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April 2013| FREE | www.RiverJournal.com
LAUGH AGAIN A Dinner Theater Production of the Heron Players
May 10, 11, 17, 18 • 7 pm (MST) • Heron Community Center www.HeronPlayers.com • 877-328-7659 • Matinee 3 pm May 19
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K&K Derby April 27 - May 5
Pin Auction April 26, 7 pm at the Sandpoint Elks Club www.lPOIC.org
EARTH DAY APRIL 20
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John Hill, John Marquette, Rico Carll and Jerry Causi
Their music has been called anything from “North Idaho Ethnic” to Geezer Rock with a Twist, but it “Doesn’t Matter What You Call It.” Available at Flatpick Earl’s at 113 N. First in Sandpoint, The Long Ear at 2405 N. 4th in Couer ‘d Alene, The Naples General Store in beautiful downtown Naples, Far North Deli and Mugsy’s Tavern in Bonners Ferry as well as Northwest Music / the Hot Club in Troy, Montana.
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Internet.... Everywhere Need reliable, high-speed Internet service? Call for a free site survey today! Intermax serves many areas of Bonner County from Dover to Hope as well as locations throughout Kootenai County. 208.762.8065 in Coeur d’Alene 208.265.3533 in Sandpoint www.IntermaxNetworks.com
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
STAFF Calm Center of Tranquility Trish Gannon-trish@riverjournal.com
Ministry of Truth and Propaganda Jody Forest-joe@riverjournal.com
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4. WILL BIKE FOR FOOD Sandpoint teacher plans bike ride from Sandpoint to Prudhoe Bay to raise awareness of the Sandpoint Backpack program. 6. DOWNTOWN CALENDAR Take a look at what’s happening in Sandpoint. 7. A MIXED SALAD OF THOUGHTS OF SPRING A few short musings on the spring weather forecast, digging post holes, and requests for rebuttals.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
8. A BANQUET FOR ELK SUPPORT It’s the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s annual banquet and here’s why you should attend. THE GAME TRAIL
Proudly printed at Griffin Publishing in Spokane, Wash. 509.534.3625
9. THE SPOTTED SANDPIPER Do the funky chicken (just like this bird)! A BIRD IN HAND 10. IDOLATRY AND GRACE Like Dylan said, “You Gotta Serve Somebody.” KATHY’S FAITH WALK 11. SACRED SERVICE & SACRED RECEIVING Or... I don’t feel good, and this is why my column is late. THE HAWK’S NEST 12. BILLS PASS Bills pass for both health insurance and for personal property tax relief. A SEAT IN THE HOUSE
13. JEEPERS! Sandy takes the scenic route to the Moab. THE SCENIC ROUTE 14. STRANGE TALES PART 2 Lawrence relates a pair of tales of oddities in the woods. VALLEY OF SHADOWS 15. WEIRD BUT TRUE BASEBALL TALES With baseball season almost upon us, Jody reminds us of some strange days on the diamond. SURREALIST RESEARCH BUREAU 16. FILL YOUR PLATE AND FUEL YOUR SOIL! When it comes to growing great vegetables from seed, good soil is the foundation to build on. GET GROWING 17. HONOR FLIGHTS & HR 975 Help WWII vets get to Washington D.C. ... where they should quit making veterans prove their harm. VETERANS’ NEWS 18. OBITUARIES 19. THE PERILS OF A NEW TOILET Boots offers a warning before you consider a small bathroom repair. FROM THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER 2O. DRONING ALONG Scott reflects on unmanned warfare... in rhyming meter. SCOTT CLAWSON
Cover Photo: Map of North America is used courtesy of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Photo of Mac Hollan by Kirsten Hollan. Polar bear photo via Wikimedia Commons.
DiLuna’s Catering to your Needs Contents of the River Journal are copyright 2013. Reproduction of any material, including original artwork and advertising, is prohibited. The River Journal is published the first week of each month and is distributed in over 16 communities in Sanders County, Montana, and Bonner, Boundary and Kootenai counties in Idaho. The River Journal is printed on 40 percent recycled paper with soybased ink. We appreciate your efforts to recycle.
220 Cedar St. Sandpoint 208.263.0846
WILL BIKE FOR FOOD: Point to Bay trip to Raise Funds for
Sandpoint Backpack Program. Haven’t Heard of it? That’s why this Sandpoint Teacher is Doing Something About It. by Trish Gannon A self-proclaimed adventure junkie, Mac Hollan places no limits on what he can do. After hiking the Appalachian Trail, he said, “I realized that what people tell you is impossible just isn’t true. I came back feeling empowered and ready to change the world.” With that experience, he says he realized you don’t have to be an expert to do something you want to do. “I’m more stubborn than skilled,” he laughed. “Or let’s say ‘tenacious.’ But take it slow and steady and you’ll [eventually] get there.” The almost 3,000-mile bike ride he’s planning to undertake this summer, what he calls the “Point to Bay” (Sandpoint to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska) is just one more example of how the first step in achieving a goal is understanding you can meet it. But he isn’t just biking for 2,750 miles through some of North America’s most rugged territory; he’s also hoping to raise a substantial amount of money, and a lot of awareness, for a little-known program of the Bonner Community Food Bank: the Sandpoint Backpack Program. The program, begun a few years ago, provides chronically hungry schoolchildren with food for the weekend; enough food, it’s hoped, that the child will return to school on Monday well fed and able to concentrate on school work. “I remember a little girl in summer school who spent the entire morning just waiting for her free lunch,” Mac explained. “I’ve seen first-hand, in the classroom, the way being hungry can interfere with education. Staring at the clock isn’t learning. I am a firm believer in the power of this program, but not enough people know about it. I, myself,
have been subbing for two years and never knew it was going on.” Mac has been working as a substitute teacher in the Lake Pend Oreille School District while he finishes the coursework necessary to obtain his teaching certificate. He’ll be student teaching this fall at Farmin/Stidwell Elementary School. Prior to this, he spent over eight years working with at-risk teenagers. The Sandpoint Backpack Program works with the school district to identify children in need, and then discretely provides them with food each Friday for the upcoming weekend. Generally, the child will receive enough non-perishable food to provide two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners and two snacks; the food is of a type that’s easy for a child to prepare, and the meal plans are reviewed by a dietician. The cost to provide the food is $5 per child; that’s $20 per month, or $200 a year to keep one child’s belly full on the weekends during the school year. Currently, the program is providing weekend backpacks to around 175 students in the Sandpoint area; it’s believed that at least that many students again, elsewhere in the district, are also in need of this type of support. Mac is riding to make people more aware of this program and to encourage them to support it financially, but this is not your typical “pledge-an-amountper-mile” or “sponsor-a-portion” type of event. All donations made will go directly to the Food Bank’s dedicated fund for the Sandpoint Backpack Program. Mac is funding the actual ride himself. “The Food Bank is a 501c3, so
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donations are tax deductible,” he explained, “and not a penny is going to me, personally. If you click on the donation link on my website (www. PointtoBay.com) it’s going to take you to the Food Bank.” The brochure he’s prepared about the ride states, “This means that no portion of your donation will be used to fund any part of the ride itself. For every dollar you donate, 100 percent of that donation will go directly to helping fill backpacks for kids in need... so give with confidence and give big!” How big? Mac is thinking in $20 increments as he solicits donations. “Every $20 I receive will take care of one child for a month,” he said. “Where else can you give so little and make such a big impact?” But as the son of an investment banker, he’s also thinking bigger. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could set up an endowment fund that would help to pay for this program indefinitely?” he asked. “It would be wonderful it someone who hears about what I’m doing, and therefore hears about the program, made a truly large donation. With enough support and awareness, maybe this need will go away.” He has some reason to expect to be able to give a large financial boost to the program, because he’s done it before. A few years ago, Mac undertook “A Ride for the Kids,” a 4,200-mile, solo trip across America to raise funds for the Brenner Children’s Hospital, located in his hometown of Winston-Salem, NC, and raised $50,000 in the process. Mac’s adventure gene is enough in itself to encourage him to undertake these types of challenges, but, he says, “It spurs you on to know that you’ve made this promise to people (to complete the trip) in return for their support.” And there’s a benefit, he thinks, to the donors as well. “Not everybody has the opportunity to ride a bike all the way to Alaska,” he said, “but I think, deep down, people want to do something crazy, something they think is impossible. Joining in on my ride is, in a small way, a way they can do that.” Signing a check to the Food Bank, or
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page
making a donation online, doesn’t have to be the end of a person’s support; Mac plans once the trip begins for people to be able to visit the website and keep up-todate with his progress via a blog. “Two friends (Jordan Achilli, a graphic designer who has also helped with the website and promotional materials, and Gabe Dawson, an Oregon social worker who once worked with Mac at a wilderness therapy school) are coming along with me on the trip as riding partners,” Mac said. “We’re bringing still and video cameras to document the trip, and will update the blog whenever we get to a town where we can connect to Wi-Fi.” While getting himself in shape for the trip by undertaking ever longer rides, finishing up his schoolwork for the year, and taking as much time as he can with his wife, Kirsten, and his two daughters Ellie (age 3) and Marin (age 1), Mac is also full of plans for promoting the Backpack Program and the Point to Bay ride. “I haven’t been sleeping much lately,” he laughed. “I wake up at 2 am with another idea. In addition to seeking donations (he’s already raised $6000, or, in Mac terms, provided a year’s worth of weekend food for 30 children) and developing the website and blog, he’s gotten an agreement from MickDuff’s in downtown Sandpoint to name a beer in honor of the ride (“I really hope it’s their pale ale—I love their pale ale!), and is planning a beer release party, is setting up a silent auction/raffle, is reaching out to various media venues, and is brainstorming ways to get the news out to a larger audience. “I’d love for this trip to go national,” he said, “because it really increases the pool of donors. There are a lot of very giving people out there who are willing to help out, if they know their help is needed. And it really is a great cause—who doesn’t want to help hungry kids?” He’s also looking beyond the ride, to the future. “I’d like to set up rides—maybe not quite this long—where we can take kids out to participate in doing something like this,” he said. “That’s the best thing that can come out of doing this type of thing: the knowledge that every person is capable of doing something amazing.”
Point to Bay: The Trip “The tour’s roughly 2,750-mile route,” we’re told in the Point to Bay brochure, “will be traveling through some of the most remote, rugged and scenic terrain in North America.” Some highlights: • The Icefields Parkway Connecting Banff and Jasper National Parks, the Icefields Parkway (Hwy 93) parallels the Continental Divide and features views of the Columbia Icefield, which feeds eight major glaciers. • Cassiar Highway (British Columbia Hwy 37) passes through some of the most isolated areas of British Columbia. At Dease Lake, waters stop flowing west and begin flowing north to the Arctic. • ALCAN The ALCAN (Alaskan Highway) was built during WWII as a way to connect the contiguous U.S. with its territory in Alaska and is one of the most famous roads in America. Highlights include the Watson Lake sign forest and Takhini Hot Springs. • Dalton Highway Begins north of Fairbanks and ends near the Prudhoe Bay oilfields, and parallels the TransAlaska Pipeline. It is one of the most isolated roads in the U.S., with only three towns along its 414-mile length. There are several steep grades, some
as steep as 12 percent. Mac anticipates the ride to take about six-and-a-half weeks, figuring to average about 80 miles per day, six days a week, a schedule he says is “very do-able.” He’s already purchased tickets for the return flight in midAugust. “The thing I worry most about on this trip is leaving my daughters for so long,” said Mac. 1 “But the second thing would be bears. We’re biking into one of the most active grizzly and black bear corridors around, and then for the last hundred miles we’ll have polar bears. 2 I’m packing tons of bear spray! I have two friends joining me for the ride, so I figure I’ve got only a one in three chance of getting eaten by a bear.” Because they will be camping on the 3 road, the trio is also bringing air horns, and Kevlar bear bags for their food. “We’ll stop for dinner and while one person is cooking, the other two will ride ahead at least a quarter mile to make 4 camp. We’ll leave our food and smelly clothes hanging in the bear bags at our dinner site.”
5
Photos: 1) The Icefields Parkway. 2) The Nass River Bridge along the Cassiar Highway. 3) Driving the ALCAN. 4) Bonanza Creek and the Dalton Highway. 5) A juvenile polar bear. All photos via Wikimedia Commons.
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page
DOWNTOWN SANDPOINT EVENTS SANDPOINT EVENTS
April
Sand Creek
Clean-Up Refreshments provided!
April 21, 10 am Sponsored by DSBA
Experience
Downtown Sandpoint!
Visit www.DowntownSandpoint.com for a complete calendar of events
11-12 Les Misérables. Panida Theater, 7:30 each night. 263-9191 13 Schweitzer Passholder Party, details at Schweitzer.com 13 Sandpoint Waldorf School Spring Auction Sandpoint Events Center 265-2683 13 Colin Hay music & comedy, Panida Theater 8 pm. 263-9191 19 Spring for Teens BBQ Fundraiser 5-7 Panhandle State Bank, free admission. 263-3564 19 Fly Fishing Film Festival, Panida Theater 7 pm 263-9191/ 290-3545 20 Earth Day 5K, 8 am Travers Park, benefits Friends of Pend Oreille Bay Trail. 265-9565 20 Earth Day 11-4 at Forrest M. Bird Charter School. 597-7188. 20 CCS Mad Hatter Tea Party, Panhandle State Bank, benefits Community Cancer Services. 2552301 20 Blend Your Own Bistro Bottling Day, Pend d’Oreille Winery, 2-5 pm 20 International Fly Fishing Film Festival, Panida Theater 290-3545 21 Sand Creek Clean Up, sponsored by DSBA, 10 am 255-1876 22 Chasing Ice, Panida Theater doors at 6 pm, 597-7188 25 The Horse Boy Panida Theater 263-9191 26 4th Annual All You Can Eat Chocolate Extravaganza, Ponderay Garden Center 5-7 pm 255-4200 26 Festival at Sandpoint Wine Tasting Dinner and Auction Bonner Co. Fairgrounds. 265-4554. 26 Give Us Shelter opening multimedia art show. Old Power House, 5:30 pm 26 Fiddler on the Roof Jr, 7 pm Panida Theater 610-8655 27 Sweep Up Sandpoint, hosted by DSBA, complimentary lunch. 255-1876 27-May 5 K&K Spring Fishing Derby
May
16-19 Lost in the 50s, car show, parades, music and more! Visit www.Lostinthe50s.org
PLUS: • Trivia every Tuesday night at
MickDuff’s, 7 to 10 pm. • Tuesdays with Ray, Trinity at City Beach, 6 to 8 pm. • Club Music, Wednesday 6-9 pm at La Rosa Club. • Contra Dance, every 2nd Friday of the month at Community Hall, 7 pm • Winery Music - Live music every Friday night at Pend d’Oreille Winery • Saturday Jam at the La Rosa Club. Live music! 255-2100
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page
A Mixed Salad of Thoughts of Spring WEATHER- In a sure sign of spring, many of the birds have returned and are making a joyful noise right before the sun rises. Add in a couple of warm, sunny days just right for outdoor projects, and it’s easy to believe the cold weather is behind us. Not so fast. The seasonal forecast from NOAA and the National Weather Service tells us that ENSO-neutral conditions are promising a slightly colder and wetter than normal April, May and June. At that point I quit reading, not much interested in learning about colder-than-normal temperatures in any season, much less right now, and went out into the cold, icy rain to continue preparing my garden beds. Lettuce and peas like cooler weather, you know? FENCE-BUILDING - Another spring project has involved building a privacy fence cum raspberry support structure as my mother’s Mother’s Day gift this year. Those of you familiar with the many struggles I’ve had through the years in trying to do something nice in recognition of my mother won’t be surprised—as I was—to learn that about 22 inches under the surface of my land lies an old river bed. Struggling to remove the enormous river rocks from what should have been nice, deep post holes, I fantasized to myself that these rocks had probably not seen the light of day in tens of thousands of years, likely washed into their current position by the last of the great Missoula floods. A quick talk with my friend (and hydrologist) John Monks quickly disabused me of that romantic notion. “Those darn creeks—especially one like Lightning Creek—have a nasty habit of changing their course!” Did you know that if you look at your property with Google Earth, there’s a tool
that allows you to measure distance? This is helpful for a lot of things, like planning your landscape, or mapping out a regular, one-mile walk. But what it also showed me is that Mother’s new fence line is just 500 feet from Lightning Creek, well within the boundaries of where it might have meandered in centuries passed. EDITORIAL - Every now and then, something written in these pages triggers a big response from readers. Last month, it was Jody’s piece on gun control. So let me reiterate the River Journal’s policy on reader response. At some point in the month following publication, the issue’s content will go online at our website (RiverJournal. com). There, readers are free to comment on any story (providing they can read the CAPTCHA image that supposedly ensures they are real live people and not computer-bots). You can say whatever you want, as long as it’s not a personal attack, libelous, or an inducement to buy “LOW COST MEDS!” or “BEST ESCORTS HERE!” What you cannot do is receive socalled “equal time” within the printed pages of the River Journal itself. The main reason for this is cost—we pay good money for each and every printed page you hold in your hand, and quite honestly, are simply not interested in handing over even more money to pay to print extra pages so that others can use our platform to share a different opinion. If you feel strongly about wanting to share your thoughts on various issues, then I suggest you reach into your wallet and pay to have those thoughts printed and delivered throughout the threecounty area. Conversely, you could always buy an ad. :0) Just call for rates. -Trish Gannon
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Happenings If you needed a reason to head out to beautiful Heron, Mont. this spring, the ever-busy residents of this friendly community have been working to provide you with one. Or even two. In April, the Heron Grandview Museum is playing host to “Favorite Stories of Our Big Sky Country,” with Hal Stearns. A presentation of the Humanities-Montana Speaker’s Bureau, they write: “Montana evokes many images—wildness, beauty, rugged individualism, tough living, the last frontier, cowboys and the days of the open range, the steamboat era, Indian stories, a dog named Shep, an elk called Earl, and the cagiest wolf of them all, homesteaders, miners, soldiers and poets and writers and painters—all add up to our very special love affair with the “Last Best Place.” Hal Stearns, a descendant of grandparents who were among the earliest ranchers and homesteaders in the state, and parents who published small-town Montana newspapers, has a keen sense of Montana and its multi-sided stories.” Stearns is a historian, storyteller and guide who is sure to delight. The show takes place at the Heron Community Center at 7 pm MST on Saturday, April 27 and is free and open to the public. With your appetite now whetted for good entertainment, mark your calendars for a weekend in May to watch the everpopular Heron Players in their spring performance, “Laugh Again,” a look back at the 1960s and “what made us laugh back then!” Dinner theater productions will take place on May 10 and 11, and again on May 17 and 18, at 7 pm (MST) and offer a dinner (in the spirit of the first TV dinners) of Sailsbury steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, niblet corn and an apple crisp (along with salad and rolls) for just $20 per person. Dinner theaters are advance reservation only, so call toll free 877-3287659 or visit the website at HeronPlayers. com to hold your spot. A matinee performance (no reservations required, no dinner served) will take place at 3 pm (MST) on May 19, at a cost of $5 per adult, $3 per child. It’s a 1960s-theme costume contest, so don’t forget to dress in your favorite duds of the era. This spring’s production is dedicated to Heron Player Bud Mosley, who passed away last November. He was a much loved and appreciated cast member of many unforgettable performances.
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page
The Game Trail Matt Haag
Does mingling with elk hunters and people who care about elk habitat sound like a fun event? How about if you throw in a chance to win 11 different guns? If that doesn’t pique your interest, would a fine meal cooked by Jim Lippi and his crew from Ivano’s Ristorante get you interested? Come on out to the Selkirk Crest’s Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Banquet (RMEF) on April 20 at the Bonner County Fairgrounds and support elk and their habitat. If you have never been to an RMEF banquet, this is the year to go, there are some great deals on raffle tickets. It’s truly a blast with many chances to take home some loot with live and silent auctions; in addition there are a handful of games to play with a chance to win rifles, shotguns, and a few handguns. Plus it’s an opportunity to share elk hunting stories and be around folks who enjoy not only being in the outdoors, but also ensuring that elk habitat is not only preserved, but enhanced. If you are interested in going you can purchase tickets online at the RMEF website rmef.org. Or you can call Jade Smith at 208-255-4320. I’ll be there and you better be there as well. Bring the family, bring the kids, it will be a good time for all. How does the RMEF help elk? There are three main tools the RMEF uses: land protections, habitat stewardship, and elk restoration. The RMEF, through land protection, permanently protects crucial elk winter and summer ranges, migration corridors, calving grounds and other vital areas. RMEF’s land conservation tools include: acquisitions, conservation easements, land and real estate donations, land exchanges and associated acres.
A Banquet for Elk Support So if you have land that you would like to preserve for the future of wildlife, contact the RMEF and inquire about their land protection tools. Healthy habitat, or habitat stewardship is essential for healthy elk and other wildlife. The RMEF helps fund and conduct a variety of projects to improve essential forage, water, cover and space components of wildlife habitat, and supports research and management efforts to help maintain productive elk herds and habitat. And finally, RMEF works to reestablish elk herds, through elk restoration or reintroduction, in historic ranges where the habitat and human cultural tolerance create a high potential for self-sustaining herds. The RMEF has a rich history and like all good organizations it was a grassroots movement that was started in Libby, Mont. by some dedicated hunters and conservationists. In 1984, Bob Munson, Dan Bull, Bill Munson, and Charlie Decker, four hunters from Northwest Montana recognized a handful of organizations doing great work for species like ducks, turkeys and upland birds. They also recognized there was no group dedicated to North America’s grandest big game animal, elk. In May of that year, they pooled their time, talent and resources and created the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, an organization dedicated to elk, elk hunting and the habitat they need to thrive. The RMEF hit the ground running. In April 1985, they held their first convention in Spokane, Washington.
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For our Families, For tomorrow. www.ScotchmanPeaks.org
Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness
They also funded the first RMEF habitat project that year; a grant to help fund a prescribed burn in a place fittingly named Elk Creek on the Kootenai National Forest near Libby. In 1988, RMEF facilitated their first land acquisition, the 16,440acre Robb Creek property in Montana and received the first large endorsement from the corporate community. At the annual convention that year, Ray Goff, former RMEF board member and vice president of Anheuser-Busch, announced a $500,000 gift from the company. That gift helped kick off the incredible growth and conservation we see today. The RMEF has grown to over 196,000 members whose support has protected and enhanced more than 6.2 millions of acres of North American wildlife habitat. Hundreds of thousands of these acres were completely off-limits to the public. They are now open for all to hunt, fish, and otherwise enjoy. RMEF employs more than 120 people and boasts more than 10,000 volunteers working through 500 chapters across the United States. We should always question non-profits about their efficiency and transparency before we donate our money and time. The RMEF is rated as a 4 star organization by the Charity Navigator (charitynavigator.org) America’s leading independent charity evaluator. RMEF puts 90 percent of the fundraised money back on the ground for wildlife habitat with only 2 percent going into raising more money and the other 8 percent of the money to administration. I hope I have interested you in attending the banquet and more importantly helping elk and the habitat of many critters by becoming a member of the RMEF. Just a reminder that the bears are rubbing the sleep out their eyes and are very HUNGRY! If you want to invite the bears to your property for a meal and have them stick around until they irritate the crap out of you then please, by all means, leave your bird feeders up all summer, leave dog food on the porch, scatter the chicken feed throughout the yard, and leave two months of garbage stacked up near the house. Leave No Child Inside ... and bring them to the RMEF banquet.
Page | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4|April 2013
A Bird in Hand Michael Turnlund
Spotted Sandpiper: Do the Funky Chicken!
They say that pets, especially dogs, reflect their owners. Laid-back people have laid-back dogs. Uptight people have uptight dogs. I mean, if you own a Chihuahua… just saying. Perhaps what this means is that the personality of a dog breed might reflect the personality of the people who fancy those breeds. Dog breeds do have distinct personalities, and I suppose, in a way, so do bird species. Hawks and eagles are the stoic, silent types; nuthatches and chickadees are the busybodies who can’t sit still; and house sparrows… well, in my book they’re those irritating gadflies that won’t leave you alone. But one of most unusual of all is the Spotted Sandpiper—our bird of the month. This bird, to me, is funky! Why? Because it seems that with every third step the bird pauses and dances the funky chicken. Quite incredible, even shameless. What’s up with this bird? It is as if it has a heavy backbeat stuck in its head and every few steps it has to pause and shake its booty: step, step, step… shake, shake, shake… step, step, step… shake, shake, shake. And then it will suddenly fly off, hollering some manic tweets as if its tail was on fire! Weirdness wrapped in a plain, shorebird package. I kid you not. “Quick, bird writer, describe this bird so I can protect my children from it!” No, the bird’s not dangerous, it is just, um … (how do I say it) … different. Hey, we’re supposed to celebrate diversity, right? Well, they don’t get more “diverse” than the Spotted Sandpiper! But you’d never know by looking at it, except for those sudden gotta-bust-it-loose dance moves! The Spotted Sandpiper, as its name suggests, is a spotted sandpiper. Sandpipers as a family are very similar in build, being rather horizontal in carriage. The Spotted Sandpoint is robin-sized and can be found snatching and plucking food bits from the edge of the lakes of our region. They are a buffy-brown or gray color on top, with a white throat, breast, and belly.
The breast and belly are also speckled with wonderfully large spots—each bird having its own distinct collection. The head has a prominent black eye stripe that is bordered above with white. The stripe extends from the beak, through the dark eye, and toward the back of the head. The orangish–colored beak is fairly long and relatively thin and pointed—perfect for picking through the sand or muck of shorelines in search of something tasty. Their long legs are yellow. Like some other related shorebirds, the Spotted Sandpiper practices a reproductive lifestyle that is contrary to most bird species in the world, but one that the more ardent feminists heartily endorse. The dominant sex among these sandpipers is the female, who when not dancing to that funky beat, is the one that stakes out a territory and competes for males. Though similar in plumage, she is more aggressive and actually practices a form of polyandry, meaning she has more than one mate. The male incubates the eggs and raises the kids. The female might lay up to four different clutches with four different males, though she will raise the final batch herself. These are fun birds to watch. They are common, being almost anywhere there is a large body of water. They are not particularly shy around people and can often be found near marinas and beaches. You might also keep an eye out for their crazy flight pattern, as they skim fairly low across the water, seemingly flapping a bit too quickly and tweetering in a crazy fashion. This is one funny bird, in every connotation of that word. The Spotted Sandpiper puts a bit of spice into bird watching. The world is a more wonderful place when we can better understand these critters we watch through our binoculars, as being more than simply a check-off on our life lists. They are cool, every single one of them, in their own way. Or weird. Happy birding!
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
Annual Banquet April 20 at the
Bonner County Fairgrounds www.RMEF.org
Saturday April 27 7 pm (MT time) FAVORITE STORIES OF OUR BIG SKY COUNTRY
with speaker Hal Stearns
at the Heron Community Center Heron Montana FREE - No tickets necessary Sponsored by the Heron Grandview Museum, Montana Committee for the Humanities and the Montana Cultural Trust
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page
Kathy’s Faith Walk Kathy Osborne This column is called “Faith Walk.” I take this literally. Trish really never knows where in my walk I am going to be when she emails me and writes, “You’re up this issue.” I pick it up right where I am with what God is currently teaching me and that becomes the subject of my column. So, here it is: Idolatry & Grace. Idolatry sounds like an old word because it is old. Thousands of years old. It is the worship of false gods; that is, any god except YHWH, or Yaweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of the Hebrews. That certainly narrows the field. So, what qualifies as Idolatry? It is the excessive love or admiration shown something or someone apart from God. It certainly happened in ancient times and the Bible is particularly full of it, with stories written about various civilizations who practiced everything from burning live children in the fires of the gods Molech and Chemesh, worship of the dead as in ancient Egypt, worship of the Greek Pantheon of gods, the lively dances around ashterah poles (shaped like... well, you can guess on that one) to the human sacrifice practiced widely in this hemisphere. It is fairly easy to determine if a false god is involved: the worship will always involve human death and/or destruction on some level—if not physical, certainly social. Always. Many years ago Bob Dylan recorded a song, “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Good song, full of truth, and probably ignored by most of the listening audience when it came to the part where he sang “... it may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” He was, of course, correct. How, then, does a person figure out
Idolatry and Grace
just who, or what, they are serving at any given time? For that matter, why would anyone care to figure it out? Because service is relentless—It is wherever our heart is, according to the Bible. The subject is important because one way or another service always gets paid for in the end. Matthew 6:19-21:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In this passage Jesus is pressing the issue of the heart. What is it set on? Where does it spend most of its meditation time? What are the plans and dreams of the heart? Simply put, what is your heart investing in? If the heart is constantly dreaming of money, then money is god. If the heart is constantly dreaming of self and ambition, then self is god. Maybe for some their deepest desire is to see the restoration of nature. Then, to them, nature is god. And for some, sadly, their days are filled with anger and violence which manifests itself in all manner of ways and places. For them, the god they serve is truly a bitter one. But if one meditates on God, then God is God. God has been talking to me about this subject because for the Christ Follower there is no better gauge of the heart’s condition than what it spends its time thinking and thus acting on. It goes hand in hand. What do I think about? What do I do? God is reminding me of the fact that meditation and action match. This
Why drive to town when there’s better things to do?
connection of thought and action is nearly impossible to hide from people, and absolutely impossible to hide from God. And if I say I belong to God, He will take steps to make certain of it. He is always dealing with the hearts of His children. He is a good Father. We are going to celebrate one of the most popular holidays around the world this weekend. Culture calls it Easter but I prefer Resurrection Day. It is the day Christ Followers celebrate the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Hebrews. (It is important to note here that not all Jews believe Christ to have been the Messiah they still await.) We celebrate this event because when Jesus came to live among us He came for the express purpose of teaching us how to live and love, and then to die on the cross as payment for the debt of sin (separation from God because of disobedience) we all carry in our members. Sin is present. It is in us and all around us. We need to be washed from it and only the Blood of Jesus can do that. This is why Christ Followers worship only Him. His salvation brings life, not more death. It brings peace, not fighting. It brings help to the poor and those in need. It begets life. Because it is free to anyone who believes, this is Grace. It can be given but cannot be bought. It can be accepted or rejected and many do reject it Idolatry & Grace. We all live in the shadow of both and we all have the eternally binding opportunity to choose one or the other. Choosing not to choose is not an option. Sin will be dealt with one way or another based on where our hearts are. Choose life. Choose grace.
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Page 10 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4|April 2013
The Hawk’s Nest Ernie Hawks
Working at my desk was difficult. Every breath was a wheeze. My overflowing sinuses were pushing a dull pain behind my eyes which did not stimulate any creativity. I let my head lay back against the chair for just a minute before getting back to work. Suddenly, a live weight landing on my lap startled me awake. TC, for “The Cat,” had just landed. She crawled around for a while on my legs and belly before she got back up on to the desk and started walking on the keyboard. All I had the energy to do was watch her words appear on the screen. I decided not to tell anyone which parts she wrote and which parts I wrote. For a week I had been dealing with a bug that came in out of the cold, and had taken up transient residence in my system. At least, I hoped it was transient. It was one of those times when I needed to allow rest to take priority and let Linda take on more of the home load. I sometimes refer to it as Sacred Receiving, the opposite of Sacred Service yet equally important. It is not easy for me but she is more then willing to help a little more while I heal. One thing she insisted on doing while I rested was chopping and bringing in wood for the fire. We both enjoy our wood heat and the effort it takes to maintain it. We feel it is cheaper then a gym membership yet helps us stay in shape without leaving home and we have shared fun. Who chops wood is more dependent on who’s in the mood or has the time to do it, just like the cooking, dishes and laundry. I’m getting better at letting that happen without threatening my manhood. I’m better at letting her chop then I am at letting the cat do my writing. But sometimes, when energy and creativity are lacking, I take advantage of the cat’s willingness to help. Not only do we see our desire for a warm home through wood as an exercise program, it is also therapeutic. We call it “Woodshed Therapy.” The other day I was doing some Sacred Receiving and letting Linda take on the heavy work as I rested in my recliner. What “letting” really means here is, I allowed myself to let her chop wood while I recuperated.
Sacred Service & Sacred Receiving
I could hear the thumps of the splitting maul hitting the rounds, as I drifted in and out of reality, sometimes not sure which was which. Our dog announced there was someone coming down the road and I looked up. It appeared to be a stranger but when they stopped I got the impression it was a group of folks who
seem to find us a few times each year. They are always pleasant, not pushy about sharing their beliefs and they never stay long so it is easy to be kind. We thank them for thinking of us and let them know we need to get back to our project. They hand us some inspirational readings and leave. On that day I figured Linda could handle it and I stuffed my feeling of needing to be manly and out chopping with her. Soon the thumps resumed, but it seemed to be a little louder and faster. Finally, I heard Linda on the porch. I couldn’t receive any more, so was getting up to help bring in the split fuel. As Linda came through the door I saw a bit of a fire in her eyes. I asked how our visitors were and the fire brightened. “Do you know what she asked me? She asked if I been put out there to chop wood!” I ventured a question “What did you say?” “I told her I like to chop wood, I like the exercise and I like the therapy.” I doubt if they got the therapy part. Now I understood the fire in her eyes as well as the overloaded sled full of wood. That was one of those times when doing a little Sacred Service turned into Woodshed Therapy.
I did my part to help bring in all the wood knowing there was plenty for several days as I healed. Wood Shed Therapy is another benefit of doing our own firewood. It gives us more heat while releasing whatever needs to go. One day Linda came home from a day on jury duty. She believes it is her duty to serve in this way so had no problem when she got the letter. On this evening, however, as she walked up to the house I saw that fire in the eyes. Her first words to me were, “I need to chop some wood.” I knew I didn’t want to get in the way of that process. I could have said we have plenty, or I could have said that dinner was ready or I could have said you look tired but I knew she needed a serious therapy session so I said nothing. After about an hour I walked toward the shed, dodging wood splinters zinging into the darkness and watching out for flying pieces of cordwood. Cautiously I walked into a blue haze of words, holding a glass of wine at arm’s length in front of me. I asked if she was ready for a little Merlot yet. It seems there had been a highly trained medical professional getting an enormous fee by making statements for the record. Linda, also a highly trained medical professional, believed deep in her professional heart that the statements were absolutely false, but as a member of the jury she could say nothing and was instructed to make a decision on what was heard in court, not anything else. By the time she got the frustration out of her system we had several days of wood split and stacked on the porch. With that much wood there were no more therapy sessions for several days. Now I’m feeling much better and not letting the cat do any more writing for me. The transient bug has apparently moved on. When Linda called I heard that distinct, nasally bass sound. She had been doing some receiving as she was serving and now was home to that transient bug. Now it’s my turn to practice Sacred Service while she does Sacred Receiving and recovering. All this service and being served, this giving and receiving, this helping and being helped are what contribute to a balanced partnership. It’s not scorekeeping, but caring and loving.
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page 11
A Seat in the House
Rep. George Eskridge
The legislative session was expected to end on March 29; however we encountered a last minute controversy over the appropriation bill for public schools which is expected to delay adjournment until the middle or end of the first week of April. The public school appropriation, House Bill 323 (H323), was backed by a wide range of supporters, including the Association of School Boards, administrators, teachers and the Idaho Education Association. The appropriation was passed in the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee (JFAC) by a vote of 15 to 5 and by the House on a vote of 52 to 16. However, when the legislation was before the Senate, Senate Education Committee Chairman John Gedde opposed H323, stating he didn’t believe that the House and Senate Education Committees had enough input into the intent language specifying how the money was to be spent by the school districts. The Senator was able to gain enough support to defeat the appropriation bill by an 18 to 17 vote. The two education committees are now engaged in discussions for a counter proposal to be submitted to JFAC for committee review. JFAC will then develop a new appropriation for approval by the House and Senate if the committee accepts the two education committees’ proposal. The whole process is expected to go into the first week of April, hopefully leading to adjournment no later than April 5. I will report on the final appropriation bill for public education in the next Journal article. In the meantime, two bills of particular interest that have been approved by the legislature and sent to the Governor are House Bill 315 (H315) and House Bill 248 (H248). H315 deals with the exemption of personal property tax and H248 is a new version of the Health Insurance Exchange legislation that was passed by the Senate a few weeks ago. Exempting personal property tax has been an issue before the legislature for several years. Local governments have opposed exempting the tax because in some counties it represents as much as a quarter of local government tax revenue. Legislation that has been supported by large industry would have exempted all personal property from the tax rolls, for a total loss of about 140 million dollars to local governments. H315 passed by the House and the Senate is compromise legislation
Bills Pass for Health Insurance & Personal Property Taxes submitted by the Association of Counties that exempts a portion of the personal property tax, essentially providing relief for about 90 percent of the businesses having to pay this tax. The loss in county revenue is only about 20 million dollars. H315 provides that effective January 1 of this year, the first $100,000 of business personal property will be exempt from taxation, including operating property. Operating property generally refers to larger and more costly equipment used by public utilities and railroads, including utility poles, railroad track, etc. The $100,000 cap on the exemption prevents exempting these more costly and larger operating properties which would have impacted counties’ revenues significantly. The legislation also provides that taxable personal property purchased on or after January 1 of this year with a purchase price of $3,000 or less will be exempted from taxation. Just as significantly, instead of having to file a personal property tax form every year as now required, taxpayers with a personal property tax inventory of $100,000 or less will only be required to file for the exemption once every five years as long as their total taxable value remains below $100,000. The fiscal impact to county revenues is estimated at about 20 million dollars as opposed to the 140 million dollar impact in the legislation proposed by industry. The state general fund will be used to reimburse the local governments for the 20 million dollar loss in local government revenues. The personal property tax is an onerous tax requiring extensive reporting and payment on equipment that in often cases is old and depreciated in value but still requires a tax payment based on full value. It is a difficult tax to enforce and definitions of what is and what is not “personal property” are not applied consistently across the state. H315 provides a solution to the personal property tax issue that is reasonable, affordable and removes an onerous reporting burden to those small businesses that are most impacted. February 21 the Senate passed Senate Bill 1042 (S1042) that approved implementation of a Health Insurance program in Idaho as an alternative to a federally implemented health insurance
exchange program. The proposed legislation passed by a 23 to 12 vote. When the legislation was transferred to the House, a new bill, House Bill 248 (H248), was developed based on changes to S1042 that added more conditions enhancing the ability of the state to control provisions of a state implemented program. H248 passed the House by a 41 to 29 vote and was transferred to the Senate. The Senate passed the legislation by a 23 to 12 vote. The Affordable Care Act is federal law and its provisions are going to be implemented, either through a federal process or a state process. I supported the state exchange simply because I believe a state exchange can offer a better choice of plans than a federal exchange, and the overall cost for those purchasing insurance through an Idaho exchange will be less than if the exchange was implemented by the federal government. I welcome and encourage comments on legislative matters but because I anticipate the session ending by April 1 you can contact me at my home in Dover. I can be reached by e mail at: geskridge(at)coldreams.com. by phone at 265-0123 and by mail at P.O. Box 112, Dover 83825. THANKS FOR READING! George
Students as Citizen Scientists: It’s Just the Beginning a presentation of the Kinnickinnick Native Plant Society with educator John Hastings, Idaho’s Environmental Educator of the Year!
Saturday, April 27 9:45 am at Sandpoint Community Hall Free to public
Page 12 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4|April 2013
The Scenic Route Sandy Compton
Moab is full this week. It’s Jeep Safari Week and the “jeepers” swarm the town—and the desert. I want to demonize them for their blatant disregard of responsible use of resources, but it’s hard to vilify a driver with a back seat full of young kids having the times of their lives. The kids don’t know any better. What disturbs me is that the adults don’t either. Or, at least, don’t want to admit that they do. I wonder how on earth they can afford it. Basic requirements are $2,000 worth of tires and wheels on a vehicle that gets about 12 miles to the $3.619 gallon. Jeepers don’t want to permanently damage hearing and kidneys by driving said vehicle for the minimum 150 miles to get to Moab from anywhere, so he or she might tow his or her jeep with a $30,000 to $50,000 pickup that gets slightly better mileage than the jeep (unless it’s towing something) or a $60,000 to $250,000 motor home that gets nowhere near the mileage that said pickup does. The average mortgage on a truck is 5 years and a motor home, maybe 10. That’s $6,000 to $25,000 a year before interest, taxes, fuel or maintenance. If you live in the motor home, that might be okay. If you live in the pickup... Just a little math to brighten up your day. My first night in town was marked by an encounter with a man on horseback riding down the sidewalk of the main
Jeepers in the Moab
street. He might have stepped out of 1890, with a pistol on his hip and a saddle carbine in his boot and a cowdog following at the heels of his paint horse. I looked and there he was, and I looked again and there he wasn’t. My first thought was of Edward Abbey’s Hayduke, a phantom rider that folks hardly noted on the crowded sidewalk, just stepping out his way as if he were another pedestrian. Out in the desert it is still somewhat lonesome—but not completely. My hostess and I clambered into the Fisher Towers a few days ago and witnessed the climbing feats of several young phun hoggs, one of whom stood with her arms upraised in victory on the 4-squarefoot top of a gargoyle-looking piece of sandstone about 600 feet above the desert floor, which is made of unforgiving rock. Okay, she had a rope around her waist, but the first whack on the pinnacle wall will still hurt—a lot. If she were my daughter, I would have been unable to watch. This is a huge country with surprises hidden over each horizon. We enjoyed a hike into Mill Creek east of Moab, a place with no closeby road or single track, and a huge variety of petroglyphs to be found independently that get not much attention except from brave and hardy folks like our guides. The colors in the exposed layers of stone are mute, but they are also never-
THE BEST PART OF REACHING THE TOP IS THE VIEW. WE CAN HELP YOU GET THERE.
increase nutrients, such as nitrogen and This septic pilot project is being introduced in order to comply with water quality standards as determined by the Federal Clean Water Act. Designated to protect water quality, the plan, known as a “Total Maximum Daily Load” for Lake Pend Oreille, addresses nutrient issues
• Personal • Corporate • Partnerships In addition, • Trusts many lakeshore
ending in their variety, as are the number of fantastical shapes the rock has been formed into. I found myself wondering what our northern world might look like if all the trees were replaced by sage and tamarisk, rabbit brush and Mormon tea or sometimes nothing at all except the biological crust. I have noticed this crust before, but hiking with a scientist has changed my view of it. The desert has a lot more life than one might imagine. And this Easter weekend, it has a lot more human life than I might have wished for. Jeepers are everywhere, pushing up the price of gasoline one penny at a time, and spring break for most schools in America has pushed hundreds of motor homes and thousands of tents into Utahn “wasteland,” which really isn’t a waste at all. We drove across the edge of the San Rafael Swell day before yesterday to spend a day in Bell and Little Wild Horse canyons. We found Goblin State Park camping full. No problem. We drove down the wash, found an empty place with its very own cottonwood tree, and set up camp far enough off the “road” to a.) not suffer headlights or dust clouds and b.) not get washed away if the rains came. Today, we literally walked through the Swell, climbing to the north side through Bell Canyon and dropping back to the south through Little Wild Horse. Going upstream, we met one man who obviously got up very early. Coming downstream, we met a whole bunch of folks—and many of their dogs—who obviously did not. When we reached the narrowest of the narrow, a one-person-wide slot about 100 yards long, we got into a traffic jam and had to get up on the canyon wall and lean across so folks could walk under us. We met way too many people in the canyon. But at least they were out of their jeeps. Solitude is rare in the desert this weekend. Council website at tristatecouncil.org.
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1211 Michigan,homeowners Sandpoint participated
in a survey in 2007 concerning a variety of water quality issues. As is turns out, their
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2013|- A The RiverMagazine Journal - Worth A NewsWading Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com 22 No. 4|2008 Page |13Page 5 The RiverApril Journal News Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol 17 No. 18| |Vol. November
The
Valley of Shadows
Strange Accounts From North Idaho Pt. 2
Lawrence Fury
“And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world ... Every world ... any world is my world.” Duran Duran A logger in 1960s Priest Lake country, by himself of course, swore to his fellows once back at their camp that he had seen what appeared to him to be a woman—not a hairy, female Bigfoot, but a woman—on the plain side in looks, wearing a simple, duster-like dress, walking through a sparse stand of trees about a hundred feet away. Her hair was tied up in a bun and he noticed earrings. While this was strange enough, seeing a stereotypical housewife out in the middle of the woods, what made it noteworthy was that she was at least ten feet tall. After shaking himself out of his amazement, he had called out to her, but the huge female acted as if she hadn’t heard. She eventually passed behind a clump of trees and vanished. Was she an inhabitant of another reality, where the scale of things was a little larger than our corner of the multiverse? The logger’s companions, of course, never stopped teasing him about his girlfriend, especially about a few parts in particular. Another unusual sighting, from what I gather was the late ‘70s, involves a
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hunter who, one fall afternoon east of Bonners Ferry near the Montana line, was about ready to pack it in for the day. Suddenly, he saw movement in the brush behind a rock outcropping. Sure enough, a large buck came in sight, but the animal was already spooked by something and suddenly jumped down an embankment and disappeared into the brush. Hot on its tail appeared a large cat, which the hunter, naturally, thought at first to be a large cougar. The predator paused, seemingly confused at something as he sniffed the air. It then turned and looked right at the hunter, about 50 feet away. At that moment, the late afternoon October sun suddenly came from behind a cloud and the hunter saw the animal was unlike any cougar—or, for that matter, large cat—he had ever seen or heard of. The head was overly large and the eyes were too far apart. But the most startling thing was the dark, tiger-like stripes on otherwise tan fur, on the front half of the animal. The hind quarters had markings that faded to a burnt orange coloring, with large dark spots like those of a leopard. After what was probably only a few seconds, but what seemed to my source like an eternity, the cat turned
and jumped into the brush, back on the buck’s trail. Needless to say, the hunter turned tail and ran as best he could back to his pickup. What was it, a cougar with genetic abnormalities? This was the 1970s, so the chances it could have been an escaped, human-modified animal seem unlikely. However, it was in the late ‘70s that reports of the Chupacabra in Puerto Rico began to circulate. (The Chupacabra is said to be about the size of a small bear, with spines along its back, and a predilection for drinking blood.) Some think if it exists, that it is an escaped, mutant creature created for whatever purposes by some government agency. Or, if you have read several of my other columns, perhaps this mystery feline was an inhabitant of a parallel dimension. Thank you for your interest in my February 2013 story about Dopplegangers. I have another story of these doubles to relate, but I hesitate to do so as it is one I was a part of myself. Perhaps it will be the subject of my final “Valley of Shadows” when the time comes; if so, I’d consider a fitting title to be “Doppleganger by Proxy.”
The Festival at Sandpoint’s Annual
Wine Tasting Dinner & Auction Wine tasting presented by Coldwater Creek Wine Bar, featuring over 100 premier wines!
Friday, April 26 at 5:30 pm at the Bonner County Fairgrounds
• Silent & Live Auctions • Gourmet dinner cated by Ivano’s • Entertainment with Swing Street Combo • $50 per person (plus tax) includes wine tasting, dinner and Riedel wine glass. Must be 21 to attend.
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page 14
FROM THE FILES OF THE RIVER JOURNAL’S
Surrealist Research Bureau
Weird but True Baseball Tales
Opening day of baseball started April 1st this year. I lost interest in the game for a long, long time back in 1969 while I was in Vietnam; that was the year of the “Miracle Mets,” who stormed back from being the perennial last place laughingstock of baseball to World Series Champions and legends. But I was raised an Indiana farm boy and the Cubs were my team, led by future Hall-of-Famers Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and NL Strikeout King Ferguson Jenkins. It was after their historic, 10-game lead in September when the Cubs inexplicably lost 17 of their final 25 games of the season, and the Mets wound up in the World Series. There would have been no “Miracle Mets” had it not been for the Cubs’ Miracle Meltdown. As I said, I lost interest in baseball for a long, long time. In 1976, however, I began hearing of a young Detroit pitcher who was fun to watch. Rookie Mark Fidrych (nicknamed “The Bird” because of his gangly resemblance to a Sesame Street Muppet) took the league by storm, winning 19 games that year despite not even starting until mid-May. He also led the league in ERA (2.34) and won Rookie of the Year. He drove an old, beat-up green car and lived in a small studio apartment in Detroit on his then leagueminimum $16,000 salary, but it was his on-the-mound antics that drew national attention. He’d talk to the balls between pitches and throw some back to the umpires because “balls like those had hits in ‘em.” He meticulously cleaned and landscaped the mound between innings, talking to himself. Regrettably, he tore his rotator cuff during spring
Accepting Selected Projects Only
Jody Forest
training next year and was never the same again, and his career effectively ended. He died in an accident in 2009, still beloved by many. He reminded me of the young Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis, who went 19-9 in 1971, but on June 12, 1970, he pitched a no-hitter while on LSD against the Padres. Thinking he had the day off, Dock took a massive dose around noon and had to be driven to the ballpark by his wife, who’d been called to let him know he had to pitch that day after all. Ellis later related that “the field looked like glowing birthday cake frosting and I had a feeling of euphoria... the catcher’s mitt zoomed in and out of focus... I had the crazy sense that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire and at one point was sure the batter was Jimi Hendrix.” Lest one think it’s impossible to do such a thing wasted, former Army Sp/4 Peter Lemon was in Vietnam in 1970 when he and his pals were getting stoned (“we were all f-ed up”) when the enemy attacked. He fought off waves of the enemy, dragged three men to safety, and continued fighting, wounded and refusing medical help, later receiving the Medal of Honor. (I bring up this non-baseball related factoid as a small protest against the Idaho Legislature’s recent misguided decision to never ever consider lessening penalties for marijuana, even medicinal!) One of the strangest baseball games ever played began at 4 pm on Saturday, April 18, 1981 between two triple-A teams, the home Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings. Two future Hall-of-Famers, Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr., were on the field that cold spring day. The game was still tied 2-2 after 32 grueling innings when word finally came down from the league
front office to suspend the game at 5 am as the sun was rising. It remains the longest game ever played though, and a scant two score of die-hard fans and sportswriters managed to persevere to the finish. It seems that, possibly though a clerical error, an obscure rulebook change had been printed that year rescinding the phrase “no inning shall start after 1 am” and an astute umpire ruled the game must continue until, near sunup, the league front office finally called to stop the game. For the record, the game was resumed two months later and the Red Sox won it in the bottom of the 33rd. There’s a good book at the Sandpoint library (“Bottom of the 33rd” by Dan Barry) about the whole extravaganza and it’s worth it not least because of small nuggets like the following: “Jesus lives in my heart,” the Christian shortstop said. “He travels with me everywhere.” “Well,” said the manager, spitting, “Jesus don’t go to Baltimore, you’ve just been traded there.” ‘til next time, keep spreading the word; Soylent Green is People! All Homage to Xena! Epilogue North Idaho Goobers and Penis-Lovers responded with a whole mess of e-mails, letters and phone calls regarding my February article on Gun Control; A Modest Proposal so here’s where I cast my pearls before ye: “I can only say no, you can not have equal time; Why don’t I just take my hard earned cash and fling it at you like a monkey flings its feces! Baby needs new shoes and Jim, I needs me some scag!”
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April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page 15
Get Growing!
Nancy Hastings
We all would agree that no one would ever put an empty plate in front of a child and expect that child to grow. Your plants are very similar in many ways to children. Most North Idaho and Montana soils are severely lacking many essential minerals that plants need to flourish and even the topsoil or potting soil you fill your raised beds with is simply... well, an empty platter. It’s a good start, a base, but not enough to finish the job of raising wonderful produce in three short months! Just as people have recommended doses of vitamins and minerals we need to survive each day, so, too, the plants need many vitamins and minerals to thrive. You may have seen the three numbers posted on all kinds of fertilizer. What do they mean? By law, the first number listed always refers to the Nitrogen available. Nitrogen makes the plants grow, but too much nitrogen and not enough other good minerals and all you get is big green plants that produce nothing. The middle number posted is the Phosphorus available. This is the important building block in root development of the plant and flowering, which leads to produce. Bone Meal and Fish Bone Meal are excellent organic sources of Phosphorus for a garden. All of your root crops can utilize a healthy dose of phosphorus for success. Potassium is the third number in the line up and aids in the roots and overall plant health including the opening and closing of plant pores, which aids in plants resistance to drought and disease and stem strength. Ever have any floppy tomato plants that can’t transfer water to the top and stay alive? Our area soil usually registers on the acidic side of the ph scale. The pH of soil—acid, alkaline or neutral—determines
Fill Your Plate and Fuel Your Soil!
if the plant is able to take up the nutrients in the soil. Acidic soil can result in poor root growth and also because the acidic soil inhibits good nutrient exchange between the plant and the soil. This means greater susceptibility to drought, bugs and disease and smaller and less productive plants. The ideal pH values for vegetable garden soils are 6.0 to 6.5. Vegetable plants do not grow well in acid soils with a pH of 4.5 to 5.5 or in alkaline soils with a pH above 7.5. The cheapest method of changing your pH is with dolomite lime, which not only raises your pH if you are acidic, it also adds badly needed magnesium and calcium. Does anyone remember the bottom half of your tomatoes rotting last August? This is simply a lack of magnesium and calcium in the soil, but you must start now to correct the problem or you will have a very disappointing results. The ideal time to add lime is in the fall, at a rate of 2 lbs per 100 square feet. But catch up with lime in the spring as early as possible and work it in 2 to 3 weeks before adding other fertilizers. Remember, more is never better to catch up, too much lime can also be detrimental to your plants. An inexpensive soil test kit is the only way to know the pH and N-P-K nutrient deficiencies of your garden soil. There are many synthetic fertilizers to spray on plants to help them to grow but as many gardeners know, especially if they are doing smaller raised beds, salts from these products can build up and eventually your soil is void of any beneficial microorganisms. We’ve all
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learned about the value of pro-biotics in keeping our own bodies healthy, now Dr. Milo Shammas has perfected Dr. Earth fertilizers, that introduce seven strains of beneficial pro-biotics or microbes, plus Ecto and Endo-Mycorrhizae that provide plants with a wide range of benefits. Dr. Shammas has spent years blending and researching Dr. Earth fertilizers to make it the Pro-biotic powerhouse for plants. Taking the guesswork out of application amounts and possible overdosing, Dr. Shammas blends kelp, fish, cottonseed, alfalfa meal, fish bone meal, feather meal and soft rock phosphate to provide a well rounded N-P-K charge to plants. And unlike when these organic ingredients are added alone in a garden, with the Dr. Earth blend the nutrients are released quickly, and taken up by your plants usually within 10 days instead of 2 to 3 weeks because the beneficial soil microbes that are added are truly alive and serve as a catalyst for the plant to drink the N-P-K and other minerals quickly. The Dr. Earth line of fertilizers is formulated separately especially for different groups of plant needs including Tomato and Vegetable, Fruit, and Acid-Loving Berries and Rhododendrons and Rose and Flowers. Dr. Earth is available only at independently owned garden centers and hardware stores, including All Seasons and Co-Op in Sandpoint. These fertilizers are also immediately safe for children and pets to be around. If for some reason a curious cat or child gets into the product there is no need for worry. Our summers here are short... too short, and we can’t control the sun, but we can give our plants the foundation to make the most out of every day. Nancy Hastings grew up on a 300+ acre farm and now is co-owner of All Seasons Garden and Floral in Sandpoint. She and her husband John have been cultivating community gardens and growing for 16 years in North Idaho. You can reach them with garden questions or sign up for classes at AllSeasonsGardenandFloral (at) gmail.com
allseasonsgardenandfloral@gmail.com.
Beginning in May Open Mon-Sat 7 to 2 • Sunday 8 to 2 Page 16 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4|April 2013
Veterans’ News Gil Beyer
First up this month is a plug for the Sandpoint High School’s Honor Flight Club. They are trying to raise money to donate to Honor Flight—the program that pays the fare and lodging for WWII vets to go to Washington, DC and visit the World War II Memorial built in their honor. On Friday, April 19 and Saturday, April 20 the club will be showing the award winning documentary, “Honor Flight” at the SHS auditorium. The first showing for the general public will at 7 pm on Friday the 19th with a followup showing at 2 pm on Saturday the 20th. Tickets can be purchased online at honorflightatsandpoint.eventbrite.com or at the door before the showing. The cost for adults is $12. Veterans of all conflicts will receive a free ticket, but should still go online to register. Students can purchase tickets to a special showing at 1 pm on Friday for $5 and will be excused from their late period classes. Tickets for this showing can be purchased at the bookkeeper’s office of Sandpoint High School. Anything and everything that can be done for this group of veterans should be done. We are losing this generation of heroes at the rate of about 740 per day (in 2011). As they age, the numbers get smaller. My generation and following generations owe most, if not all, of the freedoms we enjoy to them. It was, in my opinion, the last ‘good’ war. WWII determined that democracy for all was better than tyranny by a few. These men and women probably don’t see it that way. They simply did what needed to be done. I highly recommend that everyone make an effort to see this movie and support this worthy project. Now, some items of import to the veterans’ community that have come to my attention recently. Between February 26 and March 6 the VFW, DAV and VVA National Commanders all testified before Congress [videos and transcripts of these testimonies can be found online and should be viewed or read by every veteran regardless of membership] and laid out their goals for legislative action in the 113th Congress. One big theme common to all three presentations was the demand to eliminate the huge backlog of claims at the VA. Our government must do all that it can to eradicate this backlog and provide the services that these veterans were promised and have earned. Not to be outdone, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America held
Honor Flights and HR 975 a ‘Storm the Hill’ event on the Capital steps on March 21 calling for Presidential and Congressional leadership to end the VA disability backlog and to support Representative Walz’s bill (D-MN)—H.R. 975—to force the DOD to review and correct improper personality discharges for more than 31,000 veterans and ensure that those suffering from PTSD get the mental health care they need and the benefits they were promised. The IAVA is also insisting that a Presidential Commission be created. This commission would be empowered to look into what needs to be done at both the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to end these backlogs. It appears that much of the problem has been created because Defense and the VA don’t necessarily play well together. It seems that when a service member is discharged, their records—service and medical—go into DOD storage. To use a stock phrase from a certain cable news network, “some people say” these records (or a copy) should go to the VA too. Having this information on hand at the VA would greatly reduce the paperwork needed from the veteran. How, you ask? Most of the paperwork that the VA requests is to substantiate that the veteran making the claim really was serving where he said he was serving at the time of the incident connected to the claim. In other words, the VA operates under the premise that you are the one that has to prove you were harmed. It is a classic use of the Napoleonic Code, where one is “guilty until proven innocent.” If the service member’s records were shared with the VA at time of discharge, the VA would have much of the substantiation on file when the claim was made. Of course, this runs counter to any bureaucracy, where efficiency is a dirty word and proof is measured in pounds of paper in file drawers. A great many of these unresolved issues are based on claims resulting from service during the Viet Nam conflict. As those veterans aged, many complex illnesses emerged that can be directly attributed to that service. Some of these issues are also common to more recent conflicts; things such as exposure to hazardous materials found in so-called ‘Burn Pits’ that were common throughout Southeast Asia in the 60s and 70s and the Middle East over the past three decades. I find it totally unconscionable that our
government has not found the political will or even the backbone to rectify wrongs that are over forty years old and adjudicate these claims. Nationwide, every two years, the voters keep sending essentially the same people back to Congress. An overwhelming 90 percent of House members running for re-election regained their seats. They come from both sides of the aisle but the ones that have been doing the most damage recently predominantly come from the Far Right edge of the GOP. These marginal politicians are continually in full campaign mode, appealing to their base from one even-numbered year to the next even-numbered year. Once they get back to Washington, their votes are cast in line with those groups that financed their election and not at all for the majority of their constituents. This leaves the actual business of governance in almost total gridlock. What we desperately need is for both parties to find common ground somewhere in the middle. I am tentatively optimistic that something may get done on correcting this stain on the nation’s honor when I look at the 113th Congress’ freshman class. Alliances appear to be forming that cross party lines amongst these representatives. Many of these freshmen have a military background and can see the need to work together to get things done for veterans of all eras. We can but hope and pray that this comes true. Until next month, hang in there and hope that we can save ourselves from our elected and appointed representatives.
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April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page 17
PASSAGES •
Jim DaVAULT Sr. November 2, 1941 - March 7, 2013 www.LakeviewFuneral.com
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Elbert “Bert” BROTHERTON April 18, 1929 - March 18, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com
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Robert Raymond PECK June 2, 1924 - March 14, 2013 www.LakeviewFuneral.com U.S. Navy Veteran
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Sam “Sammie” Eugene PARIS April 12, 1924 - March 16, 2013 www.LakeviewFuneral.com U.S. Navy Veteran
Jack Calvin COX October 1, 1920 - March 19, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com U.S. Military Veteran
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Ross J. CAPAWANA December 30, 1938 - March 16, 2013 www.LakeviewFuneral.com U.S. Army Veteran
Alvin Lloyd STEEN March 26, 1937 - March 20, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com U.S. Military Veteran
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Greta Jean Ganzer LUTHER September 9, 1933 - March 20, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com
Mary Packard EMMER April 17, 1928 - March 28, 2013 www.LakeviewFuneral.com
• And Richard W. “Dick” they don’t have SHERWOOD to—after all, don’t 21, 1934 - March 2013 weAugust Americans believe if it’s25, ours, it’s ours www.CoffeltFuneral.com and we can do with it what we want? Or
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Michael Patrick SWEENEY June 13, 1953 - March 3, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com
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Ralph Maurice GREEN August 2, 1924 - March 6, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com U.S. Navy Veteran
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Mabel Saxon Hooper CAMPBELL March 12, 1925 - March 6, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com
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Bill R ADAMS December 21, 1933 - March 14, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com U.S. Army Veteran
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Victor Mathew BROTHERTON-MANNA October 17, 1960 - March 15, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com
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Kenneth Allen HALL October 19, 1945 - March 17, 2013 www.CoffeltFuneral.com
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Ralph Westley BLOOM is June 18, 1939 - March and25, we2013 want it, then www.CoffeltFuneral.com
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• then Tedyou R. GORDON sponsor terrorism and we’ll September 10, 1924 - March 29, 2013 By the way, China wants that oil as www.CoffeltFuneral.com well. Remember China? The people who U.S. Marines Veteran
loaned us all that money? China’s oil George Thomas SMITH consumption is around May 19, 1924 - March6.5 30,billion barrels a year, 2013 and is growing at 7 percent every year. It produces about 3.6 billion barrels www.CoffeltFuneral.com U.S.year. ArmyDoes Air Corps Veteran every this math look good to anyone? Can anyone other than Sarah • Kit RINEHART Mayand 23, 1926 - March 2013 we can Palin George Bush30, believe drillwww.CoffeltFuneral.com our way out of this problem? Anyone who doesn’t think we better hit the ground running to figure out how to fuel what we want fueled with something other than oil probably deserves to go back to an : I could go on forever, but you’ll quit reading. So one final discussion for the American public. First, let’s have a true, independent analysis of what happened on September 11, 2001. The official explanation simply doesn’t hold water. This is one of those “who knew what, when” questions that must be Email r.repair43@gmail.com answered—and people/institutions must
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be surprised to learn that I would not Equipment, support an effort toGenerators, impeach Pumps President and Older Outboards. Bush after the November elections. First, because that’s too Two late, doors and west second, because more than Bush have of the Hope Postbeen involved in crimes against the American Office people. What I would like to see are I Buy Batteries charges (at the least, charges of treason) brought Ron against Powell Bush, Cheney, et al. Bring the charges and let’s let the evidence of
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Page 18 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4|April 2013
The Perils of a New Toilet
“Five hundred dollars?! Are you shitting me?! Five hundred dollars for a toilet stool?” “Well, that’s installed, of course,” came the voice over the phone, “and it comes with a year’s guarantee it won’t plug up or overflow. If it does, I will personally come out there and clean up the mess myself. However, if you install it, you will be responsible if there’s an overflow.” “You got it,” came the reply. “You got yourself a deal, bring it on.” If this seems a little strong to you, remember, toilets back up and overflow all the time, and when it plugs up someone stands there and watches it fill up to the very brim and will inadvertently reach down and flush it again, thus causing it to overflow. If the bowl is full, adding another two gallons of water won’t flush it, either. Upon arrival of the new fixture and
the examining of the one it’s to replace, it’s determined it will have to be turned just one quarter of an inch in order for the door to close, as it’s much bigger than the one put in 20 years ago. This small turn will not in any way effect the original contract, it will just make the door easier to close. Now, having this installed by a professional doesn’t necessarily mean the person in question is not a handy man; he is known up and down the creek as being such, and capable of installing a toilet his own self. This just means the falling of the responsibility will be on someone else’s head if there’s ever a problem, unlike the mishap of building a boat too large to get out of his shop and, when reconstruction of the building permitted its escape, only to find out it wouldn’t float, but sunk right off the trailer. After rereading the plans it was discovered there should have been cross ribs glued in place and a sub floor installed. As it was, three grown men standing on a thin sheet of glued plywood on a small sailboat broke through. After pointing out that a simple replacement of a portion of the bottom would suffice, he chose a gallon of very expensive ga-lou, covering the bottom of the boat; twice more it has sunk. His wife, bless her heart, has put up with this kind of handyman activity for years, but, when it comes to cleaning up floating poo time after time, she wholeheartedly approved of the installer,
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especially for the clean up part. Standing in the doorway with a cup of coffee and spouting off about his work as a young logger, he was interrupted by the toilet installer and informed if he even watched or in any way suggested any helpful advice, or even spoke to the installer, the price would be doubled. Thus, the installer was left to do his work. I, too, have had trouble with my bathroom stool being too small and squatty, especially for an older man, so after many complaints I was given permission to look for a larger, taller stool, one with a lid that closes automatically, so I don’t even have to put it down. Upon bringing it home I discovered the floor underneath it sagged just enough it wasn’t level, so I called an expert, Rich, a hill William (that’s an upgrade from a hillbilly.) Anyway, Rich was the one who built our home and he has always maintained it. He just lives up the road from our house. One hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars and eighty-two cents later, we have a new bathroom. When I said, “Whatever you want, dear,” I didn’t know it would be a complete makeover. When she started making suggestions, I said, “Let’s let Rich do it and I want to be involved.” Whatever she wanted turned out to be a vanity with a composite marble top, a new tile floor and tile trim sides with wainscoting, and all new paint. A new bathtub with its own heater and bubble valves, which means I no longer have to make my own bubbles in the tub. Plus, all the matching fixtures, curtains, throw rugs, and a large assortment of towels. There were no arguments; whatever suggestion Rich came up with concerning construction, she readily concurred. We almost had words in a department store once, when she allowed me to push the cart while she shopped, but I pointed out a color I liked in the towel department and she sent me to wait in the car until she finished shopping. Do you think that’s an excessive amount of money to spend on leveling your bathroom stool? Just remember, I sat in my easy chair reading Pat McManus books over again while all of this took place. The chest pains I had been having during this construction finally subsided after Rich handed in his last bill. We have a viewing now on Saturday, at which an admission is being charged .
April 2013| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4| Page 19
Scott Clawson
acresnpains@dishmail.net
I see a few changes comin’ around. There’s drones in the air and troops on the ground. So many eyes in the sky, you need not know why other than terror is where you find it. For those in the way or even on the fence, we show little remorse, let alone recompense, but throw money by the gobs at criminal slobs hoping somehow it’ll someday make sense. Paybacks are hell as the saying goes, made in our name, no matter the woes, as we’ve listened for years without shedding tears while innocents died in our throes. Consider, if you will, being accused by a drone for a terrorist bomber in a sensitive zone, your kids get destroyed by a rocket deployed, leaving you helpless to go on alone. I cannot imagine being filled with respect for anyone willing to do this unchecked, for their homeland security or liberty’s purity, without pausing even once to reflect. I can see drones used for hundreds of uses, from catching criminals to finding recluses, for surveillance or mapping, snoopin’ or zapping and a host of assorted ruses. Evil gravitates to power and money. The stronger that power the less it seems funny. It’s set its sights on our old bill of rights. Their goal is something less sunny.
Like the gunpowder of old, there’s no going back, many thousands on board and many more on track. So don’t get in the way, be careful where you play, for a drone may not know you from Jack. There’s missions of mercy and missions of prey And what they get used for ain’t our place to say. Whether guarding the border or a new world order, there’s no question but to simply obey. If you think it’s all good and even quite proper, as long as you’ve got enough fries with your Whopper, consider how you’ll be if you ever disagree while hiding from an unmanned chopper. Don’t think for a moment that you can never go along. That our handlers can’t tell you your rights are wrong. Keep your opinions in check; just say, “What the heck, it has to be good if we’re strong!” They can do anything now, as they’re writing this play and it isn’t your place to question their way. Don’t be concerned, live right or get burned. They can have you in chains any day. The more knowledge they gather, more power they’ve got, until more and more, you’re just another robot. Put your head down and pray for that bright new day and you’d better get off the pot.
Page 20 | The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 22 No. 4|April 2013
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