All in a day's work

~~~Beautiful North Idaho -- Selkirk Mountains from a hilltop near Grouse Creek~~~

Busy day yesterday. I rushed in the morning, after blog posting, to head to town for picture-taking.

Two mug shots remained on the list of eight needed for my column. In-and-out trips to Toby's and Jim's offices netted some okay photos.

After driving straight home, I pulled out the laptop and sent the photos to Trish, publisher of The River Journal.

She sent back a draft of the package with copy and photos. It looks pretty neat.

That job completed, I vacuumed up weekend residue from the carpets and in the garage and then got my stuff for another trip to Grouse Creek. This time, the dogs and I would look for my belt buckle at the turnaround spot on Sunday's trail ride.

I stopped off at the Forest Service seed orchard office where the crew was coming in for lunch. They were all very nice and understanding and happily gave me permission to drive to an area where I could access the spot where I got off from Lily and climbed back on during our outing.

The seed orchard area is beautiful, as evidenced by the photo above and the two below.

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After returning to the car, empty-handed but covered with a whole lot of needles and sprigs from climbing through some thick brush, I headed home.

I did a little fence fixing where horses have stretched their necks almost to camel length to grab a mouthful of grass on the other side.

A dinner of garden veggies and Wood's German sausage (second night's worth and tastier than the first) was complemented with baked acorn squash accented by a glob of honey, some brown sugar and Imperial Margarine.

That fresh-baked apple cobbler tasted pretty good too.

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While checking my favorite bookmarks on the web, for some reason I thought about Richard Benjamin. I'm kinda weird that way. Someone's face will suddenly pop into my mind, and I'll launch a search to see what's up with them.

Well, I figured I might find something current about Rich, and I have been curious to see if he ever finished the book he was researching when he visited us two years ago.

Rich left an indelible impression with Bill and me. I first connected with him when he called one night and told me he was in the area, doing research for a book and that he'd been reading my blog. He wanted to get together sometime.

I told him that would have to wait because something major was going on at the time----when isn't it?

A few weeks later, I was doing a reading for my new book Lessons with Love at Hastings in Coeur d'Alene. The "crowd" grew to about a dozen, which was good for a late July Saturday afternoon. A young Black man walked in, smiled, sat down and listened intently to my performance. I figured he was all of 16.

Afterward, he came up and introduced himself. That voice on the phone a few weeks before suddenly had a face to match it. I was immediately impressed. Dr. Richard Benjamin is kind, thoughtful, funny, smart, very family-oriented, eloquent and well beyond his 20 or 30-something years in his outlook. He's got the credentials to prove it.

During his stay, he had befriended some of my buddies at the Spokesman-Review newspaper. Let's see, do any of them work there anymore? I think not.

Anyway, later, I heard from Rich again. He was coming up to spend some time at the Bonner County Fair and wondered if I'd join him. We spent the day together wandering through exhibits, meeting people and talking, talking, talking.

I remember while driving Rich to our Lovestead, noting that I figured we could be friends for a long time. He agreed. That afternoon after Bill got off work, we walked to the Lodgepole Log, where Rich happily joined our Lodgepole Society. We topped the day off with dinner at Slate's, compliments of Rich.

Bill and I both agreed that we hoped we'd see him again some day. I have kept in touch with him from time to time, and he happily contributed to my blog OhWriteUCanDo, note link address on my list.

Well, yesterday when I googled Rich, I learned that he did finish that book. It's called Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America. Rich's book is being released Oct. 6, and you can read more about it at www.amazon.com.

I think his premise is going to receive a lot of in-depth discussion once it hits the book stores. I noticed this morning that, even before its release, Whitopia's Amazon ranking is in the top 50,000.

Good luck to our friend, Rich. I'm very anxious to see what he discovered during his travels through this country.

P.S. In the all in his day's work yesterday, Bill met Viggo---Mortensen, that is.