Reader_Aug18_2022

The week in random review

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

quotable

“Insanity: a perfectly rational adjustment to the insane world.”

— R.D. Laing, psychiatrist

my new favorite thing

DEAR READERS,

Believe it or not, we are in the last few weeks of our busy tourist season in Sandpoint. Before you know it, Labor Day will have come and gone, the nights will begin to cool down quicker and the hot days will lose their sharpness as autumn looms around the corner.

These are some of my favorite days in North Idaho. We’re in that delicate period of time when the town quiets down from the summer madness, but the weather is still warm enough to jump in the lake without screaming obscenities. Most of all, it’s a time when locals can reclaim a bit of ownership over their favorite haunts after sharing them with out-of-towners for so many months.

Don’t get me wrong; we appreciate our summer visitors. Their patronage of our businesses, restaurants, bars and the like helps pay the bills through the quiet shoulder seasons and winter. We’re thankful you’ve enjoyed your time here in Sandpoint, but just like houseguests who have stayed a bit too long, we’re also happy to say ta-ta.

–Ben Olson, publisher

READER

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Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey (News Editor) lyndsie@sandpointreader.com

Cameron Rasmusson (emeritus) John Reuter (emeritus)

After a four-day trip on the river last weekend, I’ve come back to civilization with a new favorite thing: creating a whirlpool vortex with my canoe paddle. I first started paying attention to these vortices when I heard a sucking, gurgling sound after each of my strokes. At first I thought I was hearing a bird’s wings flying overhead, but I noticed it was the sound of the whirlpool trailing behind in the water from each of my paddle strokes. I experimented with different techniques to make the vortices wider and deeper — the best seemed to be starting the stroke with the edge of your paddle, pulling in toward the boat and then lifting the paddle out of the water quickly to start the vortex spinning. I smiled at the thought of leaving these little whirlpools in our wakes all down river. Sometimes they would catch a feather that was floating and give it a spin, other times they’d just peter out. These are the things you think about on the river.

the longest light

This is an attempt to capture the chain reaction of thoughts I had the other day while stopped at Sandpoint’s longest traffic light (at Fifth Ave. and Church St.):

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“Oh no, red light. I hate this light. Ah, the granary building looks nice in the evening light. I remember when Co-Op used to be there and Dad took me all the way to the top one time and I could see the lake from there. Whoops, I forgot to drop newspapers at the Co-Op in Ponderay yesterday. Ponderay. Why is it spelled phonetically? And how come the word ‘phonetic’ doesn’t start with an ‘F’? Why is there a non-phonetic letter at the start? Man, I’m hungry. Still red. I haven’t seen a car pass on Fifth in a while. If that car wasn’t in front of me, I might be tempted to run this light. If that car wasn’t behind me, I’d be tempted to pull a u-turn right now and cross at Oak. I wonder who decided to name every street in America after a tree, a president or a flower. Man, that guy behind me looks like he’s about to lose his mind. This light will turn a monk into an impatient fool. I wonder how many hours of my life have been wasted stuck at this light. Probably... oop, green light. Thank the lord. Man, I hate this light.”

final thought

“My mother always used to say: The older you get, the better you get, unless you’re a banana.”

— Betty White (from The Golden Girls)

Web Content: Keokee

The Sandpoint Reader is a weekly publication owned and operated by Ben Olson and Keokee. It is devoted to the arts, entertainment, politics and lifestyle in and around Sandpoint, Idaho. We hope to provide a quality alternative by offering honest, in-depth reporting that reflects the intelligence and interests of our diverse and growing community.

The Reader is printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink. Leftover copies are collected and recycled weekly, or burned in massive bonfires to appease the gods of journalism. Free to all, limit two copies per person

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The Sandpoint Reader welcomes letters to the editor on all topics. Requirements:

–No more than 300 words –Letters may not contain excessive profanity or libelous material. Please elevate the discussion.

Letters will be edited to comply with the above requirements. Opinions expressed in these pages are those of the writers, not necessarily the publishers.

Email letters to: letters@sandpointreader.com

Check us out on the web at: www.sandpointreader.com

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About the Cover

This week’s cover was designed by Ben Olson to celebrate the upcoming production of Twelfth Night by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks.

Bonner County proposes $81M budget

ARPA spending, solid waste loan contribute to sizable increase; budget hearings scheduled for Aug. 22

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey Reader Staff

Sticker shock is a natural reaction upon first seeing the proposed Bonner County budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which features a jump from $62 million in FY 2022 to just over $81 million in FY 2023.

However, there is more to that nearly $19 million increase than meets the eye, with two sizable sums amounting to nearly the entire spike: the voter-approved $8.7 million USDA loan required to kickstart the Bonner County Solid Waste 10-Year Capital Improvements Plan, and almost $9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds allocated across various departments.

Most important, according to Bonner County Clerk Mike Rosedale, is that the county is only opting to take its statutorily allotted annual 3% property tax increase, as well as taxes on new

construction, adding up to an average tax increase of 3% across the board for county taxpayers.

“Now, your house may have gone up by 5% and my house may have gone up by 2%, but on the average, across Bonner County, they actually went up by a little less than 3%,” Rosedale told the Reader.

Despite what Rosedale called “monster assessed value climbs” that many local property owners are currently facing, the story of the proposed FY 2023 Bonner County budget is not one of exorbitant tax increases.

“That being said, there are a lot of interesting things in the budget to talk about,” he said.

Solid waste to launch 10-year plan with $8.7 million USDA loan

Bonner County Solid Waste will see a total budget increase from about $8 million to $14.5 million in the coming fiscal year,

thanks largely to a USDA loan approved on the May 2021 ballot through a special revenue bond vote. The county will pay back the $8.7 million loan with solid waste fees, which commissioners increased by 62% — from an annual fee of $115 to $185 — in 2019 in anticipation of the large debt.

“That is not a tax, because we all pay for our solid waste fees already,” Rosedale said. “That’s not something that has any relationship to your property value.”

The loan was an integral step in launching the Bonner County Solid Waste 10-Year Capital Improvements Plan, which is an effort to bring local waste collection infrastructure into the current century and capable of handling the demands of a rapidly increasing population. The bulk of the loan will go toward an overhaul of the Colburn waste transfer station — which features

an undersized and nearly threedecade-old tipping floor — as well as upgrades to three other waste collection sites: Idaho Hill, Dickensheet and Dufort.

“We don’t have the funds in yet, but we will, so that’s anticipated to be in [the upcoming budget],” Rosedale said of the USDA loan. “The way the county budget works is, you have to put it into the budget in order to spend it.”

ARPA provides an $8.8 million boost

After a year-long debate over whether Bonner County would utilize its share of stimulus funds provided through the federal

< see BUDGET, Page 5 >

Mountain lion activity partially closes trails at Pine St. Woods

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

Kaniksu Land Trust temporarily closed several trails at Pine Street Woods on Aug. 15 after mountain bikers reported seeing a dead deer near the Crooked Tree overlook. The organization elected to close trails on the west side of the property after employees located the carcass and confirmed it had been killed by a mountain lion.

“We are monitoring the kill site daily and will be reopening all the trails once it’s evident that the cat is no longer returning to the site,” said Regan Plumb, conservation director at Kaniksu Land Trust, which oversees the Pine Street Woods.

The news made the rounds on social media early in the week, with some commenting they had no idea mountain lions were active so close to Sandpoint.

“It’s good for people to know that we live with mountain lions regularly,” Plumb said. “I expect this cat is a local cat who has hunted at Pine St. Woods for years and never had the misfortune of killing a deer on the trail and getting

interrupted by mountain bikers.”

Land Manager Jeff Thompson was tasked with moving the deer carcass away from the popular Crooked Tree overlook and got an up close and personal view of the cougar.

“When I was getting it ready to move, the mountain lion was right there, 50 feet away,” Thompson said. “You can see [on the carcass] where the cat had grabbed it and pulled it down and put its teeth in the jugular. It killed it and left it there for the night, and last night went back and pulled it into the woods and ate one of the quarters off of it. Sometimes they kill and eat, then abandon the kill, but usually once they eat on it they’ll stick around.”

Thompson said it was a full-grown cat and looked wellfed, which is a good thing when considering potential dangers to humans.

“If they’re eating good, it’s in their interest to leave us alone,” he said.

Much of the fear people have regarding cougars stems from the fact that they aren’t exposed

to them as often as bears, Thompson pointed out. While encounters with humans are extremely rare, Thompson said if you see a cat in the wild, make yourself appear as large as possible, don’t run, speak firmly and slowly back away from it.

“These cats can live right on the edge of civilization,” Thompson said. “They benefit from things they can predict. They like it when they know people are on the trails, cars on the roads, corridors they can safely walk and hunt.”

Plumb said after KLT reached out to Idaho Fish and Game for guidance, they issued a trail closure, posted signs and shared the details on social media.

“It wasn’t necessary to close the entire property down,” Plumb said. “We live with those cats and I think this is a great exercise in building awareness of how our habitats overlap.”

As of press time, there was a substantial amount of meat miss-

ing from the carcass, so Plumb said she was hopeful the trails will be open again Thursday or possibly Friday. Currently, the trails on the east side of the property are open, but all western trails remain closed to allow for the cat to finish its meal. This includes Pine Cone, Owl, Crooked Tree and Mushroom trails. In the meantime, Plumb encouraged trail users to keep their dogs close to avoid any altercations with the lion.

Thompson said it’s important to remember we live closer to wild

cats than we’d like to believe, but they usually avoid interactions with humans.

“I’m sure there are cats moving through close to town and around town,” Thompson said. “If we knew exactly how close, we’d probably say, ‘holy cow.’”

Idaho AG’s office takes responsibility for calculations error in Quality Education Act initiative

Error originally gave the impression Reclaim Idaho’s K-12 initiative would produce a much higher tax increase

By Clark Corbin Idaho Capital Sun

Officials with the Idaho Attorney General’s Office are taking responsibility for a typographical error in the inflation calculations mistakenly attributed to the Quality Education Act that will be on Idaho voters’ ballots in November.

The inflation calculation error, which involved switching a numerator with a denominator, appeared to indicate that when inflation went up, the dollar threshold for the relevant tax bracket would go down.

But that error came from the state, said Scott Graff, a spokesman for the Idaho Attorney General’s Office. The error was not used in the official paperwork or ballot language submitted by the Reclaim Idaho organizers that pushed for the education funding initiative and collected the necessary signatures to get the initiative on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

That means the error won’t be used in calculating inflation for

< BUDGET, con’t from Page 4 >

American Rescue Plan Act, county officials are allocating the money to various departments in the FY 2023 budget.

While opponents to spending the ARPA funds alleged that such an action would obligate the county to adhere to future federal mandates regarding masking or vaccination, an opinion issued by the Prosecutor’s Office in February stated that the county would most likely not be subject to such conditions.

“There’s nothing uniquely onerous about [ARPA], according to the prosecutor’s legal memorandum on that,” Rosedale said.

County Comptroller Nancy Twineham told the Reader that about $8.843 million of Bonner County’s allotted ARPA dollars are being allocated in 2023 “mostly [to] the General Fund, EMS and a small portion into the Justice Fund to cover IT projects that are [allowed] under the U.S. Treasury guidelines.”

“We are using the money that we can use from ARPA to buy

the Quality Education Act if voters approve it.

Earlier this summer, the issue came to light following a July 14 article written by the Tax Foundation. The article suggested that a series of errors in the drafting and calculations of the Quality Education Act would lead to a much larger tax increase and generate much more revenue than organizers with the group Reclaim Idaho originally promoted.

“At the time … our office did not know how or when the denominator and numerator were reversed,” Chief Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane wrote in a statement that Graff sent to reporters. “We now know it was an inadvertent typographical error that was made by our office in the certificate of review. The mistake is ours.”

Reclaim Idaho co-founder Luke Mayville also said in an interview last month with the Sun that the error came from the state, not the official ballot language for the Quality Education Act.

critical infrastructure technology for both the 911 [and] Justice side, and the General side. Then we’re using the rest for revenue replacement, which is also allowed,” Rosdale said, adding later: “You can’t pay off debt with that money, you can’t refund a shortfall in PERSI with that money, you can’t pay off judgments with that money.

“There are some things you can’t do, but you can add it as revenue replacement for salaries,” he said.

The county is allowed to accrue interest on its unspent ARPA balance, Twineham said, which amounts to “a couple grand” after the allocation across departments for the FY 2023 budget.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Bonner County’s total ARPA fund totals $8,884,265.

Competitive wages and combatting fuel costs

Because ARPA will be used to fund one-time projects and salary replacement, the roughly 3% tax increase will be largely leveraged

Betsy Russell of the Idaho Press reported Sunday that the Idaho Attorney General’s Office had taken responsibility for the error. Graff forwarded Kane’s responses to Russell to the Sun on Monday, and said the Idaho Attorney General’s Office declined to comment further.

The Quality Education Act is a K-12 education funding ballot initiative that will appear on the Nov. 8 ballots as Proposition 1. Organizers with Reclaim Idaho, the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization behind the successful 2018 Medicaid Expansion ballot initiative, proposed and promoted the Quality Education Act. Reclaim Idaho officials say passing the Quality Education Act would raise about $323 million per year for a new fund for public schools. It would take a simple majority of voters to pass the initiative, and local schools could use the money to hire more teachers, increase pay for educators, expand curriculum, purchase classroom materials, expand kindergarten or invest in programs such as foreign

to offset inflation. While the national inflation rate currently stands at about 9%, Rosedale said, “In North Idaho, I think everyone here would agree that it’s closer to 1820%” when looking at everything from food costs to real estate.

“The prices are going up, all the costs are going up,” he said, “and it is more and more difficult for people to make it here.”

To combat this, at least in part, Bonner County employees will see a 5% “cost of living” raise in the coming fiscal year, with some positions receiving even more of an increase in an effort to retain talent.

Rosedale said that many positions, including sheriff’s office personnel and specially licenced Road and Bridge operators, are being pulled to neighboring states where wages are better and the cost of living is lower.

“They can make almost twice as much money just going into Spokane,” he said, “so there’s a real problem.”

Out of about 400 positions, Rosedale said there were up to

language, music, art or career-technical education classes.

To pay for the new funding, passing the Quality Education Act would increase the state’s corporate income tax rate from 6% to 8% and create a new tax bracket at 10.925% for individuals making more than $250,000 per year or families making more than $500,000 per year. Passing the initiative would not affect property tax rates or sales tax rates.

In a July 29 interview with the Sun, Mayville, the Reclaim Idaho co-founder, pointed out that the inflation error came from the state’s certificate of review process, which was completed back on March 26. However, Kane’s recent responses to questions from reporters indicate that Kane and other state officials didn’t yet realize the error originated with the state.

However, Kane did say in his most recent comments that some sort of legislative action will likely be necessary if the Quality Education Act initiative passes to ensure

35 vacancies that the county “couldn’t fill” over the past year.

“We had certain jobs that were at a critical life-or-death [point] where we were losing them and we can’t replace them,” Rosedale said, noting that many county positions pay roughly the same as jobs at local fast food or grocery chains, requiring Bonner County to move toward offering more competitive wages to keep certain positions filled.

On top of that, Rosedale said “compression” happens when the county raises starting wages to attract new personnel, then faces pressure from current employees to raise their wages in tandem.

“That was one thing we had to try to address,” he added.

Some funds will increase in 2023 in order to cover the steep rise in fuel costs that several departments — namely Road and Bridge and the sheriff’s department — are currently facing. Materials like steel, required for Road and Bridge projects, also saw a considerable increase in cost over

the intent of drafters of the initiative is followed During the 2022 legislative session, Idaho legislators passed and Gov. Brad Little approved a $600 million tax cut package that did many things, including decreasing the corporate income tax rate from 6.5% to 6% and reducing the number of income tax brackets in Idaho from five to four.

The initiative will go before voters Nov. 8, and legislators will be back at the Idaho State Capitol in early December for their organizational session and return again Jan. 9 for the normal 2023 legislative session.

“ …if the initiative is enacted, it is a law of the State of Idaho on equal footing with every other law — in that regard, the legislature is free to amend or repeal the initiative as it sees fit,” Kane wrote. This story was produced by Boise-based nonprofit news service Idaho Capital Sun, part of the nationwide States Newsroom reporting project. Learn more at idahocapitalsun.com

the past year, Rosedale said.

Hearings to be held Aug. 22

There will be two public hearings regarding the proposed FY 2023 budget on Monday, Aug. 22 at both 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the Bonner County Administration Building, located at 1500 Highway 2 in Sandpoint. Public comment will be heard at both meetings, and commissioners will entertain a vote to adopt the budget at the evening meeting.

The proposed budget is available to view online at bonnercountyid.gov/commissioners. Scroll past the photos of the commissioners to reach the blue link titled “Bonner County FY2023 Proposed Budget.”

Those with questions about the budget can reach the county clerk’s office at 208-265-1437. Those with questions about the Aug. 22 budget hearings can reach the commissioners office at 208265-1438.

Forest Service invites public comments on a proposed plan for over-snow vehicles in North Idaho

By Reader Staff

The U.S. Forest Service is inviting public comments on over-snow vehicle use across the northern zone of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

The “Kaniksu Over-snow Vehicle Travel Plan,” as it’s called, proposes a system of over-snow vehicle routes and riding areas, along with seasons of use, for motor vehicles that travel over snow on tracks or skis. The project area includes the Sandpoint, Bonners Ferry and Priest Lake Ranger Districts.

A proposed action has been posted to the IPNF website at fs.usda.gov/project/?project=53091. A virtual public meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Aug. 30 to discuss the proposed action, and comments will be accepted for 30 days. Anyone can attend the public meeting by using this link: us02web. zoom.us/j/82526472137.

As part of the planning effort, a collaborative group facilitated by the National Forest Foundation and made up of representatives from diverse, interested parties, Tribes and government agencies met during the spring to develop an initial set of recommendations to the Forest Service. To learn

more about the group’s recommendations, visit: nationalforests.org/collaboration-resources/ipnf-osv-planning.

Travel management planning is undertaken in accordance with the 2005 federal Travel Management Rule, which requires all national forests and grasslands to develop a system of roads, trails and areas for motorized travel. The rule was later expanded to include snowmobiles and other “over-snow vehicles.” The Forest Service finalized a national policy for the management of snowmobiles in 2015.

Specifically, the Travel Management Rule requires the Forest Service to designate over-snow vehicle routes to minimize:

•damage to soil, watershed, vegetation and other forest resources;

•harassment of wildlife and disruption of wildlife habitats;

•conflicts between motor vehicle use and existing or proposed recreational uses of national forest system land or neighboring federal lands; and

•conflicts among different classes of motorized vehicle uses.

For more information, visit the IPNF website for Kaniksu Over-snow Vehicle Travel Planning: go.usa.gov/xtdFg.

David Keyes honored as Volunteer of The Month

By Reader Staff

David Keyes has been a Rotarian for well over 20 years and is currently serving as the Sandpoint Rotary president. The Sandpoint Rotary has been making a difference in our community, our region and the world since 1965. This very active club is constantly looking for opportunities to help the community and their motto is “service above self.”

Keyes has been the president for the past year and was recently appointed Assistant Governor for this district. He is also in line to be District Governor for North Idaho, Eastern Washington and a section of British Columbia.

The Chamber recognizes Keyes’ work with Rotary and all they do for our local children. These efforts include scholarship programs, clubs with Sandpoint High School and Forrest Bird Charter School, as well as foreign exchange programs, work done at Pine Street Woods and — of course — the annual CHAFE 150 bike ride.

David Keyes, left, was honored as August Volunteer of the Month by Chamber representative Bob Witte, right. Courtesy photo.

The Greater Sandpoint Area Chamber of Commerce is proud to honor David Keyes as August 2022’s Volunteer of the Month.

Bits ’n’ Pieces

From east, west and beyond

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:

Nationally, gasoline prices fell to under $4 a gallon, Politico reported.

There was zero inflation in July, a Labor Dept. report stated. The declining price of gasoline balanced out other rising costs. There were also 528,000 new jobs and unemployment was at 3.5%.

The Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act was signed into law, following a second vote where it passed the Senate 84-14, NPR said. It will help veterans sickened by exposure to toxic burn pits. Signing was personal for Biden; his son died of brain cancer after exposure to military burn pits.

So far shootings nationwide are down 4% for 2022, compared to a year ago, The New York Times reported. That has been linked to a decline in Covid frustrations and the overall chaos of 2020.

The Inflation Reduction Act passed the House, sans Republican votes, and will be signed into law. From various media: absent from the Senate version is the closed interest loophole for Wall Street money managers and private equity executives. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D), who has received almost $1 million in donations from those interests, said she would not vote for the IRA unless that taxation was removed. (Had that remained, The New York Times said the Carried Interest Tax could have raised $180 billion.) The bill will invest in climate change (reducing greenhouse gasses 40% by 2030 — but some of the bill still favors polluters, courtesy Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin (D), who is Congress’s biggest recipient of natural gas pipeline company funds); retention of healthcare subsidies; more IRS funding to address big-time tax cheats; Medicare will cap insulin costs at $35/month (and cap out-of-pocket med costs at $2,000 a year for seniors, and reduce some drug costs via Medicare negotiating costs, starting in 2026), create a 15% minimum tax for the wealthiest corporations, add a 1% tax on stock buybacks (with no new taxes on those making less than $400,000, and no new taxes on small businesses), create up to 9 million “green” jobs, and reduce the deficit by raising $737 billion over the next decade.

Last week a federal judge reinstated a Barack Obama-era moratorium on coal leasing from federal lands, the AP reported. The ruling requires environmental review that includes climate damages. Demands for coal have fallen since many utilities are switching to renewable or natural gas.

The Biden Administration has announced

By Lorraine H. Marie Reader Columnist

the end of the Remain in Mexico program.

The Mar-A-Lago federal search, from a variety of media sources: The search warrant was signed by the FBI director that was appointed by Donald Trump. The search followed a signed statement from two months ago, from a Trump attorney, saying all subpoenaed classified material at Mar-A-Lago had been turned over to the federal government. Boxes were turned over in January, including records torn to pieces, but more boxes were found in the recent search. To clear up misinformation, a federal judge unsealed the “probable cause” search warrant, which shows agents were investigating the possibility that Trump violated the Espionage Act, engaged in obstruction of justice and illegally removed and destroyed official documents. Violation of the Espionage Act can result in imprisonment or fines. A warrant and property receipt showed 20 boxes of documents were recently removed, including 11 sets of classified information that was supposed to be in a secure government facility, and that was related to nuclear weapons. A Trump attorney said he and Trump family members watched the search via surveillance cameras while Trump was away, which has negated claims that evidence was planted. Trump has claimed the materials retrieved were there due to his declassifying them (that involves an elaborate process Trump did not appear to engage in), and, because Trump said he was doing “homework.” Trump also said Obama did the same, but that has been debunked by official archivists.

The labor market is short two million people, econofact.org has calculated. That appears to be directly tied to plummeting immigration, CBS News recently said.

Russia-Ukraine news: The Russian military is using a nuclear power plant as their base in southern Ukraine and Western and Ukraine officials are warning that creates risk of a nuclear accident.

Donald Trump recently was the first U.S. president to plead the Fifth. He is being investigated in New York State over the validity of his property valuations, used for tax purposes, The Guardian says.

Blast from the past: “The mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” former president Donald Trump, in a question he asked while campaigning in 2016.

And another blast: Social Security was enacted 87 years ago this month by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While it has proven highly popular, business-linked interests are seeking to dismantle it.

Emily Articulated

A column by and about Millennials

Mid-August

By Emily Erickson Reader Columnist

Now that it’s mid-August, it feels like summer has shifted just slightly, like it recognizes impending autumn on the horizon, while not quite letting go of the intensity of its burning.

This shift is in the crispness of the deep nights or the slightly delayed way in which it reaches peak temperatures in the afternoon. It’s in the subtly sleepier sun and a general feeling in the air that signals it’s not the same summer as it was in mid-July — its gentle whisper carried on the wind breathing, “Not yet, but soon,” to fall.

I feel connected to the disposition of a mid-August summer; one that’s informed in equal parts by its past and its future — not so disconnected from who I used to be, but also not the same person I always was. I think phases of life are often this way: a mashup of nostalgia and path-forging; of remember-

ing and imagining. I mean this, not in relation to a specific age or the “four seasons of life,” (I know plenty of 18-year-olds going on 40, and plenty of 40-year-olds stuck at 18) but as a reflection on the many changes to the sense of self people experience across a lifetime. For me, the last decade felt like peak summer — vivid and volatile, burning and intense in every experience. I navigated my world in a blaze of quick and life-altering decisions, in fleeting relationships, in trying on and discarding careers, cities and identities, and in squeezing as much life as possible into every hour of every day.

Now, it seems like I’ve slipped into mid-August, still burning for the intensity of new experiences, but more conscious of when, how and on whom I spend my energy. I no longer want to pack as much as possible into my every day,

reveling instead in the balance of quality experiences alongside stillness and rest. I crave depth in my connections, sturdy relationships built as much on sharing the mundane aspects of life as the fleetingly bright and extraordinary ones. And I’ve shed the need to blazingly broadcast my beliefs, no longer wearing stances like articles of clothing, ensuring they’re the first thing people know about me — preferring instead to be defined by my actions and in the unflashy consistency of how I treat the people and the world around me.

Despite this sense of shifting toward a new season, there are a few aspects of myself that I hope to carry throughout all phases of life. Akin to a ship being rebuilt one board at a time, simultaneously changing while also preserving its original essence, I want to always maintain my empathetic spirit, regardless of where and what I am. Navigating life by striving for understanding and emotionally connecting with the experiences of others has led and will always lead to witnessing and participating in the most beautiful parts of our shared humanity.

I hope to always remain curious, perpetually excited by — and not skeptical of — unknown things. Being certain there is always more to learn has been a cornerstone for discovery and personal growth throughout my life, and I want to never shy away from the pleasure and humility that comes with being a beginner at something new.

Finally, I hope to maintain a clear perspective, keeping a tight grip on the things I know to matter most, while holding everything else — possessions, opinions, tastes and fears — loosely. I never want to let security transition into rigidity, understanding there are some things to be firm in, yet so many more things to allow to be malleable.

And as this mid-August summer continues its trajecto-

ry toward fall, I hope to follow it, allowing myself to revel in the transition — one cool evening and burning hot afternoon at a time.

Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at www. bigbluehat.studio.

Bouquets:

•Here’s a Bouquet to Zabrielle Dillon, Katelyn Shook and Laurie Shook for their artistic work in the Little Theater. If you haven’t seen it yet, the trio have been spearheading an effort to beautify the Little Theater space. They’ve done a great job so far, adding painted decorations on the wall that resemble those found inside the main theater next door. Keep up the good work, and kudos to the Panida board for supporting these kinds of projects. It doesn’t take a bunch of money to add a little character to a space — just some elbow grease and artistic talent.

•I always really appreciate when our readers are supportive of new writers who submit their work to our newspaper. Recently, Nishelle Gonzales wrote a thoughtful piece on the bigotry she’s witnessed from some people in this community who have expressed dismay with her business hiring people of color. Gonzales did such a great job pointing out the reality of the situation without resorting to name-calling or belittling anyone for their beliefs, no matter how repugnant they are. As a result, I’ve received more than half a dozen emails and a few phone calls from readers who were so appreciative of Gonzales’ message. Perspectives like hers are important to share, because many of us do not encounter such intolerance and ignorance as often as others do. It’s still there, though, often right beneath the surface. A Bouquet goes to Gonzales for calling it out with class.

GUEST SUBMISSION:

• “Bonner County Human Rights Task Force would like to thank all the musicians who graciously helped us to celebrate our 30th anniversary in style by donating their tremendous talents. The music was outstanding and appreciated by all. We are so appreciative that you chose to spend your day playing music to honor human rights in Bonner County: Bright Moments, Beth Pederson, Joan Lassen, Max Reed, Nights of Neon.”

— By Lynn Bridges

Sandpoint evacuation plan…?

Dear editor,

Ever since wildfires have been burning towns in the western U.S., some of us residents have been wondering about the preparation for evacuation of Sandpoint. The county plan is posted online at bonnercountyid.gov.

We have all seen online videos posted by people caught in traffic, smoke, burning grass and sparks while attempting to drive away from towns during firestorms. Many such videos are available via Google with search terms “video camp fire evacuation traffic” for the 2018 fire that destroyed Paradise, Calif., population 26,000. People died in their cars trying to flee.

Sandpoint has four roads for egress, all two-lane and surrounded by forested mountains, grass fields and roadsides. We know the rapid firestorm devastation here locally in 1910 and 1967. My four grandparents were young North Idaho residents during the 1910 fire. In 1967 my dad was county coroner and funeral director during the Sundance Fire and had to take care of the fatalities from that fire. My classmate was the Roman Nose lookout who could not be evacuated in time but lived through the firestorm huddled under a rock overhang with a wet blanket. With climate change, it is not unthinkable that it could happen again and affect Sandpoint directly. I would like to see a news article on the plan for the town’s evacuation with interviews of officials who would be in charge of that event and who are familiar with plans. Who are these officials? Do they regularly update plans as the area changes? Do they rehearse, e.g. communications systems with alternatives in case of failure? Is there a plan for mass water egress in case the roads are impassable, e.g. a volunteer flotilla? Should we South Sandpoint residents keep an inflatable emergency boat in our garages? Sincerely, Christine Moon Sandpoint

‘Diversity, inclusion and contribution…’

Dear editor,

I want to congratulate Nishelle Gonzales on a well thought out Perspectives piece [“Emboldened haters not welcome,” Aug. 11, 2022] filled with what I consider to be endorsements of my own personal perspectives on the direction our country is taking; one of diversity, inclusion and contribution, and open discussions about those topics, like her article. I do, however, have some other

thoughts that may differ from hers about abortion, immigration and homelessness which detract from otherwise very valid thoughts. The moral quandary pitting societal concern about abortion against choice of the individual are as old as humanity itself. One must admit there is no legal right to kill. Sorry, but there are two arguments here. The arguments that there is a societal moral compass, that “women’s reproductive rights” does not legitimize killing, and that this is not a constitutional issue, are valid, always have been, and always will be.

Homelessness is a real problem for the needy and the mentally ill our society continues to grapple with for the benefit of those unfortunates, but made more difficult now because the water is seriously muddied by those who simply would prefer to take than to contribute. And America is, a lot of people would argue, the least racist and most diverse country on the planet. Really. Rather than tearing it down because of a handful of jerks, let’s please celebrate that?

Finally, let’s welcome anyone who wants to come here, legally, to follow their plan to succeed through individual trustworthiness, self-reliance, ethics, work discipline and contribution to society.

Bruce Ehni Sagle

Dear editor, When asked what he was doing, the man armed with an AR-15 type assault rifle at Sandpoint’s Fourth of July parade mentioned something about “you can’t take my liberties away.”

However, the 2nd Amendment didn’t allow everyone to own a gun. It specifically states that arming citizens was for a “well regulated militia” (similar to our state National Guard units). This was for the defense of our nation. (Whether it was a musket or an assault rifle, the Founding Fathers never intended for anyone to use this weapon against its fellow citizens.)

Did the Texas 18 -year old who easily purchased an AR-15 assault rifle intend to protect us against our government? No, he used it to kill innocent school children and their teachers.

Seven states in the U.S., including California, have enacted assault weapons bans. And in 1994, Congress passed a national assault weapons ban that was in effect until 2004. Courts in cases, including the

Supreme Court, have weighed in numerous times on 2nd Amendment rights and have ruled that gun safety laws, such as an assault rifle ban, are constitutional.

How tragic that Republicans in Congress, in obedience to the National Rifle Association, have prevented our re-enactment of that ban.

Jim Ramsey Sandpoint

‘Emboldened haters’ article was brilliant…

Dear editor,

I just enjoyed the latest issue [Aug. 11, 2022] of the Reader and thought that the Perspectives column, “Emboldened haters not welcome’” by Nishelle Gonzales, was brilliant! She was able to cover many points clearly, concisely and with great examples.

As a late sixties, white male from the upper Midwest (where diversity was Catholics and Protestants getting together), I definitely grew up with everything tilted my way. To then live many years in Mormon Utah and Muslim Saudi Arabia, I really got a taste of, “Sorry, you’re not one of us.” It changed my worldview abruptly.

And the anti-vaxxers’ chant of “My body, my choice” should result in complete support for a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions. Do they not hear the irony?

In closing, I really applaud Ms. Gonzales for her intelligence, clarity and the courage that it took to pen this column. And kudos to the Reader for printing it. Sincerely,

Rob Harrison Sandpoint

Dear editor,

Like most north Idahoans, I have experienced the extreme, worsening heat, weather and wildfires caused by fossil-fueled climate change. Keystone XL pipeline owner TC Energy plans to expand its Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) pipeline from Canada across north Idaho, Washington and Oregon. The GTN Xpress project would dangerously increase fracked “natural” gas volume in its 60-yearplus pipeline under Sandpoint, a Schweitzer parking lot and the Pend Oreille River, and would expand Athol pump station capacity only two miles from Silverwood Park. It would push more gas on West Coast communities wisely opposing new and expanded coal, oil and gas power plants and export facilities, reducing fossil fuels

reliance and pollution, and choosing renewable energy sources.

In its application for a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) certificate of public convenience and necessity, TC Energy claims that rising regional gas demand justifies GTN expansion. But GTN’s regular operations and three major leaks in the last decade already emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide and the more potent greenhouse gas methane every year, threatening public and environmental health and safety. As GTN Xpress’ gas supply forces fossil fuel use for another 30 years, but meets decreasing demand, TC Energy could raise customer rates.

By Aug. 22, please join Wild Idaho Rising Tide and allied activists in asking FERC to extend its draft environmental impact statement comment period and to deny the permit for GTN Xpress, a project clearly contrary to best public interests. Thanks!

Helen Yost Sandpoint

We need real pro-life leaders…

Dear editor,

The Idaho Republican Party has declared that the abortion trigger law doesn’t go far enough. According to them there should be no exception for the life of the mother. Republicans need a refresher on pregnancy.

If the mother dies the baby dies — always. If you keep the mother’s corpse warm there will not be a healthy birth months later. Everything that the baby needs is provided through a living mother: food, oxygen, water, everything.

But haven’t babies been delivered from dead mothers? Yes, but only if the fetus is viable outside the womb. Modern medicine simply delivers the baby while the mom is alive.

A law that doesn’t allow abortion to save the mother’s life is saying that two deaths is preferable to one. How could anyone support that?

Yet Scott Herndon and the Freedom Caucus do support it.

For decades the pro-life movement has moved away from helping anyone, mother or child, to being a political power play. When laws wouldn’t be enforced because of “Roe” politicians and religious leaders would push more extreme views to prove they were more “pro-life” than the next guy. Now these laws will be in effect. Now women are going to die. Maybe it’s time to grow up and start passing compassionate and real pro-life legislation with real pro-life leaders. Sincerely, Mary Haley Sandpoint

Science: Mad about

The Kardashev scale, part II

By Brenden Bobby Reader Columnist

Last week, we learned about what kinds of civilizations could exist in the vast expanse of space and what kind of technology humans would need in order to achieve the lowest two rungs on the Kardashev scale.

In case you missed last week’s article, the Kardashev scale was proposed by Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. Its purpose was to hypothesize a means in grading potential spacefaring civilizations based on their energy consumption. Type I civilizations would use all of the energy received by their planet from their home star. Type II civilizations would use all of the energy produced by their home star, using something called a Dyson sphere.

So what about Type III civilizations?

A Type III civilization would use all of the energy produced by the galaxy within which it resides, or more precisely, would be able to reproduce the luminosity of its home galaxy. This means it would need to output the same amount of energy as hundreds of millions of stars.

Energy production on this scale would be absolutely staggering and borders on the impossible for humans to comprehend. The diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy is about 106,000 light years, which you can multiply by six trillion in order to find out just how many miles wide our galaxy is. This means that a Type III civilization would need to be 106,000 years old at a bare minimum when just accounting for the amount of time it would need to spread to every star in its galaxy, nevermind the time commitment of building a Dyson sphere around each and every star.

Type III civilizations become more complicated when factoring in the logistics of traveling over

the span of light years to deliver supplies to new stars. What would this process look like?

As we’ve never observed a Type III civilization, we have no way to be sure, but we can guess.

Any civilization advanced enough to harness the full power of a star must already have some impressive engineering prowess. It’s very likely that an entity like this would use some form of mechanized labor, such as self-replicating nanobots harvested from planets and asteroid fields. These tiny robots would work together in huge synchronized swarms and would operate in a similar manner to Starlings.

Starlings are birds here on Earth that exist in huge colonies, so vast in number they black out the sky in flight. Despite the staggering number of birds, they seem to fly in perfect synchronicity to create wave-like patterns in the sky. It turns out that this trick is pretty simple for the starlings to do. One bird will track nine other birds in its field of view and mark them as vectors in a grid. When part of that vector deforms, they change their flight pattern to match the deformation, which causes another bird’s grid to deform. It’s very likely that simple microscopic robots would behave in a similar fashion, while also carrying supplies to deposit to a structure they are programmed to build.

Let’s imagine for a moment that a Type III civilization sends a colony of engineers and self-replicating robots to a star for the first time. It’s likely that they’re packing light — no colossal colony ships the size of moons like you’d see in science fiction. The energy cost for transporting mass through space grows proportionally to the speed in which it’s traveling. In order for any amount of mass to reach the speed of light, the energy cost becomes infinity, which is more energy than exists in our entire universe by… Well,

an infinite amount.

To circumvent this, there are two possibilities that we are aware of that an advanced civilization may be able to use to its advantage when traveling vast distances. The first is an extremely energy-intensive form where a ship could be accelerated to more than 90% of the speed of light. Due to the theory of relativity, any passenger inside of this vehicle would experience the passage of time differently than anything outside of the vehicle. That means if these beings were traveling to a star 10 light years away at 90% of the speed of light, they would experience about a year of time pass inside of the vehicle, but once they arrive at their destination the full 10 years would have passed outside of the vehicle.

The other form of travel would be something akin to a warp drive from Star Trek. A warp drive is kind of like hacking reality to get around the rules. Somehow, a bubble is formed in space and time, within which the ship is tucked and propelled forward, maintaining this bubble. Since you’re technically circumventing time, your passage may seem near-instantaneous once you pop out of the bubble somewhere else. In theory, you should be able to cover vast distances in nanoseconds when properly applied, but this also brings up an interesting paradox related to time. Since you’re manipulating space and time, you technically arrive at the other destination before you’ve departed. Weird, right?

However this civilization reaches this destination, we suspect they’d utilize self-replicating robots that work slowly at first, but exponentially grow in number to quickly harvest raw atomic material and re-apply it into new building materials, likely around the system’s star to create a dyson sphere and a transmitter to beam energy back to wherever home may be.

As you might have guessed, we haven’t actually found any civilization like this in the universe yet. A Dyson sphere should leave a telltale signature: either it’s fully enclosed and producing an immense amount of infrared radiation, or it’s partially obscured and would create some form of radio signal that’s intermittently interrupted at very precise intervals. Scientists thought they observed this just a few years ago before discovering it was a much more mundane phenomenon — likely a planet, either whole or shattered.

However, just because we haven’t found any sign of this yet doesn’t mean we’re alone in the universe when it comes to intelligent life. Our detection tools are still quite primitive in comparison to something that harvests entire stars, and we also don’t have a great view of the entire universe. Additionally, due to the nature of how light travels across space, we’re seeing views of stars and galaxies that existed in that state ten, a hundred, hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago. Stay curious, 7B.

Random Corner

The Victorian era, which is defined by Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837 to 1901, was a period marked by strange fashion trends. Here are some that still make us scratch our heads.

•Taxidermy became all the rage during Victoria’s reign. One of the most famous taxidermists, Walter Potter, created out-of-this-world scenes using the dead bodies of cute and cuddly pets and animals. His most famous work, “The Kittens’ Wedding” is just as it sounds, but you have to see it to believe it.

•A “beautifying” mask became popular for supposedly keeping faces “refreshed” while wearing it. This particular mask was made from rubber and made the wearer look like Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. When wearing the mask, they would have to apply several salves to the inside, strap on the “face glove” and sweat profusely in it all night.

•While a sun-kissed look is highly sought after today, in Victorian England, pale skin was the bee’s knees. Women used to nibble

on chalk wafers laced with arsenic to keep themselves looking as fresh out of the coffin as possible. The practice was not only toxic, but addictive. Still, it helped women achieve that preferred pale look.

•Catapulting off of the abovementioned taxidermy trend, women all over Europe and the U.S. began wearing hats with huge, sometimes horrendous stuffed birds balanced on their brows. The demand for stuffed bird hats was so excessive that a conservationist once estimated as many as 67 species of birds were threatened with extinction due to this dumb trend.

•One of the strangest trends to develop was when wealthy people began keeping people in their gardens as living garden gnomes. How this fad started is anyone’s guess. Affluent members of society often kept old men as a sort of pet, who would live in their garden as a hermit. Often, these men were forbidden from grooming themselves and would live in the nooks and crannies of the garden. They were rarely allowed to speak.

PERSPECTIVES

A friend recently sent me a New Yorker cartoon. Depicted in it is a harried woman wearing a baby, a child and a dog begging for attention at her feet, toys strewn across the floor and dinner bubbling on the stove. Her husband stands at the edge of the scene and says, “You’re not the carefree woman I married.”

Exactly.

It’s funny because it’s true. It’s also not funny. Because it is true.

Another friend quipped it would be more true if the woman was saying this phrase to herself. I agree. My husband is steadfast. I am the one tied up in knots about my fullness of cares.

I am not the carefree woman my husband partnered with many years ago. Back when we were in our 20s. Back before we had a mortgage, a business, a child. Back before we cared to play the connect-the-dots game of Responsible Adulting that generates a picture of what can best be described as a near-drowning experience.

I am no longer a carefree woman.

Where once I delighted in floating large rivers atop Walmart air mattresses (it’s a raft, but it’s also a bed!) or generating schemes to drive away hordes of tourists (Beware, said the mock flyers, of the rabid ringtail cats!), I now just don’t delight. Not often. Delight has been relegated to the closet of childish things. Delight is crap when it comes to laundry or budgeting. Delight can go jump

in a lake. Like it used to. Back in the day.

Long ago, in the years when delight still reigned supreme, I hiked with a male friend who was older and, ostensibly, wiser. He told me that the reason mature men preferred younger women was that they were “less rigid.” Older women, apparently, became rigid. Rather than calling him an ageist asshole, my young and accommodating self vowed to never become rigid. Ha. Hahaha. I’ve failed. Or have I? Depends on which metrics you use.

Does running a successful business, raising a happy child, owning a home and being full-heartedly married count as a failure? I think not. I think

that’s winning.

However, what about the part of me that can’t relax at home for the proliferation of to-do lists? What about the part of me that refuses to prioritize aimless rambles in the woods for all the things in life that seem more pressing and productive? What about the part of me that has forgotten how to be spontaneous because I am spinning a hundred plates right now, and any unplanned movement will send them crashing to the floor. And then <sigh> I will have to sweep up the mess.

Is that winning?

Long ago, in the years when delight still reigned supreme, I accepted an impromptu invite to an avant-garde circus. There were plate-spinners, contortionists and sword swallowers. There were burlesque performers and daredevil clowns. I look back on that show and think, I’m not rigid. I am, in fact, an entire effing circus.

Not only am I spinning the plates of all my responsibilities, but I am contorting to the shifting demands of a maturing child and a growing business. I swallow the swords that are news reports of violence and then regurgitate them in a way that won’t cause nightmares for a 7-year-old. I have a song and dance routine that I perform for certain people and situations. The only thing I might omit is the clown routine. I’m bad at the clown routine.

So, is all of that rigidity? Or is it, in fact, the greatest show

on earth?

Perhaps the latter. But the performance comes at a cost.

During workday lunch breaks, our crew seeks out shade and delights in off-color observations and jokes. It is a good lunch if laughter drowns out the sound of a cooling chipper engine. I once took pride in my unprintable one-liners. But now? I am instead consumed by my smartphone. I try to use my break to stay ahead of my to-do list so my evenings aren’t working hours. I am boring on lunch break. I feel detached. And alone.

“You’re not the carefree woman I married,” says the cartoon. I hate that cartoon. And I love it. Just like I both hate and love the responsible, some might say “rigid,” person I’ve become. That person seems uptight. And that person seems like Superwoman.

I look at my husband and I think, He’s lucky to be with someone so dependable and driven. I look at my husband and think, How can he stand to be married to someone so boring? I am all contradictions when it comes to the expression of my maturity. I am awed. I am ashamed.

With such maturity now in hand, I want to go back in time to talk to the man who spoke of women’s rigidity. I want to say, It’s not rigidity. It’s strength. And that strength probably scares you.

It sometimes scares me. Because, once you have learned that you are capable and strong, it’s hard to step back from the

challenge. It’s hard to say, I can do it all, but I choose not to. Having it all as a woman comes at a steep price. Yes, you can have a career and a child, but you will also still have much of the homemaking and the mental load of householding. You can have it all, and all is a lot to carry. I wanted it all, took it all on and now I am looking around my tidy-ish house for the self who wanted it to begin with. Where is that young woman who made a list of dreams and, in the alchemy of youth and hope, made it all manifest? Where has that person gone? I want to yell at her to come back here and take responsibility for her abundance. Damn it.

Maybe if I inflate the air mattress and take it for a boozy float with my true-blue beloved (a man blessedly unfazed by my crazed circus), I’ll find her again. Maybe carefree being is but one decision — and $50 worth of babysitting — away. Maybe it’s best that the carefree woman remains somewhere out there, rather than inside this planning mind of mine. Maybe she’s safe. And maybe, when I find her again, I can let all the spinning plates shatter, and we will make a mosaic of the wreckage.

Jen Jackson Quintano writes and runs an arborist business with her husband in Sandpoint. Find their website at sandcreektreeservice.com. See more of Quintano’s writing at jenjacksonquintano.com.

COMMUNITY

Student aviation program under new ownership

By Reader Staff

A pillar in the Sandpoint aviation community for years, Pilot Training Northwest, has recently come under new ownership.

New owner Jacob Klinginsmith and former owner, Ken Larson, have announced the transition, their shared vision for quality aviation instruction in Sandpoint and a focus on the high school students of Sandpoint.

With a significant pilot shortage impacting global economies, Pilot Training Northwest offers a career path to high school students, and others, that has a huge potential for gaining altitude in the future.

Former owner Ken Larson will continue as a manager for the North Idaho High School Aerospace Program, an ACES Workshop program that has been a proven avenue for introducing middle and high school students to viable career pathways in various facets of the aviation industry including airframe and powerplant mechanics, airport management, engineers and many as professional pilots.

“I’m feeling really good about this change because it will allow me to focus more clearly on the high school programs, yet continue some instructing,” Larson said. “The training business will continue, which works well for the students, too.”

Pilot Training Northwest will continue

to support and advance the high school students of Bonner County by offering student discounts and collaborating with other organizations like North Idaho High School Aerospace, EAA 1441 and others to facilitate scholarship opportunities for high school students.

“I earned my private pilot license with Ken a couple of years ago and it was a great experience for me,” Klinginsmith said. “As an aviation professional, and a father of three soon-to-be high school students of my own, this business is near and dear to my professional and personal life. Ken has successfully taught many pilots who have gone on to pursue their goals, including going on to successful careers in aviation. Ken and I want that quality instruction as an opportunity for Sandpoint to continue.”

Pilot Training Northwest has an impressive success rate for private, instrument, commercial and CFI students. This success rate will continue. While most things will stay the same, Pilot Training Northwest will be implementing improvements for all students and begin to include more ground training sessions and simulator training along with in-cockpit experience. Both of these elements allow all students to achieve their goals with a lower overall cost, and should provide a more comprehensive learning experience for anyone pursuing their pilot license.

This weekend offers a unique opportunity to learn more about the North Idaho High School Aerospace Program, ACES Workshop program and Pilot Training Northwest, as all three organizations will be represented at the EAA Wings Over Sandpoint fly-in, hosted by for the North Idaho High School Aerospace Program and ACES Workshop program, and sponsored by the Sandpoint Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 1441. This event includes a pancake breakfast and will be held at the Sandpoint Airport on Saturday, Aug.20. Gates open at 8 a.m. and breakfast is from 8-10 a.m. Planes are on display from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

By Reader Staff

Started by a local Sandpoint family in the 1960s, Litehouse Inc. has become a nationwide household name and is now 100% employee owned. Yet, the company has stayed true to its community roots, despite its international success and ranking as the No. 1 refrigerated salad dressing brand in the United States. One way it has done so is by giving back to the communities it serves — in particular, its hometown of Sandpoint.

The most recent example is Litehouse’s selection of Sandpoint-based conservation organization Kaniksu Land Trust as the first recipient of its 5% Planting the Future program, through which the brand donates 5% of annual net income to support planet-focused youth initiatives that educate young adults on ways to be stewards of their communities and planet.

The 5% Planting the Future initiative grew out of Green Garden, which Litehouse launched in 2020 as a brand that makes “better-for-you” food products, including organic and non-GMO freeze-

dried herbs and non-GMO plant-based dressings, dips and mayos. Green Garden launched 5% Planting the Future last year.

“We are committed to balancing individual hopes and the collective needs of others — our youth, our families, our communities and our planet,” Litehouse Product Manager Krystle Turnbull stated in a news release. “Through Green Garden’s ‘5% Planting the Future’ initiative, we’re able to play a part in creating a more sustainable future for the next generation.”

According to Turnbull, KLT fits squarely within that mission.

“Kaniksu Land Trust has a reputation for doing noble things to support the wellbeing of the Sandpoint community,” she stated. “Our shared core values of fostering community, supporting youth initiatives and general stewardship make KLT an ideal recipient.”

KLT works with willing private landowners to protect special places and applies land-based solutions to community challenges, ranging from education to food security.

The organization’s nature education

program, Rewild the Child, brings kids outdoors to foster their interest in conservation and stewardship of the land. In turn, the program provides numerous health and social benefits, and has grown in the six years since its inception to offer more than 2,200 youth days of outdoor learning and nature immersion each year.

KLT’s full suite of education programs — from school outreach to summer camp — includes a nutrition aspect to ensure children’s basic needs are met so that they are ready to learn and explore.

“All of our education programs include food. Every child gets the same snack, meal and drink, creating a sense of inclusivity and belonging,” stated KLT Executive Director Katie Cox. “This partnership with Green Garden is so meaningful because we are all concerned with the same things: community, children and stewardship of this beautiful place we call home. We are honored to have

been selected as Green Garden’s first ‘5% Planting the Future’ recipient.”

Turnbull concluded: “As a 100% employee-owned company, it is in our DNA to support organizations that benefit communities and drive change to build a better future.”

Green Garden products are available locally from the Litehouse Specialty Food Store, located at 125 S. Second Ave. in downtown Sandpoint. To find out more, visit eatgreengarden.com and kaniksu. org/learn.

Incredibly Wild Auction offers great items for a good cause Litehouse Foods chooses Kaniksu Land Trust for nationwide giving program

By Reader Staff

The Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness Incredibly Wild Auction is a rare opportunity — the chance to win a few treasures of your own while protecting a treasure that belongs to all of us.

Now through Sunday, Aug. 21, the auction features 55 items, experiences and packages, most of them benefiting local small businesses and artists. Every dollar goes toward protecting the wildlife, clean air and water of our wild backyard.

“All of the proceeds are going toward our educational programming and trail work,” said FSPW Executive Director Phil Hough.

Among the items on offer are an unlimited season pass to Schweitzer Mountain Resort; a plane ride over the Scotchmans; a guided backcountry adventure; a two-hour photo walk with local photographer Woods Wheatcroft; a wilderness skills class with Alone survival TV series contestant and Sacred Cedars Wilderness

Whether it’s a horseback ride in the wild, locally made art or a weekend getaway in Spokane, Incredibly Wild Auction items are curated to introduce a little joy and adventure into anyone’s life.

The auction supports FSPW’s education programs, which introduce the wonders of nature to kids and adults alike. It also fuels the organization’s trail work, volunteer efforts and guided hikes, keeping the Scotchmans safe and accessible for the public.

To participate, visit 32auctions.com/ fspwauction2022 to peruse and bid on all the available auction items. Be sure to check back regularly, as more items may be added over time.

Visit scotchmanpeaks.org for more news, as well as upcoming hiking and volunteer opportunities and events.

Up in the dumps

Discovering a metal detector at the Dufort Mall — and discovering a new summer pastime

By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff

Bonner County kids of a certain vintage and/or sensibility will know what I mean when I refer to the Dufort Mall. In fact, they’ll also know that we have several “malls” in the area, though their wares cost nothing and the uncouth may describe them as dumps.

Yes, for decades, many Bonner County residents have made dump runs into the opportunity to score some “new” stuff, and my family members have been among them. I remember, as a Sagle kid in the ’80s and ’90s, when riding along with mom or dad (or both) to the dump was an exciting outing. One summer, my brother and I brought home some kind of strippeddown metal cart that became our favorite toy for a time — one of us pushing while the other rode at dangerous speeds down our gravel road.

My brother, a local landscaper, still makes many trips to the dump and has kept up the tradition of “going to the mall,” not long ago snagging a perfectly usable (non-motorized) scooter, fixing it up a bit and giving it to my kids. They love it.

My mother — whose own mother was an expert Dumpster diver in the Los Angeles of the 1960s and ’70s — has also maintained a steady affection for turning other people’s trash into treasure. I’m particularly pleased that she’s brought my children into the practice. A few months ago, she took the kids to the dump and collected a pile of scrap lumber, which the three of them used to build the snappiest-looking lemonade stand I’ve ever seen. We set it up on Division Avenue for its trial run on a recent weekend, netting a respectable pile of dough in the cash box.

One of our finest finds by far has been a functioning metal detector that my mom and kids

found on another recent dump run. I mention “functioning” because, to look at it, you wouldn’t think it would work.

When I first saw it, I figured the thing had to be at least 30 years old, judging by its clunky construction; yellowed, indicator screen (which uses an old-school meter to tell you what you may have found); and, most telling, its retro avocado color. Based on a little research, I found that what my mom and kids rustled up at the dump was actually a Garrett Master Hunter CX, circa the early 1990s.

According to various metal detecting enthusiast websites, the Master Hunter CX and its successors were “the all-purpose original,” featuring “extraordinary depth and efficiency under the toughest operating and ground conditions.” Also, apparently, “for two decades [it] has led the industry in cache hunting.”

I now see what all the fuss was about. Though skeptical, when I dropped six C batteries into the Master Hunter it let out an almighty beep that more resembled a squawk — specifically, the sound one might imagine coming from a parrot getting one of its tail feathers yanked out. The needle on the meter jumped to life, exactly as if I’d awakened the machine from a 30-year slumber.

My 10-year-old son and I were immediately smitten. We ran out to the yard and immediately started scanning the grass. Practically everywhere we searched produced a hit, which I assume means the subsurface of the yard is filled with toy cars, nails and (mostly likely) old bottle caps.

I piqued my son’s curiosity when I told him the house we live in has been standing since

the early 1930s, and people back then used to bury money in metal boxes and coffee cans. His acquisitive little boy eyes lit up (he’d spent the previous day repeatedly counting his share of the money from the lemonade stand), and I could see that he was about two seconds from asking me to get the shovel.

Not wanting to turn the place into a pockmarked no-man’s land, we decided to do our first detecting in the dirt alley next to the house. With a garden trowel and three-prong hand cultivator for tools, we walked along for a few feet before hitting on our first dig site.

With great excitement — my son is convinced that every time the needle jumps to any spot on the meter labeled “gold” that we’re about to get rich — we plopped down cross-legged and started hacking away at the compacted dirt and rocks.

As we chipped away, making sure to re-scan the ever-growing hole to make sure we were still on the right track, I regaled my son with stories I’d read about kids in England who went out detecting in a seemingly mundane field and ended up unearthing hoards of ancient coins, medieval swords and Tudor jewelry.

I told him about the show Time Team and its archaeologists’ heavy reliance on geophysics (ground-penetrating sensing that can reveal the outlines of long-buried structures and artifacts), and that most modern archaeology uses some method of remote ground sensing technology to identify where to dig.

Obviously, this was going much farther afield than our Master Hunter CX, but I was getting just as excited, thinking about all those caches of forgotten treasure that we might bring

up. We started thinking about all the places we could take the metal detector — City Beach being top of my son’s list, though I briefly cringed at the idea of the two of us walking along with fanny packs full of lost keys and pull tabs. Neither of us are ready to be “those guys”... yet.

We kept at it, hunched over our minor pit, with a pile of dusty gravel rising next to it. We kept getting stronger and stronger beep-squawks (squeeps? buawks?) and the tension was rising. Could it be a silver dollar? Was it a ring or one of those coffee cans full of Depression era money? (The latter possibility we reasoned was less far-fetched than it seemed. Who would look for a can of buried cash in an alley?)

Then we found it: A piece of snarled metal wire.

I had a moment when I realized that digging up any kind of wire is no good. But when it crumbled as I gently pulled on it, I reckoned we were safe from getting electrocuted and causing a citywide blackout.

Still enthused, despite the lack of luster of our find, we carefully brushed away the dirt from the knotted wire, eventually pulling out about a foot of it.

“Wow, we found something,” we said at the same time, marveling simply at how cool it was to turn a squeep — we’re going to go with “squeep” — into something tangible in our hands.

Continuing on, we dug up an old shower curtain ring, too.

After about an hour-anda-half, my son and I called it quits and carried our discoveries back to the house. Proud of our achievements and excited for future finds, I reckoned that’s about as much healthy fun as you can have going from a dump to an alley.

This open Window

poetry and prose by local writers

edited by Jim mitsui

no straight lines

Is that a silver lining on blimps in the summertime sky?

Is that society leaning towards light? Will threads of resilience let us weave with chaotic swollen fingers thirsty for fidelity in music?

Some illusions skitter as we learn about bluffing tyrants swill the zig and zag of higher employment lower gas prices, Kansas common sense higher penalties for gas bags who cringe now we know their dark shady reasons

Recent media updates fan one last hope that magic hovers like angel wings restores the living trees of verdant words rubs out the thick fried brains of an old society that drinks hemlock laced breakfast coffee We are a sheepdog learning to run turns

Jackie Henrion said she wrote this poem inspired by national news reflecting glimmers of hope that sanity may yet prevail. It is written from a collection of words contributed each month by the Sandpoint Monday Writers. The group was founded in the 1990’s based on Natalie Goldberg’s writing prompt process from her book Writing Down The Bones. A book of collected works from the active group titled Sandpointed will be released this fall by Turtlemoon Publishing. This poem, however, is freshly minted from current contributions.

Digging around in my mom’s closet, I found some dusty old photo albums, one was filled with old newspaper clippings, a scrapbook she kept as a young teen. It had mostly clippings about movie stars, Alan Ladd was hugely present in the collection. She picked through them telling me what movies were extra good, she told me she had loved movies as a teen and her father did too, he went with her to many of them. There were clippings of interesting newspaper articles that had caught her attention and of books she had read. There was a clipping that had to be from the early ’50s of a doctor with a long treatise on why it was NEVER good to spank children. She had underlined the entire thing. There were scraps of paper that she had written notes on, on one she had copied the lyrics to an old Eddy Arnold song titled “What a Fool I Was.” I found the song on my iPhone and played it for her.

In the other album were photos of when my mom was around 19 and living in Seattle. She lived there for a year between graduation and marrying my dad.

In those pictures there was a look in her eye I never saw before, a sauciness in her stance. She was slight and pretty and her glasses gave her a slightly sexy secretary look. She smiled with her lips apart, teeth in evidence. In one group of pictures she was on a beach, and I knew those rocks in the background, it was Cannon Beach, who knew she went to Cannon Beach? She said they went clam digging and the friends they visited cooked the clams on the beach for them to eat afterward. MY mom ate clams that she dug out of the sand herself! Back then the place wasn’t built up. No expensive shops lined

You Know of new York

the place with tall style with sirens and traffic and noise all the while With hoopla and voodoo and much in between With fever and fervor and some folks quite mean

People of all sorts, some flying high as the stone and the glass that are scraping the sky And others are pummeled and scumpled, brought low, like the homeless and loveless and the souls on Skid Row

There’s a man lives there presently, an ungenerous claw

Who argues and fumbles and breaks many laws

He’s lumpy and grumpy, his torso is flumpy

He’s brash and an ass

He’s nothing but crass

And what does he do this man about town?

He ruins each day of all people around

And how does he do it this man of all seasons? Does he have a rhyme, does he have any reasons?

the beach. Just the people who happened to live there. Her girlfriend’s family had a rundown campground and let the three friends stay in the worst cabin for free. The front door of that cabin had to be propped up and leaned into the frame every time you went in or out. I had heard the story long ago, half listening, not that interested. She never named the beach; couldn’t remember exactly where they went that long ago weekend. Seeing the pictures told the story. One of her friends was a single mom of a two-year-old. A scandalous situation in those days. But that woman looked saucy too, unconcerned, the baby looked cranky as hell. Mom and I both wondered whatever became of him and his mom. Some of the pictures seemed almost suggestive, the way the young women are posing on a picnic blanket, in short shorts, legs in that old time cover girl position, eyes coquettish, looking up from under their eyelashes. Each in their turn had a shot of themselves pretending to eat a huge wedge of watermelon. The same wedge by the looks of it. I wondered whose idea it was to take those particular photos. There is a man in a couple of the photos, but she didn’t say who he was.

In one picture of her in the city, mom is striding down a Seattle street, she’s wearing pedal pushers with buttons down the side. A peasant blouse is low on her shoulders and she’s carrying the most adorable white purse, it’s domed and has a suitcase handle. She looks tall for a person who is barely 5’2”. Her shoulders are back, her chin up, there’s a slight smile on her face. You’d think she owned the world.

He’s been known to trip children as they skip down the street

He knocks off the hotdogs before you can eat

But the very worst of his troublesome doings is the way he can spoil a puzzle with cluings

For I mean to tell you, I have no hurdle

The man that I mention is called Mr. Ferdle

He is the one who can ruin your morning by blurting out words with nary a warning

You know the Wordle that appears everyday and bids that you work it until you sprout gray?

You use your fine noodle and coax a reply but your time invested is like pie in the sky

You can’t solve it now because he’s cried out

From atop his high dwelling he’s bandied about

Up there with the birds he’s called and he’s shouted

He’s creamed out the word and he’ll never be touted

Because the answer I tell you is what you will hear

And what you feel then may cause a small tear to drop down your cheek and bounce off of your shoe

Because Ferdle’s done Wordle and the puzzle — it’s through!

events

August 18-25, 2022

THURSDAY, august 18

Artists in the Garden at Create

10am-1pm @ Create, 900 W. 4th, Newport Artists will present a wide variety of works createarts.org for more information

Live Music w/ Birds of Play

Friends of the Panida Sip and Shop

4-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery

A % of sales donated to the Panida

Live Music w/ Kevin Dorin

6-8pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall

FriDAY, august 19

7:15-10:15pm @ Matchwood Brewing Co.

Live Music w/ Scott Reid Trio

5-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery

Live Music w/ Ben Olson (solo)

6pm @ I Saw Something Shiny

Live Music w/ Kevin Dorin

7-9pm @ The Back Door

Mostly Clean Comedy by Jody Carroll

8pm @ Panida Theater

$20/advance, $25/at door. panida.org

Live Music w/ Devon Wade

6:30-9:30pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall

Karaoke

8pm-close @ The Tervan

SATURDAY, august 20

Live Music w/ Harold’s IGA

9pm-midnight @ 219 Lounge

Indie rock originals and covers

Live Music w/ Brian Jacobs

5-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery

Demolition Derby Sandpoint Smash

7:30pm @ Bonner County Fairgrounds

208-263-8414 - this event always sells out!

Montana Shakespeare in the Park: The Twelfth Night 5pm @ Lakeview Park

A comedy having to do with mistaken identity and romantic misunderstandings. This iconic Sandpoint event is free and open to all. Bring a blanket, a chair and a picnic basket for the perfect date

Live Music w/ Chris Paradis

7-9pm @ The Back Door

Sandpoint Chess Club

Wings Over Sandpoint Fly-In

8am @ Sandpoint Airport

Regional pilots fly into Sandpoint for this 16th annual event featuring breakfast and an aircraft display. 208-255-9954

3rd Annual Lazy A .08K

12pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall

All proceeds go to Angels Over Sandpoint. Kids race at 1pm, followed by adult race. $25, includes swag and a beer. Music by RFB

Sandpoint Farmers’ Market

9am-1pm @ Farmin Park

Fresh produce, artisan goods, live music by Musha Marimba

TIFC open casting call

10am-12pm @ Sandpoint Library

Open casting call for the short film Burden of the Wolf. info@theidahofilmcompany.com

Karaoke

8pm-close @ The Tervan

SunDAY, august 21

9am @ Evans Brothers Coffee

Karaoke

8pm-close @ The Tervan

Nami Far North: Free tacos and film

3pm @ Sandpoint Cinema

Watch the documentary about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and eat free tacos!

monDAY, august 22

Monday Night Blues Jam w/ John Firshi

7pm @ Eichardt’s Pub

Group Run @ Outdoor Experience

6pm @ Outdoor Experience 3-5 miles, all levels welcome, beer after

wednesDAY, august 24

Benny on the Deck • 6-8pm @ Connie’s Featuring Reese Warren

Live Music w/ John Firshi

7pm @ Eichardt’s Pub

Sandpoint’s Got Talent Open mic 6-10pm @ The Tervan

COMMUNITY

Casting call for Idaho Film Co. short film Burden of the Wolf

By Reader Staff

The Idaho Film Company, an independent film production company based in Sandpoint, is hosting an open casting call for its upcoming short film, Burden of the Wolf, set to film in the Sandpoint area in the fall of 2022.

TIFC is seeking four young adults — two female and two male — between the ages of 15 and 25 to cast in the key roles of the short. Interested actors should plan to attend the casting event at the East Bonner County Library, Community Room B, on Saturday, Aug. 20 between 10 a.m. and noon. Actors under 18 years of age must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Burden of the Wolf is a feature-length screenplay currently in development, which includes producing a proof of concept short to aid the fundraising pitch. Producing one selected scene from the screenplay will show style and quality goals and festival consideration, a method used by films like Whiplash and Sling Blade

The film centers on four small-town teens who join together to investigate the mysterious death of one of their friends, who is killed in the forest by a wild, wolf-like creature, raising the specter of a werewolf attack.

Meanwhile, an ambitious deputy is also on the case, but she must navigate the misguided pursuits of the wolf-hating sheriff.

Parts being cast include 18-year-old Heather, described as “somewhat uptight, almost prissy, but a badass under it all”; Conner, 19, who is “handsome, cocky, absent minded, salt-of-the-earth” and mutually attracted to Heather; Seth, 18, who is “portly with a cherub face, sarcastic wit, a storyteller, dramatic and funny”; and Abby, also 18, who is “cute, still maturing, witty, snarky, edgy, shielding a dark side” and mutually attracted to Seth.

Interested parties must RSVP by email to info@theidahofilmcompany.com

with a resume showing dramatic experience, the role they are interested in and why they would like to be cast.

“The Idaho Film Company’s goal is to create a viable independent film production company based in Sandpoint,” said TIFC founder Jimmy Matlosz. “Ultimately, we plan to produce two feature-length films a year, to help create additional jobs and revenue in Bonner County.”

To learn more about Matlosz, Burden of the Wolf and the Idaho Film Company, visit theidahofilmcompany.com/in-development.

Live Piano w/ Peter Lucht

5-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery

Sandpoint Farmers’ Market

3-5:30pm @ Farmin Park

Live music w/ Matt Lome

ThursDAY, august 25

Rock Creek Alliance 25th anniversary party

5-8:30pm @ Trinity at City Beach (outside)

Live music by Headwaters, silent auction, rock skipping contest and legal update on the fight to stop Rock Creek Mine. rockcreekalliance.org

Cecil the Magician at the Library

5-6pm @ Sandpoint Library

Cecil Lewis presents “Magic Under the Sea” at the Library. A free and fun magic show for all ages.

August

Mostly Clean Comedy Night! hosted by Jody Carroll featuring Charles Hall Jr. and Ryan McComb Little Theater

Friday, August 19, 8:00 pm

tickets: $20 - advance / $25 - door (rated PG 13)

Timeless tales

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey Reader Staff

William Shakespeare may have meant it philosophically when he said “all the world’s a stage,” but Montana Shakespeare in the Parks has been living that reality for 50 years now, treating various public spaces as stages across the American West. That may not constitute the entire world, but it’s a start, and one that people of all ages and means have been fortunate to experience free of charge for five decades.

MSIP is an outreach program of Montana State University’s College of Arts and Architecture, and was “founded on the firm belief that Shakespeare belongs to everyone,” organizers state, adding that “the accomplished company of performers and staff work tirelessly to connect people, communities and the arts as they spread messages of unity and understanding.”

MSIP has made one thing clear: the works of Shakespeare, originally performed more than four centuries ago, remain timeless.

“This may sound a bit quirky, but when I attend one of his plays, I think of the history, [and] that I am having the same experi-

ence as those who first saw these plays over 400 years ago,” Dan Meulenberg, recently appointed coordinator of Sandpoint’s MSIP event, told the Reader MSIP will perform Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in Sandpoint on Saturday, Aug. 20 at 5 p.m. in Lakeview Park, located at 901 Ontario St. A local youth string orchestra will provide entertainment prior to the main show. Attendees are welcome to bring chairs, blankets and food to this free event.

Meulenberg said he has loved Shakespeare’s works since reading parts of Macbeth in fifth grade, and has been attending MSIP events in western Montana and North Idaho since 1999. He said he was seeking a new volunteer venture last summer when the prior Sandpoint organizer announced their retirement.

“I could hardly believe my good fortune at this potential opportunity,” Meulenberg said.

“I consider it a privilege to be able to help in some small way to bring live Shakespeare to Sandpoint.”

Meulenberg said that despite the centuries that have passed since Shakespeare originally wrote his works, his comedies are “absolutely hilarious,” featuring

The 50th annual Montana Shakespeare in the Parks tour will visit Sandpoint Aug. 20

“certain scenes and certain characters and dialogue that will stick with you forever” and which seem “astonishingly contemporary.”

“Shakespeare has a gift for character development. He makes you care about the characters, both heroes and villains,” he added, noting that Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, which MSIP will perform in Lakeview Park this coming weekend, includes “mistaken identities, a woman who finds herself shipwrecked in a foreign land and who dresses as a man for personal safety reasons, star-crossed lovers,” and more.

“Through all of this, Shakespeare teaches lessons and also forces us to ask questions about love and romance, as well as family relationships,” Meulenberg said.

Sandpoint is just one stop on

an expansive 50th anniversary tour for MSIP, which will take the troupe’s thespians and support staff across nearly 7,000 miles to perform in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington, always bringing their talents to parks and other public spaces in the name of providing accessible, family-friendly entertainment to rural communities.

“You can bring your own food and make it a picnic,” Meulenberg said, also noting that “it’s a chance to bump into friends that you may not have had a chance

to spend time with during the summer.”

“As an author and playwright, Shakespeare is considered without equal in Western literature,” he added, “and here is a chance to see one of his plays performed on a beautiful summer evening in a beautiful setting.”

Learn more about Montana Shakespeare in the Parks at shakespeareintheparks.org.

Mostly Clean Comedy Night brings PG-13 laughs to the Panida Theater

By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff

It’s a well known fact that “clean” comedy is much harder to do than dipping into the raunch. Real life may well be R-rated (at best), but it takes real skill to translate the human experience into something relatable, hilarious and relatively free of obscenity. That’s the specialty of a trio of comics set to appear Friday, Aug. 19 at the Panida Theater.

Hosted by Jody Carroll, the Mostly Clean Comedy Night features Charles Hall, Jr. and Ryan McComb. Carroll is a well known Priest River-based TikTokker with nearly 1 million likes and 96,000 fans, with her most famous online rou-

tine focused on a deadpan parody HGTV-style tour of her cluttered home entryway. Her quips on Twitter include zingers like, “Overheard in North Idaho: If you don’t like the weather ’round here, just wait a few minutes. It won’t change, but the hooch’ll kick in”; “A man who doesn’t replace his car before 450 million miles and can’t throw away any shoes is annoying. But he will never divorce you”; and, “We are empty nesters. Yep. Our four kids are at the age where they move out of the house. And it’s been really sad. Because they didn’t.”

See her in action on TikTok (@ jodycarrollcomedy), Instagram (jodycarrollcomedy), YouTube and on Twitter (@jodyccomedy). Comedy fans might recognize Hall from his last appearance

in Sandpoint, in June, as part of the “Lost in Idaho” show, which included both local and regional performers.

Hall is certainly both “local and regional” — and even “national” — starting his career in 2019 in Seattle and quickly going on to open a number of stand-ups while headlining and featuring in comedy shows around the country.

Now based in Spokane, he was voted one of the Lilac City’s funniest comedians, with his routine focused on quirky observations about everyday life and what it’s like to be a dad.

With 60,000 followers on social media and more than 2 million likes, Hall can safely be described as “a rising star.” Find more about his act at facebook.

com/Mrchuckhall.

Fellow Spokane comic Ryan McComb is a big name in his hometown, regularly hosting and, last year, headlining at the Spokane Comedy Club and drawing a lot of ink from local newspapers like the Spokesman-Review and Inlander for his presence on the standup scene — which includes winning the 2018 Valleyfest Clean Comedy Cup.

He might be considered a “Spokane comic” for now, but that’s going to change soon, as he announced at the end of July that he’ll be pulling up stakes and taking his routine to Nashville.

McComb has already performed at clubs across the country, bringing his storytelling prowess to audiences as far afield as Bos-

ton. His sets are full of narrative gems, peppered with incisive, self-deprecating regional references. Catching him at the Panida for the Mostly Clean Comedy Night will be a rare opportunity to see this up-and-comer before he packs his bags for bigger things. Check out his act on his YouTube channel, and learn more at facebook. com/RyanMcCombComedy.

The Mostly Clean Comedy Night is set for 8 p.m. on Friday, with doors open 30 minutes before the show. Tickets are $20 in advance at panida.org and $25 at the door, which is located at 300 N. First Ave. in downtown Sandpoint. As its name suggests, the event is rated PG-13. For more info, call the Panida Theater at 208-2639191 or visit panida.org.

FOOD & DRINK

‘The excellent fruit’

Three summertime pineapple drinks, with a little history for garnish

By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff

Few fruits can claim such iconic status as the pineapple. Cultivated for centuries — maybe millenia — by the peoples of South and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, it is indigenous to the lands surrounding the Paraguay and Paraná rivers, which today encompass Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Even with its ready availability to the civilizations of the Americas, they treasured it, with the Caribs calling it nana, which roughly translates to “excellent fruit,” and provides the root of its scientific name, Ananas comosus. Throughout the regions where it was grown, people ate it, used it for medicinal purposes, employed its fibers to make clothing and strings for their bows, and fermented it for strong drink.

As with so much in the socalled “New World,” the pineapple captured Europeans’ imaginations immediately upon encountering it. Christopher Columbus in 1493 noted the fruit’s passing resemblance to a pine cone and dubbed it piña de Indes — “little pine of the Indians” — going on to rave that it was “the most delicious fruit in the world.” Subsequent Spanish chroniclers wrote that it was worthy to be eaten by kings and called it “the prince of all fruits,” according to the Smithsonian.

So enamored of the pineapple were Europeans, that they immediately tried to figure out ways to grow it back home — with little success. The fruit therefore remained a rarity outside its native growing climates for hundreds of years, and as the system of slavery extended its malevolent grip on the Americas, it became emblematic of the riches and luxury that flowed to those who benefited from the trade in human beings.

According to many sources, a single pineapple could cost the equivalent today of $8,000 in the northern colonies of British-Amer-

ica, making the pineapple an early status symbol. The lavish tables of the aristocracy were covered in all manner of delicacies plundered from the slave islands of the Caribbean, but the pineapple was perched on top — not to be eaten, but to be admired by guests as a reminder of the wealth and power of their host. If the grandee wasn’t quite as grand as they wished to appear, they could rent a pineapple for the night, displaying it at the table and sometimes mingling with it under their arm — sort of like a designer purse dog, today.

The richest colonials commissioned paintings of pineapples to be hung in their homes, they had pineapples carved into the ornate legs of their furniture and Earl John Murray of Dunmore — the last British governor of Virginia — even had the roof of his vacation house in Williamsburg topped with an enormous stone-carved pineapple.

According to the official records of George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, the first

president of the United States was particularly smitten by the fruit, writing that “none pleases my taste as do’s the Pine.” The famously rich Virginia slave owner underscored his wealth by prevailing on the ship captains who supplied his plantation with goods from the Caribbean to come back with as many as three dozen or so of the outrageously expensive treats at a time.

Given that long, and often unsettling, history, it’s ironic that the pineapple is today considered a little cliche — and certainly no luxury. The bigwigs of early America might have shelled out $8,000 in today’s money for one of these juicy fruits, but I picked one up for $4.98 (before tax) the other day at Super 1. It was with that that I decided to mix up a couple of pineapple-based summertime rum drinks (rum, of course, being the other notorious export of the Caribbean), because I agree with the Caribs that it is the “excellent fruit.”

Planter’s punch Pineapple and basil Piña colada

•2 oz. dark rum

•2 oz. grapefruit juice

•2 tbsp. pineapple juice

•2 tbsp. fresh lime juice

•1 tbsp. simple syrup

•2 tbsp. club soda

•1 pineapple spear for garnish

Combine the rum, juices and simple syrup in a shaker filled 2/3 with ice, shake, and pour over ice in a tall glass.

Top with club soda and stir, then drop in the pineapple spear. There are a lot of planter’s punch recipes out there — my Old Mr. Boston bartenders guides from the 1930s and ’40s call for the addition of things like bitters, orange, curacao and cherries — but I landed on this utilitarian one from my Williams-Sonoma bar book.

As much as it aggrieved me to drink anything with “planter” in the name, I have to admit this one is the winner. It tastes clean and crisp, with the rum shining through. I must admit, I ignored the simple syrup, as pineapple is plenty sweet as it is, which allowed the grapefruit to mingle with the club soda and offer it a refreshing brightness.

•2 oz. light rum

•3-4 sprigs of fresh basil

•2 lime rounds

•6 oz. pineapple juice

•Basil for garnish

Put the rum, basil sprigs and lime rounds into a shaker and muddle well, then let sit for about 1 minute. Strain the mixture into a tumbler over ice, stir and garnish with more basil. Easy. I found this recipe on thetoastedpinenut.com, and was not disappointed. The basil both lightens the sugar notes of the pineapple and softens the bite of the lime. A whiff from the garnish as the drink is going down was a pleasant surprise, adding a bit of fresh garden scent to the whole production. If you want to get more creative, I added a bit of seltzer and a few drops of grapefruit, essentially creating a basil planter’s punch, which was pretty darn successful.

•2 oz. light rum

•6 oz. pineapple juice

•2 oz. coconut cream

•1 pineapple spear for garnish

Put all the ingredients into a shaker 2/3 full of ice, shake and strain into a fancy icefilled glass. Then add the garnish. That’s the “official” method, but I figured I’d try out a pre-mix just for fun. I picked a 15.2 oz. bottle of Naked brand piña colada mix, which features pineapple, apple, orange and lemon juice, along with coconut milk and banana puree. It didn’t pan out too well. The banana made things feel a little mushy, and with 50 grams of sugar per serving, its cloying sweetness masked both the rum and coconut. Best to go the extra mile and make your own mix.

MUSIC

The wedding singer

Weddings aren’t your cup of tea? Try playing music at one

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

I’ve played music at some interesting places in the dozen years I’ve been in a band. Once I played atop the freezers in Winter Ridge, my head just feet from the roof of the store. As people searched for their favorite yogurts and dips, they’d occasionally look up and flinch at the unexpected sight of a bearded idiot in flip-flops with a guitar in his hands.

Another time on tour, we played a bistro in Oregon where every television set was tuned to an apparently important basketball game. Not one customer paid any attention to us or our music, except for brief annoyed looks during loud commercial breaks.

In what might be my most embarrassing gig to date, I actually played at my 20th high school reunion. Talk about lame. We don’t mention that gig in our family.

Then there are weddings. For those who know me well, it’s no secret that I sort of loathe attending weddings. There’s something I dislike about the forced togetherness, the awkward interactions with people you half-know and the potential to rely too much on Dutch courage and make a fool of yourself.

Once or twice a year, my band gets asked to play a wedding, which we both love and hate at the same time. I enjoy playing wed-

dings because they pay well, most people are in a good mood and you can trot out some guilty pleasure covers you wouldn’t normally play at the bars or venues.

“Paid practice,” one of us will say, which is funny because we don’t even practice anymore.

On the other hand, weddings are usually long, hot and a ton of pressure. The bride and groom have probably spent the past six months planning this event, and also likely have imagined the day for years prior. Everyone has this vision of the perfect wedding, as if that has some sway over the success of the relationship. It doesn’t.

Some of my favorite weddings have been ones where it rained buckets, or an uncle got so drunk he fell flat on his face during the reception. Our editor Zach Hagadone’s wedding was held at the Sandpoint City Beach, and right in the midst of his vows to Danielle, a gaggle of geese waddled right through the middle of the ceremony and honked so loudly he had to stand there and wait for them to pass. Wedding or not, geese don’t take any guff.

The perfect wedding just doesn’t exist. Even if it did, I still wouldn’t want to attend it.

That being said, I just played a wedding up in Moyie Springs a couple weeks ago that turned out to be one of our favorites. It was hosted at Ronnigers Organic Farm — along with being cool people,

Led by the blazing vocals of frontwoman Jacque Jolene, the Copper Mountain Band has been making a name for itself across the country and abroad for 15 years, playing country and classic rock with contagious passion.

CMB will rock the Bonner County Fair on Thursday, Aug. 18 as the five-piece headlines the fair’s annual Summer Nights show. From originals to covers, CMB plays the perfect tunes to accompany a beloved local event

Simon and Marqui Ronniger are vendors at the Sandpoint Farmers’ Market — and was small, fun and unpretentious. We played on a simple stage of pallets and plywood built by the groom himself, ate a fantastic farm-to-table dinner from Cory and Molly at Local 41 Farms and finished our gig in time to put away the gear and drink in earnest with the wedding party. We ended up howling at the moon all night and sleeping in our hammocks on the farm before making the long drive home to recover.

Last year our friends Taran and Kara were married at Beyond Hope Resort and we spent the night dancing with silent disco headsets and slept on our sailboat. Recently our friends Kyle and Katelyn had a fun outdoor wedding and party that reminded me of old times.

Weddings that fun and seamless are far from usual, though. There are the horror stories, too. Once, we played a wedding outside of Seattle where the bride’s dad got so drunk he fell onto the stage and crashed into the drum set. Then the bride demanded we play a specific Journey song and I had to take a set break to learn it before returning to play it badly.

Another wedding took place at Forty One South, but the bride and groom obviously hadn’t thought through their choice of wedding music, because all they wanted to

hear was shitkicker country and that’s not our bag.

The most difficult part of playing any wedding — aside from the heat, the duration and the crushing temptation to drink away the awkwardness — is fielding requests from the crowd. We’re not really a “take requests” kind of band, but we can usually land on something close from our 300+ song catalog. But I always feel bad when turning down a request for a song I probably should know if I’m playing weddings.

The bottom line is that no band really enjoys playing a wedding. It’s a subtle reminder that you never really made it as a musician. You’re often treated as the help and shuttled off to a table directly in the hot sun to eat a quick meal between sets. Instead of a two- or three-hour set like we play at local venues, wedding parties often want you to play during the ceremony, dinner and later through the reception. It can turn into upwards of five hours of continuous music. That’s a long time to be doing anything, let alone standing in one place and yelling into a microphone.

With wedding season still going strong, chances are you might have a couple more events before winter blows in and puts a stop to this madness for another year.

After playing one and attending four this year, I’m ready for it. See you in the nuptial trenches.

A snapshot of notable live music coming up in Sandpoint

18 Musha Marimba, Farmin Park, Aug. 20

like the fair. Organizers have coined the show “a concert in the dirt” — where world-class talent and down-home fun collide. Presale tickets are sold out, but some tickets will be available at the gates the night of the show.

— Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey

7:30-10 p.m., $12 for adult tickets, $10 for youth tickets. Bonner County Fairgrounds, 4203 N. Boyer Rd. in Sandpoint. Listen at coppermountainband.com.

Music across genres can be considered uplifting. Among those is a genre with soundscapes so unique and positive that it might just be impossible to keep yourself from dancing. That genre is marimba music.

Spokane group Musha Marimba will bring the delightful sounds of their deep-toned xylophones — as well as drums and other instrumentation — to the Sandpoint Farmers’ Market on Aug. 20, sharing music from Zimbabwe and other parts of southern Africa.

This week’s RLW by Zach Hagadone

In the September edition of The Atlantic is a piece of writing by Cynthia Ozick — a 94-year-old author and winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award — that will floor you. The piece, titled “The Wedding Present,” tells the story of when she, as a young Jewish woman in New York, carried on a correspondence with a former German soldier in the years immediately after World War II. It’s a story about culpability, language, culture, history and so much more that you’ll just have to read it yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

LISTEN

Technically this could be a “Watch,” but it’s of vital importance that folks also “Listen” to the Sandpoint City Council’s presentation on the proposed Fiscal Year 2023 budget. Yeah, that doesn’t sound too riveting, but, believe me, there’s a lot that you’re going to want to hear about. If you didn’t make it to the Aug. 17 meeting, find it on the city of Sandpoint’s YouTube channel.

WATCH

The Aug. 20 farmers’ market also serves as Kids’ Day, where the community’s youngest artisans are invited to sell their wares. Make a day of it and experience the magic that happens when art in all forms — and created by all ages — takes center stage at Farmin Park.

— Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey

10 a.m.-1 p.m., FREE. Farmin Park, Third Avenue and Main Street in Sandpoint.

Neil Gaiman’s epic graphic novel The Sandman has finally been adapted to the screen, with a 10-episode season released Aug. 5 on Netflix. The Sandman focuses on Dream, who is the immortal ruler of sleep. Imprisoned by an occultist for more than a century, Dream’s kingdom falls apart with dire consequences for humanity’s collective unconscious. The series follows Dream on his quest to rebuild amid fantastical settings and characters drawing on all the sweep of Gaiman’s imagination. It can drag a little, though, so don’t feel too bad if you occasionally feel like dozing off.

From Pend Oreille Review, August 22, 1922

WHITE MILL WIPED OUT BY FIRE!

$700,000 LOSS FOLLOWS FIRE AT LACLEDE LAST NIGHT - CONFLAGRATION WORST IN HISTORY OF BONNER COUNTY

Fire, starting in the planing shed of the A.C. White Lumber company’s plant at Laclede at 8 o’clock last night, in a few hours wiped out all units of the plant and entirely destroyed both the main yards and the lath yards. The loss totals approximately $700,000 [equals $12 million in today’s money), according to E.R. McCorey, assistant general manager, who last night stated that the main yards contained 17,000,000 feet of manufactured western white pine of the finest grade, worth approximately $400,000 and that the loss to the plant would be in the neighborhood of $300,000. He stated that insurance to the extent of about $400,000 was carried in 40 or 50 different companies. The White company would operate, he said, with the probability that the plant at Laclede will be rebuilt.

Other builds destroyed include the home of W.J. Hodge and the company house occupied by Thomas Vandervort, the boarding house and the bunkhouse. The company store, a bulwark to the residence section, was saved only after hours of Herculean effort. The fire was the worst single conflagration in the history of Bonner county.

BACK OF THE BOOK River daze

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

Every once in a while, as life stacks up a bit too high, the river calls. I dream of long days in the canoe, drifting along with the current, seeing where the water leads.

This time the waters were the Flathead River in Montana. We formed a crew of miscreants and gathered at the Buffalo Bridge below a set of Class 3 rapids. From Buffalo Bridge to Sloane Bridge is 20 river miles of untrampled, wild and wooly terrain. Hardscrabble sage brush tundras give way to cliffs of glacial lake deposits that rise 100 feet into the air, their spires and carved channels weathered from centuries of rain and wind. At times it seems as if you could be paddling down a river on Mars if not for the occasional cow lowing along the riverbank.

The Flathead is a quick, clear river. The multicolored rocks fly beneath, sometimes quite close if the water is low. It’s navigable in the thick of summer, mostly with meandering stretches of fast current with some Class 1 wave trains and very brief Class 2 sections that most experienced paddlers can handle with only a few splashes over the gunwale. Overloaded for a four-day float in the hottest part of August though, we took more than a splash in a few sections. We took buckets. Have no fear — I cut open a Miller High Life can to bail the boat.

We found camp a couple hours downriver: a nice sandy beach with some shade away from the river, where we hung hammocks and pitched tents.

Day one is always hard. You get up early to load the truck, strap down the canoe and water the garden before the 9 a.m. departure. Rendezvous with the crew — who will remain nameless to protect the innocent — then a three-hour drive to St. Ignatius, where we received a gut punch when purchasing permits from the Flathead

STR8TS Solution

Reservation. When Cadie and I floated this river before, we both paid $40 apiece for the access and camping permit. This time the price had suddenly jumped to $180 each. To float a river. A 450% increase in price. We all swallowed hard and swiped our cards, pledging to immediately forget money, for what good will it do us on the river?

As the evening settled in, a freak thunderstorm roared downriver, upsetting our shade shelters and sending us all scuttling for cover while it passed. Afterward, the sky turned an electric shade of orange and a double rainbow formed, stretching from one side of our view to the other. We stood in awe and watched it slowly fade into dusk. We then laid under the stars and watched meteors streak across the sky. A full moon rose over the bluffs to cap off the 16-hour day of sweat and toil.

Day two began as any proper day on the river should: slowly. There is no hurry, no need to get a move on. We ate our morning meals, floated around in the eddy by our camp, played guitar under the battered shade shelter as the sun climbed higher into the sky. Eventually we struck camp, packed the boats like seasoned veterans and floated another couple hours downriver to a spot that sat across from three prominent cliffs which caught the evening sun. A manicured section of grassy tundra opened to a rocky beach, with only a few dozen cow pies to hop over while navigating camp.

We stayed there two nights, hiking up the bluff to look down on our camp, swimming the rapids in our life jackets and not giving a damn about anything except what the day presented us.

These are precious days on the river. Days when you shut down all your devices and let the spinning world relinquish its hold on you. The important stuff is all present, right in front of your face. You choose which current to take. You dig for the iciest beer in the cooler. You cook your gourmet campfire

Sudoku Solution

meal to perfection. You emerge on the other side sunburnt, covered in bug bites, scratching at poison oak, reeking of warm beer and sweat, but smiling like a complete loon because there’s no drug, no pill, no sermon or self-help book that can make you feel as complete a human being as you do when you finish a multi-day river trip.

Maybe it’s reaching back to our former selves, letting that primal beast out to howl. Maybe it’s the ever-growing claustrophobia we feel in this world growing increasingly more absurd. Whatever the reason, I’m glad it’s there, because it forces us to seek the river and find our own answers — not rely on the platitudes and lies spewed by politicians and self-promoters. We seek the river not merely to escape the crushing insanity, but to find better ways to fend it off, or perhaps to discover a more meaningful way to live in balance with the natural world which gives us so much.

Our daily struggles are but distant noise to the river. It cares not for your opinions, your dreams, your flaws. It treats you as any other piece of flotsam on its back. It washes you downstream where maybe, just maybe, you’ll come out a little cleaner on the other side.

Crossword Solution

Instead of having “answers” on a math test, they should just call them “impressions,” and if you got a different “impression,” so what, can’t we all be brothers?

Laughing Matter

By Bill Borders

CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1.Couples

6.Pilfer

11.Legislate

12.Starchy food

15.Grow older

16.Senior army officers

17.Employ

18.Offense

20.Not bottom

21.Stars

23.Luxury car

24.Therefore

25.Coastal raptor

26.Needles

27.Open to all

28.College bigwig

29.Additionally

30.Music groups

31.Toward the center of a ship

34.Group of eight

36.Make lace

37.Angers

Solution

54.Containing salt

56.A form of pool

57.Go-between

58.Destitute

59.Chain of hills

Word Week of the

to foretell or predict.

“We’re looking for a new business studio where our mother Cleo can vaticinate for her clients in peace.”

Corrections: No life-changing mistakes to correct this week. Not even any minor ones, either. Here’s hoping your own mistakes flutter by without anyone noticing. That’s bliss for a newspaperman. —BO

41.Front part of a vessel

42.Brick boxes

43.Advanced

44.Arouse

45.Musical phrase

46.Bristle

47.Ambition

48.Frankness

51.Lower limb

52.Bulletin board

messages

DOWN

1.A bar in music

2.Aerial

3.Letter after sigma

4.Beige

5.Flower stalk

6.Water vapors

7.Ballroom dance

8.Type of sword

9.What we breathe

10.Despised

13.Water droplets aloft

14.Cobras

15.Pondered

16.Grinding wheels

19.Unable to see

22.Legislator

24.Things in your throat

26.Discharged a debt

27.Type of hat

30.Morsels

32.Big mouth

33.Hell

34.Choice

35.Red

38.Staggering

39.Rapprochement

40.Phase

42.Famished

44.Exhausts

45.In shape

48.Trek

49.Russian emperor

50.Directional antenna

53.Foot digit

55.Light Emitting Diode

The Food pantry needs the following items:

•Pasta sauce

• Pasta (wholewheat)

•Chili/ stew

•Canned vegetables

•Canned tuna/chicken

•Soups

•Cereal (hot/cold)

•Peanut butter

• Waffle/pancake mixes

• Cake mixes

• Condiments (ketchup/mayo)

•Jelly

•Seasonings (salt/pepper)

•Seasoning packets

Perishable Items:

•Eggs

•Milk

•Butter

•Sliced bread

• Vegetables/fruit from your gardens ortrees