Mother telling stories about when she and Marge would go by boat to Pend Oreille Lodge, a magnificent gathering place once located on the lakeshore at Bottle Bay. That was during the era when entertainers Bing Crosby and Phil Harris would be seen around North Idaho and at the lake lodges. I can also remember stories Harold would tell about deer hunting with "Doc" Hayden in the Sand Creek drainage.

As the years passed, Dr. Hayden would deliver me, my two sisters and my brother Jim. In fact, there's the classic family story of Jim's birth at halftime of the Sandpoint-Lewiston football game on October 18, 1963 when Sandpoint defeated Lewiston 9-7 in their last undefeated football season ever. My brother Kevin was playing on the Bulldog team, so, of course neither Mother nor Dr. Hayden wanted to miss the game. The doctor brought his radio.

We saw Karen, their daughter, off and on over the years whenever she'd come home to Sandpoint. Karen always told me how much she admired my mother, especially because of the horses. I haven't seen Karen since we visited with her and her mother in Cornelius, Oregon, about 20 years ago. Somehow, she's ended up in Kentucky, and happily, she and Mother will have plenty of time to talk old times---if she gets into the hotel, that is.

Tonight after the judging contest ends, the whole entourage will attend a very special segment of the national show which features the Black Stallion. Mother has her pearls and her new outfit for the evening program. I don't know what Karen plans to wear, but I'm sure that when Mother returns we'll have one more good tale to add to a very special friendship which dates back 60 years.

All You Need Is Love

It's a very special day today. Our Annie aka "Precious," as Bill named her long ago, is 28. We wish her the happiest of birthdays. It seems like just yesterday when we brought her home from Bonner General Hospital on that gorgeous October day, when the first song she ever heard was playing on the car radio: "Sunshine" by John Denver. What a beautiful song for the beginning of one's life!

Annie brings sunshine to lots of lives in this world, through her ANZAC cookies for Grandma, ANZAC cookies and special treats for many others also, her wonderful sense of humor, her thoughtfulness and willingness to go the extra mile to see that things are done right.

Annie's also made us earn our medals for parenthood a time or two. I'll never forget the Mother's Day card she sent a couple of years ago which pointed out all the impish things she'd done to disorder my mind. Inside the card, the note read, "I'm almost finished." That's Annie's sense of humor for sure.

She hasn't quite told me when "finished" will occur, but in the meantime, I'll continue enjoying upcoming chapters in Annie's adventuresome life. She's a person filled with foresight, determination and courage. Plus, she's pretty smart and talented too.

We love you, Annie, and we think you live up to your blog title "All You Need Is Love." By the way, I've mentioned it before, but today on her special day, I'll direct readers to her blog to see the beauty she captures in this world with her phenomenal photographic talents: (http://www.nnlove.blogspot.com/). It's okay to comment on those photos and wish her a happy birthday too.

Much love,
Mom and Dad Love

Club

It started with a neighborly gift of blueberry jam, still warm from the stove. While headed to my mother's on my bike, I grabbed one of the three pints of jam cooked up from this year's blueberry crop and stopped off at Meserve's home next door to offer up something in response to their gift of fresh homegrown cucumbers last month.

Stan and Geneva were downstairs in the basement working on a project. Stan said he needed to keep on working, and Geneva invited me upstairs to visit with her at their kitchen table for a few minutes. We talked about the busy summer, the unbearable heat and about Club. As I was leaving, Geneva reminded me one more time to come to Club on Tuesday as a guest.

"Show up about 11," she said. "It's usually over by 2."

"Can I bring anything?" I asked.

"No, you're a guest," she insisted.

So, I hopped on my bike and headed on to Mother's, once again thinking about what a wonderful adventure back to my long-lost rural ways that we had begun with our move to Selle this past summer. As I approached Filipowski's barn, a young man who looked like Mike F. walked onto the road and headed north.

Two cars were parked at the barn. I figured that the Filipowskis must have some fall cow activities going on and that the whole family was helping. Sure enough, it was Mike home from college for the weekend. As I passed by, we chatted briefly about his current goal of earning his Master's Degree in English. Then, I pedaled on with a big smile on my face and no worries of cars running me over. This life is so good, I thought.

Life continued to be good after my first visit to the Selle Extension Club at Geneva's house yesterday. I took my camera and walked to the meeting. And, as I approached Meserve's home where several cars filled the driveway, my longtime friend Nita Schoonover was walking toward the house. I snapped her picture as she approached me, flanked by a huge birch tree with its stunning golden leaves.

As we walked inside, Stan and Geneva greeted us. The house was full of chatter and activity as one club member scurried around the kitchen, helping Geneva put the final touches on a potluck luncheon display. Nita, Stan and I visited for a few moments.

"His mother used to read the Bible and then show us on the map places where her son was serving during World War II," Nita told me. Stan's mother had taught at the neighborhood elementary schools for decades. Both Stan and Nita had been her students. I soon learned from Stan that Mrs. Meserve had another son who flew 75 bombing missions during WWII. He later came home from the war, went to college on the GI bill and became an educator who served many small North Idaho school districts as their superintendent.

After a few tales of the good ol' days of attending Selle Elementary School, Nita and I left Stan and joined the ladies in the living room. There were Ina Jacobson, Carol Mundell, Marjorie Pratt, Marjorie Barnes, and Wilma Erickson (who never changes). I also met several women for the first time. All are Selle transplants with fascinating stories. Paul Rechnitzer and his wife Patti were there for Paul's talk on railroads in Bonner County.

As Geneva continued to get things ready in the kitchen, the short meeting began. Isabel, who's the sunshine lady for the group, presided because all the other officers were gone for various reasons. I learned that the group supports the Pregnancy Crisis Center and the newly established Grace Haven for homeless women. They also provide a nice Christmas package for a family in need every year.

The Club has been going since the 1930s. It's a part of the old home demonstration network of community clubs which once provided homemakers with very-much-needed survival skills for living the once-daunting rural life.

During our luncheon of quiche, veggies, and tasty desserts at Geneva's table, I learned that Wilma has been attending since the '40s, and Geneva, since she was first married to Stan---57 years ago. Talk about feeling like a newbie! After observing the simplicity and the heartfelt generous goals of the group, I've decided to join. The luncheon with all its gabbing and historical tidbits wasn't bad either. In fact, those ladies know how to cook and talk.

I'm not a big joiner, but this group represents such a pleasant and nostalgic conduit to my rural roots, that I can't help feeling like I've truly found my way home. Life is good.

Interactive compost

I need some help. Yesterday I mentioned the compost pile out in the north yard. That pile has been bugging me ever since we knew we were going to move here back in April of this year. We drove by this place an average of three times a week, and every time I'd think to myself, "That's has got to go." Eventually, however, I learned about the value of good compost on one's garden, so I let it go and let it grow.

Our overflowing compost pile is much bigger than the one pictured in today's edition of "Home" in the Spokesman-Review. Ours is partially wrapped of that orange, open-aired plastic fencing which is attached to four metal posts. It's about six feet high and maybe 10 feet long by 5 feet across. The pile has bulged far beyond its boundaries, and we've still got a yardful of leaves and shrubbery stems to add to it before the snow flies (which, by the way, it has flown at Schweitzer overnight---a full coating).

When I went to the Master Gardeners a few weeks ago, they told me about the importance of keeping track of the temperature and turning the stuff every so often. Knowing I had no idea how to tell the temperature of developing compost, I figured I could at least get started on the turning process.

So, the other day, with pitchfork in hand, I went to the pile with good intentions. Well, I think its mere size long ago prevented such notions. I'm especially sure of that after viewing this morning's picture in the paper, which showed a very manageable compost pile about one tenth the size of ours.

One stab of the pitchfork into the mass of grass clippings, kitty litter, goat poop, leaves, sod, and whatever else the previous owners threw into the mix told me I wouldn't be doing much turning. The pitchfork tines lodged themselves into the conglomeration and refused to move. By the way, for all compost aficionados, as of this morning, I also know that doggie do and kitty poodies are not desirable in compost. At this stage, however, it appears there's not much I can do to remove those faulty ingredients.

So, with my reading and my momentary experience at managing my pile, I know I've got a problem. What the heck does one do with an oversized, undermanaged, unsightly pile of garden, yard, and household cast-offs?

I've thought about just burning it and throwing the residue on top of my garden. Then, I'd go get a good book on compost, learn the process and start all over again. In the meantime, all sage advice will be read, thought about, acted upon and appreciated.

Anyone? Anyone?

Pleasantville ain't often that purty

I'm thinking the manure spreader with its dead flowers and uncolor-coordinated duet of orange pumpkins would have to go. Then, there's the overflowing compost pile over in the north lawn. For the life of me, I haven't yet figured out what to do with it except keep adding to the ugliness with more grass clippings and dead plants.

Our yellow "wolf crossing" sign out at the end of the driveway would surely receive a big black checkmark. We'd also get docked whenever the opening to our green quansit reveals to all travelers on their way to the dump our assortment of implements, old beds, gas cans, bicycles, flower pots and baling wire strewn about inside. And, I know that even though I've straightened up that pile of cedar siding next to the quansit, we could get a big fine for allowing it to stay there.

That and a whole lot more would happen if the visual police ever came by our place with a checklist and a clipboard. Now, the assessor's appraiser might see it differently and tack on a whole bunch more tax money on our bill, but if we were part of a neighborhood covenant society out here in Selle, I'm sure the appointed association busybodies with their clipboards and discerning eyes would find reasons to give us a really low score on our visual pollution.

I saw personally how those places work when I visited my brother's place a few years ago. It's one of those neighborhoods where everyone's grass is cut at the same time so it will be the same height and the flowers are perfect. One morning, they gently advised me to put my bike inside the house rather than out on the porch where it could be seen.

I also felt a moment of particular rage years ago when we had to live in a condominium complex for a few months after our house burned down. I came home from school one afternoon to find our entire family's bikes strewn across the concrete in front of the condo instead of on the porch where we had left them that morning. When I went to the manager, I learned that the bicycle mess was his way of letting us know that we needed to put those bikes in a place where they couldn't be seen. It was part of "the rules."

Having had those experiences and being slightly independent-minded, I could identify with the people in today's Spokesman who're moving out of their neighborhood at Liberty Lake after a spy turned them in for the location of their unsightly Spokesman-Review paperbox. They were warned to remove it from wherever they'd decided to hang it or receive a fine.

The husband got so mad he took it down and threw it in the middle of their yard because there was no rule among the neighborhood list that forbid paperboxes on the lawn. The people had lived in the neighborhood with its rules for ten years, but it seems that the covenants have suddenly become rigidly and ridiculously enforced, thanks to the neighborhood busybodies. These paperbox people have chosen to move.

Recently, in our own local paper, I read about a couple who had the gall to construct a beautiful home---with some manufactured parts--oh my!---out in a similar neighborhood set-up in Cocolalla. Seems they even told everyone what their plans were for construction, but once the actual work started, they got slapped with threats from the association. And the same neighbors who had supported them before have suddenly abandoned them.

I see this situation as a two-sided coin. If people knowingly move into neighborhoods where these covenants are clearly stated and consistently enforced, they have only themselves to blame. I feel sorry for anyone who chooses this route for their home, mainly because I personally can't tolerate such nonsensical infringement on individuality.

Why do neighborhoods have to look so perfect anyway? Seems like taking pride in your home, keeping it neat, clean and attractive would be enough. And, to me, there's true beauty in individuality. I also think there's nothing uglier on the landscape than generic, impersonal uniformity. When you put all the "perfectly purty" you want in one spot, making it all look exactly like what's next door, it just ain't that purty anymore.

From what I've read in the two newspaper stories, past history in both neighborhoods indicates some rather glaring inconsistencies in covenant enforcement. Besides that, it seems like the self-appointed neighborhood watchdogs should lighten up a little. They should find some more productive ways of spending their time, rather than spying on their neighbors, noting all the rule infractions, and then tattling to their gestapo authority. Sure seems like a strange way to build a sense of community.

I thank God that the Meserves, the Caudles, the Taylors and even my lawyer friend Gary Finney from up the road don't give a hoot if I have a manure spreader in my front yard. And, they sure as heck know to leave me alone now that they've seen the "wolf crossing" sign at the end of the driveway. Pleasantville just ain't for everyone, especially me.

Rainy day plans

I've been putting off a lot of stuff all summer, waiting for a socked-in, gloomy, rainy day. We've had a long stretch without rain, except for a couple of showers here and there, so my "things to do" list has grown. While Mother Nature gives the great outdoors a good cleansing, I think I can finally say it's time to do the following:

• start hanging paintings and photographs.
• start organizing this office/bedroom
• start hauling remaining boxes from the garage and shop to their permanent storage area
• keep reading that good book called A Good Dog
• work on revisions for my manuscript before Keokee comes calling with their production schedule
• work on my upcoming story assignments
  
• create some more promotion materials for the new book
• prepare my notes for a presentation at the museum this Thursday. I'm telling fourth graders about big changes I've seen in Sandpoint. Anybody out there that wants to contribute some specifics to help me out. If so, send them my way: that includes schools, roads, businesses, structures, industry, demographics, etc.
• clean house, clean house, clean house . . . that's always on the schedule
• watch a little football
• play on the computer
  
• make some raspberry jelly from that last crop of berries at the old place
  
• bake some cookies
• clean the refrigerator
• do my grocery shopping

That seems like enough to keep me out of trouble. Let it rain, rain, rain. Then, I'll have one more thing to add to the list:

• gripe about the ugly weather and mourn the loss of sunshine

Have a wonderful Sunday wherever you are!

Saturday Slight

We've been monitoring the tree activity around here. Some in the front yard have lost most of their leaves, while Meserve's giant cottonwood next door has not yet begun to give way to the nightly nips of cold, frosty air. Our oak on the west side of the house is striking with its tri-colored leaves of wine, green and brown still clinging to their limbs.

I have a feeling that when next Saturday's Slight rolls around, I'll be in raking mode. Yesterday, a friend sent me a brilliantly beautiful photo of fall on Lake Pend Oreille with an accompanying article which appeared in the New York Times last week. Seems we've now made the list for great fall foliage across the country---even compared to Vermont.

Well, it's time to leaf that subject and fly off to the Slights:

• I never dreamed I'd be following suit with my blogfather Oliveria and announcing my own blogroll, but this morning I must do so with two kids' work being featured on blogs other than their doting mother's. Yesterday in his Huckleberries Online, Oliveria noted a high school sports blog in Southern Idaho which features a story or two written by William Love. I checked it out, and it's pretty neat. It's called treasurevalleysports.com, and its address is (http://www.treasurevalleysports.com/) Yesterday's edition featured a story Willie wrote about a Boise football game from the week before. This morning I noticed that he has a new story about Skyview's girls soccer team. So be sure to check it out, and bookmark it if ya want to read Love-style sports stories from Southern Idaho. Then, there's Annie's photo blog. She just keeps getting better and better with that camera. This week she took it to the Seattle zoo and snapped some wonderful shots of the inhabitants. Her blog address is (www.nnlove.blogspot.com) Pretty soon I'm going to have to give up all my own activities and take on a full-time job of bragging about my kids. Speaking of bragging about kids, my daughter-in-law, Debbie, doesn't have a blog yet, but she's doing some neat things with the Girl Scouts of America. This week she was focused on putting together an Idaho basket for a United Way silent auction in Boise. Some locals, including Kathy Chambers of Seasons at Sandpoint, Bonnie Eng at Hawthorne Inn and Roxie Lowther at Litehouse Inc. were helping her fill the basket with Sandpoint offerings.

• Okay, enough about the kids, I've gotta talk about former students now. Jeff Bock's production of "Jenny's Journal" showed at the Westwood, Calif., film festival this week. He's also learned that the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is taking an interest in the film. That's pretty exciting. Jenny's going to show the newest up-to-date version, which includes Grace's first day of kindergarten, at the Chic 'n Chop Restaurant in Bonners Ferry later this morning. It's for a Panhandle Health District outreach program. I'm going to film her showing the film and Jeff will use that footage for a grant application. We're all very touched that Jenny's message of living with cancer is being spread far and wide.

• I saw another former student from the Class of 1992 last night. She was standing behind a table of broken glass at Community Hall. Jamie Emmick received her degree in anthropology from the University of Idaho. She's now involved in the archeological dig on the east side of Sand Creek where the byway is slated to go. Last night Jamie and her colleagues held an open house to show their findings. Jamie told me she's been thrilled to be a part of this project. Bill and I both enjoyed the displays; I told him my favorite was the box of bones which indicated the menu for those folks way back when: lots of deer and pigs but very little beef. One lady told me that the bones in different locations have shown that Chinese workers ate better than the white people. I also enjoyed the opium stories and seeing the stamp for opium tax. Another lady told me that smoking opium was legal back in the early Twentieth Century, so, of course, the government charged a tax. Then, too many white people were enjoying the drug, so it was outlawed. The government had to go elsewhere to earn tax money. Overall, the open house was very interesting, and it attracted a steady stream of visitors.
• Bill's heading to Bonners Ferry today too. He's packing his shotgun and planning to walk the grain fields in search of pheasants. The hunting season opened this morning.
  

I've heard that today could be the last of the beautiful weather, so I'll wrap up the slights and get outside. No doubt Casey will be beckoning me to get him down to the Ponderosa Pasture for another day of watching Woods' cows and nibbling grass.

Happy Saturday to all.

From Boyer Store to Fresh Market: good shopping

During our childhood, whenever my mother went to the grocery store to buy some more Wonder Bread, a new pack of Salems and whatever else filled the cupboards of our North Boyer farm, we knew that we had about half an hour to do all pilfering, rummaging, or playing with off-limit items like food, cars and even the Victrola.

Someone was always assigned lookout at the front window to alert the others as soon as that purple '49 Ford sedan appeared in the roadway just beyond Joe Carter's house. That appearance signaled time to complete the project and get back to our usual milling around the place with no set direction. We learned this vigilance after a few times when she'd surprise us at the back door while we were dancing around the living room to Patti Page or Vaughn Monroe 33 RPM record tracks.

The Victrola has never been the same since those days of having its needle arm-wrestled back into place and its top slammed down with a crash loud enough to make her drop the brown grocery bags on the sink, come marching into the living room and ask what was going on.

"Nothing," was our stock answer and phony innocence marked our trio of expressions. Sometimes her life of quickly hiding the groceries from us hungry mouths was a pressing enough issue for her drop any further interrogation and simply let the mysterious living room crash issue go. She'd quickly get back into the kitchen to begin her covert food storage activities. At our house, those even included locked freezers and fruit room.

Mother purchased her goods at the Boyer Store on the corner of Larch and Boyer, established and owned by John and Margaret Bradetich. The whole Bradetich family helped out in the store. Prior to that, she had done a lot of her shopping at Chapman's food market on First Avenue, but the convenience of the Boyer Store eventually won out. Besides, less kid-inflicted home damage could be done with a shorter trip to town.

Since those days of the 1950s when Mother did have to go to town frequently because of her substandard food-hiding efforts, she and the rest of the family have patronized the long line of grocery markets evolving from that little store less than two miles from our house.

When Margaret and John moved to Fifth Avenue, where Sandpoint Super Drug now exists, we moved with them. Eventually, Les Rogers bought the store, and the Bradetiches moved on to establish a Discount Warehouse at the present Co-Op Country Store. We patronized both stores.

Then, Les moved north of town and established Rogers Thrift there. We followed. I believe the store has moved to the west section of the mall since then, and Staples now occupies the space where we used to buy our groceries. Now, in today's local paper, Yoke's Pac 'n Save has announced a complete store renovation to match its regional-store flavor as a Yoke's Fresh Market. We shop there and will continue to do so, probably until the day we die.

Mother, now 85, knows all the clerks, and they know her. She loves the pharmacists at Yoke's, and they love her. While shopping, she uses the cart for walking support and her cane for retrieving missions. She brags that it's especially useful for snagging those top-shelf items and directing them into her cart. After all, when you're 4 feet 11 and getting shorter, you need to improvise.

She no longer buys Salems and Wonder Bread, but she still thinks she needs to fill the cupboards and refrigerators as if preparing for the Army. Her kitchen is always loaded with cookies, Little Debbies and donut holes, and her refrigerator always maintains a good stock of Western Family medium cheddar cheese for my brothers who like to chop off big chunks and chew on them while visiting. More than 50 years later, some of us still feel the occasional urge to pilfer a cookie without her notice.

She no longer has to worry about house-destruction while shopping at the grocery store, except for a hairball deposit or two from the resident cats. Nowadays, the old Victrola sits on a bench in our Quansit with no tuning knobs, and it's definitely incapable of spinning any long-playing record albums for our spontaneous dance routines.

The evolution of our favored grocery store into a newer, better setting for purchasing our eats will, no doubt, add some spice to the winter months as we watch the changes take shape. In addition, with its subtle consistencies of down-home service, comfort and treasured historic significance for our family, I'm sure our Mother will feel that same sense of loyalty that has marked her many decades of keeping the cupboards full and her hungry kiddies satisfied.

What a wheel of a deal!

My mother is going to Louisville next week. She’ll be attending the Arabian National Horse Show, which will never again be held in Kentucky. For as long as I can remember, the Nationals venue has alternated between Albuquerque, N. Mex., and Louisville.

Mother attended her first Arabian National Show back in the early ‘60s with her friends, Etta Balch and Pearl Irwin. That year the Balches had a mare named Lisa who had placed highly enough at Regional shows, with veteran horsewoman Pearl at the controls, that she was eligible for the Nationals. At the last minute, Mother got a call----one of the hundreds she received over the years----from Etta.

They needed another driver to help transport Lisa to Albuquerque. Of course, Mother’s the gene donor for all of us who don’t mind taking off on a good adventure at a moment’s notice. Within minutes of Etta’s call, Mother was headed to IGA to pick up some new undies (always an essential for a trip) and other supplies for the week away from home. Within hours, she was on her way down the road with her two friends and the young gray mare. She’d never pulled a horse trailer, by the way.

Apparently, she learned fast. Without incident, they arrived in Albuquerque where gorgeous Arabians and their entourages from all over the nation had congregated. After a few days at the show, they returned with Lisa and a Top Ten ribbon for English pleasure. Mother later wrote a story about the trip for the local paper.

She probably doesn’t know it, but that story inspired me as a journalist. She knew how to write the all-important first line and nailed a good one. I always used that poignant story as a model for my own personal style of feature writing. Her tales of the grand time at the big show inspired more than me. My little sisters were listening too.

As the years passed, I had an opportunity to go to a national horse event---the Youth Horse Congress in Dallas, Tex. Like Mother, I came home and told the stories. My sisters were still listening. They took it to heart and in 1977 attended their first Arabian Nationals in Albuquerque as youth judges. I was their coach.

That team of Barbara, Laurie, Janice Wood Schoonover and Kim Lewis Cox set the precedent for a long line of local youth horse judging teams who, then under Barbara’s coaching, have attended and won lots of loot at Arabian Nationals in both Albuquerque and Louisville. We cannot forget the time when one of our own horses, Rishmah, and his loving rider and owner Laurie Tibbs took the trip to Albuquerque and came back with a Top Ten ribbon and plaque for Show Hack competition.

It’s been 30-plus years since that spontaneous trip our mother took to Albuquerque for her first-ever Arabian Nationals. This year when she goes to Louisville’s last-ever big show, Barbara will be taking her to lots of other horse venues in Thoroughbred racing’s hometown. It’s not as easy for my mother as it was back in the ‘70s to hop in a car and go. With her bad knee and her cane, she has to do some extra planning. To make the trip more comfortable, she’ll be taking along a fold-up wheel chair instead of a horse trailer.

That’s where the Senior Citizens’ Center of Sandpoint comes into the picture. We’ve learned that they have an assortment of wheelchairs which they loan out. It seems that people donate the chairs to the center when they’re no longer needed. Mother was told yesterday by staff member Barbara Spade to keep her chair as long as she needs it---even months or years, if necessary.

We’re all impressed with this wonderful community service, and I promised Barbara I’d get the word out because we’d never heard of it until this past week. Seems some junior citizen high schoolers were borrowing the chairs for their SHS Homecoming dress-up days as senior citizens. My sister Barbara asked them few questions about the source for their props, and the next day we were at the center picking out a chair for Mother.

So, if you ever need a wheelchair, you can contact the center and if you have a wheelchair you don’t need, you can do the same and donate. They’ll be happy to comply either way.

In the meantime, my mother will have wheels wherever she goes in Kentucky horse land, and one more time she can come home with stories that continue to inspire us all.

Thank you, Senior Citizens Center.