Lucky to fish again

It was a dream come true when Jason Rzepa went fishing with his son, Collin.

On July 22, 2016, the former Army National Guard staff sergeant and his boy, then 5, were guests of Boats for Heroes on that perfect day on Lake Pend Oreille.

Ryan was only 3 months old on July 7, 2011, when his warrior father was badly injured in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. The blast led to the amputation of both legs below the knee.

Rzepa (pronounced Zeppa) felt lucky afterward. The attack killed two of his fellow soldiers — Spc. Nathan R. Beyers, 24, and Spc. Nicholas W. Newby, 20, both of Coeur d’Alene.

“The worst part about this was losing them,” Rzepa told the Coeur d’Alene Press while recuperating a month later at the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, near San Antonio, Texas. “They were great friends and great people.”

He continued, “I have a lot to be thankful for. Two others died, and I see guys here with both legs completely gone or badly burned. I’ll walk again, so I’m not as bad off.”

The three soldiers were part of Operation New Dawn, serving with the 145th Brigade Support Battalion, 116th Cavalry Heavy Brigade Combat Team, based in Post Falls.

Fifteen years ago, Coeur d’Alene was rocked by the news of the Iraq bombing.

Rzepa, then 30, and a 1999 graduate of Project CDA, was the gunner in the last vehicle of the convoy during the attack, according to The Press. The blast knocked him down and briefly unconscious. When he came to, he saw that the back door was blown off.

“My legs were still attached, but they were pretty much hanging by the skin,” Rzepa told The Press. “Two friends came back, pulled me out and put tourniquets on me. … If it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead. They acted well, and their training paid off.”

Ryan Rogers, a fellow Guardsman who rescued Rzepa, helped organize the Boats for Heroes fishing trip in North Idaho. Founded by Vietnam vet Keith Mathews and his wife, Catherine, of Enumclaw, Wash., the nonprofit organization treated veterans to boat trips and camaraderie. The Mathewses paid for the trips themselves.

In August 2011, after being awarded a Purple Heart medal, Rzepa told The Press that he looked forward to the day he would be able to fish and hunt again.

Rzepa and his son tag-teamed reeling in kokanee salmon during their day on Lake Pend Oreille. Whenever Collin’s eyes lit up, The Press reported, so did his dad’s.

Rzepa said, “This was a great opportunity to get out.”

Swimmers beware

In summer 2016, Coeur d’Alene replaced City Beach lifeguards with signs that read, “Swim at your own Risk.” And Julie Caires, among others, wasn’t happy about it.

“I definitely think someone should always be out here,” Caires told The Press as she watched her two boys, 3 and 5, playing in the water. “Just having someone here, knowing that if something goes wrong … if someone needs CPR or something, it’s just nice to have someone here.”

City officials dropped the safety program because they couldn’t find enough qualified lifeguards.

City lifeguards had rescued several swimmers from drowning.

In 2003, for example, firefighters credited them for saving a 21-year-old woman who was knocked unconscious in the water after being kicked in the jaw.

Nancy Lowery, former aquatics director for the Kroc Center, was at City Beach with her kids on the Fourth of July 1991 when a 6-year-old Coeur d’Alene boy drowned in 6 feet of water. The tragedy led to an unfruitful lawsuit against Coeur d’Alene. The city was also sued after a 7-year-old boy from Spokane drowned at City Beach on July 21, 2001.

Lowery got her lifeguard certificate after the 1991 drowning and managed City Beach lifeguards for “many, many, many years.” She estimated that lifeguards saved about six swimmers per year. In 2016, she viewed City Beach without lifeguards as “extremely dangerous.”

City officials said they would revisit their decision annually. Since then ... crickets.

Winning friends

Nothing spoils a day of sun, shopping and dining on our waterfront like a parking ticket.

It doesn’t break the bank. But it sours attitudes toward downtown Coeur d’Alene.

In the 1950s and into the 1960s, Lake City treated visiting parking violators with kid gloves, making friends of them rather than critics. It did so by handing out courtesy postcards.

In 1961, the postcards featured two aerial photos of the town and the message: “Although you have violated our parking regulations, as a visitor to Coeur d’Alene, you are excused. We welcome you to our city and trust that you enjoy your visit. For further convenience, we have a free city parking lot on Fourth Street, one block south of the business center.”

Tourists were urged to mail the courtesy tickets to friends and family to show how beautiful the area was. The postcards also advertised that the city had 800 hotel and motel rooms.

The brainchild of chamber manager Kyle Walker, the postcards were appreciated.

Individuals and civic groups bombarded the chamber for more information about the program, including from as far away as Switzerland.

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: You can grill them or fry them or stuff them or bake; / you can put them in soup or in bread or cake; / you can use by the bushel, the quart, or the cup, / but try like the devil, you can’t use them up — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Zucchini”).

• Grande Dame: The ritziest restaurant in town is named after her. She was the daughter of former mayor O.W. “Foxy” Edmonds and his wife, Kitty. She married a self-made fella, named Burl, who became the publisher of the Coeur d’Alene Press. Her son, Duane, built a newspaper and hospitality empire in the Inland Northwest. And, in 1981, Beverly Hagadone led the Fourth of July parade as grand marshal.

• Flashback: Jerry Jaeger is now retired from the hospitality industry. Before becoming Duane Hagadone’s partner in The Coeur d’Alene Resort, he was a fresh-faced kid from Washington State — and the new director of Bob Templin’s North Shore Motor Hotel. Jerry’s father, Joe, managed the North Shore from 1965 to 1967 when he was killed in a plane crash. Jerry was 23 when he started work for Bob on June 1, 1971.

• Answer Man: And the answer is … Dr. Roy Toyama. The question: Who was the first ophthalmologist to open an office in the Idaho Panhandle? Attracted by Coeur d’Alene’s beauty and friendliness, Dr. Toyama, formerly of Minnesota, rented a suite of seven rooms in the Hagadone building, Third and Sherman. A U.S. Army veteran (1944-46), he served as a translator in the Intelligence Service in Tokyo after World War II.

• Time Flies: Has it been 15 years since the Union Gospel Mission broke ground on its center for women and children on Haycraft Avenue, the first in Idaho? In a speech, first lady Lori Otter touted the need for communities to help the needy. And Heather Heinitz, a 2010 graduate of the UGM’s Ogden Hall in Spokane, predicted accurately that the Coeur d’Alene center would change many lives.

Parting shot

Many of you know that Coeur d’Alene Mayor Dan Gookin is the guiding light behind those thriving computer books “For Dummies.” And that he was a Libertarian turned Republican turned maverick before winning a City Council seat.

But did you know that he once was an actor who performed “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” with son Jordan, and Robby French?

On July 7, 2006, the play was described by The Press as “a 97-minute romp through all 37 of the bard’s plays.” “Romeo and Juliet” is condensed to 15 minutes. And the whole second act offered an unconventional “Hamlet.”

At age 10, the younger Gookin caught the acting bug from his pop and then appeared in dozens of plays for the Lake City Playhouse. The three actors, with French playing all the female parts, were planning performances in Great Falls, Boise and The Met in Spokane.

So, if the mayor seems theatrical at times during council meetings, well, it’s in his blood.

• • •

D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at [email protected].

    Keith Mathews of Boats for Heroes lets Collin Rzepa, 5, pilot his 31-foot aluminum fishing boat during a 2016 outing on Lake Pend Oreille.
  

    Lifeguard Derek Taylor watches closely for signs of trouble at City Beach in 2007. “We’re not here to just get a tan,” he told The Press.
  

    Meter officer Elmer James gets a fresh supply of 1961 courtesy parking tickets from chamber manager Kyle Walker.
  

    In this undated photo, Beverly Hagadone is shown with her son, Duane, and her grandsons Todd, upper left, and Brad.
  

    Owner Bob Templin, left, greets Jerry Jaeger as his new director of the North Shore Motor Hotel in 1971.
  

    Architect Robert G. Nelson, left, welcomes ophthalmologist Roy Toyama, second from left, to the new Hagadone building in 1966. Others shown are, center to right, optician Dave Lillemo, receptionist Patricia Lee Dreschel and Edith Walker of Ace Travel, another tenant in the building.
  

    First lady Lori Otter speaks at the 2011 groundbreaking ceremony for the Union Gospel Mission Center for Women and Children.
  

    Dan Gookin and Robbie French practice a scene for their 2006 production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)."