Top o' da morning to ya and all that stuff. I've got my green sweatshirt on, and we'll be havin' a green salad tonight or maybe some pickles.
Instead of seeing green when I looked out the window this morning, I saw more white. But it's not too bad a day. The snow was smart enough to stop falling before I headed outside, so all's well on the weather front.
I was talking weather to folks at Yoke's yesterday, and I did learn a couple of ways people distract themselves from the ugliness outside. Mike and Marceen Williams turn on the Celtic music, and Marceen (one of my lovely Ponderettes from yesteryear) gets up and does some River Dance moves.
Mike says it works for a while, but when they turn the music off, they're right back in their doldrums. Speaking of Mike, I'll never forget the look on his face a long time ago when he was just a teenager working for his dad at Williams Gas n' Go. They had the first drive-through carwash in Sandpoint.
So, in those first weeks, they had to kinda educate car owners on how to maneuver through the gauntlet and get ready for the douse. Mike was directing me, pointing fingers this way and that way, and I was trying to follow his directions. But for some reason during a split second, I didn't know my right from my left.
As he pointed to the right, I steered my new but dirty Fairlane 500 to the left. Suddenly Mike's expression changed from a confident calm to full-fledged horror. I kinda had an idea why he did that because at that same moment, I could feel and hear the left tire climb over the track and land on the other side.
The car came to a quick halt. I sank into the seat hiding my face behind the steering wheel and immediately wondered how much I was going to have to pay for repair costs on Sandpoint's first drive-through carwash. Mike came to the door and happily assured me that nothing was broken; we'd just have to get that car back over the track and on track.
We did, but since then, no car-washing drive-through experience goes by without my brain flashing right back to that look of horror on Mike Williams' face.
Well, that was the luck o' the Irish that I made it through that one, and I guess it was the luck o' the Irish to run into (not literally) Mike and learn that he loves North Idaho March winters as much as I do. He suggested that if that person comes up with that idea to take care of bad weather moods, it ought to come in a spray can.
In the meantime, he and Marceen will keep cranking up that Celtic music.
Speaking of the luck o' the Irish, I had the good fortune today to read in the Daily Bee that I sure am OLD. Nobody really came out and said I was old, but one can infer when one sees one's byline on a story printed in the Bonner County History "50 Years Ago Today" column that one may just be a dinosaur.
Yep, I wrote the story, and it appeared March 17, 1959, in the Sandpoint News Bulletin. The piece not only verifies my senior citizen status but it also validates my claim to be a country hick.
Here goes:
Headline: 4-H Doings - Mountain View Livestock
Story: The Mountain View Livestock club met at the home of Sally Davis on Feb. 28. Plans were made for a baked goods sale at Merwin's Hardware on March 28. The historians, Laura Delamarter and Frances Paulet, decided to get a scrapbook for newspaper clippings.
We decided to get a young pig to practice with for showing. When the year is over we will sell it and put the money in our treasury. We had reports from the leaders on citizenship and good sportsmanship. The next meeting will be at Gary Finney's at Colburn on March 14.
~~~Marianne Brown, reporter
Now, I must alert readers to the fact that this was written long BEFORE Bob Hamilton taught me never to start a story with "The," and to avoid those passive verbs. I did get the names spelled right, and I doubt I'd ever use "practice with" in a sentence ever again, 'cept for this one to illustrate that I now know the mortal sin of ending an idea/sentence with an objectless preposition.
For darn sure, this story definitely makes me an old codger, but I know a few others too---Sally Davis is older than I, as is Laura Delamarter (by six weeks). Frances Paulet is almost a year younger, and my dear neighbor Gary Finney has an extra ten days of youth on me. But, we're still all old.
On the good side, I'm confident that not one of us regrets the time we spent as 4-H members cuz we've led pretty good lives, thanks to the guidance of those 4-H volunteers who gave so much of their time in our behalf. We were lucky to have them; that's for sure.
Well, being an oldie but a goodie, I could ramble on forever about those days, but I'd better get on my way on this St. Paddy's Day.
May you all have a wonderful day!
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