In Coeur d'Alene with Ed and Jake

Ed, Jake, and I graduated from Kellogg High School together in 1972. Jake is a Shoshone County Deputy Sheriff. Ed hauls logs. We went to Coeur d'Alene today to the Silver Lake Mall.

Ed and Jake went to Hickory Farms while I went to Verizon's store. After we reunited, Ed and Jake told me the following conversation occurred with one of the Hickory Farms salesgirls.

Ed had picked out a Hickory Farms variety pack. He was writing out a check to pay when Jake flashed his sheriff badge and said, gesturing at Ed, "We see a lot of this guy. Long history of bad checks."

Ed retorted, "Don't mind him. He got that badge off the Internet."

Salesgirl, "You know each other, don't you?"

Jake, "Well, yeah, he's in county jail about every weekend."

Ed, "Oh, now, son. Don't you think that's enough?Take my hand. Let's go get Ronnie a lollipop."

Ed takes Jake (Ron) by the hand and leads him away from Hickory Farms.

The salesgirl can't stop laughing.

***

We went to see Jake's dad Jack in the hospital. Jack had emergency colon cancer surgery last Wednesday. The tumor was found during a colonoscopy.

Jake, "Yeah, I went to see Dad yesterday and the ornery son of a bitch flipped me the bird."

Brief pause. "All I did was tell Mike Bencich that I don't know why Dad didn't find the tumor sooner on his own. He's always has his head up his ass. You'd think he would have seen it."

***

For a man in his seventies who'd just had cancer surgery, and, as Jake would say, as ugly as the old bastard is, Jack looked good today. He was lucid. He might go home tomorrow. He'll stay with Jake and his wife once he's out.

Jake's bedside manner will pull Jack through, if nothing else.

***

Speaking of Jack being in the hospital. Jack is good friends with the Shoshone County coroner and funeral home director.

Jack claims that everytime he sees his friend, he gets out a tape measurer and measures Jack for his casket.

"Fuck off you morbid son of a bitch," Jack tells him.

***

Here's my contention. You grow up and live in the Silver Valley when most days the sky was polluted with toxic emissions and on any day you could find out a friend or a relative was injured or killed in a mine, a plant, in the woods, or in the river, you develop a hard-earned gallows humor.

Not every one outside the Silver Valley gets it. It seems coarse and inappropriate, these jokes and comments.

It's the sort of outlook on life I long for when I'm not here and relish when I return.