1. For the third week in a row, Byrdman and I struck out into the verdant landscapes of North Idaho on a local road trip. Rather than heading north, like we did the last two weeks, we headed east and south. We drove on ID Highway 97 around Lake Coeur d'Alene, admiring the numerous vistas of the lake and local mountains, still snow capped, and eased on into Harrison, ID and made a stop at One Shot Charlie's. It's a bar that's been around for nearly seventy years. Today, One Shot Charlie's was very quiet. Byrdman and I took a stool at the bar for a single slow and relaxing beer and exchanged our expertise on topics ranging from the NBA in the 1970s to the current news.
2. We continued on ID Highway 97 to its junction with ID Highway 3 and swooped into St. Maries. While in Harrison, I texted American Legion baseball teammate, Jack Lunger, to see if he wanted to meet up with Byrdman and me. He responded in the affirmative and directed us to meet him at Joe's Bar in the heart of downtown St. Maries. I hadn't see Jack (Lunk) Lunger for over forty years and, upon our arrival, we discovered, to our surprise and delight, that Wallace High School grad, Dave Oakes, was at Joe's with Lunk. We settled in around a large, circular, padded card table just off the bar and spent an hour and a half or so swapping stories, getting caught up, and enjoying each other's company. I had never met Dave Oakes. I soon learned a lot about his athletic career and his many years of officiating basketball and I learned that he works for the same outfit as Ed, Buff, Jerry, and Scott, my Friday breakfast pals.
If I've learned anything since returning to live in Kellogg, it's that if I am going to get reacquainted with friends from back in the day, I need to go to where these old friends are and that I will meet people from those days that I didn't really know back then. I've enjoyed joining up with the Wallace Social Club on the Fridays I've met with them; I will go to Corby's in Post Falls and meet up with Stu, Lars, and Byrdman this Friday where rumor has it a bunch of guys from the KHS Class of '71 will be getting together, too; I continue to renew old friendships and make new acquaintances at the Inland Lounge.
In other words, I'm really happy that Byrdman got Lunk's contact information from Doc and that I texted Lunk from Harrison and our meeting of the minds at Joe's Bar was the result. Honestly, if I look back just one year to when the Deke and I traveled to Virginia in March, I visited Mom in early April, and the Deke and I visited Adrienne and Jack and saw two shows on Broadway later on in April, I thought our near future would involve living in Maryland and more exploration of places back east. Instead, circumstances that grew out of Mom's death in August led us to decide to move back to Kellogg and now I'm getting to know people again from whom I was separated for decades. I never saw this coming.
3. I was back home for a while when I received a text message from the Deke that she arrived safely back in Maryland, tired, and was back at Molly and Hiram's home. I was happy to get this news and am looking forward to the Deke's return to Kellogg early next week. The Deke wasn't alone in being tired. My day of road tripping left me fatigued and I turned in very early, happy that I'd had such a fun day.
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