Birthday bash at the barn

I can remember when Claude Simon, the assistant city fire chief, kept his Quarter Horses there at the Dover Barn. And, I learned just this week that Erica Curless will be married there in October. So, last night when we attended my classmate Gary Finney's 60th birthday party at the barn, I wasted no time looking it over.

It's been restored tastefully and with great consideration for the old barn feel into a magnificent place for a country-style gathering. Complete with restrooms and an expansive upstairs hay loft with a farm-equipment theme in its benches and bar stools, the place begs for a good ol' fashioned foot stompin fun time.

And, that's almost what we enjoyed last night, all but the foot stompin'. Maybe there was some after we left, especially cuz the mosquitoes suddenly showed up looking for some bloody good action. After batting them away without much luck, we left. Until the mosquito invasion, though, we had a delightful time visiting with longtime friends, especially the North Boyer crowd of Finneys, the Selle Finneys and the vast array of relatives of the aforementioned.

In fact, Franny Paulet and I got to telling Lincoln School stories with such vigor that I thought Steve Oliver was going to have to referee. Tale after tale about Mrs. Kinney, Mrs. Lunn and Mrs. Ekholm rolled off our tongues so fast neither of us took time to listen to the other. We talked about Boyer bus drivers like Lester Bruder who Franny remembers warning his impish nephew Pat Gooby that he had an ax available if Pat dared to misbehave.

It was either Lester or Claude Burrus who used to love to slam on the brakes when some kid was being an imp and scream out their name to stop it. The only problem was every other North Boyer kid sufferered a sore chin from banging into that metal seat frame when the school bus screeched to a stop.

Steve, who's a mystery writer, said he just couldn't remember such colorful details of his years spent at Lincoln---not because it didn't happen but because he just couldn't remember. I don't think Steve was quite as impish as the rest of us during his childhood; besides, he lived for a time with one of Lincoln's legendary teachers, Betty Robinson, so he couldn't act up.

Franny brought up a zinger about high school that I hadn't thought of for years. It involved my brother Kevin and Peter Holzemer. She recalled the time Kevin and his cronies took all the spirals out of spiral notebooks and constructed a spiral link fence with one end attached to Peter's belt loops and the rest attached to every possible desk in the physics room.

Seems when the bell rang every day at the end of physics class, Peter and his briefcase shot out of that room like lightning. Well, the day of the spiral fence, Peter got up with his briefcase in hand and pulled half the classroom desks with him. That sure slowed him down and left the rest of the class with laughs they'd revive for decades after. We were wondering last night whatever happened to Peter and his briefcase.

Franny was supposed to be leaving the party fairly early with her husband Steve Maki. They had to get down to their spread near Colfax to set up wheat harvesting equipment. I'm guessing after our marathon story-telling session that she's a bit bleary-eyed at the farm this morning.

Speaking of vision, I talked to a tunnel man last night. He came to town to help a friend in the hay field. This nice man teaches tunnels at Stanford. His friend, an experienced tunnel builder, sat next to him while we ate a feast of delicious goodies prepared by the Pack River store. I asked the tunnel teacher about the wisdom of building a tunnel under Sandpoint. He's been here a few times, so he knows the town. He kept his answer simple so a country bumpkin like me could understand.

"Think of one big dollar sign," he said, "more dollars than you've got to spend around here." The tunnel builder sitting next to him concurred. I don't know what that tunnel man who writes all those letters in the Daily Bee is going to say if he reads this and refutes it by citing his superior sources on building tunnels, but I'd say a Stanford tunnel teacher ought to know what he's talking about. I'd take tunnel wisdom any day over tunnel vision.

Gary, the honored guest, seemed to be enjoying himself, even as the litany of good stories about his lawyering, motorcycling and ugly baby images kept the crowd entertained. One lawyer from Salmon came and told about the pop-up defense and a bunch of snakes which saved some guy from going to jail. I couldn't quite hear the whole story but the guy was wearing a cowboy hat and all the lawyers and judges there were laughing, so I'm sure there were some inside nuances that the legal folks could all appreciate.

I'm glad I went to Gary's party. In fact, I must say it's the largest birthday party I've ever attended, except for maybe Christmas and the Fourth of July. So, that indicates Gary's led a good life here in his community and his influence has spread a lot of good cheer among his friends and family.

Now, I'm looking forward to returning to that old barn in October and watching one of my favorite newspaper reporters tie the knot. That party, for sure, will include a fair amount of foot stompin' and some inside journalist jokes.