Three Beautiful Things 04-21-2026: Editing, Reading, Comforting

 1. I did a little editing on a first draft of an obituary for Bruce Larsen. I don't know when it will be sent out or published, but the process is underway. Stu got it going. 

2. I am determined (but I've been determined before about this!) to give all the energy I have for reading over the Lonesome Dove and not get sidetracked like I have about eighty times before. I made progress today and being back into this book rekindles my admiration for Larry McMurtry's brilliant writing and storytelling. 

3. A little editing. A good session reading. Topped it all off with comfort: Debbie whipped up a simple dinner of tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and an endive salad. 

Then a surprise. Umpqua Triple Chocolate ice cream suddenly showed up and I couldn't and didn't resist. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-20-2026: Transplant Checklist, Big Questions, Granola Bars

1. Recently, the transplant clinic sent me a letter with a list of things that need to be done as my transplant anniversary (May 11th) approaches.  I'm in good shape with most of the items on the list. I'm up to date on my flu shot, pneumonia vax, colonoscopy, dermatology evaluation, bone scan, and dental check ups. 

I am going to Sacred Heart on May 4th for labs and I wrote to Nurse Jenn today hoping I can also have a chest x-ray and kidney ultrasound performed that day, too. 

If it works out, then I will be all ready for my May 11th appointment at the clinic with everything on that list taken care of. 

2. Paul came over and did some around the house jobs for Debbie and, as he was leaving, he said, "Oh! Before I go, I have a theological question." So, for the next half an hour or so Debbie, Paul, and I discussed Genesis 1, a calm, insightful, and searching conversation. When it comes to discussing theology, the three of us are much more interrogative than declarative. 

3. While in New York, Debbie made granola bars for the household, a handy item to tuck in a carry out lunch or eat as a snack at home. Debbie made a batch here in Kellogg and these delicious bars elevated our already terrific store of homemade food items we've been enjoying. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-19-2026: Breakfast at Sam's with T. Turner and Alex, Pork Loin Family Dinner, Carol and Paul Create and Unforgettable Day

 1. Terry Turner and his friend Alex had been in Missoula and on some nearby waterways for Trout Unlimited meetings and some fishing. They left Missoula this morning and the three of us met at Sam's here in Kellogg for breakfast. It was fun talking about stuff like fish habitat protection, college basketball and football, and other major topics. 

2. Christy hosted tonight's family dinner and built our menu around a marinated pork loin she roasted accompanied by homemade applesauce. Christy also fixed garlic roasted potatoes and Carol contributed fried corn and Debbie made a delicious endive salad. We started our dinner with a delicious bread with olives baked in it and flourless crackers, both enhanced by pesto or a garlic spread. For dessert, Christy baked a no sugar applesauce cake with bourbon raisins. 

3. When Debbie and I arrived at Christy's, I started right in asking Carol and Paul questions about their trip to Spokane on Saturday with three of the students they work with. 

I listened to what Carol and Paul had to say and thought again and again how fortunate these three students were on Saturday. 

I have to believe they'll never forget this day and as they grow older will realize what generous and imaginative teachers Carol and Paul are. 

Carol and Paul took them to the Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane primarily to see an exhibition entitled, "Brick by Brick: We Built This City". Here's the deal: local My Own Creation builders brought seven Spokane landmarks to life by creating detailed scale replicas of them using LEGO bricks. On display are replicas of the Spokesman-Review tower, Davenport Hotel, the Great Northern Clock and Radio Flyer Wagon from Riverfront Park, Spokane Falls along with the Monroe Street Bridge and the Washington Water Works Building, the Spokane County Courthouse, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, and the Campbell House. 

Each student "adopted" one of the LEGO creations as their own to learn more about and Carol and Paul took the students to the actual places they "adopted": they visited the Spokane Falls, the Davenport Hotel, and St. John's Cathedral. 

At the museum, the students also got to view an exhibition entitled, "James Lavadour: Land of Origin", a five-decade retrospective of this artists' paintings exploring his deep connection with Eastern Oregon landscapes. 

I think they also peeked in on "The Davenport Legacy", an exhibition dedicated to the history of the Davenport Hotel. 

And where did Paul and Carol take their students for lunch? The Old Spaghetti Factory, yet another unforgettable way to acquaint these youngsters with more Spokane history! This longtime popular restaurant was founded in 1969. 

On a personal note, I'll always remember The Old Spaghetti Factory as the restaurant four of us went to after watching All the President's Men in 1976, my senior year at Whitworth, and discussed the movie over plates of pasta and glasses of affordable wine. A great memory! 

Ah, what the heck -- one more personal note. 

It can't hurt! 

Carol, Paul, and their students left Spokane close to the time Debbie and I arrived there.

I enjoy the idea that all seven of us had a most memorable time in Spokane on April 18th. 

If you read the blog post I put up yesterday, you know that Debbie and I loved the Get Lit/Northwest Passages event we attended at The Bing and I think, at some level, it will live with us for a long time. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-18-2026: Spokane and the Decades, Spokanealooza Part 1, Spokanealooza Part 2 at The Bing

1. From the time I was a little boy and our family visited my grandmother there, until now, I've, well, I've loved Spokane. To keep it brief, I loved our visits there, I loved going to ballgames and concerts in Spokane, I really loved going to school at Whitworth and I loved working at Whitworth in the Chaplain's Office and as an English instructor. 

Debbie lived in Spokane at different times in her life and for the nearly thirty years we've been friends, roommates, and spouses, she's told me great stories and we've made some fun tours, looking at landmarks from her life in Spokane and when she lived in Cheney. 

Needless to say, but I will anyway, I've enjoyed my regular (now less frequent) medical related trips to Spokane, most of them by myself, the fact that our monthly sibling outings are all happening in Spokane in 2026, and am really enjoying the trips Debbie and I have made (and have planned) together since Debbie returned home. 

2. Take, for example, our trip on Saturday, April 18th. 

We started our afternoon/evening Spokanealooza at Paradise Fibers, and Debbie found some yarn she was happy to purchase. 

We had plenty of time before tonight's main event and we scampered up to Trader Joe's on 29th and, among other things, purchased items so we could fulfill Christy's assignments to us for Sunday's family dinner. 

We wanted a light bite to eat and buzzed across South Spokane to Huckleberry's Natural Market at 926 S Monroe. We visited the 9th St. Bistro where Debbie made herself dinner at the salad bar and I had a turkey sandwich custom built. 

3. This weekend is the annual writers and literature festival in Spokane, Get Lit. 

Get Lit and Spokesman Review's community book club, Northwest Passages, collaborated to create the event we attended tonight. 

Tonight's event at The Bing featured Spokane author Jess Walter interviewing Portland writer and alt-country musician Willie Vlautin about his latest novel, The Left and the Lucky. 

It was a terrific hour. Vlautin talked about growing up in Reno, raised by his hard-working single mother and how, at a very young age, he began writing songs and later stories reflecting what he saw in the working class and underclass environment he grew up in and the feelings he experienced, and still does. 

He wasn't like most (or any) of the young guys at Reno High School. He loved to read. He hung a picture of John Steinbeck next to posters of The Clash and The Pogues in his bedroom.  He loved writing songs and listening to and making music. He loved writing and, together, music and writing became his life. 

He's been a longtime member of and songwriter for two bands: Richmond Fontaine (no longer together) and The Delines. 

The interview featured excerpts from two songs by The Delines: "Lil Earl" and "Christmas in Atlantis".

Neither one of us had heard of Willie Vlautin, even though he is not obscure. (This weekend he was interviewed by Scott Simon on National Public Radio.) 

We've decided, though, that if we don't have conflicts, we are going to every Northwest Passage night we can, whether we are ignorant or knowledgeable about the featured author. 

We loved being in a theater full of enthusiastic people cheering on the efforts of Get Lit and Northwest Passage.

As a bonus, we saw Teri, the leader of the Science/Nature Book Club we have joined at Auntie's Bookstore. We were all excited to see each other and it was fun, in a venue full of strangers to us, that we saw, talked to, and shared excitement with someone familiar to us. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 04-17-2026: Living Lighter, Ed's a Beer Pong Champ, Music in My Head

1. At Sunnyside Elementary School, instead of shooting a basketball into a hoop, I remember shooting through the triangle opening of a brace helping to secure the stability of a fire escape on the south side of the building. Remembering that, and period in our lives that Stu called a golden time, I responded that I have fun and enjoyable flashbacks to those years and have ditched the negative ones. As the day progressed, I realized I've ditched a lot of negative flashbacks along with the accompanying  painful feelings that used to rise up inside me. Those old feelings have, for the most part, dissolved. Being free of these feelings and focusing less and less on past grievances helps me live a lighter life. 

Almost all of my grievances these days are ones I direct at myself. 

Ditch those and I could join Scrooge and say, "I am light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man."

2. This afternoon at The Lounge, Ed told a great story about how he and his son Darren teamed up to conquer all comers at the Clearwater Casino in Lewiston and win last Saturday night's beer pong tournament. I could have told those challenging teams that when it comes to darts, pool, horseshoes, cribbage, poker, and now beer pong, Ed simply does not lose. 

3. When I began sometime in 2025 listening in earnest, like daily, to classical music, I hoped that I'd eventually start hearing different passages from different compositions in my head and be able to enjoy them even if the music wasn't playing. 

That's happening. 

Now I hope to go the next step and be able to identify the composer and the composition. 

Today I had what I think was a passage from Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major play in my head, but I'm not sure. 

One day I hope to be sure. 

And, one day, I hope to have instant recall of passages in different pieces when I hear or read them mentioned or be able to instantly identify them when they come on the radio. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-16-2026: Spreading the Word, Teamwork at Dinner, Trip to Pendleton -- It Won't Be Long

 1. Today I resumed efforts to make the Celebration of Life for Bruce Larsen a bit more widely known. I posted the date, time, and place on the Class of '72 Facebook page and the Class of '73 page as well. In the next little while, I am confident an obituary will get composed and published. I also sent out some personal messages to people who might not get the information on Facebook or via the group email I sent out. 

I'll post the details on this blog every seven to ten days even though I know that many people who read this blog are not from Kellogg and don't know Bruce.

But what can it hurt? 

Celebration of Life for Bruce Larsen

Date: June 13, 2026

Time: 1:00 p.m.

Place: Kellogg Elks Lodge, 202 McKinley Ave

2. Debbie subbed for a first grade teacher today and arrived home tired. She had a good day. Working with children, even when it goes well, is tiring. I don't think she has another sub date scheduled. This is in keeping with her plan to sub once in a while. She does it because she enjoys the children and enjoys being back at Pinehurst Elementary with the people she worked with. 

We teamed up on dinner. I made a pot of angel hair and Debbie made mixed olive oil, salt and pepper, minced garlic, red pepper flakes, and cherry tomatoes in a small bowl. She also grated some hard cheese and these ingredients worked beautifully on top of our pasta. 

3. Six of us will descend upon the Wildhorse Resort and Casino in about twelve days and the excitement of another trip to Pendleton began to rumble inside me today when Mike Stafford texted us to let us know he'd made reservations at Wildhorse's steak house, The Plateau. I'm nearly certain that Colette and I will meet for dinner in downtown Pendleton that week -- a tradition that we've enjoyed ever since Colette moved to Walla Walla.  

I'm getting stoked. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-15-2026: An Empty Day, I Help Debbie, Pork Stroganoff and Mashed Potatoes

1. Every so often, I seem to need a blank day, an empty day. Today was one:  no book reading, no classical music, no Winning Wednesday, some writing. I tended to my two fantasy baseball teams and did a load of laundry. 

2. I did, however, help Debbie. She subbed at Pinehurst Elementary for a half day. I drove her out. I picked up Gibbs from the groomer. I picked up Debbie after her work day ended and brought her home. 

3. Debbie had told me she had a plan for the pork we had left over from Sunday, so I didn't even cook dinner tonight. Debbie fixed a wonderful pork stroganoff sauce and served it not with rice, not with noodles, but with mashed potatoes. 

It was delicious. After dinner, I read some articles and columns online related to current events. 

That was about it. 

I bet I do more tomorrow. 

One thing I know: I'll be rested. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-14-2026: The Spokane Falls, Spokane Nostalgia and Spokane Now, Ice Cream in Spokane Valley

1. This idea, to go on a monthly outing to Spokane, that Christy, Carol, and I agreed to, is working beautifully for me. Every trip we've made to Spokane has opened my eyes to a new and stimulating aspect of Spokane and added to the exploring I've done by myself. 

Christy was in charge of today's outing and decided that we would explore Monroe Street, both north and south. 

After Christy bought us all coffee drinks at Wake Up Call Coffee in CdA, we headed to the City Hall area of Post Street, immediately found a superb parking spot, and made our way down toward the Spokane River and Huntington Park, all in the shadow of the Monroe Street Bridge. 

The river is running powerfully right now and so to get close to the swelling water and the boiling whitewater at the bottom of the raging Spokane Falls excited us. We also marveled at the blooming Serviceberry trees and other spring blossoms emerging and read signs telling us about the history of this vital part of the Spokane River in the city's history. 

2. We piled back into Christy's Sube and headed north on Monroe and parked in front of a fun store called Vintage Print and Neon. 

The store specializes in Spokane and Pacific Northwest nostalgia. 

Most of the store's items are not relics from the past, but are nostalgic creations by the store's owner like Olympia and Rainier Beer T-shirts and coasters or replicas of Chapter 11 menus. The owner has landed some relics, though, mostly neon signs: Reddy Kilowatt, the sign for the Italian Kitchen on N. Bernard, and others. 

We left Vintage Print and Neon (at the northwest corner of NW Blvd and Monroe) with Spokane memories dancing in our heads and, after turning back the clock, we then entered 2026 Spokane and ate lunch at the Kindred Public House, recently voted by Inlander readers as the best new restaurant in Spokane. 

3. We left Kindred nourished and satisfied and bolted up the south Monroe hill and indulged in a little more nostalgia. 

The three of us went on our first sibling outing back at the end of March, 2007. We had coffee at Doma when it was located in downtown CdA. We ate lunch at Jack and Dan's in Spokane. We did other things, including a trip to Huckleberry's Natural Market and today, nineteen years later, we returned for a run through, a purchase or two, and just to see how the store was holding up after thirty years in business -- very well, in fact.

We ended our outing to Spokane in Spokane Valley on N. Argonne Road at Pete and Belle's Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop for delicious scoops of ice cream. I had a scoop of loaded and chocolate-y/caramel-y Halley's Comet and a scoop of refreshing Strawberry Cheesecake. 

What a day! The powerful Spokane River awed us. Spokane nostalgia warmed us. We ate satisfying food. We indulged in delicious ice cream. 

I'm in charge for May and, stay tuned. I have a fun outing already planned! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-13-2026: Potatoes and GMOs, Another Appalachian Episode, Book Talk

1.  I finished the last chapter of The Botany of Desire today. It focused on the potato and developed into an examination of the former agrochemical and agricultural technology corporation, Monsanto (sold to the German chemical company Bayer in 2018). Much of this chapter discussed and illustrated Monsanto's work in the field of genetically modified organisms. 

In particular, Monsanto genetically engineered a potato called NewLeaf. The NewLeaf potato seed was genetically engineered to resist the Colorado beetle, thus altering the need to apply pesticides to eradicate this potato damaging pest. 

The first three chapters of this book explored apples and sweetness, tulips and beauty, mariuana and intoxication. 

This last chapter explored the potato and control. I learned about efforts in potato farming to control the look, taste, shape, and pest and disease resistance of the potato, much of it in service to satisfying consumers' desires for what a potato, a potato chip, and a French fry, among other potato products, ought to look and taste like. 

I'm ready to go back and read this book a second time and see if on a second reading I can get a better grip on its general argument and compelling explanations and detailed support. 

2. This evening, Debbie and I listened to another episode of the podcast Inside Appalachia. Its focus was on West Virginia, especially coal miners. You might remember that on April 5, 2010 a coal dust explosion occurred in the Upper Branch Mine, a Massey Energy owned coal mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia. Twenty-nine miners died. 

Inevitably, listening to one miner as he looked back and made his observations and shared feelings about the blast, my mind went back to the May 2, 1972 Sunshine Mine Fire/Disaster near Kellogg that killed ninety-one miners. 

It's not the first time that I've listened to miners and other citizens of the mining regions of Appalachia and thought about how connected these people are with people in mining towns here in North Idaho. 

I thought a lot about the many times I've listened to miners who survived the Sunshine Fire/Disaster being interviewed in the film You Are My Sunshine. It's all harrowing. 

3. It's fun when Debbie is home for many reasons, but one that I enjoy immensely is how we discuss books and the ways they are written. 

We both read books written in a variety of different time periods, books translated into English from other languages, and books of different genres, like poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. We also read as wide a variety of voices and experiences as we can.

This evening we had a relaxed conversation about styles of writing, especially about the English sentence. I mentioned that I thought sentences had an architecture and that I especially enjoyed the way, say, 19th century novelists would at times write long sentences, packed with subordination, often rich in detail, and that when this kind of sentence pops up in more contemporary prose, it fires me up. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-12-2026: Marijuana and Intoxication, Superb Family Dinner, The BIG Questions

 1. I found the chapter on marijuana in Michael Pollan's book Botany of Desire fascinating. Yes, on the one hand, I found his research into the history of marijuana and marijuana cultivation and the genetics that informed how growers developed better and better pot to be very interesting.

Even more interesting to me was his writing about consciousness and imagination and religious rites and how over the centuries different consciousness altering substances like wine, peyote, opium and others have enhanced religious and imaginative experiences, have aided shamans and others in their search for insight into mystical realities and have also aided poets, essayists, writers of fiction, and musicians (for starters) to explore insights and experiences and to imagine possibilities not otherwise available to them. 

Does Pollan write about the abuse of consciousness altering substances. 

Yes. 

But like the desire for sweetness and beauty, Pollan also explores the human desire for intoxication, why organic intoxicants exist in the natural world, and what results from the pursuit of different types and different levels of altering one's consciousness (I write this post feeling the pleasure of and experiencing the benefits of the mild enhancement I'm now enjoying under the influence of my second morning latte!).

I just fixed Debbie a latte and during my break from writing this post, I thought about how Pollan writes about marijuana's medicinal qualities in this chapter. I immediately thought of two friends whose quality of life is enhanced by marijuana. One suffers from PTSD and the other from chronic pain. 

Marijuana helps give them the relief they desire via a healing form of intoxication. 

Both friends are ambitious as they pursue their avocations and marijuana helps them pursue the activities they experience as sources of happiness and fulfillment. 

2. Debbie and I hosted tonight's family dinner and all I did to help out was vacuum the living room!

Debbie had a plan for dinner and she carried it out beautifully. 

She baked gluten free dinner rolls, made a shredded carrot salad, and mashed several potatoes as compliments to the delicious pork and sauerkraut casserole she also fixed. Carol air fried a startlingly delicious batch of lemon garlic tofu cubes and Christy baked a very tasty Olive Oil Almond and Orange cake which she served with Orange and Sweet Cream Ice Cream (I hope I got that name right...). 

3. I thoroughly enjoy discussions of Christianity and spiritual experience when everyone talks about these matters in their own language, on their own terms, and don't simply repeat what they've heard their pastors say or what they think they ought to say in order to conform with some sense of correctness. 

We had such a discussion after dinner tonight and fearlessly shared our thoughts about mysticism, love, ecumenism, original sin, the Holy Spirit, charismatic worship, and other topics as they came up. 

Not once did anyone say, "That's not right!" or "I disagree" or any other discouraging or conversation killing words. 

We are searching and questioning and trying out insights and possibilities; we approach these matters humbly, unrestricted by assertions of certainty or dogma. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-11-2026: Magic App, Tulip Mania, Wondrous Stir Fry

 1. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! We received a very modest check (also known as a warrant) in the mail today from the State of Idaho. We filed an overpayment of our state income taxes. I told Debbie I'd mail it to the credit union and she told me that I can make a deposit via the OCCU app. I loaded up the app and PRESTO! the app took a picture of each side of the check and in a flash the transaction was complete. 

That was a fun thing to learn -- and amazed this codger. 

2. Do you remember the Dot-Com Bubble of the late 20th century? 

Well, what if I were to tell you that Holland experienced a TULIP bubble in 1634 that popped in 1637?

It's a period known as Tulip Mania. 

Tulips had become highly fashionable, and speculators suddenly became willing to pay extraordinarily high prices for bulbs and then the whole thing collapsed, and many people suffered great financial losses. 

If it weren't for reading the "Tulip" chapter of Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire, I never would have known about Tulip Mania nor about the evolutionary history of the tulip and I wouldn't know as much as I know now about the concept of beauty. 

Next chapter? 

Marijuana.

3. I tend to stock the stir fries I make with quite a few vegetables. 

Debbie, however, fixed a stir fry tonight that was very satisfying and the only vegetables she used were onion and spinach. She deftly combined soy sauce, honey, ginger, sesame oil, garlic, and maybe other ingredients into a superb sauce and added Thai wheat noodles. She also made a pot of brown rice, so I savored this delicious meal, one of the only times I can remember having both noodles and rice in my stir fry bowl. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-10-2026: Apples, Burgers at the Elks, The Lounge and Ice Cream and Potato Chips

1.  Before I read Chapter 1 of The Botany of Desire today, I basically knew the following about apples: I love biting into them, they taste great with peanut butter, I enjoy apples and cinnamon (apple pies and other baked apple desserts and in a bowl of oatmeal), and that they go great, when baked, with pork chops and pork roasts. 

Now I know so much more about the apple's genetic history, the story of John Chapman, also known as Johnny Appleseed, the countless varieties of apples, how grafting works, and how the number of varieties of apples has shrunk because of which varieties sell the best in grocery stores. 

Next up in this book: tulips. 

2. Debbie and I attended Burger Night at the Elks late this afternoon. We sat with Ed and saw a host of other friends and acquaintances. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed the scene and especially enjoyed the burger. It's not a monster burger. It's not a slider either but occupies that perfect spot in burger sizing where it satisfies my hunger but doesn't leave me feeling stuffed. 

And it tastes great.

3. We dropped in at The Lounge and it was an especially great time for Debbie. She visited a couple of tables and had great conversations with different people. I didn't mingle. I was happy sitting at the bar, nursing a Bud Zero, and having a pleasant mix of quiet time and conversations with Cas and some patrons who stopped by to chat. 

As we arrived home, Debbie told me that she wished we'd stopped at Yoke's, that chips and ice cream would make this a perfect evening.

I agreed and volunteered to go over to the store and I returned with barbecue chips and salted caramel ice cream and that's how we topped off our night on the town in Kellogg. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-09-2026: Mastery of Plants, What is Appalachia?, Another Perspective on *The Italian Symphony*

 1. The Science/Nature book club at Auntie's meets the first Tuesday of each month, giving Debbie and me plenty of time to read the club's next book, Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. Through a study of the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato, Pollan's book will explore the evolution of these domesticated plants and their relationship to the human desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control.

I've read the book's introduction. I told Debbie what I thought the book was about and she reminded me of this question: Does a virtuoso violin player master the violin or does the violin master the player? 

Likewise, do humans master these plants or do their inherent qualities of sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and pleasing taste master the gardener? 

We'll see.  

2. When we lived in Maryland, I discovered and became fascinated with a podcast from West Virginia Public Radio called Inside Appalachia. I know that the Silver Valley of North Idaho is not Appalachia, but as I listened to different episodes of this podcast and as I thought back on my many viewings of the documentary movie Harlan County, USA, I saw parallels.

Recently, Debbie read a book entitled What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia. 

So, tonight, Debbie asked me to find an episode of Inside Appalachia and I did and we listened to it together. 

The episode we listened to explored the question "What is Appalachia?" and over the next hour we learned (or were reminded) that the Appalachian Range extends from north Georgia to Maine and that the cultural, economic, and political variety in these regions between Maine and Georgia make the question of just what Appalachia is a complex one that reaches far beyond the stereotypes we might have. 

This podcast episode featured interviews with people from Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere and included interviews with academic scholars and local historians about the history and the implications of this squishy word "Appalachia". 

It was fascinating. 

It did not, however, lead me to think about North Idaho as much as other episodes have. 

I thought this episode locked in on uniquely Appalachian issues and realities. 

3.  Back on March 29th, Debbie and I heard the Spokane Symphony perform Felix Mendelssohn's energetic and captivating Italian Symphony. I had gone to Spokane on March 26th to hear the symphony's conductor, James Lowe, lecture on the program that included this symphony and Debbie and I listened to his pre-concert lecture on the 29th.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lowe's analysis of the Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and this evening I wondered if Debbie might like to hear another perspective on it. I knew that the podcast Sticky Notes, hosted by Joshua Weilerstein, who makes his living as a flourishing guest conductor around the world, did an episode on the Italian Symphony. 

She didn't want to listen to this -- she wanted to listen to something on Appalachia. 

So, when we finished listening to Inside Appalachia, I listened to Joshua Weilerstein's hour long take on this symphony. It was my bedtime story. 

Musically, in terms of symphonic form, Lowe and Weilerstein had a similar understanding of this piece. 

Their interpretations of what Mendelssohn was inviting his audience to experience, however, were not the same. 

This fascinated me. 

For Lowe, each movement represented Mendelssohn's impressions of and experience in four different Italian cities: Venice, Rome, Florence, and Naples. 

For Weilerstein, the symphony was more pastoral, a way for Mendelssohn to express what he experienced in the Italian countryside, but not exclusively -- he, too, heard elements of urban life in the piece.

I thought their different ways of interpreting the symphony complimented each other. They also broadened my experience with this piece.

They definitely agreed on the most important point: it's a symphony that expresses how Italy energized Mendelssohn and inspired him to compose a symphony full of the joy of life and the vitality of beauty. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-08-2026: Bruce Larsen's Upcoming Celebration of Life, Tire Repaired, Tchaikovsky and Spinning Reels

 1. MARK YOUR CALENDARS! CELEBRATION OF LIFE FOR BRUCE LARSEN!

Today Stu, Sue, and Sally met over lunch and nailed down the date and place for Bruce Larsen's Celebration of Life:

Date: Saturday, June 13, 2026

Time: 1:00 p.m.

Place: The Kellogg Elks Lodge, 202 McKinley Ave

 

2. I wanted to go on a drive today and as I left the driveway, the light indicating low tire pressure came on (again). 

I'd had the Camry's tires checked on Saturday and, indeed, the right rear tire needed air and today it looked like it needed air again. 

I rocketed over to Silver Valley Tire and the guy who put air in the tire recommended I have the tire checked for a problem. 

Luckily, they got the Camry in almost right away and discovered the tire had a small puncture. They repaired it and I was on my way again. 

3. On my drive to the CdA Casino, I listened to Robert Greenberg's illuminating lecture on Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Not only did his lecture help me understand how Tchaikovsky moves his listeners through parts of the story of Romeo and Juliet, it also helped me understand how his orchestration worked to explore the play's many moods, emotions, and tensions. 

Moreover, this is one of a handful of lectures Greenberg presents in this Great Course about the historical move from the Classical to the Romantic period of classical music and this particular lecture helped clarify much of what is distinct about Romantic compositions and, for Tchaikovsky, what he pulled forward in this composition from the more formal Classical period. 

Was it a Winning Wednesday for me at the casino?

No. 

But that didn't dampen the fun I had driving, listening to Robert Greenberg, enjoying a light lunch at the Red Tail Bar and Grill, and skipping around the casino floor in search of the lucky machine I never found! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-07-2026: Several Silver Valley Stops, Debit Card Doesn't Go in Cash Slot, Stimulating Book Club Discussion

1, I spent time late this morning and on into the early afternoon taking care of things: paid the water bill; paid the City of Kellogg bill; took cardboard boxes to the dump; drove to Wallace to add miles on the Camry so I could get our wheels retorqued; fueled the car. 

Nothing revolutionary.

Nothing exciting. 

Just necessary and satisfying. 

2. Debbie and I drove to Spokane to attend the Science/Nature Book Club at Auntie's Bookstore. 

I seem to have decided that this otherwise easy and relaxing trip needed a shot of weirdness. 

I parked the car in the lot at Main and Stevens and when I went to pay for the parking pass to put on our dashboard, I put my debit card in the (unmarked) slot meant for paper currency. 

The machine ate my card. At some point later on, a parking lot employee will open up that machine and find my debit card.  

It'll be dead. 

Debbie paid for the parking pass and I called the credit union, put my lost card out of its misery, and I'll order a new one with another call Wednesday morning.

I did my best to put my careless mistake behind me so we could enjoy our bowls of curry at the Mango Tree.

3. The Book Club meeting began at 6:00. 

The people in the group were easy to be with and the discussion got better and better as our meeting progressed. 

We entered into substantial discussion about wildness in the midst of the toxic impact we humans have on land, water, and air and, in turn, on plants, fish, animals and other living things. 

The book inspired club members to refer to other books they've read (or that the club has read) and I enjoyed finding out about books I hadn't heard of and a few that I did know about. 

I thought telling the book club that I was from Kellogg was appropriate to our discussion. Not all the club members knew that Debbie and I live in a Superfund site. I know that much of the rehabilitation of the Silver Valley is from constructive human intervention: trees planted, soil replaced, slag piles removed, and so on. 

What I don't know -- and don't know if I'm capable of observing or discovering -- is whether wild plant life, damaged in the past, has made its way back the way Christopher Brown writes about this happening in the empty lot he purchased and had remediated. I don't know much about native plant life in this area, how much of it has been damaged, and what evidence one can find of it coming back to life again. 

I know that many of the trees, flowers, and other vegetation in and around Kellogg are beautiful, but not wild. 

So, I'm curious. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-06-2026: I Finish *Empty Lots*, I Didn't Watch Tonight's Basketball Game, I Didn't Watch Games 6 and 7 of the '75 World Series

1. By about 8:00 tonight, I finished the book, A Natural History of Empty Lots and its detailed and often meandering (which I enjoyed) exploration of history, philosophy, urban blight, wildness, economics, the business world, and, among much else, the fraught relationship between human beings and the natural world. 

One aspect of the book is Christopher Brown's telling the story of his vision of having a half-buried house built that is as integrated as much as possible into the natural world of the empty urban lot he purchased. His dream becomes a reality and Brown helps us see the joys and challenges of living in this house. 

I went online in search of images of his bunker house and it's a remarkable feat of architectural and ecological imagination. 

2. The book took priority for me over tonight's Michigan/UConn NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game. More than being involved with this game, I wanted to have the book finished and thought about before the Tuesday, April 7th Book Club meeting at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane. 

Now I'm very curious what the members of this book club will have to say about this book. I have no idea where the discussion might go. 

3. Not watching the basketball game this evening reminded me of how I didn't watch Game 6 of the 1975 World Series and so missed bearing witness to Carlton Fisk's eternally famous 12th inning home run to win that game -- nor did I see Bernie Carbo's dramatic pinch hit three run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning that tied up this epic game. 

The night was October 21, 1975. I was a senior at Whitworth College and I spent that evening studying for a midterm exam coming up the next evening in the Renaissance and Reformation class I was taking from Dr. Fenton Duval. My studies took priority over, say, heading over to Rich Brock's dorm room and watching this game with him. 

I loved that course and I wanted to be fully prepared for whatever questions Dr. Duval would pose on that exam. Because it was an evening course, I also missed Game 7 of that World Series. 

I was sitting in a classroom writing my midterm exam. 

I aced it. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-05-2026: Resurrection Rice-A-Roni, Ham Dinner for Easter, Gratitude

 1.  Carol assigned Debbie and me to bring a rice dish to our Easter Day family dinner and Christy requested that we bring Do It Yourself Rice-A-Roni, a dish I've prepared several times. 

I don't know if I used a different recipe today or if I messed something up as I put the ingredients together, but after about a half an hour of cooking, at the time the recipe indicated the Rice-A-Roni would be cooked, it wasn't. 

Debbie, thank goodness, intervened and on this Easter Day we resurrected the seemingly dead Rice-A-Roni. 

Debbie also baked a loaf of egg bread, another food item that fell into the Easter Day category. 

About the bread dough, before it went in the oven, Debbie could joyfully proclaim: "It is risen." 

2. We took our rescued and resurrected Rice-A-Roni over to Carol and Paul's where we joined Carol, Paul, Christy, Taylor, Bucky, and Cosette for dinner. 

Paul prepared a vegetable plate and a cracker plate and made a white bean and pea dip for our appetizer. 

We filed into the dining area and sat down to a dinner of baked ham (Carol), a vegetable casserole (Christy), Resurrection Rice-A-Roni (ahem), and deviled eggs (Cosette). Carol served us each a tidy bowl of fresh strawberries topped with one of the Dream Whip products. 

3. I left dinner today feeling grateful that Cosette and family are doing very well; that Zoe and Molly also are doing well in their work and in the other aspects of their lives; that Carol and Paul's nieces, Taylor and Carly are both pregnant with their first babies and all reports about their lives are good. 

Adrienne sent us an Easter portrait of Jack and Eloise and they are healthy and happy in the picture and I know they, too, are doing well.

Molly also sent an Easter portrait of Olivia, David, and Ana. Just like Jack and Eloise, they look beautiful, healthy, and happy. 

Grateful indeed. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-04-2026: Basketball Wagers, Nature as Resource and Spiritual Source, We Continue to Move Into Our House

 1. Early in this college basketball season when Michigan creamed Gonzaga, I said to someone (or maybe just to myself!), "I ought to drive over to Spokane Tribe Casino and use some of my stupid money that I keep in my stupid money envelope and bet right now on Michigan to win the whole tournament." 

Of course, I didn't do it. 

And there's no guarantee that Michigan will defeat UConn to win the title Monday night. 

But, it's fun to imagine what might have happened had I turned my musing into action. 

By the way, once the brackets were set, I did make one bet on the men's tournament. Ha! I wagered that Arizona would win it all. 

Oh, well. 

(Again. Ha! My one other wager was on the UConn women's team.)

2. As I read further into A Natural History of  Empty Lots, author Christopher Brown continues to explore the enduring questions, questions in play since the Puritans settled in New England: is undeveloped wilderness land really wasted land? Or does undeveloped land have an intrinsic spiritual value? 

I've struggled within myself with this question for nearly sixty years. 

3. We moved into the house we live in back in October, 2017. 

We are not done moving in yet -- which makes me wonder if anyone ever really finishes this job! 

Debbie and I are rethinking the front bedroom (Vizio Room) and we are considering a couple of improvements to our patio. Debbie put up new curtains today in the living room. The basement is always unsettled. Is it time to switch beds between the main floor bedroom and the upstairs one? 

We'll never settle things permanently in this house, just like we never did in the other two places we lived! 

Three Beautiful Things 04-03-2026: Book Club at The Lounge, Relationships Between Books, Red Curry for Dinner

1. Debbie and I are both reading A Natural History of Empty Lots. We are both having a great experience. Debbie joined me at The Lounge shortly before five this afternoon. Ed and I had had a great hour or so yakkin' about all kinds of stuff before Debbie arrived. Debbie and I launched into a discussion of Empty Lots, as far as we've read.  The book is taking us out of our usual way of experiencing the world and challenging us to be more attentive, take charge of how we employ our senses, to be open to surprise, and to resist habitual ways of thinking and doing things as well as to resist the ways entities, especially money making ones, provide us with prefabricated responses to the world around us and how we think about it. 

2. A fun aspect of our discussion while seated at the bar was how this book calls up memories of other books we've read. For Debbie, the book connects to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I keep going back in my mind to Bill McKibben's book The End of Nature and Lulu Miller's Why Fish Don't Exist. 

I'll just say that I'm fascinated much more by the disorder, not the order, of the natural world and the biological aspects of the human world. Miller's book explores this. In addition, when I first read McKibben's book in 1989 it accelerated my interest in and curiosity about the relationship between human beings and the natural world and I've read a lot of books and articles about this subject since then.  

3. Before heading up to The Lounge around 3:30, I baked a block of tofu cubed and I made a red curry sauce. Once back home, I cooked a variety of vegetables in the red curry sauce and added in the tofu along with some kaffir lime leaves. 

I prepared a pot of basmati rice, too, and once the vegetables were tender, Debbie and I prepared ourselves delicious bowls of medium spicy red curry sauce over the vegetables and rice. 

We then balanced out having eaten spicy food with small bowls of Extra Triple Fudge Brownie ice cream. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-02-2026: Urban Walking, Urban Fossils and Shark Teeth, Debbie Fixes Chicken Dinner

 1. It could be called anarchy walking. I prefer "anarchy walking" to its more high-minded name, "psychogeography". Basically, this idea challenges us, when in an urban environment, to resist walking the ways the city (legitimately) lays out for us, to resist the streets and routes that, by design, lead us to where money is transacted (shops, banks, restaurants, etc.) and seek out other routes where non-commercial surprises exist, like small swaths of wild vegetative growth, birds and animals we might not think of as city dwellers, micro-ecosystems existing in the midst of discarded concrete chunks, abandoned cars, and other examples of urban blight. We might follow Christopher Brown's lead and explore empty lots in urban areas. (As a reminder, I'm reading Christopher Brown's book, A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places.)

The aim of this kind of walking is to widen one's range of observation and to marvel at the wildness that exists and survives in unexpected places. 

2. Christopher Brown's bushwhacking in creek beds and peering closely at areas on the edges of Austin, TX that were once at the bottom of a a pre-historic sea results in him finding fossils, shark teeth, and other evidence of prehistoric animal and marine life in amongst tires, soda bottles, beer cans, concrete chunks, and other 21st century trash heedlessly cast to the ground or in the water. 

3. Christy joined Debbie and me for a delicious dinner of baked chicken, baked yams, and steamed kale. I joked and asked what kind of ice cream we'd have for dessert and Debbie laughed, bemoaned that even though she'd thought of ice cream while at Yoke's today, she didn't buy any.

Suddenly she rose up, grabbed her keys, and dashed to the Camry, barreled to Yoke's, and before Christy and I knew it, she arrived back with a half-gallon of Extra Triple Fudge Brownie ice cream, served us each a small bowl, and my evening and its culinary pleasures were now complete. 

Three Beautiful Things 04-01-2026: What Makes Marriage Fun For Me

 I'm not an April Fool's guy, so these 3BTs are all straight, no pranking. 

1. Here's what makes marriage fun for me.  

I've been going to Spokane the last couple of months to hear classical music concerts -- the Gonzaga Symphony, the Spokane String Quartet, and the Spokane Symphony and I've been attending lectures about the Spokane Symphony concerts presented at the Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane and an hour before each concert. 

Until Sunday, because Debbie was in either New York or Virginia, she wasn't with me at any of these events. 

Together again, we attended the lectures and Sunday's concert together. I initiated this outing. 

As I wrote earlier this week, after Sunday's concert, Debbie suggested that I be in charge of choosing cultural things for us to do and she'd take charge of travel. 

I happily agreed. 

Two days ago, Debbie was on the Auntie's Bookstore (in Spokane) website and saw that the bookstore supports several book clubs, including one that meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. It's the Science and Nature Book Club. 

Debbie muscled in 🤣🤣 on my gig as the Minister of Culture and suggested we participate in this club on April 7th. 

"That sounds great!" I responded and I could feel that my world was about to expand. 

2. A few years ago, I went on a glorious bender reading books about animals: whales, salmon, beavers, cougars, the octopus, eels, and other more general books about animals. From time to time back in my teaching days I assigned books and readings about the relationship between human beings and nature including Into the Wild and Into Thin Air by John Krakauer and Dan O'Brien's Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch.  These are all science and nature books. 

I'm stoked for Tuesday. 

The Science and Nature Book Club will be discussing A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places by Christopher Brown. 

3. My copy arrived today and I dove right in. Christopher Brown is a keen observer of animals, birds, reptiles, plants, trees, and, well, in short, the natural world and now has written this book about natural wildlife in crummy neglected empty lots and other places in Austin, TX you wouldn't think of as sites to marvel at nature.  He built a house on one of these empty lots near an industrial park and began to observe all the wildlife activity around him in urban areas one might call wastelands or urban edgelands. 

I'm not even a hundred pages in and I've learned more about feral parakeets, mesquite trees, coyotes, hawks, egrets, herons, an array of wildflowers, the history of empty lots, and more than I had ever known before. And that's just for starters. 

My world has, indeed, expanded in invigorating and unexpected ways. 

I hope what you see in this post is that without me, Debbie never would have heard the symphony lectures we attended nor the Sunday concert and without Debbie, I would never have considered this book club nor this book. 

It makes marriage fun.