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| Kerri Thoreson |
Summer countdown officially starts
Even back in the 1960s the downtown Coeur d'Alene JC Penney sidewalk sale signaled back-to-school shopping and an end to lazy days on Sanders Beach. Now the first weekend of August is chock full of things to do ... downtown Coeur d'Alene Street Fair, Taste of the Coeur d'Alenes and Art on the Green. The last big weekend of the summer is a great one, that's for sure. But I plan to start the party early at the 20th Annual Post Falls Community Picnic on Thursday evening. Kelly Hughes will provide the music, the Post Falls chamber and Post Falls Community Volunteers cooking up burgers and brauts, old and new friends enjoying the warm summer night at the pavilion on the Spokane River ... it's all good.
There are two free concerts over the weekend with the 25th Army Band out of Boise for everyone to enjoy, too. The band will be at Rathdrum's City Park on Friday at 6 p.m. and on the lawn at Red Lion Templin's Resort at 7 p.m. Sunday. If you're heading to Silverwood with the family on Saturday the Army Band will also play two concerts there that day.
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Avista's Sharmon Schmitt, a native of Butte, Mont., shared a tip when she heard I was leaving for a family reunion in North Dakota last week. She told of a local treasure called Muzzy and Stan's, where they serve a to-die-for pork chop sandwich. Thankfully my personal trainer, Sam, is in Cabo San Lucas on his honeymoon and with any luck at all my cardiologist won't see this but we did stop there and sampled a famous Butte "Wop Chop" sandwich, prepared and served by Muzzy himself. Oh my, if there's a photo next to the definition of cholesterol and trans fat in the dictionary, I'm sure it looks just like that deep-fried sandwich.
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An uplifting update on the flag stolen on the Fourth of July from Center Target Sports ... an elderly woman recently returned the flag to the Post Falls police. She declined to give her name or explain how she came to have the flag but I'd like to think the young man who stole it has a grandmother who took matters into her own hands and has provided a teaching moment that includes a lesson on honesty and patriotism.
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I've been 55 for slightly more than two months and finally had an opportunity for a senior discount. When checking into a hotel in Medora, N.D., last week the young desk clerk asked if anyone in our party was 55 or older. I happily said that I was 55 and asked what I'd won. She looked me up and down and apologized for not taking my word for it even after I gave her my birthdate and year, saying she'd need to see a driver's license. I produced my license and she apologized again saying I sure didn't look 55 and gave us a $17 discount on the room. That was a nice day brightener but even better was that we were traveling with two of the grandsons who thought the whole thing was pretty cool.
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Community 1st Bank's Dave Holinka has four years on me for those senior discounts and will celebrate birthday No. 59 on Sunday!
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Sinus headaches can be brutal but at least Kiki Miller was able to keep a sense of humor during a recent painful episode. After taking a morning walk in her secluded and wooded back yard she commented, "I swear I could hear the trees growing ... it was loud out there."
Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. "Main Street" appears in The Press every Wednesday. Kerri can be reached at rkthor52@aol.com or on her blog at http://fyinorthidaho.blogspot.com/
