The River Journal April 2009

Because there’s more to life than bad news

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A News MAGAZINE Worth Wading Through

The weevil finds a home in Lake Pend Oreille Inside:

• Forget the snow, it’s time to garden • Why is any business too big to fail?

• Area residents celebrate Mother Earth • A Muddy Reconstruction in the Pack River Delta • 50 Years of Journalism

April 2009

Harry Weerheim

Michael White, Realtor

BS Forest Resources & Ecosystem Management For land, Ranches, and Homes with Acreage

R E S o R T

R E A LT Y

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Sales Associate, Captain & EMT, Schweitzer Mtn VFD Experienced in Residential Construction Specializing in Residential & Resort 0ROPERTIES s 208-610-6577

690 ACRES - borders the Clark Fork River & National Forest with paved county road access. The views are spectacular in all directions, but from Castle Rock you can see all the way to Lake Pend oreille & Schweitzer ski mtn. Property consists of about 1/3 good, productive pasture lands & about 2/3 forest land. Power & phone on site, plus a little year-round creek. Easy to subdivide. $3,500,000

240 ACRES Of fORESTED LAND With beautiful lake, mountain and valley views.

Four contiguous parcels (two 80-acre and two 40-acre) borders USFS on multiple sides. Less than 25 miles NE of Sandpoint, in the Rapid Lightning Creek area. Good roads, some newly constructed, high timber values both now & into the future.

Great wildlife and big game habitat. The ultimate private retreat. $995,000

LARGE UNDER GROUND CEMENT HOUSE ON 130 ACRES BoRDERED BY TWo BIG CREEKS & TIMBER CoMPANY LAND! Features include well, electric plus solar and generator backups, two good log cabins, shop & greenhouse too.

New interior road system & county maintained road access just off the pavement.

Awesome views. Priced as vacant land, only $649,500!

90 ACRES on Deep Creek w/ alternative energy cabin, Borders state land, good productive pasture land, beautiful forest and great views. 20 minutes to Sandpoint Bring offers! Asking $495,500

21AC W/ BiG ViEWS Of THE LAkE, Great views of Lake Pend oreille, Lost Lake, surrounding Mountains and valley below. Easy drive to Sandpoint, mostly on paved roads. on the edge of Selle Valley, in an area of very nice homes. Firm at $185,000

8 ACRES w/ 800’ Of WATERfRONT, where the Pack River meets the lake. adjacent to Idaho Club! Boatable into Lake Pend oreille. Great road access, building pad in, perc tested and gorgeous views of river, lake, mountains & wildlife. $995,000

20 ACRES with nice cedar sided home, wired for conventional, solar and generator electric. one mile off paved county road, on newly rocked private road with secondary access road too. Big barn, good views, private but easy drive to town. Asking $299,500

20AC Of GOOD-USABLE LAND with great views, just a short distance off of paved county road. Nice trees and great building sites. Close to Spirit Lake and easy access to Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene or Spokane. Priced below the average price per acre in this area. Bring all offers! $120,000

8 ACRES. GREAT ViEWS Of SCHWEiTZER From this private, nicely treed lot with power and phone in. Close to town, good access, great views,and a private building site. $200,000

NiCE 20 ACRE pARCEL, great access on county maintained road, wonderful views, lots of good-usable land. Utilities to property line, less than 5 minutes to Clark Fork and only about 40 min to Sandpoint. Priced below market value! $149,500

WHY LIST WITH MICHAEL?

21 ACRES ON LOST LAkE! Great views, power & phone, two building pads w/ roughed-in roads, mostly paved roads on the 10 mile drive to town. Area of nice homes. Great price at $275,000

17 ACRES w/ SAND CREEk fRONTAGE beaver pond, nice forest, usable land, power & phone,and small cottage.

Less than 10 ml to Sandpoint, 1 mile off paved co. rd, 3 parcels sold together for $125,500

Hayden, iD: Quaint & beautiful horse property with good home, big barn, productive hay fields, pasture, views, good county maintained road, close to shopping, dinning, lake, etc... $425,000

Consistently ranked top 10% in sales. Your listing advertised in The Real Estate Book, Homes & Land, Coeur d’ Alene Mag., Sandpoint Mag, The River Journal, Farm & Ranch Mag | The River Journal - A News Magazine WorthMLS, Wadingdoubles Through | www.RiverJournal.com andPage more...

Member of Cd’A and Selkirk your exposure. | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

April 2009

As the snow melts, the garden calls.

See story by Marylyn Cork on page 2

THE RIVER JOURNAL A News Magazine Worth Wading Through ~just going with the flow~ P.O. Box 151•Clark Fork, ID 83811 www.RiverJournal.com•208.255.6957

SALES How to wreck an economy in just a few easy steps. See story by Trish Gannon on page 3

Call 208.255.6957 or email trish@riverjournal.com

PRESS RELEASES (Email only) to editorial@riverjournal.com

STAFF Calm Center of Tranquility In a devastated New Orleans, compassion and service. See story

by Angela Potts on page 4

Cartoonists Scott Clawson, Matt Davidson, Jim Tibbs

Trying times for Fish & Game, a muddy reconstruction on the Pack River Delta, new football rules and the Man in the Iron Mask.

Departments Editorial

Cover

Ministry of Truth and Propaganda Jody Forest dgree666@sandpoint.net

Also...

6..........Staccato Notes 8..........Veterans 10-13.....Outdoors 14-15.....Sports 16.........Education 19.........Food 20.........Faith 22-23.....Wellness 24-25.....Other Worlds 26-27.....Politics 30-31.....Obituaries 33-36.....Humor

Trish Gannon-trish@riverjournal.com

7 Trish Gannon Politically Incorrect 9 Sandy Compton The Scenic Route 17 Marianne Love Love Notes 21 Ernie Hawks The Hawk’s Nest 29 Paul Rechnitzer Say What?

36 Boots Reynolds From the Mouth of the River

Regular Contributors

Desire Aguirre; Jinx Beshears; Laura Bry; Scott Clawson; Sandy Compton; Marylyn Cork; Dick Cvitanich; Duke Diercks; Mont. Sen. Jim Elliott; Idaho Rep. George Eskridge; Lawrence Fury; Dustin Gannon; Shaina Gustafson; Matt Haag; Ernie Hawks; Hanna Hurt; Herb Huseland; Emily Levine; Marianne Love; Thomas McMahon; Clint Nicholson; Kathy Osborne; Gary Payton; Angela Potts; Paul Rechnitzer; Boots Reynolds; Sandpoint Wellness Council; Rhoda Sanford; Lou Springer; Mike Turnlund; Tess Vogel; Michael White; Pat Williams; and Kate Wilson

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle Proudly printed at Griffin Publishing in Spokane, Wash. 509.534.3625

Contents of the River Journal are copyright 2009.

Reproduction of any material, including original artwork and advertising, is prohibited. The River Journal is published the first of each month and approximately 8,000 copies are distributed in Sanders County, Montana, and Bonner, Boundary and Kootenai counties in Idaho.

The River Journal is printed on 40 percent recycled paper with Area holds a “welcome party” for a milfoil-eating weevil. soy-based ink. We appreciate See story on page 5. Cover photo by Phil Longden your efforts to recycle.

Forget the Snow, it’s time to Garden

by Marylyn Cork

It’s March. My eyes yearn for the sight of bare ground. My hands itch for the feel of crumbly topsoil sifting through my fingers. My poor nose searches in vain for the invigorating scent of freshlyturned earth. A new supply of vegetable and flower seeds, more patient than I by far, await the coming of spring in a warm, dark closet. Yes, I’m a gardener. This winter has lasted long enough.

Gardening is said to be one of the most popular, perhaps the most popular hobby in America. In hard times like these, even more people will be attempting to grow at least some of their food supply this year. Yes, there’s work involved, but it’s worth it.

No taste treat in the world equals that of freshly grown veggies.

Gardening is good for one’s blood pressure, too. It can be very relaxing, and also provides mega-doses of that essential vitamin we get so little of in the Pacific Northwest—the D that’s in sunshine.

Much as I love it, though, I’m awfully glad growing my own food is not the critical, labor intensive process today that it was for our pioneer ancestors. They might not have eaten at all if they hadn’t worked hard to grow most of their table fare. An inauspicious growing season, which we occasionally get in North Idaho, must have loomed like a natural disaster. They didn’t have our modern, well-stocked supermarkets to fall back on, nor did they have all of the laborsaving devices and helpful products we have to make the work easier.

In the days when my hearing was considerably better than it is now, I did a lot of oral history interviewing around Priest River, and worked up a healthy respect for what I learned was involved in feeding the big families of yesteryear. My community’s Italian pioneers particularly were noted for their oversize families, but in some respects I think they ate more healthfully than most of us do today.

Here is what some of those old-timers shared with me in regard to how they and their families put food on the table in the early years of the 20th century: “It was nothing for my dad to pick four hundred head of cabbage in the fall of the year,” said George A. Naccarato, whose father, Angelo, was one of the first of the Italian laborers from southern Italy who came to Priest River to work for the Great Northern Railroad. “They put them in a pit like you would potatoes to keep them through.

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They folded the leaves under and then set them right on top of the ground in rows about four feet wide and then covered them with dirt. They just mounded the dirt up over them and the outside would freeze but the inside didn’t.

“My family had a good acre and a half in garden, in small stuff like peppers, tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots and lettuce, and so on—they had an acre of spuds somewhere else. They pitted the potatoes, too, and the beets and carrots, and things like that.

Everything they didn’t can, they pitted—everything.

“They canned a lot of things on the stove with hot water, but they salted down a lot of things, too. They would take excess green tomatoes and peppers and Good health comes slice them. They would with good habits. Make put three or four inches regular eye appointments of sliced tomatoes and to ensure that your eyes peppers at a time in three or four-gallon crocks and carry you throw in a handful or two through a long of salt till they came to and colorful the top. They had wooden life. lids that would fit inside of the crocks and they would put them on top PAUL E. KOCH, O.D. and press them down and take a rock to keep the 476999 HWY. 95 NORTH SANDPOINT

You can see it in their eyes

OFFICE IN WALMART VISION CENTER

208.255.5513

Continued on page 18

Page | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

If they’re too big to fail... then does it make sense that they’re still in business?

It was January of 2008—long before Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG and credit default swaps became regular topics at American dinner tables—when David Henry, a reporter for BusinessWeek, posed the following: “It’s the question bank regulators dread: Should they bail out a crucial bank if it collapses?

“With economic and market conditions sliding precipitously, risk is rising fast that at least one major institution could implode, endangering the financial system with it.”

He went on to predict: “... if the casualty is any one of about a dozen U.S. commercial banks or a handful of other prominent financial players, regulators would probably feel compelled to fashion some kind of bailout to keep the damage from spreading to the broader financial system.”

Almost three trillion dollars later the American taxpayer knows all too well that there are many businesses the government deems to be too big to fail. What the American taxpayer does not know, and what the government seems to be ignoring, is whether or not it’s in our best interest to fix the symptom of big business run amuck without fixing the underlying cause—institutions so large that their failure threatens the failure of not just the U.S. economy, but the economy throughout the world.

Simon Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, warns that current bailout efforts are not enough for the American economy to recover; in a special report for The Atlantic, he likens the U.S. to a “banana republic” and says the IMF experience has shown, “the biggest obstacle to recovery is almost invariably the politics of countries in crisis.

“Typically, these countries are in a

desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks.”

He points out that policies associated with the current problem—”lightweight regulation, cheap money, the unwritten Chinese-American economic alliance, the promotion of homeownership—(all) had something in common. Even though some are traditionally associated with Democrats and some with Republicans, they all benefited the financial sector.”

And he says that in order to truly fix the problem we must temporarily nationalize banks, clean them up, and then force them to become smaller entities. “This is the best way to limit the power of individual institutions in a sector that is essential to the economy as a whole.”

Matthew Goldstein of BusinessWeek concurs. “What’s needed now more than anything, is a plan to ensure that no financial institution is ever again ‘too big to fail,’” he writes.

Even former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is sharing the call: “Pardon me for asking,” he writes in his blog, “but if a company is too big to fail, maybe—just maybe—it’s too big, period.”

Not to mention whether we’re even competent to judge when that’s the case.

Take the AIG bailout, for instance, triggered out of concern for the failure of their counterparties—like Goldman Sachs. AIG got bailout funds and Goldman got $12.9 billion of those dollars. Yet Goldman’s Chief Financial Officer, David VInar, now says Goldman was never in danger of failure if AIG had gone under.

Businesses who received dollars in the

by Trish Gannon

initial bailout package are still refusing to tell Congress where those dollars went, and still have not communicated just how much money they’ve lost. As Johnson writes, “At the root of the banks’ problems are the large losses they have undoubtedly taken on their securities and loan portfolios. But they don’t want to recognize the full extent of their losses, because that would likely expose them as insolvent. So they talk down the problem, and ask for handouts that aren’t enough to make them healthy (again, they can’t reveal the size of the handouts that would be necessary for that), but are enough to keep them upright a little longer.”

The current $2.8 trillion in bailout dollars throws a frightening shadow over any longterm health for the American economy.

That amount is “like having a second U.S. budget dedicated solely to saving the U.S. financial system, and that truly is surreal,” said Finance Committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D) of Montana.

And for Johnson, that former IMF official, the current refusal to consider whether it’s in our best interest to allow businesses to become too big to fail does not give him much faith in America’s future. “...the U.S., of course, is the world’s most powerful nation, rich beyond measure, and blessed with the exorbitant privilege of paying its foreign debts in its own currency, which it can print. As a result, it could very well stumble along for years—as Japan did during its lost decade—never summoning the courage to do what it needs to do, and never really recovering. A clean break with the past—involving the takeover and Continued on page 34

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page

At the Forward Edge Experiencing Heaven on Earth in a still devastated New Orleans

by Angela Potts

In early March I returned from a week of house building and ministering in New Orleans organized through an NGO called Forward Edge. My motivation was to minister and bless others with my ability and willingness to meet an unmet need.

Hearing the stories of other volunteers who had served in New Orleans, LA (NOLA) I was outraged that nearly four years later, (Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast August 25, 2005) the need to restore people and communities continues to be largely ignored. Now, on the eve of the departure of 32 volunteers from First Christian, Cedar Hills and Assembly of God churches—the sixth Sandpoint group organized through Forward Edge International—I am still sorting out my mixed feelings about my experience in New Orleans.

How arrogant of me to think I was making a sacrifice for the people I came to serve. The single mother and widowed sisters (in their 80s) we were able to work for were the ones who have sacrificed. Yet they collectively remained hopeful and shined radiant with joy and thankfulness for what had been done for them, little by little, team by team. I was truly humbled by my experience. I was the one who was ministered to and received the greatest blessing. These families, my volunteer partners and the charismatic revivalist style pastor, Pastor Charles, really know how to light a fire!

FEI founder Joseph Anfuso often tells the story of a man with a bucket of water approaching a building engulfed in flames.

Near the building is a row of sleeping firemen. The man must make a choice: Does he throw his bucket on the building, or on the row of firemen? FEI has made its choice: they are waking up the firemen!

It is time we wake up and realize we have the resources and the manpower to help others; we simply lack the will. That lack of will is what is bringing America to her knees. We have lost sight of relationship, of what is of true value and meaning. Martin Luther King said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects ALL indirectly.”

Today’s world is engulfed by crises and overwhelming need. It is easy to turn a deaf ear to the sound of our heart strings, thinking it is just too much, I can’t make a difference, why bother and the like. No, it wasn’t just the magnitude

of Hurricane Katrina, the below sea level and geographic location of NOLA, the inadequate levies and the corruption that contributed to the devastation of what once was the third most important city in our nation, it was and still is all our collective indifference, complacency and apathy, and I will go so far as to say the lack of compassion, that have taken the bigger toll!Don’t think I am pointing fingers! My friends have accused me many times of CDD—compassion deficit disorder. I am thankful my experience in NOLA opened my ears, eyes and heart to the value of relationship. Romans 12:10 tells us to “be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” What a difference that would make in everyone’s life! What a gift! We would indeed experience heaven on earth and glorify God! To this day there is not one area in New Orleans that does not still show the affects of Katrina as witnessed in our three hours of stop-and-look driving along the route of devastation. Nearly four years after Katrina’s rage! This was in all parts of Orleans Parish (80 percent of NOLA flooded). Many street signs thrown to the ground by Katrina have still not been replaced. Even in the Park Place of NOLA, along Lake Pontchartrain, one of every eight houses was still not occupied because it was not livable and the owners either lacked the funds, will or both to start anew. In the lower middle class areas where we worked, it was about one of every three to five houses.

The Ninth Ward did not hold the image of abandoned houses. It was much more dramatic. It was foundations devoid of a home, totally empty neighborhoods, and a memorial whose pillars displayed the height of the water levels over the course of six weeks, the empty chairs on the porch symbolizing the loss of neighborhood and a framed-in section of a structure representing both loss and rebuilding.

Every residence that was unoccupied, even some that were restored to homes, showed their mark. For some it was the water marks—which still have not faded in the sun, baring witness to the water’s incredible height. Or another mark of devastation—a large X on the front of every home indicating someone had been there looking for survivors—human and animal.

I felt truly sad at the site of the first numeral 1 in the bottom portion of the Continued on page 28

Page | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

Celebrating

Mother Earth

Sandpoint area residents take charge of their local environment Those interested in environmental issues get double the pleasure during April as two events take place showcasing efforts to preserve this area’s environmental quality.

Partners for Milfoil Control, which includes the TriState Water Quality Council (as a fiscal sponsor), Idaho Conservation League, Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper, Panhandle Environmental League, Selkirk Conservation Alliance and Sandpoint Mothers for Safe Water, is inviting the public to a Spring Bash and Weevil Release Party on April 11 to help launch a new tool for attacking milfoil infestations in Lake Pend Oreille.

Partners for Milfoil Control is raising funds for a native milfoil weevil demonstration project that offers a potentially sustainable approach to dealing with the Eurasian watermilfoil problem. This fundraising event is near the deadline when all money needs to be raised in order to implement the project this summer.

The Weevil Release Party includes a showing of the film “FLOW,” four live musical acts and an Auction for Action. Admission is $12 for all three venues including the film at the Panida Theater, the Auction at Stage Right Cellars, and music at the Little Theater, all in Sandpoint.

FLOW won “best documentary” awards at the Vail and United Nations Association film festivals.

In addition to identifying problems, FLOW offers an inspiring portrayal of the people and institutions providing practical solutions to global water issues.

The Auction for Action features great items to bid on including a flight over Lake Pend Oreille and specialty lake cruises on the Shawnodese with Lake Pend Oreille Cruises. A wide selection of local arts, crafts and services will also be on the bidding tables.

Weevil Rock You, the musical portion of the program, is scheduled in the Little Theater (accessed via Stage Right Cellars). Holly McGary, Beth Pederson, Rex James Trio, and Bluegrass Scramble are featured.

Doors to the Panida open at 6 pm; those who arrive early can enjoy Eichardt’s lobby service featuring beer and wine. At 7 pm the film will be presented, with an opening performance by Cynthia’s Preschool & Kindergarten.

Then at 9 pm it’s the music and auction at Stage Right Cellars and the Little Theater. The auction will be open for bidding at Stage Right Cellars during the days prior to event, beginning on Thursday, April 9. Tickets are available at Common Knowledge, Eichardt’s, Stage Right Cellars, and the Panida Theater box office.

Individuals may contribute tax-deductible cash gifts securely on-line at www. tristatecouncil.org.

A little over two weeks later, more than 20 local organizations will be participating in the Second Annual Sandpoint Earth Day Festival on April 26 at the Sandpoint Community Hall.

This free event is sponsored by the Idaho Conservation League and city of Sandpoint, and celebrates the commitment and ingenuity of area residents who are working to protect North Idaho’s quality of life.

The festival will be preceded by a double feature on Earth Day, April 22, at the Little Panida Theater, featuring two short movies: Sacred Planet by Disney and the award-winning documentary Red Gold, about the controversial Pebble Creek Mine in Alaska.

The movies will be shown at 6:30 pm and admission is $6.

One highlight of the April 26 festival will be the Earth Day Café, featuring culinary creations made almost entirely with locally grown food. Last year’s menu included yak stew, pull-apart pork sandwiches on homegrown wheat rolls, and cookies.

Local musicians will provide entertainment, while the Arts Alliance will give kids a creative outlet. Idaho Fish and Game’s education program will have live owls on hand for teaching children about raptors.

Sandpoint’s Community Hall will be lined with displays of information featuring the work of local and regional organizations from 11 am to 4 pm.

For more information, call the Idaho Conservation League at 208-265-9565.

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page

STACCATO NOTES Music

Live music at Three Glasses, 202½ First Ave., in Sandpoint. April 10 - Illusion 33, a local rock band; April 11 - Oren B. Scripture and the Seekers (reggae from high atop Baldy Mountain); April 17 - Groove Patrol; Live music at the Pend d’Oreille Winery at 220 Cedar St. in Sandpoint. All evenings 5 to 7 pm.

208-265-8545 April 10—the Shook Twins and their funky, folky beautiful sound; April 11 jazz, blues and pop musician Ray Allen; April 17 - folk and Celtic duo Bridges Home, featuring Tami and Dave Gunter; April 24 - Bon Taj and their contemporary/standard jazz, blues and pop.

April 10 - The Sandpoint Friends Meeting (Quakers) hosts a family music benefit for the Bonner County Food Bank at 6:30 pm (doors open at 6 pm) at the Gardenia Center at the corner of Church St. and 4th Ave. in Sandpoint.

Folksinger, storyteller and banjo player Tom Rawson will fill the evening with humorous stories, user-friendly songs and acoustic folk philosophy that’s guaranteed to leave you smiling. Proceeds benefit the Bonner County Food Bank. A donation of $5 to $10 per family is requested, and/or items for the Food Bank.

208-263-1514 18 - The Sagle Swap Meet hosts a Battle of the Bands contest to benefit the West Bonner County Food Bank. The competition is open to bands and solo performers, and prizes will be awarded for best rock, blues, gospel, country and best-in-show. If you are interested in performing, contact Colin at 432-770-7596, or Diana at 208-263-7103.

April 26 - The Panida Theater hosts An Evening with Leo Kottke at 7 pm. Kottke is an acoustic guitarist widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, and draws on influences from blues, jazz and folk music for his syncopated melodies. General admission is $30. 208-263-9191

Theater

$6. Co-sponsored by the Idaho Conservation League, Sandpoint Transition Initiative and Rock Creek Alliance. 208-265-9565 April 24 - The Pend Oreille Arts Council presents the performance group Aché Brasil at 7:30 pm. in the Panida Theater. The dancers, musicians and performers of Aché Brasil exhibit a rare combination of authenticity and excellence in their work, which fuses music, dance and Capoeira (martial arts and acrobatics). Aché Brasil is committed to presenting high-quality performances which best exemplify Brazil’s rich cultural heritage. Tickets are $20 adults, $8 youth. ArtinSandpoint.org. 208-263-6139

Events

April 9 - Magic Show. The Sandpoint Library, 1407 Cedar St., hosts a Spring Magic Show with Magician Cecil Lewis from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm.

This event is free for all ages, and open to the public. 208-263-6930 April 10 - The Pend Oreille Arts Council hosts an art reception for the “One if by Land and Two if by Sea” display, a celebration of Sandpoint’s Lost in the ‘50s and Wooden Boat Show events. The reception is free and open to the public, and will be held in the POAC Gallery inside the Old Powerhouse from 5:30 to 7 pm.

ArtinSandpoint.org. 208-263-6139 April 11 - DayBreak Center/Bulldog Bench Fundraiser. Hootie’s at the Elks hosts the Sandpoint Senior Center’s Dinner and Auction Fundraiser beginning at 4:30 pm. NFL legends Jerry Kramer and Jake Plummer will have signed footballs and jerseys up for auction, and all money raised will go to the DayBreak Center, which provides daycare for seniors with dementia, and the Bulldog Bench, which supports Sandpoint High School sports. In addition to sports memorabilia, the auction will feature season passes to The Festival at Sandpoint, a load of firewood and rounds of golf at the Priest Lake Golf Course. Tickets to the benefit, which include cocktails and dinner, are $25 per person. Call 208-263-6860, or visit the Senior Center at 820 W. Main St. April 11 - Weevil Release Party. Partners for Milfoil Control present a spring bash and fundraising party to support the native weevils—a safe and potentially sustainable solution to milfoil infestations. Admission is $12, which includes three venues. The first event at 7 pm in the Panida is “FLOW,” a film which looks at the global water crisis, plus an opening performance by Cynthia’s Preschool and Kindergarten. Doors open at 6 pm (come early and get tuned up with Eichardt’s). Next is the Auction for Action at Stage Right Cellars beginning at 9 pm. And right next door in The Little Theater, enjoy the music of Holly McGary, Beth Pederson, the Rex James Trio

The area’s free events or events hosted by non-profit organizations

and Bluegrass Scramble. Tickets available at Common Knowledge, Eichardt’s, Stage Right Cellars and the Panida Theater box office. 208597-7188 April 18 - The Sandpoint Library, 1407 Cedar St., hosts a Mad Hatter Tea Party from 2 to 4 pm. The party is for children ages 5 to 10 who are accompanied by an adult. Be Alice in Wonderland for a day and jump into the rabbit hole to experience an unusual tea party with some very unusual guests. Meet the March Hare, the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter and Cheshire cat. Activities will include making a hat to wear while sipping your tea, listening to funny passages from the “Alice in Wonderland” story and a few surprises. The tea party will include light snacks and is free for children and adults. Bring a tea cup with you or use one from the library. 208-263-6930 April 24 The Festival at Sandpoint’s Annual Wine Tasting, Dinner and Auction at the Bonner County Fairgrounds at 5:30 pm in the Main Exhibition Building. FestivalatSandpoint. com. 888-265-4554 April 26 - Sandpoint Community Hall hosts the second annual Sandpoint Earth Day Festival from 11 am to 4 pm. The event features fresh, local food, music, arts and crafts for the kids, and information about conservation activities in North Idaho. Sponsored by Idaho Conservation League and City of Sandpoint.

Free admission. 208-265-9565 May 1-3 Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club holds its annual spring fishing contest, the K&K Spring Derby. Visit LPOIC.org for more information.

208-264-5796 May 2 - The day you’ve been waiting for - it’s the Sandpoint Farmer’s Market Opening Day! Enjoy the opening day of Sandpoint’s very own open-air market of fresh produce, garden starts, handcrafts, flowers, food and music.

The market runs from 9 am to 1 pm at Farmin Park. SandpointFarmersMarket.com. 208-5973355 May 2 Pend d’Oreille Winery hosts an Open House for their Bistro Blend Party from noon to 6 pm. Come create your own custom blend with winemaker Steve Meyer, and taste the varietals which make up the winery’s “vin de pays.” POWine.com. 265-8545 May 2 - The Greater Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce presents “Bonner County’s Got Talent,” happening at 6:30 pm in the Sandpoint Business and Events Center auditorium.

This event features 12 top performers from Bonner County who will compete in front of an audience, as well as local celebrity talent judges, for the opportunity to win cash prizes. Tickets are $10 general admission, and $5 for children ages 12 and under. Visit BonnerCountysGotTalent.com. 208-263-0887

April 9 & 10 - The Panida Theater presents the Israeli film, “Waltz with Bashir,” playing at 7:30 pm as part of the Global Cinema Cafe Series.

Tickets are $7 adults, $6 seniors and students ages 18 and under. 208-263-9191 April 16 through 18 The Class. The Panida Theater presents the French film “The Class.”

The film plays at 7:30 pm each night. Tickets are $7 adults, $6 seniors and students ages 18 and under. 208-263-9191 April 22 - It’s an Earth Day Double Feature.

Panida’s Little Theatre in downtown Sandpoint hosts “Sacred Planet” by Disney and “Red Gold,” a one-hour documentary on a proposed Alaska gold mine, at 6:30 pm. Admission is Page | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

Politically Incorrect TRISH GANNON | www.riverjournal.com | trish@riverjournal.com

Reflections on Splitting Firewood I don’t know where Austin and Justin got their tree-cutting work ethic, but I was flabbergasted when they pulled into my yard and began unloading my firewood from their truck last fall. Flabbergasted, and feeling just a little bit guilty. Given the size of the rounds that were hitting the grass, the tree they cut on behalf of my winter’s heat must have been about eight billion years old. I really hoped it was infected with bark beetle or something.

I don’t cut my own firewood. I’m scared of chain saws and, given my relationship with power tools, that’s probably a good thing. But most of the time, I do split my own wood. Mostly that’s because I’m too cheap to buy firewood already split, but it’s also partly due to my desire to feel that I play an important role in maintaining my life.

Yes, I actually like to split wood. Not as much anymore as I used to, but there’s some sort of primitive satisfaction to be found in hefting an axe and splitting rounds that you know will be keeping you warm in the months to come. It’s also a good activity when you’re irritated about something or with someone, a situation I often find myself in, though I’m not sure what it says about me that I can get release from such an activity.

And boy, was this wood going to need to be split. The individual rounds littering my yard were bigger than my wood stove—my entire wood stove, not just the firebox.

I discovered rather quickly that yes, this tree had indeed been infected with something, as each split with the axe revealed the most disgusting little worm things I’ve ever seen in my life. Fat, white, segmented monsters with a flat head featuring a large brown spot that was probably an eye or something. I definitely wasn’t going to be stacking this wood in the house. As each worm was revealed I would dig it out of its hole, and toss it into a cat food can for later disposal.

This became more difficult throughout my wood-splitting day as, after seven or eight worms, I had to deal with an almost uncontrollable urge to vomit whenever I got within a foot or so of that can. I’m not a fan of worms. I called my expert (Ernie) and he said yep, it was bark beetle larvae. Or maybe the larvae of wood

boring beetles. Guilt headed out the door, while disgust walked in. “They make good eating,” Ernie added, knowing I couldn’t reach through the cell phone to smack him upside the head.

I mentioned before that I’m not as thrilled with firewood splitting as I used to be. In part that’s because I’ve done it long enough that I no longer feel the need to prove anything to myself. In part it’s because I’ve done it long enough that I know just how much trouble I can get myself into. Usually, that’s a lot.

Brian had brought me his electric splitter to use, so I not only had this new load of wood to split, I figured I should take care of all the rest of the firewood I had under tarps while I had a machine available to make things easier.

David put the tarp over the wood, and he weighted it down with a whole bunch of stuff so it wouldn’t blow away in our autumn winds. That meant I had to climb up to the top of the wood pile to dislodge the weighty tarp-weights. That was my first problem. I’m not sure how it is I can move one silly piece of wood and bring the whole thing down, but I can. Too bad it’s not a talent I can market.

I’ve always enjoyed wandering through the Bonner County Museum and looking at the pictures of those guys who ‘ride’ logs that are floating down the river, but I’ve never had a desire to do it myself.

Nonetheless, that’s kind of what this was like as, balanced rather precariously, I danced and dodged to avoid the logs crashing down around me.

The tarp came next. Not that the tarp would actually fall off the remaining wood (that would take more effort yet), but the small lake of water that had collected near the top, the surface already frozen over, was on its way down around me as well.

I climbed back down the remaining wood, cold and wet, ready to begin splitting. Although many of the rounds the boys brought were much too big for the splitter (even at a quarter size they were much too big) others were close enough to make an electricity expenditure preferable to a muscular one.

It went well for the most part. Super dry wood I was able to split smaller than I can with an axe, for a ready supply of kindling. Bigger rounds were cut into

manageable sizes for my wood stove and I kept up a steady rhythm of haul, split, haul and stack. My lower back began to ache, my right elbow began to scream, but the pile of split wood was growing nicely and there was still daylight left outside.

I enjoyed the cold, the smell of fresh-cut firewood, and the camaraderie of joining others in getting ready for winter, as evidenced by the crack of firearms echoing from the mountains around me.

And then I got the log from hell. Why there is always one in every pile I don’t know, but I hit this one with about an hour left ‘til dark.

A big, beautiful piece of Doug fir, this massive round was destined to provide many, many hours of heat to my winter house, but it had less interest in meeting its destiny than I had in getting it there. I tried every trick I know to get that darn log to split: searching for the most miniscule “starter” splits to aim the axe at, carefully peeling off the bark… nothing doing. I put down the axe and loaded it onto the electric splitter and began cutting wedges into the log, three inches apart all the way around, first one end and then the other. Each end of the log looked like a cut pie but the darn thing was still solid.

I hammered my own wedge into it with the back of the axe until the wedge was buried and still no resounding crack. Back onto the electric splitter to try some more and the log, obviously irritated with my persistence, went from passive resistance to active mutiny, trapping my finger between itself and the splitter’s wedge.

I squealed as the wedge sunk a corner of itself into my nail bed, shrieked and moaned and called that log every name in the book while I pried my fingernail off the splitter and then went silent as the pain finally hit. Within minutes the end of my finger felt like it had grown to the size of my hand as I alternated between staring in fascination at the blood dripping on the ground and glowering at that piece of Doug fir, all the while trying to figure out how to explain this injury to those people who would immediately ask, “Why Continued on page 18

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page

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Comrade Citizens; Not a whole lot going on this month, though both the local V.V.A. and DAV Chapters will be holding their annual elections this month (April) and there’s a kind of dire need for local veterans to step up and volunteer to be new officers, especially someone with accounting skills to serve as treasurers of both groups. (If you’re interested, meeting times are listed at the end of this Veterans News). The DAV Chapter is scrambling around trying to come up with nearly $7,000 it still needs to replace its aging van and a raffle is planned for now through mid-August with the prize being a Vietnam era M-14 rifle, a grand or so hoping to be raised.

(Call Russ Fankell at 208-263-5419 for info on where to buy tickets.) They’ve also sent out grant applications to all of the local businesses and charities so if you have an idea for a fundraiser or would simply like to help, just stop by a monthly meeting or call Ross Jackman, the Commander, at 265-2738. You can also donate simply by swinging by Sandpoint’s Wells Fargo Bank (on 4th Street) and tell them its for the “DAV Van Fund.” As always, too, you can save your aluminum cans and donate them at Pacific Re-cycling (on Triangle Drive in Ponderay); just tell them its for the local Disabled American Veterans.

Not only is every penny that’s hoped to be raised through the M-14 raffle going into the Van Fund but at their last meeting the Chapter voted to donate all of the proceeds of this year’s Memorial Day forget-me-not drive outside of WalMart to the Van Fund as well. Usually the Chapter uses those dollars to help needy local veterans but, like everywhere lately, there’s going to be more belt-tightening.

Last month alone, for example, the DAV Chapter gave $100 to help pay an area vet’s water bill (the V.V.A. kicking in another $100) and gave $50 towards groceries for a war widow. Next year by this time I’ll bet those gifts would be cut in half. The DAV’s donated nearly $1,000 in the past year as direct gifts to local individuals.

As many of you know, over the past few years this Veterans News column runs an occasional “Where the Money

Goes” article describing in some detail exactly where your donated funds go to.

Both the local DAV and V.V.A. Chapters have been forthright and open in their books and accounting with me for the past three years but I’m sorry to report both the VFW and American Legion keep stalling. The last I heard was “in a couple more months” and I’ll let you know if and when I hear anything further or if at all. Despite three annual “Where the Money goes” reports from the V.V.A. and DAV in the past three years I’ve yet to get a single one from the VFW or American Legion.

Now here’s some of those local meeting times I promised you; The Disabled American Veterans Chapter #15 meets the third Wednesday of every month at 6:30 pm at VFW Hall in Sandpoint (corner of Pine and Division) and for info you can call Commander Ross Jackman at 265-2738 The Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter #890 meets the second Tuesday of every month at 6 pm at VFW Hall in Sandpoint (corner of Pine and Division) and for info you can call President Douglas Darling at 263-5803 Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #2453 meets the third Wednesday of every month at 6:30 pm at VFW Hall in Sandpoint (corner of Pine and Division) and for info you can call Commander Howard Bigelow at 263-9626 You can find more info on other groups such as the American Legion, the Marine Corps League and the Women’s Auxiliaries as well as other surrounding organizations such as those in Priest River, Clark Fork or Bonners Ferry by stopping by VFW Hall in Sandpoint or calling them at 263-9613.

There’s a big summer coming up, besides the DAV Forget-me-not Drive over Memorial Day, there’s the July Stand-Down at the Fairgrounds, the V.V.A. Annual Yard and Rummage Sale in August and a whole lot more and volunteers are both needed and appreciated. Just swing by a meeting to volunteer to help or call one of the #’s for more info. ‘til next time, smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em and all Homage to Xena!

Don’t miss the Triangle United Homemakers Club Bring & Buy Sale Saturday, April 25 from 8 am to 1 pm at the Sagle Senior Center

Page | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

The Scenic Route SANDY COMPTON | www.sandycompton.com | mrcomptonjr@hotmail.com

Waiting for Spring Spring? The calendar says so, but the moose I saw post-holing across a neighbor’s field today might take issue with that. In this first month of the calendar’s spring, it feels pretty darned winterish.

April in Idaho can equate to March in more temperate climes, but so can May in Montana or, I suppose, June in Juneau. At least, the break-up limits are on, which, in this part of the world, is sometimes all the sure sign that we get until those magical days (yet to come) when the world suddenly turns green.

So, we wait. Solar gain increases slowly as the sun’s arc of travel climbs higher above the southern horizon. Rain pushes across the lake in dark waves, but it’s not far up that it melted from fragile, downy flakes that were drifting down until they liquified and made a bee-line for Ma Earth.

The high country gets a new frosting in the meantime, which is not such a bad thing, pretty as it is.

Winter has a way of holding on in this country, and even though I know that summer awaits just on the other side of mud season, I wish she would let go a little easier. I fantasize about wading up a creek in dappled shade, hiding from the heat. Purple berries hanging from trail-side bushes populate my dreams. A Sunday in the Church of the Blue Dome, hiking through wild columbine, Indian paintbrush and bear grass, is on my immediate wish list.

But, there I go, wishing my life away. My grandpa used to warn me about that. Each day’s a treasure and trying to jump into the future obscures my vision of the gift God gives us with each sunrise—whether we can see the sun or not.

Humans are good at looking into the future or the past when the moment we are living is actually the only time we really have. We worry ourselves sick about the possibilities and probabilities of unforeseen circumstances, all the while ignoring the circumstances we are in, which may not be bad at all, if not perfect.

“I’ve seen the future,” says a recent song’s lyrics, “and it’s really nothing new.”

There are a bunch of similar sentiments expressed in many ways, and we still don’t get it. At least not all the time. Once in a while, though, there is a moment that I can stay in, and if I catch myself there,

maybe I can stay in the next one, and then the one after that. But even that seems to go against the grain of living in the now; planning to be present to the moment in the future.

At least, now I have myself laughing.

Not a bad result to any process, no matter what some folks think, those who take everything seriously. I’m guilty of taking it all too seriously, too, but maybe life is too serious to take seriously. It’s certainly too short to rush through, which is probably what I’m doing when I’m wishing my life away, wanting to rush into the future for some reward that may or may not be there; while right here in this little, mundane day might be just what I’m looking for: a little peace, a bit of joy, a quiet moment of beauty.

Our old world is in a hurry, and I often find myself caught up in the rush, too. I find myself eating too fast, pushing to “get through” things and crowding my life with “busy-ness,” all with the intent of getting ahead. What am I getting ahead of, except myself?

Years ago, I knew better, when I was 10 and days like today didn’t make me wish for summer, but drew me out to jump in mud puddles and see if I could walk on the snow without breaking through. Days were seized, not suffered through for the sake of tomorrow. Of course, a 10-year-old doesn’t

ache in certain places like I do, nor does he know he is ever going to die, except on the most remote edge of his mind. But it is so far out there, it is of no concern. He only cares about how tall his overshoes are and what time dinner is; not bad concerns for any of us, I think.

I’ve yet to hear a chickadee singing its “spriiingsheeere” song. However, the red-winged blackbirds are shrilling in the swamp down the road and the tundra swans are on the slough near the drift yard, waving those big necks at the sky as if they are expecting the sun at any moment. And, I took the time to notice these things.

So, there may be hope after all.

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April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page

A

MUDDY Reconstruction Rebuilding the Pack River Delta

Many eyes have ogled the Pack River Delta over the winter, drawn to the earth moving machines, the mud, and the seemingly strange activity taking place in the middle of this distinguished river. Is it a new challenging hole for future golfers? Is it a new club house? Could it be a colossal new mansion? An airport? A community dock?

What may look like a scary new development at the height of the mud season is really a restoration project. Many partners came together a couple of years ago to tackle the Pack River Delta—last winter the lake level was too high to attempt to move too much dirt, so they waited for this winter when the lake level was drawn down the full eleven feet.

The Pack River Delta lies just off of Highway 200 between Sandpoint and Hope; it signals the confluence of the second largest tributary to Lake Pend Oreille—the Pack River. The Pack River drains over 185,000 acres, and provides key spawning and rearing habitat, as well as a migration corridor, for native trout. It is utilized by a myriad of wildlife, including elk, deer, moose, beaver, and many species of waterfowl and is also a local favorite for recreational opportunities such as kayaking, canoeing, hiking, wildlife viewing, fishing, and hunting. The Pack River Delta is comprised of 574 acres of the slow and deep meandering of the Pack River, dotted with wetlands formed by old oxbows.

What is wrong with the delta that warrants this kind of magnificent earth moving? Due to the operation of Albeni Falls Dam on the Pend Oreille River, the lake experiences artificial fluctuations in water levels; this act, in essence, inhibits the delta from acting like a delta. When the lake is full in the summer, the dam holds the water higher than natural levels for a longer p e r i o d Kate Wilson is a Project

of time. Prior to the Albeni Falls Dam, constructed in 1952, there was considerably more habitat for fish and wildlife, and the Pack meandered through the Delta, but now it has straightened out.

The natural falls at the site of the dam today were known as Albeni Falls. Before the dam was constructed, the islands adjacent to the falls impeded the flow of spring runoff from melting mountain snows, causing upstream Lake Pend Oreille to raise and flood. It wasn’t until mid to late summer when the lake would naturally lower to its minimum level. In addition to flood control, the U.S. Corps of Engineers that manages Albeni Falls cites an increased need for water storage and power production to support the growing shipbuilding and aluminum industries downriver in the 1950s. With the increased channel capacity, spring flood levels were considerably reduced on the lake.

The construction and operation of the Albeni Falls Dam resulted in the loss of approximately 6,600 acres of wetlands and 8,900 acres of deepwater marsh. Most of these wetlands and marsh habitats were flooded and converted to open water;

by Kate Wilson

therefore large shallow water areas that once provided an abundant source of waterfowl forage were no longer available.

“Through the last fifty-plus years of the dam, erosion has occurred in the Delta,” explains Idaho Department of Fish & Game Mitigation Biologist Kathy Cousins. “This washes all of the nutrients [from the Pack River] right to the bottom of Lake Pend Oreille.”

The project is enhancing the delta by building up the islands, increasing the sediment deposition in the delta proper, slowing down the water at the confluence of the lake and the river, and augmenting the native plant community. Eight of the islands in the delta are being raised up.

This project will increase the height and stability of the land exposed at full summer pool. It will improve the functionality of the ecosystem, allowing the sediment to collect in the fan-like delta instead of being released to the bottom of Lake Pend Oreille. This project will also exponentially increase the amount of land available to wildlife—particularly migratory birds—all year long.

“We think this project will be successful

Page 10 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

because the Pack River is not dammed,” says Cousins. “Over 200,000 pounds of sediment come down the Pack; it also carries huge logs and large woody debris—we want the debris to get caught in the delta!”

What was, just last year at high pool, 50 acres of open water, will now be habitat in the form of earthen islands, sitting a minimum of two feet higher than full pool.

The contractors in the delta are utilizing both known and new technologies for aquatic restoration projects. Some of these technologies include: Log vanes, willow bundles, bankfull benches, fascines, rootwad roughness structures with pole plantings, engineering log jams, and “geotube” breakwaters. The project is designed to withstand a “100-year storm event,” an extreme hydrologic event such as a flood, with a 100-year recurrence interval..In other words, a flood of that magnitude has a one percent chance of happening in any year.

“These technologies will allow sediments to fall out and deposit in the delta [before reaching the lake],” says Cousins. “The water hits the rootwads and slows as it passes through.”

Breakwaters are used to protect the shore from the full impact of wave action in a large water body. They are, traditionally, stone or concrete structures. In the Pack River Delta, project leaders are utilizing “geotubes,” a fairly new technology usually used in marine environments; this new technology will be compared to a traditional rock breakwater. A geotube is a semi-permeable membrane that fills up with dirt and water, but releases the water

and holds the mud and silt—making it solid over time. They are commonly used to rebuild beaches, create jetties, or even build entire islands. In the delta, the plants will be grown atop the geotube—making it literally a vegetative breakwater.

The project is progressing nicely, though Cousins commented on a slow start due to big snowfall. “We’ve had our challenges this winter, but the cold weather has really helped us to build the islands.”

Funding for this project comes from collaboration on a large scale. The North American Wetlands Conservation Act provides federal matching funds to publicprivate partnerships to conserve wetlands around the nation. In spring 2007, $1 million in NAWCA funds was awarded to Ducks Unlimited, the sponsor of the grant, for the delta project, as well as facilitating conservation easements with private landowners to further protect important habitat from development. Other major partners involved in this project include Idaho Department of Fish and Game and Avista Corporation.

The “match funds” provided for the project, totaling an impressive $2.5 million includes funding, property and in-kind work from fourteen different partners. In addition, $4.8 million in federal funds were provided as part of the overall project.

Though the NAWCA grant awarded is large, the contribution of the partners is enormous.

For project implementation over the winter, a local contactor was selected.

“The project provided employment during this economically tough time too,” says Continued on page 32

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The Song Sparrow Some people have told me that they’ve taken an interest in birding, only to become discouraged by the many nondescript little birds that seem to defy identification; that every little bird seems to look the same.

What fun is that? Au contraire, that is the fun! Being able to identify these little birds is not only an intellectual challenge, like solving a puzzle, it also enriches our understanding of the world around us. To me, this effort makes the world seem so much more interesting and knowable.

This brings us to the bird for this month’s column: the Song Sparrow. In many ways, this bird is as plain as they come. Its plumage does not contain any remarkable blues, yellows, or reds to make it stand out in the crowd. No, here we find the avian equivalent of practical wear: nice brown slacks, a crisp cotton shirt, and a gray cotton v-neck pullover. Nice, but not particularly noticeable; definitely not memorable. Just another face in the crowd.

But to know me, is to love me. And song sparrows are worth the effort. Though their plumage may not be head-turning, their song is. This little creature is aptly named. The male’s song is one of the first you will hear in the spring, and he repeats it well into summer. It is one of the few that will rival the Western Meadowlark in complexity and beauty. What does it sound like? Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to Western Birds describes it thus: “[A] variable series of notes, some musical, some buzzy; usually starts with 3-4 bright repetitious notes, sweet sweet sweet, etc. Note, a low nasal tchep.” The Sibley Guide to Birds goes even further, describing it as “seet seet seet to zeeeeeee tipo zeet zeet.” Wow! How would you like to have that job—“Hey, Bob, here’s a recording of the Song Sparrow song. Would you mind transcribing it for me?” Ignore both of these—here’s the best route to take. Go to the River Journal online edition, find this column, and follow the internet link posted there to hear an audio file of the song. It’s worth the effort, and then you’ll be well on your way to

Mike Turnlund is a teacher at Clark Fork High School. Reach him at miketurnlund@gmail.com

adding the Song Sparrow to your life list. (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ AllAboutBirds/audio/Song_Sparrow.html) So what is the trick, besides song, in separating out the Song Sparrow from the myriad of other small, brown, birds flittering about our area? This is easy. Look for the “spot.” Like many of its kin, the Song Sparrow is a small bird, with a long tail, and with a body that is predominantly brown in color. This plainness is complimented by a less-than-pristine white breast that is covered in brown streaks. Overall, the bird is an example of camouflage coloration that—for the males especially—seeks to not stand out. The primary field mark for identifying this sturdy little fellow is noting how the convergence of those brown breast streaks form into a large, amorphous spot right in the center of the chest. Sometimes

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by Mike Turnlund this spot is large, sometimes it is small.

Sometimes it is sported like a huge, single button on the center of a pure whitebackground, other times it is almost hidden in a maze of streaks. It varies individually from bird to bird, but it is always there.

The Song Sparrow is noted for its song.

But this fact leads to the question: why do birds sing? Love and war! With some exceptions, the birds we hear singing in our area—the “songbirds”—are exclusively male. Their songs serve two functions.

First, the song is sung to attract a mate. To the female of the same species the male’s warble is a love song, “come to me my love....”

If she likes it, she will respond. If not, she will fly on. Evidently there is some aspect of the male’s fitness expressed in the song.

Second, the song is sung to ward away other males. “This is my turf, stay away....”

That is why occasionally we will see two little songbirds wrestling in the dirt. An intruder was attempting to wrest control of an area from the resident male. This is a serious contest. Winner takes all.

Knowing the Song Sparrow is a perfect example of why birding is so fun. All of those little birds we see in our backyards or at our bird feeders are not the same.

Each has a story; each has its own reason for being. The challenge is discovering who each is, as an individual specie, and how their distinctive attributes contribute to helping them find success in that wild, wild world they live in. But I do sometimes wonder, do we all look the same to the birds? Happy birding!

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Page 12 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

The Game Trail

by Matt Haag

I think spring is here.

Well, at least the calendar is telling me it’s spring.

There are few signs like migrating birds at the feeder, tulips busting through the ground, and our creeks swollen with melting snow that indicate the calendar might just be right. I’m ready

for it, bring it on.

While we enter spring, your Department of Fish & Game is entering trying times. We as sportsman will face some challenging times ahead with wolves, department funding, and changing hunting seasons. As I type this, we’re looking at some serious budget problems and employees are faced with salary cuts. We have a fee increase proposal sitting in the Idaho legislature right now. We have an unmanaged population of wolves in our state and are waiting to hear our future from Federal courts. Tough winters have taken a toll on our elk and deer herds. We have a lake that is going through changes, as we try to get the lake trout population to tank. These challenging times demand we as sportsman, and your Department of Fish & Game unite to tackle these problems together for the betterment of our wildlife and hunting. Our great Idaho wildlife heritage would not be what it is today without the combined effort of sportsman and wildlife management.

One of our greatest conservationists, Theodore Roosevelt, said, “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” This was evident at our Big Game Regulation Setting meeting at the wildlife building in Sandpoint on March 16. There were 150 people who showed up to voice their opinion. I walked through that door and was shocked to see all those faces that I recognize from the woods. Undoubtedly the proposed changes to the hunting season and the Daily Bee misprinting the information caused a large turnout that evening.

I’m glad the Daily Bee made the errors they did because it was great to see that many sportsmen in the same building. However, let me ask you this, and I do so with respect; where the hell are you guys when the times are good? Attendance at Big Game meetings when there are no proposed changes are low, usually around 20 people. I would challenge you all to attend all the public hearing meetings you possibly can, when times are trying and when times are good.

I witnessed some disturbing comments at the Big Game meeting that pitted sportsmen against sportsmen because of the weapon

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they choose, or season they hunt. We need to be united and face problems together; our battles are not with each other but with issues that affect our wildlife. Also I would challenge people to get out with officers and our biologists. I heard one young man at the meeting ask about the validity of aerial surveys for getting an accurate estimation of our elk herds. He was adamant that being on the ground counting elk was much better. Aerial surveys are a tried and true method that costs the Department a lot of money and risks lives. IDFG and other Fish & Game Departments across the West would not risk lives if they did not work. Sounds like we could do a better job at educating our customers on how we operate. That is why I encourage folks to get out and ask IDFG questions and we’ll make the effort to get out to you. The more sportsmen and the Department engage in constructive dialogue the more we all benefit, including the animals.

Another comment I frequently hear is: The IDFG is not going to listen to me anyway, they’ve already made their mind up. That is a big stinking pile of bull poop, a lame excuse for not getting involved. Can every sportsman get their way? Of course not! Do we listen to, and take seriously, the input from sportsmen? You better believe it! Also, we have some of the best biologists in the West, and some of the most highly trained officers as well. Believe me; we don’t do it for the money, it’s purely a passion for the resource.

Have faith in us, and please get involved and ask questions.

As a result of your input at the meeting Jim Hayden, our Big Game Manager, has revised the original season proposals. Let me explain for those who aren’t aware of what I am talking about.

Due to the harsh winter of ’07 and ’08 our number of elk calves is low, otherwise known as a cow to calf ratio. To make a long story short we need to protect our elk cows and deer does to ensure we have healthy herds in the future. The result is reduced seasons.

The sportsmen who cared enough to come to the meeting have influenced the decision process. I commend you guys and gals who constructively voiced your opinion. Please keep it up and on behalf of the Department we thank you for recognizing this is going to be a sacrifice on everyone’s parts today to protect our resource for tomorrow.

Before I sign off, here are a few reminders. The bears are rubbing the sleep out of their eyes and will begin looking for your bird feeders and garbage. Please consider taking the feeders down and getting that garbage to the dump before the bears show up at your back door.

Also, get that new hunter registered for one of the many Hunter Education classes that are being held across the Panhandle. To sign up please go to the Idaho Fish & Game website at http:// fishandgame.idaho.gov/. Follow the links to the hunter education course sign-up. Pick a location nearest to you and pay right online with a credit card!

To report wildlife violations please call your local County Dispatch center or call our Citizens Against Poaching Hotline—1-800-632-5999.

Thanks to all the folks that made the call this winter.

Leave No Child Inside

263-2600

600 Schweitzer Plaza Dr. behind Super 8 Motel in Ponderay Matt Haag is an Idaho Fish & Game Conservation Officer.Reach him at mhaag@idfg.idaho.gov

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 13

From Bermuda to the Beach

Tiger & the Birdie What does the African jungle and golf have in common? Well that wasn’t too hard of a question now was it? Tiger! Yes, the African jungle has tigers and the PGA has Tiger. Tiger Woods is back, and it is my opinion that he is back with a vengeance.

He didn’t win his first two tournaments back this year, but he won his first match, and showed signs of his greatness. He was three under after his first two holes. A firsthole birdie followed by a second-hole eagle.

Eight months off? No Biggy! For those that love the game of golf and have watched Tiger over the years, know what I’m talking about.

It wasn’t the first birdie that was so impressive, although it was incredible, it was the eagle that convinced me that a torn up knee can be fixed, and a little 8 month break in his game was not going to make a difference for the greatest golfer to ever play the game.

His second tournament, well, he didn’t win it, Phil Mikelson did. But, as Mikelson looked over his shoulder, he could see Tiger on the prowl.

Tiger finished up near the top of the leader board, closer to first than last, and to me, that is good enough to say Tiger is back.

I remember seeing Tiger on the Johnny Carson show when he was two years old. I didn’t think much of him at that time, I was more interested in “real” sports. You know, baseball and football. If I had only known then what I know now. It has been said that “If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.”

Maybe Tiger’s dad was the one that coined this phrase.

Golf doesn’t get a lot of respect in the sporting world. I think it’s the people that have never played the game that give it the least respect. It is my contention, that if you have never played the game, you cannot understand how hard of a game it is, and how hard it must be for Tiger to continue with his dominance year after year.

How good is Tiger Woods? That question may never be answered, but it may come to a point that it cannot be argued that he is and always will be the best golfer to post a score. I know, Jack Nicklaus was pretty good in his prime, and holds the record that Tiger will soon own, but there is no denying that Tiger owns the last decade and is poised to own the next in the world of golf.

Golf takes an incredible amount of mental stability, along with muscle memory. You don’t have to have the greatest

physique to win. Look at Mikelson. It could be argued that Mikelson is the second best player today behind Tiger, but his physical appearance reminds me of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I’m one of these guys that loves to hate Mikelson.

From my limited experience playing golf, I can tell you this. If you are playing a round of golf by yourself, you will play better than you ever have, but no one will believe you, and if there is no witness to the greatness, it doesn’t count.

Golf is 90 percent in your head, five percent skill, and the other five percent is luck. I can prove it. Before you

approach the tee box, your buddy says, “I think you need to shorten your back swing a little, this may be the reason you can’t drive the ball.” No matter how well you have been driving the ball, your next drive will not be your best. In fact, it will be about ten percent of your best drive, five percent skill and five percent luck. You’re playing in league and have an 8-footer for

By Clint Nicholson

birdie to win the match, your opponent says while your lining up your putt, “ Betcha five bucks you miss!” Good luck with that one!

Your playing a friendly round of golf with your mother in law, and you need 150 yards to clear the water. Normally this is an easy 8 iron. She asks after laying up, “Think you can make it?” You club up to a 7-iron just in case, chunk it and you guessed it, plunk! It goes without saying that your next shot also goes in the water, and it is no conciliation when your mother in law tells you to just pick it up and drop it on the green.

The greatest reason I like golf is because it is a game between you and the course, and you can’t beat the course. Golf is the only game that can’t be won. You can only beat yourself. You can tie the best score ever recorded, but there is no way to ever actually record a win against the course, after all, you could have made that 10-foot putt and shot one stroke better.

Well, better luck next time.

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Page 14 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

Spilled Milk & Skinned Knees

By Dustin Gannon

So I don’t really feel comfortable talking about college basketball seeing as how my bracket is just as bad as the unfortunate stars of Cops—busted. The Pittsburgh Panthers are my last hope, my last final four team remaining and my championship winner so I need them to pull through.

Sorry for trying to pick some upsets with Syracuse, Kansas, and Memphis also in the final four. So like I said several times in February, GO PITTSBURGH! In more relevant issues, it’s officially springtime and I can optimistically say that there will be no more snowfall.

However, I will most likely be telling you false—but it’s still nice to hope.

The Coeur d’ Alene Resort Golf Course opens up on April 3 with the University of Idaho tournament. Official opening day to the public will be April 4, where guests can come celebrate the Third Annual Scotch Open Golf Day. Golfers can come joins us out on the course where they can enjoy bagpipes, on course scotch tasting, and food, which will all be part of the festivities.

As the golf course gets underway there are several new changes to the rulebook in the NFL. As we all get ready for draft day this month I have to take a look at what’s different. There are four new rule changes for the 2009-2010 season and they all have been put in place to better player safety. Several years ago players and coaches were all worried about the rules during an onside kick. Because of the colliding players during the play, the new rule change states that during an onside kick, the kicking team may have no more than five players bunched together during pursuit of the ball. Formerly, kicking teams were required to have at least four players on either side of the ball in order to prevent teams from overloading too

heavily to one side of the ball. However, the creative special teams coaches around the league figured a way to bypass that with having what was called a ‘bunch.’

This is where the kicking team would have all ten players huddled around the ball before it’s kicked straight ahead, so that all the players could then go after the ball, instead of only half of them. This new rule will prevent that from happening and hopefully keep injuries down during onside kicks.

The second rule change is the elimination of helmet-to-helmet on blindside blocks. Formerly, helmet-tohelmet contact was confined to one player’s helmet being used intentionally to strike the helmet of another player.

With the new rule the player introducing the contact may not strike the other player with either his helmet, forearm, or shoulder during contact. This should prevent hits like what we saw when Steelers safety Ryan Clark admitted Ravens running back Willis McGahee into the hospital.

The rule is designed to protect defensive players as well. A wide receiver who has gone downfield during a running play often comes back towards the ball to block unsuspecting defenders. With the new rule the blocking point is lower on the player’s body to prevent players from being blind-sided in the head or neck.

The third and fourth installments of the new rules are more of an extension to the second. There can be no initial contact to the head area of a defenseless receiver with forearm or shoulder with or without possession. This goes along the lines once again with Willis McGahee.McGahee had just caught the ball when he was struck by Ryan Clark in the head with the defender’s shoulder. This will no longer be tolerated

and will result in a penalty.

With the fourth section of the rule it states that a receiver who has not made contact with the ball may no longer be struck by a defensive player at all.

Once again, this goes to my hard hitting Steelers. I reference when they played the Patriots and I believe it was Ryan Clark again who leveled Wes Welker after a ball thrown in his direction was tipped down by the defense. Before this rule, the defensive player was allowed to take down the intended receiver of a pass after the ball had been tipped. Now the receiver is protected against vicious hits like the one Welker was issued.

Even though the rules have changed to give more protection to players, I still don’t think it’s a good idea to come up across the middle against the Steelers. are just too amazing. increase nutrients, such as nitrogen and They Council website at tristatecouncil.org.

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FOCUS ON EDUCATION

Face to Face Bill Litsinger • Bob Wynhausen 1400 AM KSPT • 1450 AM KBFI

Ready! 4 Kindergarten Making a Difference “What a great thing!” Those were the words of an anxious couple I met at Farmin Stidwell Elementary on a recent Saturday morning. Judging by the faces in the crowd, they were not alone in this nervousness.

However, their anxiety was tempered by the great opportunity to learn best techniques to teach and work with their two-year-old well before she enters kindergarten.

The anxiety quickly faded when Tracy Gibson, point person for the Ready! 4 Kindergarten program, reminded all parents they are heroes to their children and they are in fact, their most important teacher. It is Gibson’s, Panhandle Alliance for Education’s, and the Lake Pend Oreille School District’s hope that parents will take up that challenge and learn best teaching practices by participating in these classes.

On this recent Saturday, the room was packed. It is clear the message is getting out to parents that beyond instructional techniques and knowledge, this class offers to participants free learning tools and games to make their home teaching more effective.

The program is patterned after the successful model from Kennewick, Washington. It is a community-focused program, targeting children ages birth to five. The goal is provide parents information regarding educationally relevant child development milestones, skills for teaching children developmentally appropriate preacademic skills, and educational materials and activities that ensure a rich, early learning environment. The program’s model is based on research documenting the benefits of family based pragrams and the importance of adultchild shared reading and purposeful play.

The new program

was launched by Panhandle Alliance for Education in October of 2008 in response to the number of students entering kindergarten without some basic skills.

District records demonstrated that almost 45 percent of kindergartens were entering school without basic kindergarten readiness skills. With so many children And they with don’t kindergarten-aged have to—after all,tasks, don’t struggling we Americans believe if it’s ours, it’s ours the school district worked to research a and we can do with it what we want?

Or program that could help families better prepare their children for their first stepis and They we want it, then into formalized schooling. wanted a you have to give it to us and if you program that demonstrated results.don’t, The then 4you sponsor terrorism we’ll Ready!

Kindergarten program and emerged as one of the very best.

By the way, China wants that oil as Ready! has developed targets for each well. Remember China? The people who age level of pre-kindergarten learning. The loaned us all that money? China’s oil age level targetsis are the skills identified by consumption around 6.5 billion barrels research as having the highest correlation a year, and is growing at 7 percent every toyear. success in school, specifically learning It produces about 3.6 billion barrels toevery read year. and do math The Does thisearly mathand lookwell. good to target skill sets broken downthan by age to anyone?

Can are anyone other Sarah help guide their Palinparents and George Bushchildren believe toward we can goals are out attainable for their level of drill that our way of this problem?

Anyone development. who doesn’t think we better hit the ground The Ready!

Program schedule is what one 90running to figure out how to fuel we minute class every winter and spring. want fueled with fall, something other than oil probably to go back to of an There are three deserves different lessons for each the five age groups (birth to 1, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, I could goage on and 4-5 years). Classes in: the earliest forever, but you’ll quit reading.

So one final group start with the most basic skills for discussion for the children during theirAmerican first yearpublic. of life First, and let’s have a true, independent analysis of ramp up form year to year with increasing what happened on September 2001. sophistication.

A trained teacher 11, leads the The official explanation simply doesn’t lesson. About 80 percent of the class time water.

This is one of those “who is hold allocated to hands-on training activities, knew what, when” questions that must be 15 percent explains research and child answered—and people/institutions must development, and 5 percent ties the tools and activities to the targets.

Speaking of accountability, you might This program is an excellent example be surprised to learn that I would not ofsupport the private-public partnership the an effort to impeach President district is looking to explore.

This program Bush after the November elections. First, would not happen without because that’s too late, the andgenerous second,

Continued page 27 because more than Bush on have been involved in crimes against the American

By Lake Pend Oreille people.

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Page 16 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

Love Notes MARIANNE LOVE | www.slightdetour. blogspot.com | billmar@dishmail.net

50 Years of Journalism

My first thought on St. Patrick’s Day after spotting the story in the Bonner County Daily Bee about the Mountain View Livestock 4-H Club had to do with senility.

“I’m really old,” I thought.

The story clearly validated that.

After all, it was written 50 years ago, by me, for the Sandpoint News Bulletin, a weekly local paper, which died long ago, only to be found these days in museums or family scrapbook collections.

I rationalized the age business, figuring I was among friends. My report to the paper had mentioned childhood buddies, now mostly retired senior citizens like me.

Frances Paulet and Laura Delamarter, the historians, had purchased a club scrapbook for newspaper clippings. Sally Davis had hosted the meeting, and Gary Finney would host the next meeting at his family’s Colburn farm.

Since we were all in this age thing together, it didn’t seem quite so dreadful that the story happened 50 years ago.

I had been reading that “50 Years Ago” column for some time, recalling in recent features both events and people I knew from my childhood days in Sandpoint. Of course, they were all old, unlike me.

Then, that story with my byline appeared.

Later that day, I ceased the senility lamentations after being struck by a big, bold headline flashing through my mind: I

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had been reporting news for half a century!

My next thought: What a run it has been!

Besides horses, eating and talking too much, I think journalism is the only passion I’ve stuck with for most of my life.

Reflecting on Kodak moments from a half-century’s worth of story-telling made me smile.

The continued discipline of observing, asking questions (often of total strangers), listening, taking notes, crafting stories, self editing, and seeing my work in print has taken me to places I’ll never forget and people I’ll always treasure.

I’ve reported hundreds of stories about phenomenal human beings. There’s Andrea, my classmate who gave up a kidney for her brother. I’ll never forget the day and the goosebumps while sitting in the Upper Pack River home of New York City opera soloist Josephine Asaro, as she demonstrated the magnificent power of her soprano voice. In 1990, it was a thrill to report to the region that Sandpoint’s Greg Parker had graduated first in his class at the U.S. Naval Academy.

I’ve written about my former student and family friend, Cindy Wooden, who’s been reporting Papal activities from the Vatican for 20 years. During an interview with Irene Bennett Dunn, I took notes with one hand and covered my eyes with the other as she tearfully recounted the night when the 1959 Yellowstone Earthquake wiped out most of her family. I didn’t want Irene to see me cry.

I’ll never forget all those trips to the bathroom while I nervously awaited the pre-arranged call from Lord of the Rings star, Viggo Mortensen. Somehow, my brain and my fingers managed to work during that interview. Thanks to the Internet, the resulting story reached adoring Viggo fans around the world and copies of that issue of Sandpoint Magazine netted some big bucks for fundraisers.

Northwest editor Dan Wakely, from the old Spokane Chronicle, kept me busy with my pen and my camera back in the ‘70s.

One day he asked me to follow Idaho Sen. Frank Church on his visits around Bonner County. On another occasion I drove around Sandpoint and the outlying areas, snapping photos of severe damage done to the golf course and to people’s homes by a tornado, thought to be the first ever to blow through here.

Also, in the 1970s, I snapped oodles of

pictures for a story about North Idaho “For Sale,” one of the many times it’s seemingly been for sale over the past four decades.

I’ve often written funny stories. After all, a lot of life is funny. Take, for example, the story in the U of I Argonaut entitled “Carter Hall Girls Get the Shaft.” I wrote that after my dorm friends got stuck for two hours between floors in the Wallace Complex. They played pinochle to calm their claustrophobia.

Publisher Gary Pietsch encouraged my story-telling during summers I spent working for his family’s weekly, the Sandpoint News Bulletin. God had to be watching over me the time Gary sent me to Dillon, Montana, to cover the Selkirk Hereford cattle operation’s move from its Selle roots to the huge Circle C Ranch.

I spent the day viewing the thousands of acres of cattle land with herdsman Gibbs Rehm, taking photos and notes, only, at the end of the day, to accidentally open up my camera, exposing a 36-frame roll of film.

Lucky for me, only one photo bit the dust in that potential catastrophe. There were pictures and story enough to fill two full pages in the paper.

Need I say any more about meeting my husband Bill while composing feature stories for a special tabloid about the 1973 Boy Scout Jamboree? Thank you, Gary, for that assignment. We’ll be celebrating 35 years of marriage in June.

The year after we were married, Bill and I provided overnight accommodations in our tiny rental home for a group of nine Seattle bicyclers headed around the world.

Their only payment: let me write your story. I still keep in touch with one who lives in Vermont.

For three or four years, I chased down features and photos for Bonner County Fair tabloid newspapers. Since then, I’ve never let SHS instructor, then 4-H’er Tom Albertson forget the photo of spaghetti rolling down his chubby adolescent cheeks.

Years later, I interviewed Tom again (for my son’s Nampa newspaper, no less) as one of three babies born the same week at the local hospital to Sandpoint Junior High teachers. One of the trio: Alaska Gov. and 2008 Republican vice presidential Continued on page 34

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 17

Firewood—Cont’d from page weren’t you wearing gloves?” (My fingers are long and skinny and I’ve yet to find a pair of good firewood gloves that fit—I feel unsafe when wearing gloves. At least, up ‘til the point I injure myself.)

“Damned piece of firewood isn’t gonna beat me,” I said, one of those rare occasions when I realize why some people think I’m stubborn.

I went back to work with axe, wedge and electric splitter and Mr. Doug fir finally gave up the ghost, splitting with a crack that could be heard from blocks away and leaving me with two pieces of wood that were both way too big for the firebox.

Splitting that wood further still was no easier than making that first cut and I had to admire that spunky little log despite the throbbing agony at the tip of my middle finger. The very last piece, hanging together by mere threads of wood and still refusing to come apart, I wrenched in two with my bare hands, screaming yet again as I ripped off part of a fingernail—the very same nail that was punctured by the wedge.

The final score was about 67 to zero in favor of the log, but I prevailed in sudden death. And yes, that log was the first one into the night’s fire.

Now it’s almost April. All that firewood so painstakingly split, and all the firewood that both David and I split later, has been transformed into a fine film of creosote lining my chimney. Only a small pile

Garden- - Continued from page 18

pressure down. Every time they wanted to use any, they’d fish them out of there and freshen them up in cold water. “They were delicious. My mother would either fry them or she’d put them in a bowl with a little oil on them and we ate them as a salad.”

Everybody worked hard, George said, but that was especially true of the women.

“I can still see my mother—we’d go out in the garden, us kids, and pull weeds. We saved everything. We put the weeds in a gunnysack, and one of those sacks would weigh one hundred pounds. Every family raised from three to five pigs. My mother would come down to the garden, and all of us kids would help her put a sack of weeds on her head and she would march right up to the pig pen with it and throw it to the pigs. My mother could carry two hundred pounds on her head—with no hands or nothing—and walk just as straight as an Indian. She learned that in Italy.”

Louisa Keyser was not quite six when she came to the United States with her father and two brothers. Her father, Pete Naccarato, died of the great influenza

remains. The snow continues to fall but the fire is quiet as I prepare (with David’s help) to clean the chimney and make the woodstove both usable and safe for use again. After I do, there are still 20 or 30 of those big logs waiting to be split. It’s still to be seen whether a few months under tarps and several feet of snow will make them more amendable to the axe. But if

epidemic that flared during and just after WWI, before he had a chance to bring Louisa’s mother and four sisters that he’d left behind in Italy to join them in their new home. Louisa was raised by her aunt, the first Mrs. Charles Anselmo, on the Anselmo ranch, and remembered the back-breaking labor involved in the work of clearing the land with stump puller, grubhoe, dyamite, horses and stoneboats. Louisa also described how garden produce was preserved by salting it down.

Tomatoes were salted down without blanching, she said, but pole beans were blanched in hot water. They were then drained through a colander and rinsed in cold water, then drained again, and left overnight. Layered alternately with oregano, salt, and cut-up garlic for flavor, they were stored for winter weighted down in crocks or barrels that were covered on top with a plate and a rock. The same process was used with peppers, cucumbers, and eggplant, which was cut in strips or sliced and mixed with salted peppers.

Louisa grew up to marry John Keyser.

you’re going to do something to piss me off, now is the time—because I can take my frustration out on the wood pile.

Splitter on one side, wedge on the other and still this stubborn piece of wood refuses to split. One finger tip and one fingernail later, however, and it was destined for the stove.

John was the son of Henry Keyser, a German immigrant to the United States who is generally considered to have been the father of Priest River. John and Louisa, like their neighbors, raised raspberries and fruit trees along with hay, grain, vegetables and fruit. Remnants of those old orchards still exist. They contained apples, pears, Italian prunes, sweet cherries and pie cherries; and the Keysers, at least, grew filberts as well.

The nut trees and also grape vines came as slips by way of a priest from Colville, Washington, Louisa said.

These old folks are gone now, but I’m still grateful to them for sharing their memories. I never plant a garden but what I think about how hard they had to work and all of the privations they endured while they were taming a wilderness and transforming it into places of human habitation. In spite of the unrelenting toil, I bet they welcomed the advent of gardening season at the close of a long, hard winter every bit as much as I do a century later!

Page 18 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

Duke’s

FOOD OBSESSION

by Duke Diercks Frische Spargel

If you speak German, you have an idea about what I am attempting to write about. If you don’t well, don’t worry, mein deutsch is limited, so the rest of this will be in grammatically incorrect English.

After college, I became a trainee at a German steel export company—the company that, at the time, my father worked for. This was both my idea and his: I thought it sounded cool, and he wanted me to experience the “Fatherland” and maybe pick up the lingo at the same time.

My first day, after signing up for intensive language study at the Goethe Institut, I went out to investigate my surroundings, became disoriented in the early afternoon dusk, darted out in front of a car, and was plowed over at 35 mph. Good first day. I’d recount the rest of the trip to you, but let’s just say it went downhill from there: six months in Essen Germany—the Ruhrgebeit or Ruhr region, easily one of the uglier areas of all of Germany. In fact, I told my father, there is no wonder Germans produce so many quality products: with the dreary weather and surroundings, you could either lay down on the S-bahn tracks, or just work like hell.

This is not to say, of course, that there weren’t bright spots, and flat-out beautiful places. Some highlights were the six weeks I spent In Rothenberg ob der Tauber, a beautiful walled city in Frankenland, and the two weeks with friends in Munich and Bavaria. But, me being me, what I enjoyed most was the food and drink (read: beer).

I was fortunate to spend a few weeks in northern Germany during the spring.

This meant living with my aunt in the small town of Neuenfelde where my dad grew up.

I would train into Hamburg daily to spend seemingly endless hours doing absolutely nothing but reading telexes (now that dates me ) in a fantastic old office building on the Inner Alster.

And it was here, I was introduced to frische spargel—or fresh asparagus.

Indeed, one of the cool quirky things about this place in Hamburg was

that daily, your office would get a knock on the door, and a guy would walk in peddling farm fresh eggs, or whatever vegetable that was in season. This particular season it was asparagus—the thick, all-white variety.

So, being a good nephew, and curious and bored, I bought a kilo and brought it home.

Little did I realize that the Germans hold the asparagus in very high regard.

Maybe because it’s a harbinger of warmer weather, or just that it’s great tasting, but the Germans celebrate asparagus season with relish. Many restaurants have entire spargel menus, roadside stands compete on quality and price, and asparagus seems to everywhere for a short time. And, like any food harvested during its own proper season and not flown jillions of miles in the off-season from a different hemisphere, the asparagus tastes brilliant.

This love of asparagus at spring was only strengthened when I went back to Northern California, specifically the Bay Area peninsula. Yes, the “C-word” has lots of fruits and nuts, but come springtime, the asparagus explodes as do the beautiful green globes of artichokes. When you see these two beauties come down in price, and go up in quantity in the grocery stores, you know it’s spring and warm weather is sure to follow.

To serve spargel, my favorite way is the way meine tante showed me. At least in Nuenfelde, they serve asparagus with boiled baby new potatoes and ham. And it’s not that pathetic, water-added crap ham we often see here. No, their ham is the smoked, cured uncooked ham, they simply call schinken, or ham, but we would call Westphalian Ham. (They also call the heavier smoked variety, my personal favorite, schwarzwaldschinken, or Black Forest ham, but too often here it is not the real deal at all, but a cooked deli ham, so I am hesitant to mention it.)

To prepare, my aunt cooks the peeled asparagus in boiling water with a bit of salt and sugar. The potatoes are, of course, taken from her garden after she shoes away the neighbor’s cat who likes the litter-box consistency of the garden’s dirt. She boils the potatoes until fork tender. Then, the potatoes are served with the asparagus and diced ham. Oh, and butter. Lots of butter.

This is easily one of the simplest and most soul-satisfying meals that I know.

Of course, you can go Italian with your asparagus and serve them steamed with a couple of farm fresh, sunny-side up eggs, some grated parmesan and a few twists of black pepper. But whatever you do, put spargel in a prime spot on your menu this time of year. Yes, it makes your pee smell funny. But it also means that the days are getting longer and warmer…

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April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 19

Gary Payton’s

Faith Walk

Lately I’ve been feeling a bit like I’m living in Alice’s Wonderland. Things that made sense a scant year ago no longer do.

Common ethical rules such as honesty and integrity in leadership positions no longer apply. It seems everyone I look at has a question mark, or several, floating above their head and a variety of pressures are eating away at the healthy social fabric of this country. Each day another newscast, another news paper, another neighbor brings another round of uncertainty to light. It’s enough to make a person turn off the TV, radio and computer and paint the windows white.

Strangely, I am not frightened. I have lived my entire life waiting for these days.

So instead of painting the windows white and making believe it will all go away, I watch these rapidly passing events in wide eyed wonder. That’s because my walk of faith is plowing back through time to the first and second century when the early Christ Followers were not the believers of today, but rather, Jews who had accepted Jesus Christ as their Messiah and soon coming King. They were living in equally troubled times but with a sense of anticipation. I align myself more with them than not. Because of this different focus, I tend to look less at world or even United States developments and more on what Israel is up to; more to the point, Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world.

I am amazed by Israel. Despite the massive dispersion of her people she has managed to keep her language and her culture intact. She found herself back in her native land not because of the kindness of Britain, but rather as a solution of sorts. She was given the worst part of a partitioned piece of land and she made the

desert bloom again. Against all odds she has never lost a war she has been driven into since her birth in 1948. And in 1967 she took Jerusalem back. This is a bone of contention, I know, but I am amazed that she did it in the face of enemies much larger than herself. How did she do that?

It turns out she was able to do it because she is, in fact, the chosen people of God. This is not about religion, man’s attempt to reach God, but rather the history of God reaching toward man. It happened. It is happening. Israel is like a timepiece of God as she moves along the timeline he has set in motion. Moving right alongside is her Messiah, collecting to himself all who will place their trust in him.

I am a Christ (Messiah) Follower. It is no secret that I believe the Holy Bible to be the divinely inspired word of God. I believe it is truth in its entirety, alive and working, and as such is a guide I can trust in these troubled times to both live by and gain strength from. The Bible tells us that these uncertain and dangerous times will come but it also tells us about the love of God for a people he chose to bless, and all who follow Messiah, Jew or non-Jew, are invited to be a part of that loving relationship by placing their trust in Christ.

Within the confines of this relationship I find peace because God’s word has already told me the world will turn upside down in these times, looking a bit like Alice’s Wonderland. He has been honest with me.

And like Israel, I can safely trust in the Lord to both keep and sustain me.

Methodists to Continue Outreach in 2009 Looking back at a successful outreach effort to the community in 2008, the Clark Methodists hope to maintain and expand the program in 2009. Church Treasurer Tami Heather reports that the church provided $1.000 in Scholarships to Clark Fork High School and $4924 in other community assistance projects in 2008.

These projects met a variety of needs.

Those needs included: The Clark Fork Boosters and other assistance to the schools including donations for school supplies, The Senior Center, the Clark Fork ambulance service, and a host of individual emergencies. Jan Hammersley, the Church Out Reach Chair, noted that these urgent situations included people with fire loses. those with serious injury or illness, snow damage, and families and single moms in severe financial distress.

Pastor Dr. Mark Wendle reminds that all the foregoing are gifts from God through the Clark Fork United Methodist Church. He looks forward to 2009 when the Methodist Church again can help neighbors in difficulty, noting that helping those in need is a critical part of the Christian calling.

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Page 20 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

The Hawk’s Nest ERNIE HAWKS | www.photosbyhawks.com | ernie@photosbyhawks.com

Catalina

We disembarked from the one-hour ferry ride and looked at the hills surrounding Avalon Bay on Catalina Island. I was still in shock we were on the island I had first heard of in The Four Preps 1958 hit song “Twenty-Six Miles Across the Sea.” In truth it’s only 22 miles.

I was in shock because a few short weeks ago we had been talking about needing to get away. We didn’t have a clue where to go or how we could do it. Still, the conversation featured being someplace different for a few days and if we didn’t need to shovel snow or chop wood it would be even better; then the phone call saying we had won a trip to the “Island of Romance.”

I never even thought of going there, wasn’t too sure how to get there.

The call jogged my memory, I had purchased a raffle ticket to support the SOARING program at the Unity Church in Coeur d’Alene,; really I had said I would buy one, then asked Linda to please give them twenty bucks, which she did. I wasn’t sure how this SOARING program worked but knew several youth who had been through the program and benefitted from it.

SOARING means Special Opportunities Affirm Recognition in Noteworthy Goals and is a program started by Joe McCarron, a counselor and pilot in Coeur d’Alene.

The program uses flying as a metaphor for life experiences. The participants need to set goals of their choice and work to reach them. Enrollees may be kids dealing with kid issues. It will help those who are dealing with serous family issues, health,

divorce etc. There has been promising results for youth on probation. There are several meetings where they work with others on attaining their intent. When met there is a graduation which includes a flight with a family member and licensed pilot; during the flight the graduate (there have been 106 of them so far) actually fly the plane.

McCarron said, “The soul of the program is the kids. It’s hard to articulate but it’s about moms crying and kids flying, and family, (about) kids making good choices and attaining their goals.”

Several groups and agencies are interested in sponsoring a SOARING program but the numbers are limited by a lack of facilitators. Each group needs two facilitators, and one must be a pilot. These leaders do not need counseling experience; they will receive in-depth training.

James Barber of Living Cellular, an active supporter, said “There is a training for pilots interested coming up in April.

Registration must be in by April 15 and can be done by contacting Joe McCarron at 208-661-0584.” The training will be held on April 26. Along with Barber several other businesses are on board with the program: Coeur d’Alene Hand Therapy, Quiznos Classic Subs in Coeur d’Alene, and Northern Sky Air Center owned by Jay Burdeaux all are active with their support.

Jay Burdeaux was our contact for the trip. He arranged our flight on Horizon, which was donated, and made sure we received our voucher for the room on the

island. This was not a typical free room with a view of the parking garage; we were in a top floor suite with a balcony looking over the bay. The Seaport Village Inn(www. catalinacatalina.com) donated the room; Raul and Simon were wonderful, friendly hosts taking care of our every need.

We wondered what life would be like on the island since it’s a famous destination resort. It was just what was needed. We relaxed by walking to several points, eating overlooking the ocean or on a deck above it, at casual but very well appointed restaurants, each with an extensive wine list. One quiet, fun spot, and an easy walk, was the Botanical Garden built by the wife of chewing gum magnate James Wrigley Jr. The Wrigley Memorial, built first to be a mausoleum, is the focal point of the gardens featuring several species that grow only on Catalina or the surrounding island.

The family has been a major part of the development of the island where they created the forty-two-thousand acre Catalina Island Conservancy. James Wrigley also built the major landmark on the island, a domed round casino. The casino, which has no gambling, is a theater, ballroom and museum. They point out that casino means “gathering place” and isn’t necessarily a place for wagering. During the big band era all the major bands played the Casino Ballroom.

We enjoyed the slow pace of Avalon.

Continued on page 28

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Call 208-265-4554 today April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 21

A Holistic Approach to

Sciatica

by the Sandpoint Wellness Council I think everyone I know at some time has experienced a form of low back pain, mostly centered around the sacrum and hip bones, the sacro-iliac joints, with pain radiating downward through the backside and into the thighs and calves. This radiating pain is often suddenly sharp and can be so severe it puts us down and out for days waiting for recovery.

The cause of such a horrible pain arises from pressure or compression on the sciatic nerve, the longest nerve in the body, which runs from the lower spine through the pelvis and gluteus muscles and angles down to the back sides of the lower legs. With this intermittent or chronic pain, there may also be numbness and tingling in the legs, feet, and toes as nerve transmission becomes reduced.

Many causes of compression on the sciatic nerve have been identified.

One cause could originate from muscle tension, especially the piriformis muscle that originates on the side of the sacrum, crosses over the sciatic nerve as it angles across the pelvis, and attaches on the hip bone. Heavy lifting, twisting, perhaps long hours driving or prolonged positions before our computers without frequent stretching, or general overwork of the pelvic and hip muscles can generate a spasm of the piriformis and compression on the sciatic nerve.

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As the sciatic nerve exits from the spinal column, any damage, wear and tear, tumors, protrusions or bulges to the discs, our shock absorbers, can reduce spinal flexibility that can lead to an irritation or pressure on the sciatic nerve root. Spinal misalignment and stenosis, the fusing of the vertebral bones, can become an accessory to sciatic pain.

When these familiar pains remain unaddressed, the body often develops adaptive behaviors and positions to compensate for the pain and reduction of flexibility. Over time this can lead to permanent damage to the discs, the vertebrae, and the affected nerves.

Some methods of treatments have been administering pain killing and antiinflammatory drugs. However, these may also have serious side affects with long term usage. The use of heat and cold therapies may be suggested along with stretching and strengthening exercises to release spasms and ease pain symptoms.

Another therapy has been the use of antiinflammatory steroid injections to the site, again with the potential of side effects. In serious cases where diagnosis and testing has revealed bone or disc damage, surgery may be the recommended solution.

As complementary practitioners, the members of The Sandpoint Wellness Council often address chronic back pain in its many manifestations. After all,

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humans are active and creative beings who oftentimes use their bodies rather than machines to accomplish all sorts of heavy tasks. Following is information from several of the SWC members and their strategies and techniques for addressing “sciatica.”

Ilani Kopiecki, BA, CMT, A CranioSacral Approach CranioSacral therapy provides a specialized approach to releasing and rebalancing the energy of the spine, as this is where our nerves exit outward to deliver our myriad nerve impulses powering our body. This therapy gently and effectively decompresses the lumbar vertebrae, sacrum, and pelvic area enabling any affected associated muscles and tissues to release and relax and allowing for the ache, pain, and tightness to subside, sometimes right away, and sometimes within a short period of time. Many times with only a few sessions the pain disappears for good. With Cranio-Sacral therapy, the client remains fully clothed. Please visit www.upledgerinstitute.com for more information about craniosacral therapy, its applications and benefits, or call Ilani at 610-2005.

Owen Marcus, MA, A Rolfer’s Approach Sciatica is a common problem. Studies estimate that 13 percent to 40 percent of adults suffer from it, and 1 percent to 5 percent suffer annual recurrences. For more than 30 years now, sciatic pain has been a common reason why clients come to me for Rolfing.

Over the years, I’ve learned some things about sciatic pain: whether the pain is caused by low back strain, a herniated disc, or hip muscle strain (e.g., piriformis muscle), inevitably the true source is soft tissue strain. The body’s muscles and connective tissue (fascia, tendons and ligaments) contract, pull on the skeleton, yank it out of alignment, and cause pain.

This strain compresses the discs of the back, which is the major cause of sciatica.

The strain can also force the muscles of the hip to contract (the sciatic nerve travels through those muscles) creating “pseudosciatica”.

Think of your soft tissue as leather; if it shrinks (tightens up due to injury, stress, or pain), your entire body shortens.

The low back is the most vulnerable to shortening because of the large muscles Continued on next page

Page 22 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

and connective tissue of the deep abdomen and the back muscles.

“No matter what I do for my ‘core,’ I can’t seem to strengthen my lower back or flatten my low abdomen,” one of my clients told me. Even when she wasn’t having sciatic pain, her low back often just felt tired. No amount of stretching helped, because it wasn’t just her muscles that had shortened up; all her fascia was too tight also. After getting Rolfed, she told me: “It’s like my low back muscles woke up.” She hasn’t had any pain, and she can finally exercise some of those core muscles she had only heard about before. Her stomach is flatter and her back is stronger.

With this shortening, your organs and back are susceptible to impairment, and so are the nerves that run out of the spine. Your discs are like jelly donuts filling in the space between the vertebrae of the back, allowing the back to bend. After years of strain, these discs flatten into pancakes and the low back shortens. (This is where we lose most of our height.) Then the compressed discs can bulge, pushing against a nerve. In the hip, the deep hip muscles can contract around the nerve.

The compounded strain over the years distorts your entire structure, forcing your bones to try to compensate, essentially mal-forming your skeleton. If your body’s entire leather suit shrinks, your skeleton does the best job it can to adjust to the decreasing space. But your nerves are very sensitive to irritation from this chronic imbalance. We can fix one part of this puzzle, but if the systemic strain remains, you will have recurring pain.

Fortunately, the whole process is reversible. Think of it like straightening out a twisted hose–you can’t just straighten out one section, you need to unwind the torque from the entire hose so it will lie flat. To stretch out your soft tissue, so your skeleton can go back to its natural state, you have to “unwind” all the soft tissue, releasing the chronic stress and allowing your body to regain its natural state.

All your soft tissue needs releasing— right where the pain is, and throughout your entire body—for significant lasting change. There are many ways to get a release; Rolfing is just one of them.

Owen Marcus, MA Certified Advance Rolfer, www.align.org. 265.8440.

Possible resources for more information: w w w.curezone.com/dis/1.asp?C0=299; w w w.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle. php/sciatica-treatment-3126.html; www. mothernature.com / Librar y/ Bookshelf/ Books/41/101.cfm; www.sciatica.org; www.mindbodysoul.tv/episodes/episodefive/sciatica.

Krystle Shapiro, BA, LMT, CDT, A Massage Therapy Approach As a medical massage therapist, I have many clients who request a massage to relieve their back pains. My approach is to determine the recent activities and movements a client has undertaken to understand exactly which muscles have “cramped up” from what action. Most often it is the piriformis muscle, but sometimes other low back, abdominal, or leg muscles are the source. The pelvis is our core where upper and lower body structures attach or originate, and as we move, it receives a tremendous amount of action every day.

I utilize two basic therapeutic approaches to address sciatic pain: muscle energy technique and positional release therapy. Cramping or spasms become involuntary. By applying MET, I perform with the client a contract/relax activity with the affected muscle three or four times.

This pattern informs the brain and muscle receptors that a new action is requested, that of relaxing. It always amazes me how effective this technique is when a therapist understands kinesiology and can identify the right muscle precipitating the spasm.

PRT is similar in that it causes a

renegotiation between the muscle receptors and the brain. When we injure ourselves, the muscle receptors send the brain a signal that says “Ouch!!” The brain then sends a chemical, surprisingly called Chemical P, that causes a pain sensation.

This in turn causes us to protect an area that hurts. With PRT, I find a “tender hot spot” and then move the affected limb into a position where the pain “turns off.”

With the appropriate wait time held in that special position, the muscle receptors say “Ahhh,” the brain stops sending Chemical P, and the spasm is released. Usually any residual ache subsides within a couple of hours as the immune system carries the residue of Chemical P away from the site. These two therapies are very effective and have enabled many of my clients to not take medications that create unwanted side effects.

Krystle Shapiro, Touchstone Massage Therapies, 208/290-6760 Mary Boyd, A Physical Therapist Approach Leg pain may be misunderstood as there are two different causes. In the first situation, the piriformis muscle that lies deep within the buttocks may be inflamed as a result of low back dysfunction. This little muscle, about the size of your pinkie, lies over the sciatic nerve and often mimics true sciatica by pushing on the nerve and in turn causing pain, numbness, and tingling in the posterior leg.

In the second situation, true sciatica occurs when the nerve itself is pinched or pushed upon by one of the spinal segments in the low back, also bringing pain, numbness or tingling into the leg and foot. It is important to understand the root cause so the treatment will be effective.

Personally, I use joint or soft tissue mobilization to treat these symptoms, working directly on the joints of L 3, 4, and 5 in patients with true sciatica or directly on the buttocks for those that have piriformis irritation. It is also important to understand that pain that extends below the knee is considered to be more serious and more difficult to treat.

Mary Boyd, MS, PT, 208/290-5575

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 23

A CuriouS Day in April Maggie had been a widow now for several years, ever since her logger husband had fallen 70 feet to the ground while topping out a tree.

Now, well into her sixties, Maggie’s days were fairly lonely. Her daughter, who was married to a small businessman, stopped by for a lunch or coffee every week or so. Her grandson, Gary, stopped by a couple times a month to help with some maintenance issues, but his young family and job consumed most of his time.

It was early April. Damp, heavy graywhite clouds and patchy fog hung over the town on a Thursday. A work day, and there were few cars on the residential streets. Maggie’s day started around 7 am. An oatmeal breakfast and listening to the ‘sounds’ from the basement where her husband used to turn out wood oprojects from his lathe and table saw. Probably just the settling of the house or a few mice, at worst. Maybe she should get a cat and complete the stereotype of an old widow living alone.

The Ladies Auxiliary’s bake sale was the coming weekend at the community hall, so Maggie began her Cherry-Chocolate brownings and Sugar-Ginger cookie receipes she was going to contrubute, when she realized she was out of a couple ingredients.

It was a 70-foot walk out to her small garage and her little white Chevy. After backing out, Maggie got back out of the car and closed the door. Turning, she was just in time to see an old man walking a shaggy dog coming from the west. She had never seen him before. Probably a new resident of the trailer park a block over.

As she drove the five blocks through the fog to the store, the town seemed unusually quiet and empty, even for a work

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day. Probably just the weather conditions.

That did not explain the oddly distracted clerk when she came up to the checkout. It was as if the woman didn’t notice her until she cleared her throat.

An hour later, Maggie was just putting her bake sale contributions in the oven when she glanced out the kitchen window and saw a movement behind the small garage and bushes of her soggy, April garden. Likely just a large dog.

The doorbell startled her. Walking into the living room, a new sensation came over her. She had never been hesitant about answering the door, but this day had her spooked. It turned out to be the mailman with the seed package she had ordered from Gurney’s.

As the small mail truck pulled away, she felt like the last woman on Earth. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was now afternoon.

Maybe a sip of McNaughton’s and water would help her nerves.

Ten minutes later, nerves a little calmer, Maggie stood in the living room and watched as a black car cruised slowly by. Signs of life at last. But this wasn’t the sight she was hoping for. The car had an odd, retro appearance from the fifties, but not quite. She had lived in the fifties but had never seen a car like this. It was as if you were describing a car to someone without ever seeing the vehicle, and then expecting that person to build an exact duplicate. What really was different? The

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orange/yellow headlights.

Her baking now out of the oven, Maggie turned the TV on. Soap operas and CNN. She left it on, but cut the sound in half.

A companion at least, sitting there in the corner as she read a mystery novel.

Restlessness, though, wouldn’t allow her to read more than a page before getting up and patrolling the house.

Checking the basement, all was quiet. It was just as her husband had left it, which brought a flood of memories. She fled back up the stairs just in time to hear the phone ring. Going to it gladly, she expected to hear one of her friends on the other end.

Instead, there was just dead air, but not exactly. The receiver produced and odd clicking and humming noise. Asking if anyone was there brought more of the same odd noises, and she quickly hung up as if the phone had suddenly turned into a snake.

Fleeing to the kitchen brought into sight the house next door. They had found the body of an elderly, drunken widower there two weeks earlier and now the small, 1920s-era house had an unusual, sunken-in appearance.

It was just then that the strange man and his shaggy dog that Maggie had seen when heading to the store walked by again, looking at her all the way.

Turning to follow the man from the living room window, Maggie thought she caught a glimpse of someone looking into the south window. Hurrying there, she saw no one.

It was dinnertime, and Maggie had fixed herself a microwave dinner. The doorbell rang. After a moment of thinking about it, she went to the door. It was her daughter, and suddenly, all was right with the world.

The bake sale the next day, a tonic. Things were... active again. There were people, noises, sounds, friends... and life.

The memory of that peculiar day stayed in the back of Maggie’s mind, but all was well now.

There have been reports of people who felt for a time that they couldn’t be seen by others. It was as if they had opened a door into somewhere else, but had not stepped through... into a curious land that Rod Sterling called “The Twilight Zone.”

Page 24 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

From ThE

Files

Of The River Journal’s

SurrealisT Research BureaU The Man in the Iron Mask

When I was a young college student in Santa Barbara I got my first real “scoop” when I reported in a paranormal magazine “The Gate” (you can find it online at www. s a i n t a lb a n s t ud io.c om / thegate.html ) that the identity of “The Man in the Iron Mask” had been discovered, a mystery that had puzzled historians for more than two centuries.

Idly chatting with my History Professor, Paul Sonnino, over lunch one day I was surprised to find he spent his summer sabbaticals in France poring over dusty, long forgotten prison records trying to discover the identity of the enigmatic prisoner. The tale began, as we know, when in 1703, in the driving rain of the courtyard of France’s notorious Bastille Prison, an inmate who had died was given a secret nighttime burial under an assumed name. For 34 years he had been kept isolated, forbidden to talk to other inmates or even his jailers, under threat of instant death; his face constantly hidden by a cloth of black velvet. No records of his crime were kept, his very identity a mystery that has intrigued and haunted the likes of Voltaire, Dumas, Charles Fort and Colin Wilson. One of Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” novels was based on the tale, though he changed the black velvet cloth for dramatic purposes, thereby giving us the enigmatic title most people know today as “The Man in the Iron Mask.”

“The Minister of War” said Prof.

Sonnino, “under Louis XIV said that it was crucial that the Warden allow no opportunities to talk with anyone, that no one be privy to his information. He must have had something on the King.” Old records Prof. Sonnino discovered seemed to indicate that the masked prisoner was once Louis XIV’s personal valet, a man named Eustache Dauger, though a more exotic theory holds that Dauger was, like

the name on the death certificate, a false one and that the prisoner was actually the King’s own father. “The story of Dauger” said Sonnino, “is the biggest unsolved mystery connected with Louis XIV and is a glaring hole in history.”

One theory, popular for a time, was that the prisoner was actually a m a n named Mattoli who was a Minister of Ferdinand Charles, the Duke of Mantua, who was really spying for France. Upon being discovered as a double agent, the furious King Louis had him kidnapped and imprisoned. A nice theory but recent findings by Sonnino and others (after poring over the voluminous records of the Bastlle Prison and France’s Public Prosecutors Office) reveal that Mattoli died in the prison of Iles Sainte-Marguerite in April of 1694, a common prisoner with no special precautions taken by his jailers.

I learned a lot after I “broke” the story that The Man in the Iron Mask was actually Eustache Dauger, mostly about the value of slow, plodding research and common sense. It stood me well over the years. In 2005 I was wrapped up in the story of a mystery beast called the “shunka warak’in” that once haunted Idaho in the early 1900s. A stuffed specimen was reported lost soon thereafter, disappearing from sight. I reasoned (rightly as it turned out)

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that the lost specimen was more than likely unrecognized, hidden away in a forgotten corner of one of Idaho’s Historical Societies or Museums and took a couple weeks off in 2005 to search for the beast. The one museum I did not search in that summer (it was closed for cleaning) was in Pocatello and it was there that the stuffed specimen was finally located the following year.

Someone else broke the story (though I did do a follow up here in TRJ).

Still, Professor Sonnino remains hopeful and every year quietly spends his summer sabbaticals searching through old prison and judicial records in France, the most logical place to find the answers. “I now know who he was, and am only a document away from discovering his mysterious crime.”

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April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 25

A Seat in the House

by George Eskridge

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LARGE, HARD-TOFIND ACREAGE ABOVE BAYVIEW

$375,000•Tom Renk MLS# 2081129 Wonderful views over Scenic Bay, Lake Pend Oreille, and the surrounding mountains! 37 acre piece includes a beautiful forest with large trees and several potential building sites.

Both power and phone are on adjacent properties. Easy access, less than ten minutes to the lake at Bayview.

GREAT NORTH IDAHO RETREAT!

$249,500•Tom Renk MLS# 2075065 Cute little frame house with big deck and landscaped yard is set in 9.5 acres of beautiful forest with a rushing year-round stream. There’s also another charming little cabin for guests. Alternative power system runs all lights and appliances. Take a look - you’ll want to stay!

LONG ESTABLISHED HEATING & COOLING BUSINESS

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CUTE AND COMFORTABLE MODULAR HOME

$239,500•Tom Renk MLS# 20900350 Great floor plan & bright, cheery interior. House has fireplace, vaulted ceilings, lots of kitchen cabinets, and nice deck with hot tub. Lovely views of Lake Pend Oreille from house and deck.

Private setting with nice trees. Less than 10 minutes to Sandpoint and less than 1 mile to public waterfront access at Springy Point

One of the priorities of each legislative session is to estimate revenues for the upcoming fiscal year and then, based on the estimate, appropriate funds for state agencies. This year is more difficult than normal because of the downturn in the economy and uncertainty as to when the economy will recover. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the “Stimulus Act”) passed by Congress at the beginning of the year also created confusion and delay in the budgeting process because of the need for the Governor, agencies and the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee to understand how the stimulus funds could be applied and what conditions were attached to use of the funds.

The Governor provided his recommendations on the use of Stimulus money to the legislature and the public on March 11. As a part of his recommendation he wants to use $85,097,600 to replenish the Public Education Stabilization Fund used to offset public school cuts that were required this year. The remainder of the funds available would be spread among the various agencies under guidelines of the federal government.

JFAC has the responsibility of developing appropriation recommendations for each agency for consideration of the full legislature. The Committee began developing agency appropriation amounts shortly after receiving the Governor’s recommendation, about three weeks behind schedule.

Even with the stimulus money, JFAC has determined that it will still be necessary to reduce state programs in Fiscal Year 2010 (FY10) by about 13 percent under the current fiscal year (FY09). The public schools general funds appropriation would normally have to be reduced by about 6.5 percent; however the stimulus money will help offset a portion of that reduction.

JFAC has determined that in order to meet this reduction and still minimize

the impact on the most necessary state programs that it will be necessary to reduce personnel costs in all state agencies by 5 percent. However, because of the desire to avoid reductions in personnel (layoffs) that would impact the implementation of state programs and at the same time add to the unemployment numbers, the committee adopted priorities for the agencies to follow when implementing the personnel cost reductions. These are: first, an across the board salary reduction of 3 percent; second, utilizing existing salary savings by not filling vacant positions, and third, use furloughs (non-paid days off) where appropriate. The last priority in personnel cost reduction would be through a reduction in staff, i.e. layoffs.

JFAC is expected to end its work on budgets on March 27. Notwithstanding other controversial issues (such as transportation funding and education funding issues!) the legislature would be expected to deal with the JFAC appropriation recommendations within two to three weeks and adjourning on April 10 or 17.

Besides appropriations, stimulus money and cut-backs, the following legislative bills may be of particular interest to the readers: Under our current system local governments and school districts can hold elections on different dates other than on primary election dates in May and November. Even on primary election days some local government entities hold elections at polling places separate from the primary and general election polling places. This practice is expensive and confusing to the public and reduces voter turnout in some elections. Because of this, many members of the legislature, the Idaho Secretary of State, county officials and others have been attempting for several years to consolidate elections.

George Eskridge is a Representative from District 1B to Idaho’s legislature. Reach him by email at idaholeginfo@lso.idaho. gov, by phone at 800-626-0471 or by mail at PO Box 83720, Boise, ID 83720

Continued on next page

House- Continued from page 26

House Bill 201 was proposed legislation to consolidate elections into four specific dates in March, May, August and November.

General government would hold elections on primary and general election days in May and November; school districts could choose to hold elections in March and April in addition to the May and November dates but would have to pay for the cost of the election. House Bill 201 passed the House on a 52 to 17 vote, but was killed in the Senate State Affairs Committee on a 5 to 4 vote. I believe that even though this legislation failed there will be an effort to adopt similar legislation in the next session.

The change in the administration and a new president has increased concern among some legislative members that there may be a federal government effort to diminish a citizen’s constitutional right under the second amendment to own and bear arms. House Joint Memorial 3 (HJM3) is a House Joint Memorial that “clarifies Idaho Legislative positions on our citizen’s Second Amendment rights. It asks Congress to cease and desist attempts to enact federal legislation impinging on individual rights of every American to keep and bear arms.” HJM three has been passed out of the House State Affairs Committee and will be voted upon by the full House by the end of March or the first week in April.

The passage of the federal stimulus act,

Ready!-Continued from page 27 donations from the Panhandle Alliance for Education, the CHaFE bicycle event, bike riding and fund raising extraordinaire Mel Dick, teachers from the Lake Pend Oreille School District, and the inspired leadership of Tracy Gibson.

Most importantly, we are thankful that so many young families have taken advantage of this great opportunity.

For more information on how you and your children might be involved, please telephone the Panhandle Alliance for Education at 208-263-7040.

along with wolf control and other issues, have raised questions of state sovereignty abuse by the federal government. House Joint 4 (HJM4) is a proposed memorial “to inform the United States Congress the State of Idaho hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and hereby serves notice and demand to the federal government, to cease and desist, effective immediately, federal mandates directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment, compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under civil or criminal penalties or other sanctions, or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers, shall be prohibited.”

This memorial has also been passed out of the House State Affairs Committee and will be voted upon by the full House by the end of March or the first week of April.

It is possible that the legislature will be adjourned by the time this article of the Journal is published; if so I will provide a summary of significant legislation adopted by the legislature and approved by the Governor in the next issue of the Journal.

As always, thanks for reading and I welcome your input on issues of importance to you. During the legislative session I can be reached by phone at 1-800-626-0471, by e-mail at idleginfo@lso.idaho.gov or regular mail at P.O. Box 83720, Boise, Idaho 83720-0038. George

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April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 27

Catalina—Continued from page 28 Part of the charm is very few cars; the island limits how many cars are allowed on so most locals travel by golf cart, bicycle or walking. The hills around the bay are steep, many walkways are steps, but the views from the tops are fantastic.

So there we were, someplace different; a place we never would have thought of going. An internationally famous resort with a sleepy ocean village feel, which is twenty-six miles across the sea, but really only twenty-two; has a mausoleum where no one is buried and a casino where you can’t gamble, as a result of a raffle ticket I had forgotten about.

So if someone tries to sell you raffle ticket for the SOARING program don’t buy it, I want to increase my chances for a return trip.

Ernie and Linda get a break from shoveling snow and splitting firewood with a free trip to Catalina Island. They are pictured here with the Casino in the background.

NOLA—Continued from page X and when another home displayed the words ‘no dog found,’ marking the loss of human life and man’s best friend. As we approach Passover I can’t help but wonder if those who left the X on their homes did so to ask harm to pass over them as death once did for those who had placed their faith in God in ancient Egypt.

There were an incredible number of homes with holes still in their roofs; the makeshift escape hatch for some, and both a testimony of survival—some waited five days on their roof tops to be rescued—and a testimony to poor judgment. Ironically for many, they went to the attic to avoid drowning, but were met by that fate because they had no way to punch through.

The holes in the roof also signify the complacency that contributed to the loss of life. So many had thought they had a better plan, that the evacuation warnings were exaggerated. They weren’t going to be inconvenienced by the seven-hour traffic jams, for what would normally be a one-hour drive, they had experienced with the overstated Hurricane Ivan warnings the year before.

Picture all the displaced people, the great loss—not material, but of life, of heritage, of a rich culture (I was happy to learn only a small portion of NOLA is as hedonistic as I imagined), the socioeconomic impact. Now ask yourself how it is that one human being to another can just ignore the requests, the humiliation

of our fellow Americans.

Was Katrina perhaps one of our first major wake-up calls urging us to unity—in what was once one of the most segregated areas of our country? NOLA was where Ruby Bridges, the first black girl to integrate a white school in NOLA lived. She had to be escorted by marshals to William Frantz Public School. This school now

serves the children of nearby Musician’s Village, conceived by New Orleans natives Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis. It exhibits the bright colors of the Caribbean and makes that part of NOLA look and feel very alive, perhaps mirroring the new course Ruby Bridges represented.

Louis Armstrong’s property, including two huge homes on an old plantation site, had served as a boy’s home and community center, before Katrina. It was an anchor to the surrounding neighborhoods. The buildings are still standing and look beautiful from a distance, but are now abandoned. Up close their emptiness is revealed, as are the unmet needs.

I am amazed that the city has not placed more emphasis on education. Everywhere are huge schools completely shut down.

Southern University just recently opened some of their buildings, restoring the expectation of higher paying jobs through education and economic prosperity to the area once more.

We went to what resembled something from The Outer Limits—the silence was eerie, no one was around and all the doors and windows were blown out. There was no protective fencing. We walked through what a family once called home—furniture and personal possessions strewn and upended, walls collapsing—apartment after apartment ripped by Katrina’s fury.

I admired their colorful kitchens and imagined life in their neighborhood. I felt confused and ashamed. I didn’t know what to feel. These people were so devalued— what had once represented their lives and families was abandoned and discarded in a most disgraceful manner, left in a rubble of debris not much different than I would expect to see in a war-torn area. I imagined that some people lost their lives, family members and pets there—but no one would ever find them in that mess!

Their possessions and the life they represented were not even given the honor of a burial or the chance of a resurrection into a new life, retooled as affordable housing—enlivening once more the halls and classes of the newer elementary and high schools nearby, but shut down.

Continued on page 34

Page 28 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

Say What?

PAUL RECHNITZER| pushhard@nctv.com As some bask in the glow of the last Presidential election there is an inclination to compare the Obama regime to that of Roosevelt. It is obvious that both Presidents inherited a financial crisis of historic proportions. Whether or not what is going on in the real world is a Recession or the beginning of a Depression is a matter of perspective. The old saw that “it’s a recession when the guy next door loses his job but a Depression when I lose mine” may apply. I grew up in the Depression. Let me tell you my observations.

The money Roosevelt threw at the problem didn’t trickle down to either of my parents. I have been a silent witness to endless arguments about money, or supply as my Mother preferred to refer to it. The preceding decade of the Twenties had been good to my Dad and while we enjoyed a pretty good life there weren’t so many material things to accumulate, much less credit cards to exploit. When the crisis first began in 1928 my father’s bank took a hit for exactly the same reasons banks are in trouble today. Not as complicated but essentially the same problem of loans that should never have been made.

When I graduated from high school in 1935 I felt obligated to go to work so that I could put some money into the ‘pot.’ I didn’t feel put-upon or short-changed. I thought it was the only thing to do. Unfortunately, the first job only paid $10 a week with no deductions. It certainly wasn’t much but it was better than a punch in the nose. Until I retired in 1977 I was never unemployed and

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to this day the thoughts of not working can be haunting if not a nightmare.

That first pay came from working a ‘pit phone’ which connected the grain brokers office with the trading floor of the Kansas City Board of Trade. My only training came from being taught how to write numbers so that they were easily read. The street car ran from 10th and Main to within a half block of my parent’s home on 54th Street.

The fare was 10 cents. I walked the five or six miles many times.

I can still see the used car lots with $10 and $15 painted on the windshields. The White Castle featured 20 hamburgers for $1 on occasion. The walk and the sights along the way are indelibly etched in my memory.

When the opportunity came I changed brokerage firms and eventually became cashier for a firm with a membership in the New Stock Exchange. There I did everything from mark the board to run the switchboard to manage the cage. When things got slow I was offered a pay cut from $100 a month to $85, which told me that it was time to get real. I got in the oil business and stayed there the rest of my life.

Meanwhile there was the NRA ( National Recovery Act), the WPA (Work Progress Administration), CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and many others. I am sure some of the programs produced results of a sort but didn’t end the financial crisis. The CCC helped quite a few lads, but not me. The WPA created some notable infrastructure

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(earmark-like projects) but it didn’t end the Depression.

In fact, in 1938 there was another recession. I bought a new car then (a Plymouth for $804), just like I bought a new car last month. Just trying to help.

The Depression ended in 1939 with the great war which we now call WWII because WWI didn’t get the job done.

The same aura that surrounded Roosevelt bought him lots of votes just as doling out money today in the name of fiscal recovery is going to bless Obama.

The Depression was character molding, for most Americans, as many life experiences can be. The overall affect is what made us the great power we became and enabled us to defeat Hitler and his unusual efforts to exploit class warfare.

The tactic is called Nationalism by some One thing is certain and that is there is no way to anticipate or measure the consequences of this economic crisis. The possibilities are endless. What is at stake is self-reliance. Those who are relying on promises or who have great expectations are fools.

What also is at risk is the immense satisfaction of being your own savior. As Ben Franklin once said, “the good Lord looks after those who look after themselves;” it has never been more true. Self-reliance is the back bone of character. Self-reliance sets you apart from those who are waiting for the handout just like an animal in the zoo. Self-reliance or the ability to figure something out by and for yourself is truly a God-given virtue that will make every day a bit brighter.

What I have always liked about Idaho, especially the north end, is that most people are not so much followers as doers.

The economy used to be based on hard work, not hoping that the tourists are going to run next summer. I, for one, pray that the stuff that made us so has not been lost to a drug called “hand out.” Our future lies in being more productive, not less. If we are going to be lulled by hope let it be that we get over it quickly.

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 29

Coffelt Funeral Home, Sandpoint, Idaho.

Get complete obituaries online at

www.CoffeltFuneral.com

Wolf

Gladys Wolf left this world on Thursday, February 26, in Salmon, Idaho. She was the only child of George and Julia Haines, born April 22, 1915 in Webster, Wisc. Her oldest son Wendell preceded her in death in 1972 as well as her beloved husband of 57 years, Louie in 1993.

Gladys grew up and spent her school years in Great Falls, Mont. After graduating from high school her family relocated to western Montana where she met and married Louie. They bought a farm and started their family. After spending many years drilling for water with no success they sold the farm and moved to Clark Fork, Idaho. She worked at the local fish hatchery clipping fins as a seasonal job. She will always be remembered for her large garden, flowers and her famous raspberry patch.

In 1984 Louis and Gladys bought a small home in Overton, Nev. where they spent the reminder of their winters together.

Gladys continued to spend her summers in Idaho and her winters in Nevada until her battle with breast cancer. She then started living with her daughter and son-in-law in Indiana during the summer. Every fall the three Snowbirds would travel back to Nevada for the winter where she continued to enjoy the warm days and her many friends. The date of the return trip to Indiana, for the summer, always depended on when the ‘Relay for Life’ was held in Overton because she was so proud to walk that first lap with all the other cancer survivors. In 2004 the family moved to Salmon, Idaho for the summers, they continued to return to Overton for the winter. In 2007 Gladys entered the Discovery Care Center in Salmon.

Cooper

Mabel E Cooper, 89, passed peacefully in the arms of the Lord early Saturday morning, February 28, at home with her family by her side.

Mabel was born in Joe Batts Arm, Newfoundland to Thomas and Phoebe Elliot. Her father passed away when she was three years old, and her step dad, James Hewitt, raised her and her siblings along with her mother. She received a teaching certificate, and taught kindergarten and 1st and 2nd grades for several years. She met Marvin Cooper while he was stationed in Newfoundland during World War II. They were married in August of 1946 in Simpsonville, SC, where they made their home and raised their family. Mabel enjoyed being a homemaker, gardener, helping her husband out in his building business and being a seamstress at Her Majesty . She was involved in the Mauldin

Methodist Church.

After Marvin passed away in 1986, she began traveling. She enjoyed camping, picking berries, knitting, cooking and keeping up with current events and living a healthy lifestyle. She had a positive attitude, always a good word and a strong faith in God. In 2003, she moved to Sandpoint to live with her son. Mabel made many wonderful new friends at the Methodist Church and was active in a number of the groups there. She was also a member of the Red Hat Ladies. She loved watching her grandson, Jared, play soccer and would be out there rain or shine, cheering on him and his team. She found great pleasure in being in the company of children and babies.

Mabel was a little lady with a big heart. She will be greatly missed by many. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Sandpoint Methodist Church or the charity of your choice.

Tucker

Kenneth W. Tucker, 88, of Sandpoint died Sunday, March 8, at Valley Vista Care Center.

He was born April 22, 1920 in Samuels, Idaho the son of Valis and Cora Miller Tucker. He was raised in Bonner County, attended schools here, graduating Sandpoint High School in 1938. After graduation he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps where he learned to be surveyor. He enlisted in the Army and served in the European theatre during World War II. While stationed in England he met Jean Haines and they were married there.

After the war he and Jean returned to Sandpoint, but were later divorced. He married Mildred Hennion in Sandpoint in 1992 and she preceded him in death in 2006.

Upon his return from the service he worked as a surveyor and surveyed much of Bonner County.

He later worked as a supervisor for the Bonneville Power Authority during the construction of power lines throughout the northwest. He then worked for Pack River Lumber in Dover for a number of years, and later worked as a carpenter building commercial buildings in the Spokane area. He later returned to Sandpoint where he has since resided.

When his children were young he was very active in the scouting programs. Throughout his life he enjoyed riding horses, hunting, fishing and all outdoor activities.

Pierce

Margie Jane Pierce, 76, of Sandpoint, passed away Tuesday, March 10, at Life Care Center of Sandpoint.

Margie was born December 30, 1933 in Hope Idaho, the daughter of Samuel Sherman Pierce and Edith Pearl (Wiltse) Pierce. She attended school in Hope through the 8th grade and graduated from Sandpoint High School in 1952. She served in the U. S. Navy from 1952 until 1964. She was stationed in Memphis, Tennessee, Corpus Christi, Texas and Honolulu, Hawaii. Following her discharge from the Navy she moved to Long Beach, California where she worked in the VA Hospital until she was forced to retire due to a disability in 1976, at which time she moved back to Sandpoint.

Margie enjoyed all outdoor activities, especially fishing. Margie was a life-long Dodgers fan and

Lakers fan—she enjoyed watching their games on TV. Margie considered her many nieces and nephews her children, and she always had a bed or meal for any of them who stopped by or needed a place to spend the night. She was a member of the First Church of God, and the American Legion William D. Martin Post.

Black

Bette Black, 88, of Sandpoint, former Laclede resident, died Friday, March 13, in Sandpoint.

She was born July 14, 1920 in Boulder, Colo. the daughter of Silas and Nell Carter Weber. She was raised in Boulder and attended the University of Colorado. After her schooling she worked as an administrative assistant at the University until her retirement. She married Lyle Black in 1945, and in 1982 they moved to Laclede, Idaho.

Bette loved to read, travel, do embroidery work, and the outdoors.

Funeral services were conducted at Coffelt Funeral Chapel. Interment followed in Pinecrest Cemetery.

McConnell

Leola McConnell died March 19 in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, after a two-and-a-half month battle with respiratory and heart issues that developed following a fall on New Year’s Eve. She was 84 years old in August, and had been in good health until the fall that fractured her pelvis.

Leola Margaret was born to Fred and Marvel (Rooker) Quickert on August 22, 1924, in San Jose, Calif. She was the oldest of three children.

She grew up in the Santa Clara Valley helping on the family farm to raise chickens and prunes with her sister Marion and her brother Marvin.

She was winning competitions in kite building in Santa Clara County while her husband-tobe was winning cake baking competitions at the Bonner County Fair (beating his own mom). She was musically gifted; playing the violin, fiddle, accordion, and French horn. She wanted to be a music teacher but was not admitted into the program due to a heart murmur.

Leola graduated from Oak High School in Morgan Hill in 1942 as valedictorian and worked in a Standard Oil research laboratory during World War II. Leola regretted breaking many young men’s hearts before marrying Cecil Charles McConnell, on June 25, 1949. Family ties were very important, she always made sure that family and extended family stayed close with visits and communication even when we were scattered around the world.

Leola was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star in Lewiston, Idaho.

Most of the family was able to come and visit her and cheer her during her long stay in the hospital. A wake was held in her honor.

Early

Kirby D. (Blue) Early, 33, passed away in Carthage, MO on January 27. Memorial services were held in Carthage.

Kirby was born on February 17, 1975 in Gravette, Ark., the son of David and Peggy. He grew up in Ordway, Colo. and attended school there. In 1989 the family moved to Clark Fork, Idaho and he

Page 30 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

graduated from Clark Fork high School in 1993.

Following high school he moved to Carthage and worked for a sanitation company. In 1994 he married Angela Moody in Carthage. He enjoyed the outdoors, riding his dirt bike, and spending time with his children.

He will be extremely missed by his family and his friends

Hunt

Esther C. Hunt, 83, passed away in Sandpoint, Idaho on Friday, March 27.

Esther was born in Mobridge, SD on December 20, 1925. She graduated from high school in Clear Lake,Wisc. She continued her education, graduating with the first class of X-ray technicians from the Portland Adventist Hospital in 1949.

She moved to Walla Walla, Wash. and worked in her field. In 1953 she moved to Pendleton, Ore. and worked in a doctor’s office for many years.

She married Verland Hunt on October 5, 1980. For 10 years she lived in Anchorage and Ketchikan, Alaska, moving to Sandpoint in 1992.

She enjoyed music and singing, her flowers, her garden and was a member of the Sandpoint Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Rosenboom

Larry E. Rosenboom, 76, passed away in Sandpoint, Idaho on Tuesday, March 31. Larry moved to Sandpoint, from Craig, Neb. in 1948.

Funeral services will be conducted at 11:00 am, Saturday, April 18, 2009, in the First Lutheran Church.

Lakeview Funeral Home, Sandpoint, Idaho.

Get complete obituaries online at

www.LakeviewFuneral.org

Mearns

Harrison Keith Mearns, 64, of East Hope, Idaho passed away peacefully in his home on Sunday, March 1.

Keith was born on February 12, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York to Harry and Evelyn Mearns. He grew up and attended schools in Brooklyn and New York City, receiving his associate’s degree in Commercial Art. Keith served his country in the United States Army.

Keith married Carol Marie Thorkelson on May 18, 1966, in Reigatt, England. He was self-employed and formed M2 Construction 14 years ago with his son, Craig. Keith and Carol moved to Hope 14 years ago.

He enjoyed his family, sailing, skiing, and traveling. Although he was fighting the ALS disease, he lived life to the fullest and taught his kids to do the same.

The family will host a sailboat flotilla this summer on the lake to share the joy that sailing has brought to his life and ours.

We would like to thank the wonderful and compassionate professionals at Hospice who helped us through this very difficult time.

Bullock

Barbara Lea Bullock, 49, passed away on Monday, March 9 in Sagle, Idaho.

Barbara was born on October 25, 1959 in Missoula, Montana to Andy and Verda Bullock. She grew up and attended schools in Sandpoint. She later lived in Oregon working as a cook and in the canneries on the Indian reservations. Barbara always extended a helping hand to those in need, and she helped raise numerous children over the years. She moved back to Sandpoint in 1994.

She enjoyed gardening, swimming, bead work, camping, traveling, and spending time with her family.

Ainsworth

Roger Lewis Ainsworth, 61, of Clark Fork, Idaho, passed away on March 15 in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Roger was born on February 23, 1948 in Moscow, Idaho to Robert and Doris Ainsworth.

He graduated from Chewelah High School in 1966, and from Spokane Community College with an Associates Degree in Electronics in 1969. Roger served his country in the United States Navy for seven years. He then started a 30 year career with Avista Utility Company as a Relay Technician.

On November 6, 1987, Roger married Kathy Rinard in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. They have since resided in Clark Fork.

Roger enjoyed white water rafting, bonfires, the outdoors and a good book.

More than anything, he was always up for a good time with family and friends. Roger was a loving and dependable husband, father, grandfather and friend to many, with an infectious smile and a great laugh. Words cannot express how much he will be missed.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Clark Fork Food Bank, c/o Pat Derr, PO Box 176, Clark Fork, ID 83811, Panhandle Animal Shelter, 870 Kootenai Cut-Off Road, Ponderay, ID 83852, or the charity of your choice.

Cole

Gail Claire Cole, 94, a long time Hope and Sandpoint resident, passed away at St. Andrews Care Center in Portland, Ore. on March 18. Memorial services will be held at 10 am, Wednesday April 8, at the Lakeview Funeral Home in Sandpoint with interment at the Lakeview Cemetery in the spring.

Gail was born Helen Claire Sturm on April

8,1914 at (Tiffin) Venice Township, Ohio the daughter of William E. Sturm and Florence Burgoyne. After the early death of her mother, Gail was raised and educated in a Catholic convent in Michigan until she finished high school.

Married to William (Bill) Livingston in the 1930s she and her husband became celebrities in the Pontiac/Lapeer Michigan area in the 1930s as the only known male, female Motorcycle Daredevil and Stunt riding team. They were members of the Wolverine Motorcycle Club; Gail was the only woman at that time to perform the flaming double board wall crash and many other daredevil feats.

They preformed at various motorcycle-racing sites and County Fairs up until World War Two when she went to work in the defense factories while her husband went off to war.

During the Korean War Gail went to work at the Boeing Company assembly plant in Renton, Wash. for a short time. She discovered and fell in love with northwest Montana and Hope Idaho on a vacation to Glacier Park and North Idaho in the 1940s.

She moved to Kalispell shortly thereafter and went to work for the U.S. Forest Service.

Early in the 1950s she moved to Hope, where she worked for the Great Northern Railroad.

She married Perry A. Cole in 1961. She and Perry traveled extensively enjoying cruises and winters in Florida and Arizona.

She loved the outdoors and spent much of her time rock hounding, antiquing, birding, and bottle collecting and her very favorite thing was gardening. While living in Hope she had a building constructed to house her large collection of antiques, opened it to the public and for school children’s field trips. She moved into Sandpoint in 1988 and had one of the largest flower and vegetable gardens in town at that time.

Gail’s philosophy about life was to practice the Golden Rule and to always take time to stop and smell the flowers.

Payne

Cynthia Ann “Cyndi” Payne, 49, passed away on Monday, March 23, in Moyie Springs, Idaho. Private family services have been held.

Cyndi was born on June 16, 1959 in Sandpoint, Idaho to William and Leanne (Stutzke) Payne. She grew up and attended schools in Portland, Ore. After high school she traveled the country selling hydraulic hoses. In 1983 she met her lifelong partner Thomas Smith. She then moved to Laclede, Idaho where she worked for Litehouse Dressing and the local sawmills. In 1988 she moved to Moyie Springs.

Cyndi always considered North Idaho her home and was grateful to be able to return as an adult. She enjoyed breeding Dauchounds, making jewelry, etching glass, and spending time with her biker friends.

Memorial donations may be made to Bonner Community Hospice, PO Box 1448, Sandpoint, ID 83864.

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 31

Reconstruction-cont’d from page 11 Cousins. “Now we have guys trained to construct engineered log structures locally.”

Cousins is working on getting the public involved in this project. During the month of April, she is soliciting school groups, commissioners, Legislators, stakeholder organizations, and citizens to assist with planting. They are looking to plant 60,000 native plants—and it all needs to happen before the water starts to come back up in May. Native trees and shrubs will be utilized for this project, and different species will be used at different levels—above the high water mark will be species such as willow, red-osier dogwood, gray alder, black cottonwood, and spirea. In the shallow water (zero-six inches) will be species such as northern water plantain, water sedge, and rushes. In the deeper water (sixeighteen inches) will be species such as spikerush, bur-reed, and common cattail.

There are many eyes upon this project, and not just from curious passerby. If this project is successful in restoring the meandering Pack River and its delta, there could be wide-ranging applicability across the nation. Cousins herself has the next project in mind—the much larger Clark Fork Delta.

“In addition to the project, we have an extensive monitoring program,” says Cousins. “Does this work? How well does it work? Many people are interested in this project. This is unique; no one has tried it before.”

If you are free April 7-9 or 21-23 to assist with plantings in the delta, please contact Cousins at kcousins@idfg.idaho.gov or call (208)769-1414. Cabela’s is sponsoring a Dutch Oven cook-off, and there will surely be loads of activities taking place to kickoff a very productive season for the locally venerated Pack River.

Because of the amount of disturbance in the delta this winter with project construction, there is bound to be some mud.

“This year there is going to be a bit of a sediment plume because of the disturbance from construction, but after this year it will be normal again,” says Cousins. Really, they are hoping for better than normal— namely, a huge reduction in the amount of sediment released into Lake Pend Oreille from the Pack.

Projects like this one benefit from the knowledge and support of the local community. Bring your buddies and grab some plants—it’s time to get your hands dirty.

Page 32 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

Or, what to do with an old phone booth I just love a good innovation. It’s a homestead art form goin’ back millenia, probably even predating zoning ordinances.

The first cave-dude to sit too close to the ol’ campfire after indulging in some greasy mastodon and subsequently discover the gas light, blow torch, heat-treated leather and jet propulsion may not have been a great innovator, but among the witnesses there surely would have been one or two.

Casual observers are way more apt to see the possibilities whereas the ones in the throes of experimentation are often so preoccupied with covering their asses (to smother the flames of creativity, I suspect) that they don’t notice any social benefits whatsoever! A very early example of “tunnel vision,” if you were lookin’ fer one. One man’s mood lighting could easily be another guy’s backdraft!

In the spirit of the economic distress currently befuddling the planet as a whole, homespun innovations can take on some interesting shapes. Old shoes can find new life as a set of hinges on a gate like in the last big depression, or duct-taped to a board, they become a long range pestilence controller for flies, spiders, cookie snatchers and, if you have a mini-van with any number of dependents, you’ll see an immediate use for this.

Any SUV over ten years old and now deemed worthless could find a useful second coming as a movable greenhouse or chicken coop. My own one-ton tool box is startin’ to look more nad more like a tomato hot house, especially when it rumbled up to a gas pump. The fact that it’s bright red and startin’ to get ripe may have something to do with this vision. Add a couple of skylights, a power vent, water spigot and drip system all coupled with high-back buckets, am/fm stereo cassette, heat and a/c; then I’d have an upscale tomato house. And I could still take it to town if I had to. Heck, maybe tomatoes like to go for rides! Maybe I could get a grant to study the effects of mobility on tomatoes.

Nah, it’s probably already been done.

Park yer boat under the downspout of yer roof to collect rain water, set up drip irrigation off the drain plugs and water the flower beds! This would save water, control runoff, conserve gas and cut pollution and it could even double as a kids’ pool. Instead of a “hole in the water you throw money in,” it could become something funny to store water in. I should’ve been doin’ this for years now! For a true sense of irony, you could even raise fish in it, saving not only on boat insurance, maintenance, licensing and tags, but all that wasted leisure time as well. Time much better spent innovatin’!

Everyone likes cool yard art and there’s

certainly no accountin’ fer taste there, hence the vast array of tasteless crap offered every spring that looks really swell next to a check-out stand but somehow converts to catharsisism when planted in your posy patch.

I like yard art to have meaning as well as purpose and maybe a little humor thrown in.

I bought a dirt bike 30 years ago that has more testosterone than I will ever possess.

It outweighs me bettern’ two to one and sometimes prefers to ride on top. I’ve had several opportunities to guess its weight, but a hot exhaust pipe is all I can remember.

So I’m going to mount it in a flower bed in its favorite pose; up on one wheel (either one would be appropriate) with a mustachioed mannequin flailing along in cut-offs and tank top for an endless ride. Better it than me! I could even make the headlamp be my driveway beacon. Innovation! I could rig a motion sensor to the horn and cause deer beans to be broadcast in all directions.

Double Innovation!

Now here’s a tricky one; the hammock.

These are outstanding tools for the hatching of innovations and if you get ahead through diligent practice, towards the end of summer, they can become a dandy dryer for garlic herbs and tea leaves.

The average dog yard could be much better utilized as a feedlot for a buffalo or any one of the new designer hybrids like beefalo, buffalope, ostribeefiphant, porkypotamus and many more, I’m sure. Just let yer dog run amok like your neighbors do.

If you happen to have a pool, well you’re in luck, ‘cause all you have to do is unplug the filter unit and raise more algae than you’ll ever care to stuff in capsules.

Without a doubt, one of the coolest innovations I’ve yet to encounter was over at a friend’s place. He’d spoken of a need for an outhouse somewheres near the garden to avoid trackin’ up his home when nature called. I flippantly suggested he use an old phone booth as I fugured there must be a huge stockpile of them somewhere, and therefore cheaper than framing lumber and siding.

I returned later to find he’d taken up on my advice and, nestled ‘tween a couple of lilac bushes, was a bright red, cast iron English phone booth with mirror filmed windows. This allowed the occupant/ innovator complete privacy and relative security, not to mention a great view! I was at once quite proud of my suggestion but wondered why the foreign model, to which he replied, “Was the only one around!”

So I asked how it was workin’ out and he said, “Have a seat.

“One day I was weedin’ the spinach

by Scott Clawson

patch and had an urge to download some roughage. While I was ‘on the phone,’ so to speak, a dern bull moose wandered out of the woods and right through the garden gate I left open. He pulled up a row of garlic, mowed a bed of lettuce, spinch and chard, then freshened his breath with most of my spearmint!”

“Didja try to scare him away?”

“Well, I couldn’t think of anything right off but the previous night’s meatloaf and cabbage sure did! That bull trotted out of the garden, right on over and gave a big sniff at the door, prompting an explosion of mint fogging up the glass! I was grateful for this as I didn’t want him to think I was his twin brother in a glass cage and therefore vulnerable to a practical joke or something.”

“What then?” I had to know.

“Well, as I sat there lookin’ at an outof-focus moose and sortin’ out my various options, a breeze took away the fog. The moose saw his reflection and smiled, I think.

That’s when I noticed spinach stuck between his teeth and that always makes me giggle, ya know. ‘Cept I tried like hell to hold it in so’s not to rile him up, considerin’ my pants were around my ankles.”

“And?” “I couldn’t stop gigglin,’ I mean, it was almost like a death wish or something!

That’s when my wife’s prize-winnin’ cherryraisin cobbler made a broadcast sounding like a piccolo with hiccups!

“You know, at first, I don’t think heh ad a clue as to what kind of call that was, but when his nostrils caught on, he didn’t want any part of an explanation. He took about five giant staggers backwards, putting him squarely entangled in our wind chime menagerie that I’d fashioned out of an old calliope my wife found at St. Vinny’s.”

“How’d that sound?”

“Not bad once I found some ear plugs.

Our dog ran away from home!”

“No, I mean the moose in the chimes.

How’d he sound?”

“Not bad, though I doubt he’s ever studied music all that much.”

I haven’t been over there since.

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 33

NOLA- Cont’d from page 28 Frankly, it sickens me to know these people have been left to their own resources after enduring a horrific experience, directly or indirectly. Everyone knows someone personally who died or lost everything. How is it okay, in America, to ignore the needs of our fellow citizens—of relationship? It reminds me of the callousness of a person who continues to assault their victim. Indifferent to their screaming in pain and pleading for someone to help them. Where is our collective humanity, our accountability to one another?

Those who have remained and endured are just now being served. They represent the voice of the courageous, the persistent, and

Journalism- Cont’d from page 17 candidate, Sarah Palin.

One of my favorite assignments ever was telling the story of Ted Grant, a railroad gandydancer and a vociferous recollector of how it was in the old days when Sandpoint went sour, thanks to the Village Council’s decisions in 1935.

Some of my other favorites include a feature on Harold’s IGA, Army Sgt. Brandon Adam’s inspiring thoughts after losing both

Too Big?-—Cont’d from page cleanup of major banks—hardly looks like a sure thing right now.

“In my view, the U.S. faces two plausible scenarios. The first involves complicated bank-by-bank deals and a continual drumbeat of (repeated) bailouts, like the ones we saw in February with Citigroup and AIG. The administration will try to muddle through, and confusion will reign.

“The second scenario begins more bleakly, and might end that way too. But it does provide at least some hope that we’ll be shaken out of our torpor. It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in eastcentral Europe collapses, and—because eastern Europe’s banks are mostly owned by western European banks—justifiable

the hopeful. They began as voices not heard, met with fake concern and indifference, not the compassion they deserved. Really not that different from a person diagnosed with a terminal illness. Admit it, we have all been there with our proclamations, our hollow and uninformed opinions of how that person fell ill, why it happened to them, what they should have done, what they should be doing now. Does that judgment and near condemnation really serve anyone? Does it remedy the circumstance?

During this time of unemployment and overblown angst of what we have lost on paper or the material possessions we may lose or the retirement plans we may have to delay we might want to take a look at the survivors in NOLA and gain some perspective of what loss really is! We can learn from their

experience; better yet, we can serve them and awaken our souls. We are ordinary people with an extraordinary purpose.

As of August, 2008, more than 250 homes and 25 churches have been restored

by FEI teams. Yet astonishingly, over 16,000 families are still living in FEMA trailers as of June, 2008, and 65,000 homes are still blighted. Countless victims of the hurricane are lacking the resources they need to rebuild. There is still much work to be done!

Do you want to experience a blessing and renew your spirit? Look up Forwardedge. org or connect to people in need some other way. It is the sure cure for CDD and any pity party. Helping others will change your life and show you the extraordinary things you are capable of doing!

legs in Iraq, a piece about the World War II era at Farragut Naval Training Station, Sandpoint’s railroad influence, and a story I wrote for the Ruralite about a Bonners Ferry welder with an “att-y-tude.”

No longer can I spout out, in one breath, a list of all the walks of life represented in my reportorial repertoire. My stories have appeared horse magazines, a Catholic newspaper, Sandpoint Magazine, the Pacific Northwest Inlander, and, for the past seven years, in my regular column for this paper.

Thank you, Trish, for providing me the

opportunity to write what’s on my mind.

What’s on my mind right now is another deadline to meet and another group of stories to tell about folks working the forest industry. As author Pat McManus has told me once or twice, we never get to quit writing. And, at this point in my old life, that’s okay because I still yearn to tell the stories that make the whole world spin.

My only regret: when “100 Years Ago in Bonner County” has a chance to roll around for news from March 17, 1959, newspapers and I will be long gone.

fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated, and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration’s current budget are increasingly seen as unrealistic, and the rosy “stress scenario” that the U.S. Treasury is currently using to evaluate banks’ balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.

“Under this kind of pressure, and faced with the prospect of a national and global collapse, minds may become more

concentrated.”

There is, of course, a third possibility that Johnson doesn’t consider—that the American public itself limits an institution’s ability to become too big to fail by ceasing to support that institution with its dollars.

No one is forcing us to deposit money with bank beheamoths like the five biggest— Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and HSBC Bank USA—who have been called “Dead Men Walking” even after $145 billion between them in bailouts, due to their holdings in credit default swaps, “a ticking time bomb,” according to a company that grades banks on their degree of loss risk.

The “Buy Local” movement may be more important than you think, especially when it comes to where you deposit your money.

Page 34 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

An international mathematics research team announced today that they had discovered a new integer that surpasses any previously known value “by a totally mindblowing shitload.” Project director Yujin Xiao of Stanford University said the theoretical number, dubbed a “stimulus,” could lead to breakthroughs in fields as diverse as astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and Chicago asphalt contracting.

“Unlike previous large numbers like the Googleplex or the Bazillionty, the Stimulus has no static numerical definition,” said Xiao.

“It keeps growing and growing, compounding factorially, eating up all zeros in its path. It moves freely across Cartesian dimensions and has the power to make any other number irrational.”

April 2009| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4| Page 35

From the Mouth of the River

So, I says to Lovie, “Darling, spring looks a lot like winter to me. Six inches of new snow last night on top of the two-foot ice cap we already have; this could wilt the tomatoes.� “Don’t stand near the window, dear,� she said, “you know how depressing that is for you. And please stop whining, that won’t help.� “That’s not me,� I said, “it’s the dog.

She wants out. Do you realize this dog is six months old and has never seen the ground? She thinks standing on her front feet to pee just to keep her butt above the snow is normal for a dog. “What about those two robins that showed up a couple ah days ago? One committed suicide and the other one died from being egg bound, trying to lay frozen eggs.�

We all look forward to spring after a long cold winter and this spring has been a long time in coming. This morning at five o’clock, Scooter, our young Beagle, was sitting out on the deck with two young coons. The same two coons she has been treeing all winter. in fact, the three of them are the same age. This time, however, the three of them were looking at the ground. That’s right folks, the warm rain and sun has melted the snow on the west side of our deck and these three banditos was so fascinated to see dirt they forgot they were sworn enemies.

Lovie, the home Goddess, is beside herself. Now that Scooter has discovered wet dirt and mud, she comes running through the house covered from head to toe with Lovie right after her with towels and mops, all the time making snide remarks about her ancestry.

I have had dogs for over fifty years and I think this is the happiest dog I have ever seen. She now thinks getting wiped off is such a game for her she runs to the dirty clothes basket and drags out a towel when she comes in the house.

I am not a psychic but I can tell you for sure there’s going to be hell to pay when spring does come. Lovie is taking the Master Gardener classes and has every intention of producing a more productive garden than she did last year. And if she thought those gophers were a problem last year, wait until that Beagle starts to help eradicate them. I am saving a special place in my diary for all the new words that Beagle is going to learn.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.

If Lovie is taking Master Gardener classes, don’t that mean more work for yours truly, like framing up raised beds and hauling dirt and fertilizer? And all those honey-dos that go along with gardening?

But wait, remember what my dear old Dad said when I got married. Never plant more grass than your wife can mow. Give her your opinion on how to plant what, where, and how much. Insist on giving her meaningless directions and if she does start something on her own, tell her, “I wouldn’t have dun it that’a way.�

I found that fishing goes a long way in your recovery program, once you’re able to see clearly out of at least one eye.

Talking to her in this manner may at first seem a bit harsh but believe me, it will pay off in the long run.

Now, when she heads for the garden shed, I head for the boat shed.

Another helpful hint for Garden Orphans, keep close tabs on what is spent on garden tools.

Don’t complain if she buys two wheelbarrows (one pink for dirt and one yellow for

Boots Reynolds

flower baskets), two weed whackers (one electric and one gas—be sure she keeps and reads the manual on the gas one so you won’t be called on to start it for her. There’s nothing like trying to fish with gas on your hands.), one large rototiller for plowing and tearing up raised beds, one small rototiller for cultivating between and sometimes down the rows of vegetables (Those little suckers go wild if you hit a small rock.), at least three different sizes of shovels and just as many different rakes, hand tools and tool belts, garden hoses and sprinklers.

Of course, one has to have a proper place to store all this and it’s obvious she can’t store it in my boat shed, so a new garden shed is in order.

Gardening clothes no self-respecting Master Gardener would be caught in her garden wearing (choke, choke).

Work clothes. What if someone drove up? How could she serve tea looking like that?

It’s obvious we could have all our fresh vegetables flown in from Hawaii on a daily basis at this cost. However, if you have been married as long as we have you know that if Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Besides, if you wrote down the cost of all the before-mentioned items you will know how much to spend on a new trolling motor, chest waders, steelhead rods, new fly rod, and fishing licenses for Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. And just look how good smoked salmon and deep fried walleye look on a plate of fresh vegetables. Our marriage is truly blessed!

Next month will be my annual wildlife report, don’t miss it!

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Page 36 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 18 No. 4 | April 2009

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