Looking back at ‘The Painful Three NRs’

And now the Tidbits

Hello Readers: Every Sunday I start this weekly column with news about four new businesses (or new locations, new owners, etc.). This week I was unable to connect with the sources I had leads for.

On Monday my daughter Mariah texted me, asking if I would write a story about when, as a young adult, I had cut my foot real bad. So I wrote it, and my managing editor read it and said I could run it instead of my four “new” businesses.

So here it is: “The Painful Three NRs.”

• • •

My first summer out of high school (age 18) I worked for the Forest Service in Noxon, Mont., near the North Idaho border. The job for our team was to work on building a trail over a mountain ridge into the wilderness area of Wanless Lake.

A crew of about 15 of us hiked into the lake area and set up a camp with tents and trail-working supplies. A designated cook would make the meals, but firewood had to be cut to cook them.

That was the job of my friend Bruce and I. We had a stack of 18-inch rounds cut from logs and 24-inch bases to set them on to vertically chop them with our axes into firewood pieces.

No one told me that when I got the ax stuck into the top part of a piece that it was dangerous to lift the ax with the piece stuck to it and slam it to the base.

Uh oh. When I did swing it hard vertically, it went through the piece and into my foot. But it didn’t hurt, and I continued to chop my pile until I noticed my boot was loose. I thought it had become untied.

But when I knelt down to it I saw my whole foot was covered with blood.

“Hey, Bruce. I think I cut my foot.”

He looked at it and fainted. Really.

We had a medic-related guy on the team, and he checked my injured foot and said it was a very deep cut and had to be repaired soon.

They radioed for a helicopter to come get me and fly me to the hospital in Sandpoint. Ironically, at the same time another worker had a bad case of appendicitis and needed to be flown out also.

And, more ironically, his name was Neil Rose.

The receiver of the radio message heard the names and thought there was just one of us and sent a helicopter that just seated one person next to the pilot. When it arrived and landed and they saw there were two of us, they put Neil next to the pilot and put me to hang from a sling on the outside. But Neil started to puke in the helicopter cabin so they put me inside and him in the sling.

It was about a half-hour ride, and both of us were “fixed” at the hospital. My cut, in the instep of my left foot, was very deep and needed repair deep at the bone and on the surface with stitches in the skin. But I was OK.

Ironically, the next day a Forest Service guy stationed on a nearby lookout tower cut his hand badly and had to be helicoptered out. More ironically, his name was Nelson Rosenthal. That really confused the flight arrangers.

And, more ironically, many years later the three N.R.s all lived in Coeur d’Alene.

Now a footnote: (pun intended)

This week I was at The Porch restaurant in Hayden when Jack Beebe, a Realtor I have known 40 years, said that he first knew of me 58 years ago when I cut my foot, and his parents, John and Merle Beebe (he was the Forest Supervisor) felt sorry for me and had me stay at their house.

Man, that is ironic timing to tell me that story.

• Beutler & Associates Century 21 Realty is now at 207½ Sherman Ave.

• 5-in-1 Fitness will be at 1631 Seltice Way.

• The 10/6 eatery that used to be on Fourth Street will be at Seventh and Wallace in 2021.

• Northwest Taps will be a permanent structure in the food court off Prairie Avenue.

• Cookie Crumble will be in the Costco Plaza area at 3524 Government Way.

• Emerge is opening at 119 N. Second St.

• Milk & Honey Coffee is “coming soon” to Mullan and Cecil in Post Falls.

• Schmidty’s Burgers will be at 1524 E. Sherman.

• Spirit Halloween will have a seasonal location at 507 W. Kathleen Ave.

• Izzy’s Comfort Kitchen will be where 10-6 Eatery was at 726 N. Fourth St.

• Hanks Hatchets will be at 2506 N. Fourth St.

• Griffitts Facial & Oral Surgery has a new building at 8724 N. Wayne Drive in Hayden.

• A new UPS distribution center is under construction at 192 N. Beck Road in Post Falls.

• The Rokko’s teriyaki eatery has left Riverstone and will be where San Francisco Sourdough was downtown.

• Anyone know anything about Dairy Queen coming to Hayden? Or what might be happening with the former Shopko building?

• A new commercial building is under construction at 6040 Government Way.

• Edward Jones Investments will have a new office in Hayden.

• 108 North is under construction connected to the Moose Lounge downtown.

• La Cabana Mexican Food on Seltice Way is adding a second place in Riverbend Commerce Park.

• Watch for Sherman Food Court opening at 1902 E. Sherman Ave.

• Something new is going into 413 Sherman beside the Art Spirit Gallery.

• A Mangia Wood-Fired Pizza will be in The Northern complex northwest of the Ramsey Road-Hanley Avenue intersection.

• Trademark Mechanical is building a new place in Hayden.

• We hear River City Pizza will have a place in the strip mall at Atlas and Prairie.

• A new Roger’s Ice Cream & Burgers is under construction on Government Way behind Wells Fargo Bank on Appleway.

• The new Hardwick Hardware is under construction at 3820 E. Mullan in Post Falls.

• Hayden Health & Wellness moved to 162 E. Hayden Ave.

• A Chase Bank is being built in front of Tractor Supply on Neider Avenue.

• A Starbucks Coffee building is under construction kitty-corner from the Kroc at Ramsey and Maria.

• Vicio Pizza will be in the former Bullman’s pizza location in Riverstone.

• With the “N.R.”s above, just one more N.R. applies. “No Return.”

• Contact Nils Rosdahl at nrosdahl@cdapress.com.