Tales of Love's Losses

We had just gotten in the car from a 3-mile walk through the deep, dark woods in the Grouse Creek drainage. I gave Bill my flashlight and climbed inside with my wet shoes and soggy pant legs (walking across boulders on a creek in the dark can do that). The dogs settled down to snooze mode in the back seat.

We pulled out of the camping area near the familiar meadow known by all who travel the Grouse Creek Road. My mind continued focusing on possibilites----even the fact that maybe my belt buckle had slipped off when I unzipped and rummaged through my fanny pack.

Maybe in the wildest stretches of an imagination, bent on finding a lost object, the buckle would be safely packed among the towels and Zip lock bags of nuts and cookies I'd taken along for Sunday's ride. Later, that theory was dispelled.

I must explain why the buckle popped off during my Sunday afternoon ride. Lately, it has popped off the clip that holds it to the belt. Even Sunday before I left home, it did so.

Over the years, the clip has withstood enough pressure from my movements that it had worked loose. Every time the buckle popped off, I'd put it back on and think that sometime I'd have to find a way to pound the clip back to its original length.

Yup, I thought that same thing Sunday before I left but did nothing about it. Too much going on in life, I guess, to take the time.

Well, now we're taking plenty of time trying to find that buckle. We walked 1.6 miles along the trail after Bill got home from work. We walked to the two spots where Lily had chosen to leap rather than walk over temporary bridges over mushy muck. We searched carefully in both spots, and Bill said next time we'd bring the metal detector cuz if the buckle fell off, it could be buried in the mud.

During our brisk hike, I thought of yet another possibility. When we had reached the pond near the Forest Service seed orchard Sunday, I had gotten off from Lily for a potty stop. Maybe when I climbed back on, the buckle rubbed against the saddle and fell off.

Who knows the answer to this mystery? Maybe I will some day; maybe I won't. But we'll keep looking until we reach a point of acceptance that the buckle belongs to the earth in the same area where so many treasures still remain from days of logging history during the early 1900s.

As we drove home, I told Bill that this situation reminded me of a time long ago when I had $12. In those days, $12 was something for a North Idaho financially challenged farm girl to own with pride.

That was about 50 years ago. I earned the $12 as my prize for selling subscriptions to the Sandpoint News Bulletin, then our official weekly paper.

Lauren Pietsch's staff ran that contest every year. I think the guy who coordinated it was named Max. Max came in for about a week each year and kept a chart of potential subscribers. Kids read about the paper's subscription contest and entered. Some did so well, selling annual subscriptions to locals, that they got to go to Disneyland, all expenses paid.

Others won bicycles; others, money. My best efforts for knocking on doors and spouting off my spiel, "Hi, I'm Marianne Brown. I'm selling subscriptions to the Sandpoint News Bulletin. Would you like to buy one?" netted me that $12.

At the time, that wad of greenbacks was the most money I'd ever had in my life. Heck, I was bursting with pride in the first grade when I got to carry a whole dollar to school to pay for the week's hot lunch in March, 1954, when my mother married our new stepfather.

I carried my $12 winnings with me everywhere I went, including down to Delamarters, where they had a horse named Blackie.

She was black, and she loved to rear. Just pull on the reins, and she would stand on her hind legs. Though it would scare the beejeebers out of me now if Lily did such a thing, I loved it back in those days whenever Blackie stood up.

The Delamarters didn't like rearing, so I was the only one at the time who would ride Blackie. One day I went riding in their woods, did the usual fun tricks with Blackie and headed home. On my way home, I discovered that the wallet that had been in my pocket was no longer there. It was getting to be dark, so I pedaled on.

The next day I went back to Delamarters and looked around their woods for the wallet. It was not to be found. I went back a few more times with no luck. Adding to the challenge was the fact that some dozer work was going on in their woods. Earth had been upturned, and only the Lord knew where that wallet was.

At the time, I was most disappointed about losing my wad of money. But the thought of losing Craig Thompson's picture (my current flame then) was almost as bad.

After telling Bill the story, he said that maybe some day if Ralph Sletager decides to go ahead with his golf course, my wallet and all that money will turn up on one of the fairways. I wonder if Ralph would give me the inflated value if it does.

Anyway, that was one time when even St. Anthony couldn't help me out.

He did a year ago, however. That was when the guardian angel medallion given by Jenny Jacobson Meyer to Angela Warren Miller disappeared just weeks after Angela had left it at the Lodgepole Log.

Four days of searching with a metal detector, along with St. Anthony's prayer, worked. I'm still wondering where it went during those four days, but I know how relieved and thrilled I was to find it in the dirt just below the log box.

I don't know how the belt buckle story is going to end, but it's a treasured item that definitely has meaning. So, we'll give it our best shot.

The great part of this story is the adventures we'll have in the quest to find it. Those will never "go missing" as they like to say on the news these days.

In the meantime, St. Anthony, please come around. I could use your help.