1. Big road trip to Orofino today. Before Christy and Carol piled into the Camry, I fueled the car and made a quick stop at Silver Valley Tires to have the wheels retorqued after the tires had been rotated earlier in the week. It's widely suggested to have wheels retorqued between 50 and 100 miles after a tire job and to get the Camry up to 50 miles since the tire rotation, I took a leisurely drive to Pinehurst and back.
2. Christy, Carol, and I took off for Orofino shortly after 8:30 and stopped at the remodeled Starbucks on Ironwood Drive for some caffeine and a snack. Properly bolstered, we hit the road, enjoyed traveling through the Palouse with its rolling fields of fresh green growth, and stopped in Moscow to pick up Cosette. Cosette has been hard at work managing what sounds to me like endless buffets and other group dinners at the University Inn and impressed me with her firm grip of how to deal with the challenges of her work. I frequently thought, as we drove down the Lewiston grade and up the Clearwater River, that the University Inn is very fortunate to have Cosette as an employee. She's dedicated, knowledgable, hard-working, and able to do some pretty complex problem solving in the fast-paced world of big group dinners, buffets, and catering.
3. We arrived in Orofino for the Celebration of Life for our deceased cousin John Baugh's son, Matt, who died of a heart attack in January. We arrived at the VFW Hall and found a table and joined a fairly packed room of Matt's friends and relatives for today's ceremony. It began with Travis Mechling's tribute to Matt's zest for life, his love of cats, his passion for cooking, and his generosity and outgoing nature. As if to underscore what Travis said, we watched a slide show of Matt, in picture after picture, seizing joy and fun in his life of camping, partying, hiking, fishing, taking ATV rides, caring for cats, and enjoying the company of his many friends. Matt's son, Ryan, gave a touching tribute to his father. Then we watched two short videos, one of Matt messing around with food on a grill and another by a Facebook friend of Matt's who juxtaposed images of Matt with brief scenes from The Lord of the Rings. The ceremony ended with a handful of people accepting Travis' offer to tell a story or talk about their love of Matt. The celebration continued after these testimonies with all of us heading to the potluck table and fixing a plate of people's delicious contributions.
Carol, Christy, Cosette, and I sat at a table with our cousin Lura and her husband Lyle and with our cousin Judy and her daughter Angie. We also saw Lura's son, Mark, Matt's mother, Linda, and our late cousin John's wife Gloria.
Before we arrived at the VFW Hall, we took a drive up memory lane -- well, a drive up Michigan Ave. -- and checked out the house where Grandma West lived, saw the structure that stands on the lot where Aunt Lila's house used to be, and drove on up to Konkolville just to see how things look up there. At one time Konkolville was a center of forest industry, but that's no longer the case. Things, to my untrained eye, looked shut down up there, looked to be in a state of decline.
On the face of it, it might seem like being away for about 11 hours was a long day.
It didn't feel long to me.
Christy, Carol, Cosette and I had a lot of fun yakkin' and telling stories. We were happy to be in attendance at the Celebration of Life and to learn more about Matt. We also got to catch up a bit with Lura, Lyle, Judy, and Angie.
It's a bit overwhelming to visit Orofino, especially as I get older and remember and think about all our family visits there over the years, the family members who have passed away, and the fun times we have had over the years, whether swimming at the summer pool, catching polliwogs at Beaver Dam, gathering with family for outdoor dinners at Grandma's or Lila's, or joining together for the boisterous family reunion/Last Cousin Standing Hootenanny at Lura and Lyle's house back in July of 2010.
What's that saying? Many bridges, much water.
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