HELP! I’VE FALLEN IN (love with) TUSCANY AND I CAN’T GET UP

Back In Spokane (2^nd  Week of August 2009)

     We made it back to Spokane that Friday with time to spare.  The trip was long, with lots of construction and non-construction.  Why does the highway department put out traffic cones for mile after mile, forcing a four-lane highway down to two lanes for 15 miles—with no construction?  There must be a reason for that, but it escapes me.

     Spokane was threatening rain, and even though I wanted to go out to the valley mall to look for travel shoes, I opted for a late afternoon ‘snuggle’ with Marianne before Matt and Jody got home.  Plans for that night included Christie and Paul and going down the hill into the city for a modest night of fun.  After a pre-function, all six of us piled into the Cadillac and rolled down into the town.  Now downtown Spokane never ceases to amaze me.  Back in the 70’s when I lived in northern Idaho; Spokane was the place to go.  A little over seventy miles from Sandpoint, we could always take the family truck or car.  We saw a lot of concerts and did some shopping in downtown, but before the World’s Fair 1974, town was an iffy place at best.  There were a few streets with shops etc., but quite a bit of it was rundown and questionable.  After the fair, things got cleaned up and early ‘gentrification’ started to take place.  The opera house was built and really classed up the neighborhood.

     Today, with the multiple story mall, all the stores and restaurants, Spokane is happening.   Jody always knows of the best places to eat and shop.  And of course we always have to go to the mall, ascend the multiple escalators to the Cineplex on the 6^th floor above the mall. 

     That night we headed for the Steelhead Diner, and later the Marquee, where Jody’s long-time friend and lawyer, Art, was performing with his garage cover-band.  We barreled down the hill and into the city, laughing and joking about my driving or anything that passed by.  Once in town we had to maneuver around the blocks near where Jody’s firm has their offices.  As we were preparing to take a right, a woman in an SUV was trying to parallel park ahead of us.  I slowed to give her room.  Her back in approach was going to assure her of going over the curb and messing up the attempt. 

     My brother suddenly blurred out, “She’s really going to fuck that up.”

     I signaled go get into the left lane and go around her, adding, “Yes, she really is.”

     As we passed her, Matt yelled out, it’s Linda, Art’s wife!”  The entire car howled with laughter like school kids at the situation.  Out of all the people who’d you expect to see, it was Linda--a dear sweet woman, retired teacher, trying to park to get to the bar to see her husband play.

     After we parked and took a quick look at the swanky lobby where Jody’s office was located, we rushed down the block, Matt and Paul running head to get a table at the Steelhead, and the girls and I to see what was happening at the Marquee, and try to reserve a table.  Now, the Marquee is a pretty nice upscale bar—black interior, with a very small stage and dance floor.  The tables are all counter height with bar stools.  The bar is long and contemporary.  The back-bar has an eight shelf high display of all the high-end liquor they service--back-lit, translucent glass--very up-town and cosmopolitan. 

     I was having trouble getting my bearings after we parked and started out for the Steelhead.  I saw Macey’s and realized where we were.  As we headed up the street, I see Riverfront park ahead.  The Steelhead is in a brick building, that as soon as Matt told me, I realized was the old Taco Time.  The interior is great.  It is two stories of exposed brick with a great bar and a steel balcony structure above it.  The room was alive with a hundred people all off-work, ready for a Friday night.  Paul and Matt had found a table near the bar and the six of us saddled our bar stools and added our yanking voices to the high volume crowd. 

     The bar guy-waiter came over and immediately Jody, said “Richard how are you doing tonight?”  She questioned him further.  “Do you watch “Lost”?”  The guy looked at her with a “boy have I heard this before look”.  Jody thought he was a ‘dead-ringer’ for an actor on the TV show “Lost” which neither I or Marianne has ever seen, but apparently everyone else at the table, and the waiter, has.  We ordered drinks and dinner and found out the guys name was Brian.  With six vivacious people talking at the same time, he seemed to handle the situation well. 

     No sooner had the waiter left when a couple walked up to the table and laughter and fast talking erupted again.  The woman was Meagan Cossa’s sister.  We have known Sam and Meagan for years, ever since Matt and Jody’s wedding when we stayed in their basement (on his old water bed) when we came up for Matt and Jody’s wedding in 1987. 

     The couple said that they were meeting Sam and Meagan for dinner there and then heading over to the Marquee to hear the band.   Not five minutes later, the Cossa’s did show up and the table erupted was again into high-end volume.  Now Sam is a judge in Spokane and Meagan was a school teacher until she decided to stop to take care of their son, Joey, full-time.  Suddenly I remembered that the two of them had been to Italy just recently.  In fact, Jody told us after they left that they have been twice, once with the kids, and once without!  They stayed in convents and had a great time.  I made a mental note to seek out Meagan later that evening and talk to her about their travels.

     The food was excellent.  We paid the bill and headed back over to the Marquee.  It was packed.  The band had started and the bar was insanely loud and raucous.  I had to stand, but Linda had saved a few stools for us.  I could barely see the band through the crowd.  They were really whaling and their fans loved it.  After Jody got us a beer, Kokanee--what else, we rocked out to great mix of Beatles and late 60’s & 70’s music.

     The band took a break after an hour of playing, and of course, Art came over to be with our table, to ‘bask’ in the glory of this ’fans’.  Marianne and my ears were ringing and we couldn’t hear hardly any of the conversation frenzy.  Suddenly as if on cue Jody tells Meagan that we are planning to go to Italy.  Meagan bolts around the table, practically running over to us, and erupts into a joy-filled conversation about their trips to Italy. 

     She is just ebullient with emotion as she tells us all there is to do, see, taste and expertise.  She loves the country, and of course, Sam, who speaks great Italian, is Italian, and on and on.  I loved her enthusiasm about everything she spoke of, including, driving, buses, the trains, and public transportation in general.  She began asking us about our plans and with each place we mentioned she became more ecstatic.  She loved Florence, and she knew of Siena, Cortona, Perugia and even Gubbio.  By now the band had started again and were we yelling over the rock and roll.  Our conversation escalated in volume and emotion. 

     She called over to her husband, “Sam!  David and Marianne are going to Italy next June!”  She called him over.

    We talked on together through the music, the whaling guitars and drums, finding out so much that we could never have read about or seen in a video.  Number one, get good walking shoes, you will be doing a lot of walking--on cobblestone and pavers.  Marianne had already started thinking about getting a special cane with a foldout seat; in case she needed to stop and rest while I obsessively—compulsively move on to see one more church, or one more hidden treasure.  Meagan and Sam kept talking.

     “We didn’t want to check baggage, but getting a suit case over there to put souvenirs in and checking that back through was a smart idea.  Oh, and Rick Steves’ books are absolutely essential.  Everything he says in true.  If the book says you are standing in such and such a place, and your turn 90 degrees to your right this will be there—and it will be!” 

     Suddenly we were talking about their escapades in convents and we all laughed when we referred to Matt and Jody’s ‘sex-capades’ in the ‘Chunnel’ between England and France.  Suddenly, at the same time, Marianne and I started wishing that Sam and Meagan were going to Italy with us. 

     “Assisi, of course, did it for me,’ said Meagan.  “Being Catholic, it really brought it all home for me.  What a spiritual place: The Church of Saint Clare, the Duomo of Saint Francis, all of that wonderful history and heritage right there.  We were able to see the crucifix that spoke to Francis and sit in on a mass.  The priest did the whole thing for the Sisters of St. Clare, and didn’t even look at us, it was all about them. We stayed in a convent and took in the whole place, including the hermitage.”

     Sam suddenly said when are you going?  We said mid-June.  Meagan said that he was helping a group of parents raise money for his son’s soccer team to go to Perugia in late-June, early July.  We told him we when were going to be there, but our dates didn’t sound like they would match-up.  I told Marianne later, that it would be so great to connect up with Sam while he was there.

   The conversation went on until the band was done and we all parted company, promising to get e-mail addresses and exchange information.  What a serendipitous chance meeting.  We were so glad we had the energy to stay up and endure the high-volume evening.  We got back to the car, jammed into it again, and headed up the south hill.  Halfway up the car started to over heat.  I couldn’t believe it--first, the coolant sensor and now this.  I wondered if we would make it through a 9 and a half hour trip the next day and get home.

  As with all travel, good and bad, there is the inevitable ‘car-trouble’ part of the trip.  I can’t count the times that we have had a car problem.  I remember once when I came up to Sandpoint in my new BMW (well, new to me) I lost the alternator southwest of Spokane and the car died on the highway; I had to be towed to Medical Lake.  Matt (pre-Jody), who had just moved back to Spokane, and started his practice, came to my rescue me.  It took two days and the fancy alternator wiped out what little money I had for the return trip.

     The next morning Jody was on the ‘job’ and trying to find a mechanic that could look at the Cadillac on a Saturday morning.  She found a Precision Tire shop over in the Valley that would take the care.  After two hours, they could find nothing wrong with the car.  We paid the man the money, said good buy to our ever-resourceful sister-in-law and headed off into the west—hoping we wouldn’t breakdown in the middle of nowhere.  Sure enough--nothing happened and the car performed with admirable aplomb.  As we headed back, avoiding crazy drivers in two states to the sound track of the Beatles “Rubber Soul”, U2 and French Caribbean music.  As we traveled, Marianne and I assessed our trip.  The reunion was successful, the family was still the same, and the best bed was Matt & Jody’s—the worst--Doug’s.  Sorry.  Two adults in a double bed for six nights is hard on ones back—and ones hips, and ones shoulders, and…

HELP! I’VE FALLEN IN (love with) TUSCANY AND I CAN’T GET UP

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 4^th, 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.