At Home in Sandpoint (Early August 2009)
There are now two long bridges (two miles long) that span the water and delineate the end of the lake and the beginning of the river. Dover and its distinctive bluff are to the west at the narrowing of the river. To the right is Gold hill which rises to comfortable height now studded with high-end houses—some over a million. As you cross the lake, the train trestle pops out from the shore and races with you to the north where it and highway 95 will come together, nearly. Filling the gap is (or was) the locals’ beach, Dog Beach, where we would peddle our bikes out to everyday in the summer when we were young. Now it seems to be the dump yard for equipment and materials for the new bi-pass.
This exasperating monstrosity is the culmination of 30 or more years of feuding and bickering between the town of Sandpoint, who needs to get the bumper to bumper traffic out of downtown, and the state who could careless what the dam thing looks like and wants an unrestricted route to Canada. Then there are the environmental liberals who didn’t want the aesthetic beauty of the Sand Creek to be disturbed and the conservative work-a-day locals who just want the traffic out of the downtown.
Then there are the tourists who come through, in a moving gridlock, with no place to park, who just keep driving north—hoping things will get better some day. Now what the folks of Sandpoint have is a mess. A cheaply thought-out, ‘get-err-done’, eye-soar that cuts the town off from the city beach and will forever destroy the peaceful bucolic serenity of this once gem of north Idaho.
The debate raged has on for decades about how best to handle Sandpoint’s’ problem, and it tore bitter gaps in friendships and families. I know, the debate has raged through the Jones house forever and, if we had let a word slip here or voice and opinion there, both my dad and my older brother would rant and pontificate on the tree hungers and environmentalists, from ‘somewhere else’, and there stupid liberal ideas about what is best for our town. Never once stopping to figure out why Sandpoint is such a coveted place to live, and why tearing up habitat and building concrete road ways above the creek, with traffic roaring along a 45 MPH—including semis, would screw up the ‘good thing’ we all have here.
Sigh. Well I don’t live here and only visit one week a year since my mom died so I can’t worry about it. Marianne always has the same opinion about the Point. It’s just another small town—nothing special. She knows it’s different for me and my brothers because we grew up there. Sandpoint’s appeal is where it is. This cozy little community on the north edge of a huge fresh water lake with more scenic beauty than anyone but God could have crammed into a small space. The mountains, the wildlife, the air, and the active, artsy lifestyle make it a real treasure.
Sad that the pour economy has always hit this part of the country the hardest. Each new recession and depression batters the life out of this place. Once, this area was a huge with logging. There dozens of lumber mills and plenty of jobs. Now there might be one mill still operating. Changing the economy to tourism helped some, but if you were a farmer or lumberman you couldn’t make a living for your family. That is why so many young people flock away from Sandpoint and seek a future in a more stable place. Out the of the four sons my parents had, two left and pursued careers, two stayed and eek out an existence made tolerable by the all the natural resources the area offers.
We are here for the first family reunion of the Jones family. Since all our respective parents have passed, it was finally left to the ‘cousins’ to get it together and celebrate the ‘family’. For the past 20 or so years, the only times we get together are when we lose a mother, father, aunt or uncle. There are three branches of the Jones family that originated in Twin Falls, Idaho. Our grandparents, Thomas Edgar and Julia Denise had three girls and two boys. In order they were Catherine, Margaret, Thomas, Robert, and the baby, Patricia (Pat please!) Catherine married Johnny Gentry in the late 1940’s and had three girls—Kathy, Karen, and Vicki. Margaret married Verlon ‘Budge’—a merchant marine, and had Johnny T., Julia, Jim, and Robert.
My Father, Charles Robert (Bob or “CR”) married Elizabeth Ann Carpenter originally from New York City, June 4th, 1953 in Phoenix Arizona, where she was working as a high school English teacher, and he was working in the family business of his sister’s, Margaret, husband, Budge’s citrus distributing company. They meet in a dance hall—a social club and he loved to dance with her. She had the best “ass” he would always reminisce. They had four boys, Thomas, the eldest, David and Douglas, the twins, and Matthew the “oops” now the doctor.
The reunion was a great success. Our first night was dinner at the local, trendy, Mexican restaurant—Jalapeños. Doug and Jim staged the main event—the BBQ—in their backyard. Party central was at the Edgewater, where Matt and Jody’s room was open to all to party and talk. The clan hadn’t been together since my Aunt Pat had past in January of 2007, and right before that—November of 2006 when our mother passed.
I won’t bore you with the details, but it was a great time to get reacquainted with cousins, new wives, and grandchildren. My niece, Lindsay and her three year-old son, Silas, took the “cutest couple award. There were lots of promises made and invites extended, but none have ever been ‘fulfilled’ because of how involved our separate lives are going. I just have to step back and say “Who are all these old people?” Then I look in the mirror and see the balding, white-chinned man and say “Oh, yeah, me too”.
The high-light of the evening was hearing my older brother tell ‘mother stories’ that basically embarrassed everyone else. Oh, and our dog Phoebe ‘caught her first air’ that evening. The mosquitoes were very bad that year and since the party was in my brother’s backyard, people were constantly slapping at the pests. While standing around and talking to a cousin or five, Jody ‘involuntarily’ kicked at what she thought was a bug touching her leg. The next thing we knew, after a ‘high-pitched’ yelp, the small dog was sailing through the air. Jody had accidentally ‘punted’ the Silky a good four or five feet thinking the dog’s ‘nuzzling’ was a bug attack. The dog was not hurt, but to this day if you lift your leg suddenly near her (or even five feet away) she will let out that ear-splitting yowl.
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