Best of Slight Detour

Well, I saw the insert in today's Daily Bee for all the "Bests of Bonner County." There's a ploy involved.

Get people to buy a bunch of newspapers (extra money for the Bee) vote you for "the best," and then you get the great pleasure of buying some advertising from the paper (extra money for the Bee).

I often wonder what happens when the "Best of" hear that they've won the "Best of" and decline on the paper's generous offer to sell them advertising.

Is there a revote?

I tied with Mark Fuhrman once in The Pacific Northwest Inlander's contest for North Idaho's favorite author---and I didn't even vote. The Inlander never even asked me if I wanted to buy an ad, but I did post the honor on my website. I think it has helped me sell maybe two books.

Anyway, now that I've read the 2009 "Best's," I think it's time to announce my official Slight Detour Fav's. If you want to buy advertising on my blog, just say so in the comments. Otherwise, the honors and the reading are all free of charge.

So, here goes:

Best roadside honker, driving tractor, 4-wheeler, motorcycle, big honkin' truck, car---all hours of the day and night: Sandpoint attorney Gary Finney. When you live near Gary and you're his classmate, he honks. In fact, he just went to work about ten minutes ago. I know that because I heard the pre-7 a.m. honk.

Best place to go eat breakfast, dinner or lunch for next to nothing and sometimes get free birthday cake cuz your birthday's the same day as the owners: That would be the Hoot Owl Restaurant. I'm going there in a couple of hours with a former student, and I'm hoping they've read my blog so they'll give me some free bacon for Payola.

Best Ultimate Bacon Sandwich, where the owner occasionally comes out and wonders why you never eat all the bread: That would be Second Avenue Pizza, where everyone else eats pizza and I order the sandwich. Carolyn cares about what I think of her sandwiches. I do have to speak with her though. The last two times, I got no chips. I even told the lady at the counter that I missed my chips the time before, and she forgot to put 'em on this last time. I'm sure if Carolyn knew, she'd run over to Safeway and grab some chips for me.

Best Road to drive down to Coeur d'Alene when construction's happening: Believe me, it's not Hwy 95. It's not Selle Road. It's not all those streets in Kootenai. I thought I'd take the back road through to town and I thought about praying that no flag person would stop me on my drive to Coeur d' Alene yesterday. Well, my prayers fell on deaf ears. I left the house approximately two hours after Gary Finney honked on his way to work. That would be shortly after 9 a.m. I arrived at my destination, The Coeur d' Alene North at about 11 a.m.

Used to be when HWY 95 was a lot worse road, a trip to Coeur 'd Alene could be managed in an hour or less. I was figuring that yesterday's trip lasted longer than my last trip to the Spokane Airport. So, I'm guessing the best route to Coeur d'Alene when construction's happening might be to head out toward Spokane and take the freeway back from Washington.

Best Beer where a squabble could get resolved: Laughing Dog ale. I'm wondering if all the race relations problems in the world could be solved with a few glasses of Laughing Dog. Now that beer is the mediator of choice, I suggest that all those involved in a feud, go talk to Fred and have him serve you up a brew. World peas will certainly follow.

Best Newscast in Less than a Minute: That would be Mike Brown on K102 local news. On, any given day, I'll hear the news is coming. The announcers take about 45 seconds to tell us that Mike Brown will be coming at 4 p.m. with the news. So, I hurry to get within earshot so I can hear what's happening at the Bonner County Courthouse on my "in-the-barn" radio. Just as I position myself to listen to all the local smut, I hear "And finally in the news, . . . " I'm always perplexed because Mike has just started the news and now it's "finally" over.

Now, Mike does a good job digging up Bonner County dirt, but he needs to use his shovel a few more times cuz some of us enquiring minds want to know more.

Best Place to Read the Newspaper: At the Love house. The highlight of Bill and my day is during newspaper reading time. Some of the best one-liners ever uttered go wafting through the living room as either of us make our observations on what Larry Fury has said about the latest money issue to be put before the voters or what Bob Wynhausen says about all those dumb Republicans. Bob's a Democrat, just in case you didn't know.

There's sometimes tension during newspaper reading time on Sunday mornings. That would be during Bob Gunter's column that he has other people write about their clandestine lives so that nobody can guess who they really are. Neither Bill nor I want to be skunked in our guessing game. Usually the question comes out after Bill is allowed to read the North Idaho Sunday (that would be AFTER I've read it). Out will come the question: do you know who the "Who am I?" is? I never tell him until he asks.

And, we've got real tension this week because Bill forgot to quiz me, and it's Friday. I'll bet he doesn't know it was Marilyn Dalby, Sr. At least, that's who I think it is. Marilyn wrote so much about her past life outside of Sandpoint it was gonna take some keen scrutiny to figure her out, but I think I did.

Now, don'tcha go telling Bill who the "Who am I" is.

On that note, I've got one of the "Best of my favorite students" coming at 8 a.m. with his wife and new baby daughter. That's all I'm giving you for clues. Your job is to figure out "who he is." Just put your guess in the comments section, and I'll post all the "Who am I's" who answered correctly in tomorrow's edition of Slight Detour.

There are a lot more "Bests" to post on this blog, but I'll save them for another day. I've got to spend the next few minutes figuring out who my favorite student is who's coming at 8 a.m. Then, I'll know what to call him when he arrives at the door.

Anyone? Anyone?