Saturday Slight

This was the week when I could do as I damn well pleased. I well pleased to take a zip trip to Seattle to watch my sister at a dressage event, to finally see the mules at Wrenco, to enjoy some good visiting with friends, to get caught up on odds and ends, and to generally savor the feeling of no writing deadlines looming overhead. In fact, I think it's two weeks before another story is due, so life is good, except for driving to and from downtown Sandpoint.

My oh my, just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, that developer on North Boyer who's putting up all those additional houses in Mr. Best's hayfield found a way to enhance road rage all over town. Just close off Boyer Avenue for the month of June, and you can count on some high-octane comments, some not printable.

I got stuck in stop-and-go lanes on HWY 95 south of the Y twice this week. In one case, it worked to my advantage because the driver immediately behind my rear bumper suddenly pulled out into the lane next to me, rolled down his window and yelled, "You've got a tire going flat on the left rear." It turned out to be George Van Rossom. I thanked him as he sped off down the right lane headed toward Montana instead of Canada. I learned later at Les Schwab's that a five-inch nail had been nice enough not to flatten the tire completely.

During yesterday's 15-minute trip from Quality Inn to the Y (one half mile north), however, I just kept thinking about how the hosts with mostest to gain invited all these people to escape the insane life of gridlock and just come on up here to live in God's Country.

Used to be we only knew gridlock by taking a trip to Southern California and being damn glad we could come home where that kind of stuff doesn't happen. Well, now it might be a heckuva lot easier to get around in Southern California than to get from Starbucks to the Hoot Owl. I think the proprietors need to set up some satellite coffee shacks, pancake houses and honeybuckets along the roadside so folks can take care of important business while not getting ahead in the world here in "We don't need no damn bypass" country.

Well, yesterday my friend Cis gave me a copy of the projected road schemes to alleviate some of our future Bonner County gridlock. I looked over the four plans this morning and plan to carry them with me in my car next time I go to town for further consideration. I'm figuring that during the time I'm sitting in traffic, I can do some intense study of how the great brains are going to solve our present transportation dilemmas and all those sure to come over the next 100 years without a bypass.

I still say to hell with the tunnel, to hell with the bypass and to Heaven with the ferry/riverboat/steamboat system. Utilize the lake the way it used to be used back in the 1860s-'70s before the railroads came along and a long time before the cars showed up. We could solve the transportation dilemma, we could add to our touristy ambience, and we could save the environment by setting up ferry systems around the lake.

I don't know where the best spots would be, but I'm assuming before all the rich folks buy up all the lake frontage, we could come up with some strategic ferry crossings. It worked before---just ask Paul Reichnitzer. He'll sell you a book to prove it. It can work again, and seriously speaking, it could enhance the area far beyond some of the nightmarish schemes we've been subjected to thus far.

Food for thought: think ferries, river boats and steamships. Lord knows, you'll have plenty of time to think of brilliant ideas while sitting in your car this summer. And, thinking of solutions is far healthier and safer than the road rage that just might strike a time or two before that Boyer enhancement project for the developer has ended.

Well, I sure got off on that one, didn't I? The Saturday Slight is hardly slight, but I do have to mention a few things other than the cuz'n visit which will begin this afternoon. I want to congratulate all the graduates from all the local high schools. It's so hard to believe that five years ago, I was the last graduate to walk across the stage and received a diploma holder from the school administration at Sandpoint High School. They never did give me the sheepskin to go in it, but I've survived okay, just as I'm sure our 2007 graduates will.

I also want to congratulate the 2007 Women of Wisdom---quite a crowd this year. I asked Bootsie yesterday what his friend Bonnie Shields was going to wear to tomorrow's luncheon. He said probably her bib overalls, as usual. I hope she does. I just can't imagine Bonnie in a dress. Bootsie says he's going to cheer Bonnie on as she accepts her award.

All those ladies have some remarkable accomplishments, and I'd say the selection committee did well this year. Bonnie, by the way, is the Tennessee Mule Artist who does lots of work for Leanin' Tree Cards and illustrates books for Charles M. Shultz's daughter Meredith. She does fine artwork, to say the least. And, to say the least, she's a character! I guess it takes one to know and appreciate one.

My mother, who was a Woman of Wisdom about four years ago, is going to the luncheon with our family friend Mardette. Mother enjoys shopping for clothes for these occasions, and every day this week she's been talking about what she's going to wear. It always changes a bit, but I'm sure she'll look just fine and will have a good time among her sisterhood of accomplished women.

Well, I'd better start hinting to Bill to get out of the house so I can vacuum before the big cuz'n arrival. Isn't it funny how we work long hours to have everything look as close to perfect as possible for company and within ten seconds, it doesn't make a hill of beans difference to anyone. I guess we humans are complex souls, and we'll never really understand ourselves or why we do the crazy things we do.

Happy weekend to all.