The Last Spotted Owl - Installment Two

Del and I made our way to Elsie's for breakfast.  Del lived a country block down the road from me on Elm Street in Coeur d'Alene so by the time I had dropped him off and put the tent over the Fuck Truck it was time for school.

Delvan Shaw lived with his Mother, Father, a sister and a brother, three cousins, an Aunt and an Uncle, three junk yard dogs, and his Grandmother in what would generously be called a three bedroom house.  Grandma actually lived in the trailer house on the other side of the parking lot that served as Del's front yard.

Del's dad and Uncle were loggers and there were always three to five logging trucks in the yard in various states of disrepair.  Our toys growing up were peaveys, buck saws and cleats used for climbing 200 foot Idaho White Pines, aka "Lodge pole Pines," for topping. 

Jobs for 14 to 17 year olds in our world amounted to planting trees, thinning trees, pulling green chain (towing trees) or fighting forest fires.

The really cool thing about fighting forest fires when you're 15 or 16 is that after the fire was out the whole crew would go to Harrison and One-Shot Charlie’s for pool and libations.

Harrison was a village of just over 40 Christian souls and within it One-Shot Charlie’s was a sovereign nation.  Any man, no matter his age, irrespective of state laws, who put in a day's work fighting fires, was welcome at One-Shot's.  The whole crew would line up at Charlie's 25 foot bar and he would pour every one a double shot of moonshine from a jug he kept under lock and key.  You only got one shot and if you asked for a second he'd throw you out.  The shot was free but you had to pay for your beer and men under 20 couldn't have beer but you could play pool and look out the window at the splendor that was Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Charlie also had two huge boxes of photographs.  In one box Charlie kept pictures of every car he'd ever owned and he bought a new car every year starting in 1922.  In the other box were pictures of boats.  Working boats, pleasure boats, Sailboats, Sternwheelers, Steamers, etc. and every one of them right out there on our lake.  These pictures dated back to the 1860's and Charlie had written careful notes on the history and owners of each craft on the backs of the photos.

There were a couple of other jobs to be had in Idaho at age 15.  You could plant tulip bulbs in the Spring, move sprinklers for farmers in the Summer, buck bales in the Fall, shovel snow in the Winter, or you could lay mining claims.  To lay a mining claim you had to hike trails with this ancient Hungarian geologist to the middle of some part of the Bitterroot Range and dynamite a hole 10'x10'x10' in the ground then mark it on a map.

Laying mining claims was fun, you just had to carry a 60 lb. pack for 10 hours a day.  The pack got lighter as the day progressed and you used up the dynamite.  It was a good job.  You got to blow shit up and invariably there were leftover blasting caps and sticks of dynamite for the 4th of July. 

In the 50's and 60's, the 4th of July in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho was just about as American as you can get.  From the time I was 12, as a member of Boy Scout Troop 220, sponsored by the Fire Department, my 4th began atop the fire engine, in full dress uniform, carrying the American flag in a parade through downtown.

Following the parade there was a giant picnic in the city park with Bar-B-Cue served up by the Hydromaniacs, a community service group made up of local businessmen.  My Uncle, who owned the local gun club and rifle range, was the master chef.

Then, The Diamond Cup Unlimited Hydroplane races on the lake.  Finally, to top off a perfect 4^th of July, after sunset there would be an hour of fireworks.

Things were a lot different in the years prior to 1968.  In the 6th grade, for example, on the day all the girls were taken to see the movie "Molly Grows Up" the NRA would take all the boys out in the field for a hunter safety course.  Then we'd all go to my Uncles rifle range to shoot shotguns at clay pigeons.

In our town if you brought a gun to school it was because you didn't want it to get stolen from your car in the parking lot.  There was a good chance the vice-principal would want to see it and then bring his out for comparison.  If you did get a Deer or an Elk before class it would be tied to the fender or roof of your car in the lot.

The rules were simple; rifles and shotguns had to be kept in lockers and if you had a handgun it had to be in a shoulder holster and you had to keep your coat zipped up. 

Handguns were pretty rare in school.  You really needed a .44 to bring down an Elk or a bear and not a lot of guys wanted to pack a cannon around all day with their coat zipped up.  Too heavy and too hot.

Things got hot in Vietnam in the Spring of 1968.  "Escalation" was the buzz word the media threw around.  The My Lai Massacre took place but along with a nerve gas leak in Utah would be covered up until the following year.  General Lewis Hershey was shouted down in an address at Howard University to cries of "America is the Black man's battleground!"

A troubled election year lay ahead with names like, Rusk, Fulbright, McCarthy, Nixon, Kennedy, and Rockefeller being thrown around the ring in anticipation of being thrown in.  France was on the brink of Revolution. Ho Chi Minh (He Who Enlightens) and Mai Van Bo, who was the chief North Vietnamese spokesman, had their positions in the nightly news along side Kosygin and Gromeko of the USSR.  U Thant and Nguyen Duy Trinh were known as "Peace Feelers" along with the U.S.' William Bundy.

There was even disclosure of a "Peace Hoax" perpetrated by the Hungarian foreign minister.  Janos Peter pretended for two years to be speaking for Hanoi and the Vietcong, proving that to be a major player in global politics all you had to do was engage the, "Because I said so," argument.

Meanwhile, the civil rights movement had made great strides since 1964.  Black people could vote in every state in the Union.  Communities in the South cut off water and electrical services to the Black neighborhoods if the citizens therein dared to register, but every American was entitled now.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and the riots in American cities lasted for days afterward.

David Frost, a British stand-up comic, was the big deal on TV in the Spring of '68.  He had an interview show where he would hold court with everyone from Eric Hoffer to Richard Nixon.  In theater you could get hung for your hang-ups in "Your Own Thing."  Nudity and hit songs punctuated "Hair," and on college campuses you could see Euripides' tragedy "The Bacchae" performed with electric guitars and scantily clad co-eds singing, "When shall I dance once more with bare feet the all-night dance tossing my head for joy!"  As Dylan was singing, "The times they are a-changin'" they in fact were.

1968 was a pivotal time in the history of the world.  On March 21st, 1968, the first day of Spring and the last day of my 15th year, my life was about to change permanently and inextricably.