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Barb Sterling Tate and Betsy Walker, seated.
Standing: Myra Lewis, Pam Eimers, Marian Whitfield and bad singer, no-guitar-talent Marianne Love.
All spent part or all of their careers at Sandpoint High School,teaching the children" such things as Spanish, typing, English, speech and home ec skills by day and "dressing for success" on the side. |
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Yesterday marked the second time that Betsy Walker's family and friends celebrated her birthday without her here on Earth.
Betsy, an educator who taught, counseled and administrated, was so dear and beloved by so many.
Furthermore, she was always a willing conspirator or instigator of uproarious fun. She also kept an abundant and funky supply of clothes, some retrieved during dumpster dives, for dress-up.
Often, when a group of friends would come to her house, they sorted through the supply and found the just-right outfit for that day's silliness.
"Today
we all need to do something truly goofy and fun and laugh till we ache.
Happy birthday dear friend. My love to you, Hon, and Holly, your dad,
and your mom’s family." 
The suggestion above was posted by fellow educator and friend, Pam Eimers, commenting on a quintessential photo of Betsy enjoying some cotton candy. The photo had been posted by her son Hon.
Whenever Betsy and her gang of educator friends got together, the scene often turned totally goofy and was dominated with tear-filled belly laughs.
Sometimes these wacky experiences were planned; sometimes, totally spontaneous.
It didn't take much to get the bunch of us gals going, and that's pretty much what happened on Facebook last night after Pam's suggestion.
One whimsical photo of Pam and me in cowboy hats chewing on hay stems was soon matched by the photo above.
I had never ever seen that photo, which Pam had found in her collection. When I did, all my concentration on the ZAGS game went out the window.
I could not stop laughing AND it felt so good, thinking about the uproarious hilarity of those days with those good and silly friends and colleagues.
It occurred to me last night, after I got back on task watching the game, that we need more belly laugh moments like we used to enjoy. Seems they occur too few and far between these days.
To help this along in our friend circle, I'm going to suggest that from now on, each year when Betsy's birthday rolls around, the bunch of us who engaged should celebrate our Betsy by spending some time being silly and goofy.
What a great way to memorialize a true blue friend AND to experience some enjoyment.
Which leads me to another bittersweet story about a colleague and friend.
Tom Keough, who served as an administrator at Sandpoint High School (father to former golf coach Mike Keough and father-in-law to former Senator Shawn Keough) passed away Thursday.
I received word of Tom's passing from his daughter Kelli, a former student who, as you will see from the link, has done rather well in her career.
Since Tom's passing, the memories and photos have been flowing on social media. Last night Kelli's husband Tony sent me the photo below of Tom and a rather young Willie aka Will Love.
Hard to resist posting this gem this morning.
Tom was a warm-hearted, caring and good friend/ colleague AND a man who enjoyed a good laugh. That seemed to be an essential ingredient for staff members at Sandpoint High.
He left a wonderful legacy as a educator, father and husband. He will be missed.
RIP, Tom.
Yes, I posted this photo yesterday, and I knew someone would remember "382, please."
From my older brother Mike . . .
Thinking of the old crank telephone....382 was the number for Ardis
Racicot. Our number was 26F14. It was one digit different from the
Best's number which was 26F4. Our ring was "one long and four short." I
think Best's was three short.
We were part of the North Boyer Telephone
Association. The main telephone line was on the opposite side of the
road, a situation that required a line crossing the road to reach our
house.
The telephone poles used to support the line were short, and the
line crossing the road was about 15 feet above the road surface. That
resulted in frequent snaps of the wire by passing logging trucks.
Pappy
White was the president of the North Boyer Telephone Association, and
he was reluctant to spend the money necessary to raise the wire to
height that would ensure safety from the logging trucks...took a long
time--years, I think.
Also have fond memories of long distance phone
calls to relatives in Michigan. Because of difficulty and cost, that
was something that didn't happen often. It was always a project
requiring extensive planning and operator involvement.
When a
connection was made, it usually didn't last long...usually on the order
of three or four minutes, and it was always a major financial
investment. Things have changed.
In other news, there's snow and there are snowshoers (some 4-legged) at Connie's home in Hope.
~~~~~
Sportswise, what can we say when all three Bulldog teams that we follow had a great night last night.
Willie's team took a victory at Timberlake; Gonzaga women won big, and anyone who missed the ZAGS men's game missed a phenomenal display of basketball talent.
Congratulations to all.
Finally, this morning, the Gooby Ranch in Montana has had an elk invasion.
What's Mary Ann to do to solve this problem while Dick relaxes????
Read on.
Gooby Ranch Report
It’s starting to look like winter at the Gooby Ranch. There is a foot of snow, it’s 20 below and the north wind is blowing.
When it gets this cold and the snow gets deep, the elk come out of the mountains to feed on the farmer’s hay stacks.
This morning we have about 200 elk in the field about 300 yards from our hay stack. If the elk move in and eat on the hay stack, we won’t have anything left to feed the cattle.
Since I have the most experience with elk, I knew exactly what to do. I drove the pickup down and parked it between the elk and the hay stack.
I put Mary Ann’s sleeping bag in the back so she can stay warm. All she had to do was stay awake in case the elk tried to sneak in. It won’t be all bad because in a while we will start calving and this will give her a head start on being up all night.
While I was getting things set up for Mary Ann, she hit on the idea of writing a song for the elk.
She wrote,
I’m going to get an elk tonight. I going to get an elk tonight. It’s going to be my delight since I’m going to get an elk tonight. Shish! Boom! Bah! Bring on the elk so I can get my elk tonight. It will be my delight, when I get my elk tonight.
She recorded the song and when she went down to the pickup, she put the player on the hood of the pickup and turned the song on loud.
I could hear it clear in the house. I had to turn the TV up more so I could hear my movie.
When Mary Ann came back in the morning to get my breakfast, she said with her song playing the elk didn’t want anything to do with the hay stack.
I guess none of them wanted to be Mary Ann’s elk delight.
1 comment:
Dear Betsy. We miss you!
Thank you for the song. Beautiful way to begin the day.
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