Good Morning All & Happy Thursday!
Today is the birthday of singer John Hall of “Hall & Oates” fame, who is 72; to actor Woody Harrelson, who turns 59; and to one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Alison Krauss of “Alison Krauss & Union Station” fame, who is 49. Here’s to all of you!
Since I’m leaving for Montana in few days, I want to give a special Happy Birthday shout out to my son-in-law Joel’s mother, Sharon, wife, mother, grandmother and music educator extraordinaire with the West Covina School District in California, who celebrates her birthday this Saturday, July 25th and to my dear friend and husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and human resources consultant extraordinaire, Bert, who celebrates his birthday on Monday, July 27th. They are two of the finest people I know! Here’s to both of you on your special day of celebration!
Speaking of exceptional people, I had the privilege & honor to attend the memorial service of a friend from many years past, Carol Smith. It was kind of weird attending a memorial service with a face mask, but I’m trying to do my part to protect others. It was a lovely time of open air remembrance at the Pines Cemetery in the Spokane Valley. Carol’s pastor gave a Gospel message and it was great to get to express my sympathy to Carol’s family & friends, albeit at a distance. Carol was a huge help to me in building my business, as she was the Membership Director for the Spokane Chamber of Commerce in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I served as the Membership Relations Chairperson for a couple of years during Carol’s tenure there. It opened doors for me to grow my business & to serve the business community and contribute to economic development in the greater Spokane area and I’ll be forever grateful for that opportunity. I sure enjoyed working with Carol. Her bright smile and effervescent personality could light up a room, for sure! I hadn’t realized that Carol was truly a “self-made” person, arriving in Spokane at the age of 14 from her childhood home in Tacoma, seeking to make her way in life. She fudged on her age to gain work as a waitress and later as a bartender. Later in life, she landed the job at the Chamber by telling the Chamber manager at that time, George Rittemaier (sp?) that she had a college degree, one of the requirements for the job. She was a good bluffer and it worked! She did a great job for the Chamber and later had a career in real estate and a women’s clothing store. She had a great entrepeneurial spirit and was especially a great champion for small business. Even though it would be difficult to bluff your way through the business world now, Carol’s life goes to show that, with lots of determination, perseverance and a “go get’um” attitude, you can go far in life. Here’s to Carol Smith and my thanks to her for what she did to help me along the way!
Another exceptional person died recently and he was memorialized in yesterday’s local newspaper. His name was Bill Belknap, who guided the University of Idaho athletic department to unprecedented success during his 10 year run as athletic director. He died last Friday at the age of 81. Although I didn’t have the privilege of knowing him, I was impressed by the fact that all who worked with him at the University of Idaho said he was the best athletic director they every worked for in their careers and many of the people interviewed had worked for a number of athletic directors over the years. Mr. Belknap had the distinction of hiring such notable football and basketball coaches as Dennis Erickson, Keith Gilbertson, Don Monson and Tim Floyd, all of whom went on to illustrious careers at the college and professional level. Dennis Erickson said of Belknap that “He took a chance on me when I was a young coach and gave me an opportunity to go to Idaho and build that program.” Erickson took Idaho to one Big Sky Conference title and advanced to Division I-AA playoffs twice in four seasons. Erickson said “If it wasn’t for Bill, who knows where I would have ended up…What he did for that athletic department is beyond what anybody else has done.” Keith Gilbertson, who succeeded Erickson and led the Vandals to two Big Sky titles and three playoff appearances said of Belknap: “Tremendous guy to have as a boss…In my nine years as a collegiate head coach, I had 10 different athletic directors, which is probably some kind of record. I had three of in one year at Washington. Bill was far and away the best guy I worked for…With Bill, you always knew where you stood and he supported you.” Belknap was a 1961 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served as an assistant football coach at Arizona for 10 years before working Athletic Department management. He finished his career as Athletic Director at Wichita State University in 1999. He was inducted into the North Idaho Hall of Fame in 2013 and the University of Idaho Hall of Fame in 2008. Mr. Belknap retired to Moscow, Idaho where he died this past Friday. Here’s to Bill Belknap and all of the great men’s & women’s sports teams Idaho had under his leadership!
On my last visit to The Tana House near Glacier Park, I saw a Western Tanager, one of my VERY favorite birds, flit from one tree to the next one evening. It really caught my eye, because of its dazzling colored feathers. I refer to the Western Tanager as “the Toucan of the Pacific Northwest/Rocky Mountains.” There was a great article about the Western Tanager in our local newspaper the other day. Here are some excerpts:
“The western tanager has triple the colors, with a bright red head, which melts into orange around the neck and throat, and then turns into a bright canary-yellow on its breast and body. Throw in some black and white wings and you have a flying kaleidoscope. Western tanagers are so spectacular that they won the coveted role of cover bird on my old Copy of Roger Tory Peterson’s “A Field Guide To Western Birds.” How do you get to be the cover bird of the birdwatcher’s bible? The same way you get to be the cover model of “Vogue” or “Esquire.” You possess the best plumage…”
—Jim Kershner, “Oh, Tanager: Getting hooked watching these colorful birds while fishing,” The Spokesman-Review, July 9, 2020, page B-1.
You’ll have to have a quick eye to spot the Western Tanager…they move mighty fast, but boy howdy, seeing them in the wild is a real treat!
I think I’ve shared with you in the past about how cool “The Snake Pit” restaurant is in Enaville, Idaho. Originally it was called the Clark Hotel and served railroaders, miners and loggers during its hey day in the later part of the 19th century and early 20th century. The town of Enaville was named for a railroad crewman’s wife, Ena, who was the local postmistress. At one time, there were some 10,000 railroad workers in the area! How about that? No doubt it took a lot of rail traffic to haul ore from the mines and transport the logs from the woods. The Bates family ran the hotel and restaurant from 1954 until 1978. Josie represented Idaho at Expo ’74 in Spokane, serving her famous “Rocky Mountain Oysters.” No one seems to recall when the restaurant was first named “The Snake Pit.” There are three competing theories as to the origin of the name:
- The hotel’s outhouses once contained snakes.
- The restaurant was named after the 1946 novel and/or the 1948 film “The Snake Pit,” about a woman trapped in a mental institution. People at The Snake Pit do tend to act a little crazy, so…
- Locals referred to the “girls of the morning” working upstairs as snakes
Their BBQ ribs and chocolate creme pie are musts if you ever get the chance to stop in to The Snake Pit. It’s right off Interstate 90 at the Kingston, Idaho exit. Just follow the road along the Coeur d’ Alene River and you can’t miss it!
Here’s the trivia question for the day:
Q: What is the longest road in the United States…I-95; U.S. Route 20; Route 66; or U.S. Route 1?
A: According to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation website, the longest road in the United States is U.S. Route 20. Stretching 3,365 miles in an east-west direction from Massachusetts to Oregon, U.S. Route 20 is the seventh longest highway in the world and the longest road in the United States. The highway’s eastern terminus is in Boston, Massachusetts, at Kenmore Square, where it meets State Route 2. Its western terminus is in Newport, Oregon, at an intersection with U.S. 101, within a mile of the Pacific Ocean. The highway was commissioned in 1926 & was extended in 1940. How about that??? This looks like another thing to put on the “bucket list!”
Here’s the word definition for the day:
Capricious: An early 17th century French word meaning “Given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior.” Do you think our current President is a bit “capricious?” The weather can be that way too, don’t you think?
Here are some thoughts for the day:
“A grownup is a child with layers on.”
“But I just felt at one point that I was on a hamster wheel, you know? Just doing movie after movie and thinking so much about career related things and I think missing out on hanging with my friends and family as much as I needed to.”
—Woody Harrelson, American actor
Here’s to a great Thursday and lots of love and good wishes always!
Press on,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, Mark, etc.)