A pretty house in South Sandpoint.
******
Good things have happened in the past several hours.
I went outside this morning and soon felt what I guessed were tiny projectiles landing on my coat.
As I kept on walking down the lane, the mild assaults continued.
Halfway down the lane, I could hear them attacking the roof of the big shed.
Could this be real, or is this my imagination, I thought.
An instant later, when one landed on my hand, it was wet.
Those were not projectiles. They were raindrops.
Unplanned raindrops at that. My phone forecast and the KHQ News last night showed no chance of rain for the next ten days.
Guess there was a glitch kinda like I had yesterday with my blog posting.
It was a nice and welcome glitch, even if it lasted just ten minutes. Ya gotta start somewhere!
That was nice, and even nicer was reading in the news this morning that the Sandpoint High School Bulldog football team won their season opener last night.
A win is always nice, but this one had some extra significance with the recent passing of Coach Ryan Knowles wife Megan.
Like what happens so often in this community, the team, the staff and parents and friends have wrapped their arms around Ryan and his family. Ryan acknowledged his appreciation in today's story about last night's season opener.
A nice win and an even nicer story to go along with it.
Congratulations, Ryan, and congratulations, Bulldogs.
🏈🏈🏈🏈🏈
My oldest brother posted this on Facebook last night.
Certainly worth the read as, sadly, one more revered institution within this country has gone under attack.
RIP, STARS & STRIPES
by Mike Brown
Today, we learned that the Hegseth "War" Department terminated the key staff of the STARS & STRIPES. In explaining this action, Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell said:
"STARS & STRIPES will be custom tailored to our warfighters. It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints."
Long ago and far away in Vietnam, I was familiar with the S&S. It was, in many ways, a lifeline.
I did not look to the publication for information about "warfighting" or lethality or others of this administration's testosterone inspired subjects.
STARS & STRIPES seemed to me to be quite independent as a news publication. To be sure, there were articles about what was happening in the war, but they were, in my judgment at the time, reported dispassionately, and they printed the good, the bad, and the ugly.
But I didn't read the paper to be informed about the war. I was there, and there were plenty of other ways for me to be informed about the combat environment.
What WAS important to me was that the STARS & STRIPES brought me news from "back in the world." Major newspapers from the United States did reach Vietnam....by mail, and mail could take two weeks.
And newspapers were not exactly priority mail.
I can vividly recall August 1967 just as I was starting my first Vietnam tour, an event called the Sundance Fire was starting near my home in north Idaho. It was a huge fire of national and international import, and it involved people that I knew. Family members were involved.
I read about it every day in the S&S. The STARS & STRIPES was printed "in theater" so its subject matter was reasonably current.
We did not have to wait for two weeks for news from home. It was available in the field, usually sent to field locations along with unit mail deliveries.
I'm saddened to learn that today's terminations were done with a purpose of reorienting what was a reliably independent journal of current events into what, from Sean Parnell's description, will be a propaganda rag to spout the political opinions of the likes of Hegseth and others.
For me, the S&S is also personal.
When I was shot down in 1972, there was little reporting of the incident in the U.S.
The S&S, however, did report on the incident and published its report in its Pacific edition. Family friends in the Philippines caught the article, clipped it out, and sent it to Mary.
Before receiving that clipping, about two weeks after the incident, Mary had had only sketchy information about what had happened. I'm attaching a copy of that clipping with this posting.
If you'd like to read more about Mike's experience in Vietnam, his book Missile, Missile, Missile is available on Amazon.com
It had been at least 50 years since we'd seen each other.
That was when I was a young teacher named Miss Brown, and Jody Lee was fun-loving, involved high school student.
We reconnected last night at the "Independent" booth at the Bonner County Fair where she was volunteering.
I was thrilled to learn that Jody has moved back to Sandpoint from Boise after retiring from an amazing career in the communications industry.
Her career as a writer, producer and director has included work with Idaho Public Television (Outdoor Idaho).
She has also worked with productions in New York City and London where she also earned her Master's Degree at Bournemouth University. She has also won a national award and received an Emmy nomination.
from her Linked In account:
My work in film encompasses an eclectic array of projects: fundraising, commercials, sporting events, corporate and independent films, government agencies and network affiliates.
Obviously, having worked with Jody as a student many many years ago and with my own passions for writing and telling stories, I'm excited to spend more time with her sharing the wonderful experiences associated with our profession.
She's from Sandpoint. We are proud of her and so happy she has come back home.
Last night we did a little catch-up while mingling with the Independent candidates for state and national offices.
Considering that a portion of the theme to this year's fair is Independence, it seems like a good idea to dig down into our Independent natures and consider some of the candidates not affiliated with political parties.
One of those I met for the first time last night. Immediately, while shaking hands with Todd Achilles, I felt very comfortable and like I'd known him all my life.
He's that down-to-earth and an easy guy to get to know. When he saw the photo someone had posted in the booth of him showing his lamb as a 4-H'er, he was quite amused.
In fact, he didn't mind one bit when I, a 4-H'er quite accustomed to winning a white ribbon or two, ribbed him about earning a red ribbon with his lamb.
Todd is running against Jim Risch for the U.S. Senate, and he wastes no time telling folks that he's "not 83 years old," which is certainly worth consideration in today's political circles.
I liked him a lot. He's an impressive human being and candidate----one who can relate to pretty much anyone he meets.
As a rather independent soul myself, I'll be happy to support him. I'm happy to see vibrant potential for positive changes in our political circles.
You can learn more about Todd Achilles at
I posted a photo of my former student Eric Steffensen yesterday.
He had come to Sandpoint from his home in Deer Park to compete in cattle sorting Thursday night.
He sent me this photo, taken by Debbie Neely today. Eric is riding the buckskin horse.
He told me that he had finished fourth and his girl friend Cecelia had finished third.
Sixty teams participated.
Great work, Eric and Cecelia.
One more hot day, and we have a cool down coming.
Let's hope we make it through this red flag day with no new fires.
Happy Saturday.
