Land lines not quite extinct

Last Friday morning my cell phone was completely uncharged right before I was to do a phone-in on the radio. So I texted Joe Paisley to call me on my land line for our weekend update segment. Joe LOL'd that my text message might as well have said "I'm riding my dinosaur," a reference to someone actually still having a land line.

I posed the question to my Facebook community to see how many also still had a land line. Twenty-eight answered in the affirmative. Best responses were from Tracie Olin who posted, "Still have the land line so my friends I never hear from can still find me, even though I never answer it!" and LeeAnn Cheeley, who along with her husband, Chris, own Phones Plus. Wrote LeeAnn, "Yes, the Cheeleys still have a land-line. That being said, we have a business phone system in our home so we can page the kids and put people on hold and all that good stuff."

So I'm not alone in the land of land line hold-outs ... but the good news for the Cheeleys and other cell phone providers is that everyone who admitted to having a land line also said they had a cell phone.

Last Sunday's American Legion championship game between Coeur d'Alene's Lumbermen and Post Falls and Lakeland's Prairie Cardinals at McEuen Field was a great ball game by any standards, with the Lumbermen winning 7-5. It was impossible not to wax nostaligic on what was the final American Legion baseball game to be played on that beautiful field overlooking Lake Coeur d'Alene at the base of Tubbs Hill.

Politics aside, there's over four decades of tradition there. One more game will be played on the field before it's relocated and that's an All Star game (some oldtimers in the line-up) this Saturday. Home run derby at 6 p.m. and the game at 7 p.m. There will be "There's No Place Like Home" commemorative McEuen Field T-shirts available that day for $18, the proceeds to help with the relocation costs.

Toured the Union Gospel Mission's new facility, "Miracle on Haycraft" last week. It's a wonderful place for the lives of women and children to be transformed. You can see it today with a ribbon cutting, followed by tours at 2 p.m.

Tonight the very special Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater performance of "Over the River" featuring Patty Duke, Dennis Franz, Ellen Travolta and Jack Bannon at NIC, Post Falls' annual Community Picnic with the Kelly Hughes Band and special guest Ashley Honnell on Thursday, 5 p.m. at Q'emiln Park pavilion, and this weekend Art on the Green/Taste of the Coeur d'Alenes/Downtown Street Fair in Coeur d'Alene. It must be summer!

Planning ahead ... 3C's 50th Anniversary Garden Tour at the Hagadone gardens on Lake Coeur d'Alene on Tuesday, Aug. 7. For tickets, call Judy Gardner at 664-4604. Coeur n'Stock coming up on Aug. 10-12 on the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River is a summer celebration for all Coeur d'Alene High School graduates and their friends and families. Live music, camping and camaraderie. Info: Greg Cook, 651-6319.

Happy Birthday today to Rich Houser, Bev Moss, Dennis Harlan, Dodge Gonzales, David Noordam, Tatiana Harrison and Patricia Kaufman (88!). Tomorrow Mandy Averill, Matt Odd and Brock Alexander are celebrating. On Friday Ronda Smithson and Steve Cox will blow out the birthday candles and on Saturday Ben Fairfield turns 30 and Ruthie Johnson will be 88, also celebrating that day are Toni Caywood, Joel Bertsch, Michele Wood, Erin Delaney and Amy Ford. Sunday birthdays belong to Dave Holinka, John Burnette and Doris Weaver. Starting the week with another trip around the sun are Tom Wood (50!), Chris Maiani (60!) and Tracey Fouce, Kelli Aiken, James Fulton, Brenda Smith, Shirleen Jacobs and Rich Marshall on Monday. Three of my favorite amigos, Lyle Ekness, Don Larsen and Rocky Bridges will toast to the anniversary of their birth on Tuesday along with Norm McBride, Cindi Wimmer, Greg Delavan, Bob Nonini, Billie Collins and Dan Dahl.

Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. She was voted Best Local Writer for 2012 by the readers of the North Idaho Business Journal. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri is on the air Mondays and Wednesdays on 1080 ESPN AM (KVNI). Find her on Facebook!