Sandpoint Kidz on the Deck

 

When Bill and I stay at the Sharamore House B and B in Clifton, Ireland, the owners, John and Sue, refer to us as "the kids." 

We like that . . . it makes us feel young. 

Well, this weekend has included a slew of reminders of what it's like to be a "Sandpoint kid." 

I visited with several dozen "Sandpoint Kids" Friday night at the Sandpoint High Class of 1974 reunion and loved every minute.  

Then yesterday afternoon, I received a call that some more "kids" from Sandpoint were on their way from the Hope Hotel, where they had had lunch, to the Lovestead and would arrive in about 20 minutes. 

Of course, I scurried around like a crazy woman, grabbed the vacuum cleaner and made a speed run over the carpet, just in case one of these "kids" happened to come into the house. 

Also, so as not to reveal my rolls of tummy fat, I also grabbed a light long-sleeved shirt to cover the extra fat tires. 

Why is it that we immediately launch into these insane behaviors the instant we learn unexpected company's coming?? Anywho???

Well, in some cases, the house may not be fit for company, but that wasn't even the case yesterday.  It wasn't all that bad.

I think for me it reverts back to times of youth when the same kind of alert would happen at our family home.  

My mother would hang up the phone and fly into action, firing orders to her young lieutenants to get the dust rag or pick up stuff. 

At this point in life, we all should know that visitors who are coming on a spontaneous whim certainly know that we're haven't exactly hired the clean team to get ready for their arrival. 

But we still do it. 

By the time, I had finished vacuuming and put on the cover-up fat shirt, I saw the car with three occupants slow down and roll into the driveway. 

They're all 80-year-olds and classmates of my brother Mike and his wife Mary.  

But ya know what?  

Very little of the next couple of hours of fast-flowing conversation--sprinkled with a few "whatsername" gaps-- involved "ain't it awful" medical stories that so often dominate interaction among our contemporaries. 

Oh, granted, Diane, a lifelong horse lover, and I did commiserate a bit about how our nasty knees have played havoc with our horseback riding.  But that was about all that came up about aches and pains. 

Instead, discussion focused on places in Sandpoint where we'd all lived, including the Ponderay Hotel on Cedar Street across from Connies and just down the street from the Tam.  

That's where Don lived for a year.  His grandparents had owned the hotel since purchasing it in 1937. 

Don told us about his alarm clock at the hotel. 

He had a room to himself on an upper floor.  A pipe ran up the wall. Whatever time Don had to get up in the morning, his grandpa would bang on the pipe from a lower floor. 

Jesse Shaffer also occasionally asked Don to run over to the Tam aka Tervan aka Tavern and purchase a root beer.  

Also, when Don told the group that he was related to Sharon Jones Hudon who now lives in Lewiston, I piped up and said, "So am I!"

"Then, we're related!" he announced. 

Well, it was all "sorta related."  

I don't know exactly how Don found family lines connected to Sharon, who grew up at the Lakeside Motel next to City Beach.  If I recall the fast-flowing conversation, I think it was a marriage.   

Then, I explained to him that my stepfather Harold's sister Wilma was married to Esther Lines' brother George and that Esther Lines's husband Bert was Vera Jones' brother (Vera was Sharons' mom), it all became crystal clear to our family that we were finally related to someone in Sandpoint. 

That string of relatives took us to the Farmin family because Bert and Esther's daughter Judy married Ted Farmin.  His ancestors were instrumental in laying out the town of Sandpoint.  

So, with that mildly indirect connection, we  actually could claim some Sandpoint blue blood in our family tree. 

Bill and I also spent some time teasing Joanne about living in Matchwood when she was a kid.  She spent her first six years living up north on South Center Valley Road across from SHS retired math instructor Eva Whitehead's farm. 

Bill and I have never been able to pinpoint the exact location or full history of Matchwood, which was a tiny berg out here, but, like Mark Twain, we simply place it wherever convenient. 

Matchwood seemed like a good nugget to add to Joanne's personal history.  

Even though we didn't talk too much about aches and pains, local doctors and dentists of yesteryear earned some discussion.  

Dr. Munson seemed to get the nod among kids for physicals cuz he'd maybe check out our ears and a few other minor observations and then sign off that we were healthy enough to play football or to go to college. 

Diane had memories of Dr. Page, the dentist.  A member of her family went to Dr. Page.  One night when he went for an appointment after his work shift at the mill, the family started wondering when he was coming home. 

Someone went to Dr. Page's office and found the two asleep in chairs. 

Another time, the same relative who had snoozed with the dentist found Dr. Page on the floor of his office.  He had suffered a heart attack. 

We also talked about Dr. McKinnon, the dentist who didn't believe in deadening patients' gums. He was the same person who told me during an appointment for a sore tooth that I had "dermographia." 

Apparently, when you rub your arm (probably more when you have youthful skin) and a red mark appears, you have dermographia, which means that you tend to go to extremes. 

As far as I was concerned after learning that nugget, Dr. Mckinnon probably also had dermographia because he pulled one of my teeth with no pain reliever. I did live through the ordeal but  never begged to go back to Dr. McKinnon. 

We covered a whole lot of other local subjects which only a group like ours would appreciate. To us it was rich and meaningful material. 

Heck, we even talked about Sarah Palin who was born in Sandpoint.  Joanne's daughter, who teaches in Alaska, knows the family and Joanne had visited her home. 

But did we ever!!

We "kids" had a great kid time in our hometown, and even if these elders of mine did graduate a few years before I did, we have a bond that cannot be broken, no matter how many outsiders move to Sandpoint or how much our hometown changes in appearance. 

We may be chronologically old, but we're still Sandpoint kids and proud of it. 

 Happy Sunday.