The Week of Dad's Death: Sunday, May 26, 1996: The Stacks Fell

I don't know how often this has happened since 1996, but this week the dates and the days of the week are the same in the last week of May and on June 1 of  2013 as they were in 1996.

In other words, Dad died early in the afternoon on Saturday, June 1, 1996 and this year June 1 also falls on a Saturday.

It's not a profound thing, but for some reason I remember things that happened that week better when I think back to what happened on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and on through the week.

Sunday, May 26, 1996 was a historic day in the Silver Valley.  The four landmark emissions stacks, the the two old smelter ones and the two newer ones at the zinc plant and the smelter were demolished on May 26th.

We had a pretty clear view out our living room window of the smelter stacks falling.  Dad was still conscious enough on May 26th that he knew the stacks were coming down.

The question was whether he could get out of bed and either walk to the living room or be wheeled to the picture window to watch it happen.

He couldn't.

The best we could do was watch the stacks fall and I went into Dad's room and said, "They're down."

Dad couldn't speak by this time, but he nodded.

At the time, seventeen years ago, the talk around Kellogg and Silver Valley was that the demolition of the stacks would usher in a new Silver Valley economy, away from mining and smelting to tourism.

The hope was that investors would be more willing to pour money into the valley with the symbols of its contaminated past demolished.

I'll let others say for certain whether that happened.

When I visit Kellogg, I see signs that such a transformation started.  The Gondola Village got built.  There are new condos around town.  Nine holes of a projected eighteen hole golf course were completed on and near the old lead smelter.  I don't know if it will ever be completed.
Skiers come to Kellogg.  People bicycle there.

But, I see more signs of economic struggle than of success.  Businesses come and go uptown.  When I go uptown, not many people are out and about.  Streets around town seem to me to be cracking; there's a worn out look to much of the town.

Dave Smith Motors thrives and so many spots around town have become Dave Smith car lots.  At the corner of Division and Cameron, there's congestion with buzz cut Dave Smith salesmen escorting prospective car buyers to look at cars.  Much of Dave Smith's business happens online, meaning that many customers who buy cars there do not contribute to the economic well-being of Kellogg.

At home, just as the Silver Valley lost towering signs of days gone forever, we were losing the towering personality and presence of our father and my mom's husband.

I know that Dad's death on June 1st ushered in a new kind of life for our family.  We all love each other and have fun together and we help each other out as much as we can, and it's all good.

But, none of us have the huge personality our Dad had.  No one is the story teller he was.  If any of us have funny names for things or nicknames for people or make funny plays on words or have funny sayings, we are almost always copying Dad.

None of us has his gift for seizing the humor of the moment, finding just the right way to give someone a bad time, telling the funny story, or just plain making people laugh.

None of us is as sentimental either.

Dad loved Kellogg.  He loved all the guys he picked on, the terrible game of golf he and his buddies played, the names he came up with for people, the days he worked at the Bunker Hill and the endless stories that grew out of his work.  He loved raising his kids in Kellogg and loved to let people know what we were doing, and, when he went uptown for a few cold ones at Dick and Floyd's or to sit with his cronies for coffee at Dirty Ernie's, he loved us to join him.

And he was devoted to our mother, and she to him.

It's hard for me to gauge the full impact of the fall of the stacks, but not the death of Pert Woolum. 

My family and I feel the sadness of the empty spot left by his death every day.

We miss him.  A lot.

Postscript:  Sunday, May 26, 1996 was Patrick Hennessey's 12th birthday.  I hadn't met Patrick yet and only knew his mother, the Deke, casually.  Almost every day I think about how much I wish the Deke and Adrienne and Molly and Patrick could have known each other and how much I wish he could see the great grandchildren that have arrived.  Pert and the Deke would have been quite a pair.  Dad would have met the Deke and probably taken me aside and said, "Well, shithead, you finally did something right."  Then he would have laughed and given me a bone crushing hug.