HUCKLEBERRIES: Geranium Day put petunias out to pasture

Geranium Day arrived first, probably in spring 1986 or 1987.

And the designation of the geranium as Coeur d’Alene’s official city flower wasn’t far behind.

The late Duane Hagadone launched Geranium Day in the mid-1980s by ordering 15,000 Tango Red geraniums to decorate his company’s piece de resistance, The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

And the community embraced that sea of red by selecting the geranium as the town flower in a 1989 contest, sponsored by the Coeur d’Alene Horticulture Society. The geranium easily bested 26 other types of flowers to win bragging rights, with the gentle petunia a distant second.

The geranium, as the city flower, also won the endorsement of the City Council.

Geraniums, with about 10,000 varieties, were doing well on their own before their happy introduction to The Coeur d’Alene Resort grounds. At the time, the Martha Washington geranium was a new variety. And red was America’s most popular geranium color.

It was Beverly Hagadone’s favorite, too.

To honor his mother, Duane Hagadone named the overhauled former Cloud 9 restaurant after her and ordered Tango Red geraniums planted annually on his resort property. The swaths of scarlet spread to other waterfront properties after Duane bought and transformed Potlatch’s old Rutledge Mill site into The Resort Golf Course, on the eastern edge of Coeur d’Alene.

Geranium Day now takes place on the Tuesday after Mother’s Day when 50 to 60 volunteers, from bosses to laundry workers, from chauffeurs to cooks, grab spades to prepare for another tourist season. The task at The Resort will begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday and take about two hours to complete.

Half of the 30,000 geraniums provided by Lima Greenhouse of Spokane will adorn The Resort property while the remaining half will enhance other Hagadone Hospitality holdings, including the event center (6,000), Hagadone Marine (3,400), and the Coeur d’Alene Inn (1,800).

Once planted, the geraniums require constant care, approximately 40 hours combined per week of deadheading and fertilizing.

They will remain until mid-September, a sign that summer is here.

Gloomy night

It takes creativity to intentionally write “truly ugly fiction.”

And Coeur d’Alene High English teacher Larry Isitt displayed such skill 40 years ago in winning the adventure division of the third annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The whimsical competition honors Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), who first wrote the immortal lead paragraph that began: “It was a dark and stormy night …”

On May 8, 1984, The Press reprinted Isitt’s winning entry:

“Champ Hensley’s laugh was harsh and cruel as he pointed off the bow of his ocean-smuggling trawler and fiercely spat the word ‘sharkbait’ at his terrified captive, but little had he reckoned with her golden tresses and angelic green eyes starting an avalanche of life-changing passion somewhere deep inside his barrel chest, an avalanche caused when a chunk of his stone heart like a boulder dislodging from a cliff face broke away and plummeted into the dark gorge of his stomach.”

Isitt wanted to make people aware of what bad writing is. And he told The Press that the best writers are always readers. Always.

Pretty please

Politeness pays — at least it did 30 years ago on Bus 34 for 30 students from Winton and Bryan schools. The riders were members of driver George Morgan’s Donut Hole Society.

On Thursdays, driver Morgan, a retired Air Force officer, offered his passengers donut holes, courtesy of Albertson’s manager Don Kenna, in exchange for politeness. As their part of the bargain, the students observed three basic rules listed on a membership card:

1. We say: “I would like” and “May I please have?” We do not say, “I want.”

2. We use the words: “Please” and “Thank you.”

3. We proudly accept: Responsibility for our actions.

Driver Morgan started the courtesy club in February 1994. By the following May 6, he felt that his charges had performed so well that he presented each with a ball cap that read: “Bus 34 Donut Hole Society.”

Politeness never goes out of fashion.

Dandelion Game

You’re probably collecting Social Security if you remember the “Dandelion Game.”

On May 8, 1969, The Press spotlighted the game on Page One in a photo of two young siblings sitting in a vacant lot at 10th and Sherman, dotted with dandelions.

Christopher Cozad, 3, is shown holding a dandelion under the chin of his sister, Stephenie, 2, to see whether the yellow flower reflected on her skin. If it did, that meant Stephenie liked butter. If not, Christopher was to smear the flower/weed on her face.

The open-minded among us knows that dandelions have other uses beyond children’s play. Properly prepared, the leaves can be munched. Or used as a garnish for meat. Or to make tea, wine and even honey.

Most others ignore them or prefer to spray them with something like Ortho’s Weed B-Gon.

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: Blooming flowers/and soft spring breezes,/fresh green trees and/allergy sneezes — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“May”).

• Fire Sale? During the 2008-09 housing crisis, a shrewd buyer of means could pick up a luxury condo on the Spokane River at Riverstone’s Bellerive for $285,000. CEO Marshall Chesrown and his Black Rock Development had slashed prices by 40%. And he was sure that the cost for such prized real estate would never be that low again. He was right.

• No. 1 Mom: In the “Best Mother’s Day Gift” category, it’d be hard to top Matt Johnson’s 2009 present to his mother, Virginia. Matt hauled his mom’s heavy electric recliner to City Park so she could hear the annual Mother’s Day concert in style. Matt thought about bringing the battery, too. But decided that would be a bit much. Said Matt: “The best mom gets the best.”

• Factoid: The Tango Red geranium planted during the first “Geranium Days” was called the "Kim" variety by originator Bob “Mr. Geranium” Oglevee of Pennsylvania. Said Oglevee during a 1987 visit here: “We couldn’t think of anything new, so it’s named for our receptionist.”

• Discovered: Sixty years ago (1964), United Air Lines passengers read all about “Coeur d’Alene Country” in the May issue of the airline's Mainliner magazine. Written by chamber manager Kyle Walker, the story noted that President Woodrow Wilson called Coeur d’Alene “the most beautiful area in America.” And it still is, albeit a lot more crowded.

• Changes: Duane Hagadone was fond of Fred Murphy, a Casco Bay neighbor and Lake Coeur d’Alene legend. In 1984, a year after he bought Western Frontiers, Duane renamed Templin’s restaurant after his friend: Murphy’s Landing. The eatery, on the edge of Independence Point, was razed as part of The Coeur d’Alene Resort expansion. But it was still a nice gesture.

Parting shot

You’d think that this City with a Divided Heart was 100% behind the construction of a $65 million Kroc Center and endowment. And you’d be wrong. As we observe the 15th anniversary of the opening of the Kroc (May 9-11, 2009), we should recall that: 1. Some fought to stop a city land swap to acquire the Kroc site. 2. A self-appointed watchdog claimed, wrongly, that the dirt used to fill an old pit on site was part of a sweetheart deal. 3. A former legislator sought an investigation into a $3 million donation made by the city to prepare the Kroc site. And 4. An anonymous local group cried foul and contacted Americans United for the Separation of Church and State because a Salvation Army church was part of the project. The visionaries prevailed. And the naysayers vanished for a while, waiting to pounce on the next worthy project.

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D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.

Bill Reagan, president of The Coeur d’Alene Resort (center), pitches in on Geranium Day 2023.

    Teacher Larry Islitt made a point with his bad writing.
  

    George Morgan and his “Donut Hole Society”: Front, from left, Chris Matthews, Sandra Matthews, Melissa Pierce and Brett Baragia, and Jessica Brabank, back.
  

    Siblings Christopher and Stephenie Cozad play the Dandelion Game.
  

    CEO Marshall Chesrown at his Bellerive development in Riverstone.
  

    Matt Johnson, right, pampered mom Virginia at a Mother’s Day Concert.
  

    Secretary Gail White and sales rep William C. Reagan, both of Western Frontiers, tout Coeur d’Alene Country after the United Air Lines article.
  

    Fred Murphy, left, with Jim Burns, manager of Murphy’s Landing.