Memories on paper and ice
<p>Jim, left, and Jennifer Custer speak amongst all 50 diaries that highlight their past and growth through life, Wednesday in their Coeur d’Alene home.</p>
<p>Jennifer Custer reads from her first diary written in 1966 on Wednesday in her Coeur d’Alene home. 50 years of daily diaries that started from the time Custer performed with the Ice Capades in 1966 through her retired life today.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - As Jim and Jennifer Custer peer into one of Jennifer's diaries, time melts away.
The Coeur d'Alene couple become ice skating stars once again, traveling from city to city in the 1960s to put on glitzy and glamourous shows for hundreds of thousands of adoring Ice Capades fans across the United States and Canada.
They become young lovers who stake their claim on the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene, spending their precious time off sleeping in a tent and working on the land where they build their summer home.
They become new parents, pleasantly surprised by not just one but two babies, their twins Christopher and Cheryl.
They become witnesses to history, present for events that rocked the planet - the moon landing, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It's a little unlike a journal, where you put in your thoughts and what you learned," Jennifer said Wednesday morning in the front room of their lakeside home. "This is a diary of the day, what our day held, what we did that day or something in the world."
Nearly 50 years of memories, moments and daily occurrences are all recorded in Jennifer's careful penmanship and signed "JLC" in diaries that she has kept since 1966. They're all the same size and style; the only thing that changes is the color of the covers and the years printed on the spines. The yellow of the pages found in the '60s diaries gradually fades with each year to the bright white pages of 2015.
"The very first one I bought as a Christmas present," said Jim, 75. "We were in Springfield, Mass."
"We're lucky to have all of them, all the same size," said Jennifer, 72. "We were going to continue our skating, possibly, and thought, 'Well, gosh, we sure want to keep track of where we've been.' So that was the initial."
Jennifer dreamed of being in the Ice Capades, a traveling ice skating entertainment show, when she was a little girl in Minnesota. Her family moved to Phoenix when she was in high school, and when the Ice Capades came to town, she auditioned.
"I just so wanted to skate on the ice," she said, smiling. "I thought, 'What's the worst that could happen?' I went and auditioned one night and they took me."
She met Jim when she performed in Spokane. The two went on a few dates, then Jennifer was off to the next city. She never left Jim's mind. He was a gymnast in high school and could ice skate as well as perform fancy trampoline diving tricks, so about a year later, Jennifer was stunned to see him in Hershey, Pa., a new member of the Ice Capades.
"I guess I had to join the show to get her," Jim said with a wink.
"We'd meet for breakfast, you walk to rehearsal, you sat there for lunch, we're doing all this stuff," Jennifer said. "At the end of four months, we knew each other better than if we'd been married for 50 years."
Their exciting lifestyle and travels inspired Jim to give Jennifer the first diary, and she has continued the tradition ever since. She always records what city they were in and what the weather was like that day. They keep their shared memories bright by revisiting these moments, simply by turning to a random page.
"I'd say, 'Pick a date,' and then we'd both go, 'Oh my gosh, do you remember that?'" Jennifer said.
Like it was yesterday, the Custers, who just celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary, can remember long hours of Ice Capades rehearsals in Atlantic City and holiday shows in New York. They giggle when they talk about eating hot dogs for breakfast because that's all the concession stands had for the performers to eat when they slept late. They remember being on the road for more than 10 months a year and soaking in all the sights in each city they visited in their four years with the show.
"Oh, we had fun on those train trips," Jennifer said, her voice full of nostalgia. "That is the big crux of our life. That made what our life today is. If it wasn't for the Ice Capades, I never would have met Jim."
But the diaries also contain Coeur d'Alene memories, like the last two times Lake Coeur d'Alene completely froze in the winter.
"Some of the history of Coeur d'Alene that's in there, too, is on the lake itself," Jim said. "We actually ice skated from the city of Coeur d'Alene over here (to the west shore) and back."
The diaries contain details about the North Shore Resort, Playland Pier, watching the Lake City grow and falling in love with the lake itself.
When Jim and Jennifer drink an ice-cold beer, they have a shared memory of a hot, frustrating summer day in the '60s when they worked on their lakefront property and decided to splurge and get an icy beer at the old Fort Ground Tavern. The diary entry that day reminds them that the beer was so cold, the bartender had to use a towel just to muscle open the tap.
"Regardless of whether you keep a diary or not, there will be something that will trigger a memory," Jennifer said. "Bottom line is, end of your life, that's what it's all about, is memories. We just happen to have more of them."
The Custers hope to turn the diaries into a book someday or possibly give them to a museum. For now, Jennifer will keep writing and she and Jim will continue to fondly look back on the years with vivid recollection.
"It's a piece of history," Jim said. "Hopefully, years and years from now, someone will pick up one of those diaries and really find it extremely interesting to find a piece of history that had never been recorded before."