Slight Detour: Bye, September

It's passed like a speeding light. I thought we'd only just begun, but today I realized the month is ending.

Where did September go?

I'm wondering if it's age that makes time go faster or our busy pace.

In any case, both categories fit for me.

I also wish the fall months would just slow down a bit. After all, they're the best.

If a poll were taken, I would bet that the majority of residents around here would vote fall over any other season, and they would not need debates or scandals to make up their minds.

Fall has all the good qualities----color, crisp air, fewer "turists," all the stuff that makes living in this area fun, at least in my mind.

Well, we're halfway through the season, and I don't even remember what all I've done during its first half, 'cept it's been good and it's been busy.

I do remember, however, that the end of this month signifies a birthday for one of my longtime friends. We call her "Mow." She does have a name, and that's Jean.

Mow turned 70 today, so, of course, I had to needle her a bit. Part of that harassment included yet another dramatic realization.

Where have those 50-plus years of our friendship gone???

We first met at Camp Neewahlu on Lake Coeur d'Alene in the summer of 1965. She had come from Kansas to serve as the Campfire Girls camp water safety instructor, hence, "Slap my thigh, I'm a WSI."

I had a more low grade job----dishwasher.

Most of us knew each other by nicknames, and these days I would be most sensitive about my nickname, which was the other half of Span. My partner Span aka Terrie Chronic is sadly no longer with us.

That summer we did not have a lot of time off, but once when they gave us a 24-hour break, we made the most of it with my dad's cow truck, loading up sleeping bags and about five of us and heading for the blister rust camp up in the Priest Lake country.

That's where my brother Kevin and a bunch of his friends worked for the Forest Service. After a night of driving around the Priest Lake country, which included a stop at a dump to see and probably provoke the bears, the guys went back to camp and the girls bedded down in the back of the truck.

Well, that was short-lived. About 1 a.m. the rains came, so Mow drove the truck, which was reading Empty to a nearby laundromat at Lamb Creek. We bedded down again between the washers and dryers. It cut quite a scene to say the least, and our bodies suffered from trying to sleep on that cement floor.

That experience launched off this half-century friendship, and, believe me, when we've gotten together over the years, each experience definitely rivals the cow truck story.

I hope we both live to be a hundred and that my mind is still working so I can write that book. For now, Jean aka Mow, we Love's all wish you the happiest of days.

I promise not to put a damper on your special day by saying anything about how you and Donald Trump are now contemporaries----not a word! :)

Happy Birthday, Mow. Happy Friday to all.

One of our stories involved Mow's visit to Sandpoint to pick up her beloved Webster, brother of our grandpuppies.That was a wild and woolly weekend, thanks to an early winter storm.

In the midst of it, though, our friend Boots Reynolds had his book launch at Community Hall, and we all attended and enjoyed, especially my mother to whom Boots jokingly referred as his "other wife."

Bootsie, as many of us called him, had lots of "other wives," but we never mentioned that to Mother.