Signs of the times

Go ahead, take a spin on north Fourth Street from downtown Coeur d’Alene to Appleway Avenue.

Now, try not to rear-end the car in front of you, but take a long look at the businesses on both sides of the street.

Here’s the challenge: If you’ve ever seen a string of more curious, intriguing, interesting and even puzzling signs than those popping up almost continually on that one amazing stretch, please...

Kindly send a postcard.

Within three blocks, for instance, you’ll pass two very different establishments hoping to defy death itself.

Seriously.

The Cheating Death Discount Vapors at 540 N. Fourth hopes to wean you off cigarettes with smokeless tobacco.

Just those few blocks north from the vapors den at 814 N. Fourth, St. Michael Consulting flaunts a sign that says: “Don’t Let Death Win!”

Despite a fairly religious theme to the artwork on that sign, St. Michael is actually in the business of teaching safety, instructing health care workers and that sort of thing.

SOME OF these eclectic stores can fool you. The names and signs don’t always give away what’s inside — including the people.

For instance, the humbly named JUNK is anything but…

Instead, the second-hand operation at 811 N. Fourth St. run by Dixie Derocher is no ordinary thrift shop. It’s more likely to put you in mind of a family-run store somewhere in rural Minnesota — with its homey signs, vintage dresses, old-fashioned lamps and items of every type that have been repainted or, to use the standard JUNK terminology, “repurposed.”

Derocher described the place as “shabby chic, farmhouse and industrial design” which is probably as good a tag as any for an outlet that almost defies any label at all.

Derocher admitted, with a hint of pride: “The people who collect antiques would probably cringe at what we do.”

In a single 15-minute swoop, one customer bought a bracelet that was almost certainly homemade and then a gigantic map of the world that was hanging on a far wall — all while the music of Johnny Cash hummed in the background.

While that transaction was taking place, a couple was looking carefully at a framed inscription that carried some vague crown on the top and below that regal symbol, the words: “It is Hereby Deemed While the Queen Naps… You May Rummage Her Drawers.”

Derocher, by the way, has plenty of other irons in the fire.

She’s involved in design for an event called Desert Trip in Indio, Calif., and will be styling the backstage area for the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney.

Just another adventure you weren’t expecting to find on north Fourth Street.

BUT AT the top of north Fourth — at least the manic stretch that morphs into rural peace pretty much beyond Appleway — is the granddaddy of Coeur d’Alene signs.

Not because it’s the biggest, or the most spectacular, or the most controversial, or the most…

Well, really the most anything.

Yet what they call the “reader board” at the north end of the Davis Donuts building (2520 N. Fourth St.) has a history and a following and, with all due respect to the bakery’s excellent doughnuts and other pastries, the board has a Facebook presence almost to itself.

Davis Donuts has been serving warm treats in the 5 a.m. darkness since 1981, but when Glenn Robinson and his wife, Dana, bought the place a couple of years ago, they were bombarded with one question.

“Everyone wanted to know about the board,” Glenn said. “I mean, I hadn’t really given it much thought, but it had become such a tradition that we thought we’d better keep it going.”

Dana is the operation’s main baker, handling the doughnuts, breads, muffins and sweet rolls that keep the place humming.

The pressure, though, is on Glenn — whose day job is in commercial refrigeration — to maintain interest in an old-fashioned reader board that isn’t even electronic.

Every Saturday night, Glenn climbs up and arranges the black (and sometimes red) letters to form a message he hopes will resonate with the public.

“I’ve tried a little bit of everything,” he said. “I use the Internet to get quotes from famous people, you know, inspirational things.”

During the Ironman Triathlon, he tried to stay in the spirit of the event by posting a message that said: WORK HARD IN SILENCE … LET SUCCESS MAKE ALL THE NOISE.

Glenn admits he has had complaints, no matter what he puts on the board.

“I used to go with a Bible verse once in a while, and there were people who didn’t like it,” he said. “So I tried to take the same ideas and use them in everyday language.”

There is also the business of selling doughnuts to consider, so occasionally (like this week with the return of spicy pumpkin favorites) he’ll go strictly commercial.

HE HAS ALSO tried messages to urge on his favorite sports teams.

“I grew up as a hockey fan in Canada,” he said. “I like the San Jose Sharks, so when they got to the (National Hockey League) finals last year, I put up a message that said: GO SHARKS!

“Well, right away, I got a call from a friend who is a Los Angeles Kings fan and he was upset. So I promised him if the Kings got that far this year, I’d do the same for them.”

There is no question that plenty of residents in the Coeur d’Alene area wait each week to see what the message will be at Davis Donuts.

Rhonda Bisrud, who works the counter, attested to the fact that the sign itself is a drawing card.

“We actually get people who will stop in and say, ‘We don’t want to buy any doughnuts right now, but we love your sign,’” Bisrud said.

Robinson said he tries to keep his messages general and inoffensive — but he is definitely a patriotic immigrant and a Second Amendment defender.

Thus he broke a bit with tradition a few weeks ago and posted a message that said: GOD GUNS GUTS … MADE AMERICA … LET’S KEEP ALL THREE.

By the way, punctuation marks are being added to this story where they might be on the reader board — if Glenn had any punctuation marks in his tool kit.

“Now that has been a real problem,” he said. “I don’t even know where to get these things, but I probably need commas and dashes or something.

“I have a real problem if I want to use two lines with a quote from somebody famous and then mention a doughnut special at the bottom.

“I have no way to separate them.”

You get the feeling, though, that fans of the Davis Donut sign aren’t really bothered.

They’re just waiting for the next weekly installment on north Fourth Street.

Steve Cameron is a special assignment reporter for The Press. Reach Steve at scameron@cdapress.com.