The Last Spotted Owl - Installment Four

Growing up on the lake you came to know a lot of things that you didn't really know but you knew.  Lake levels rise and fall.  I knew that.  Sometimes they'd rise or fall a couple of feet or more.  Sure, I knew that too.  Land might be exposed when the lake was at a low level and that land would remain land for years before disappearing again.  Yep, knew that.  When the lake was low you could sell that land.  I did not know that.

Now that I think about it, Skip Kindler owned the Fuck Truck.  Skip was in his 20's but we pal'd around together a lot.  His father had been friends with my mother.  He also owned the Silver Spray.

The Silver Spray was a small and highly maneuverable tug boat that worked the lake and had a fire fighting nozzle mounted midship.  The nozzle could shoot a stream of water 150' which was perfect for disrupting competing keggers on the beaches.  Alas, the Silver Spray was at the bottom of Lake Coeur d'Alene where it remains today; the victim of cruel maritime safety regulations and the ignorance thereof.

We could have used the Silver Spray.

Skip's Dad and One-Shot Charlie had surveyed a great deal of the land around Lake Coeur d'Alene before anything like development took place.  Skip's Dad had purchased quite a lot of that land, particularly land that was called "Waterfront." 

Skip's Dad passed away when Skip was still in his teens.  As a result, Skip owned quite a lot of waterfront.  Skip also owned Harrison.

Well, in 1965 the water level fell about three feet and it stayed low for about three years.  As a result there was a bay which Skip owned that was no longer a bay but a marshland.

Some enterprising young developer saw this as an opportunity and put up three things.  He put up a fence that ran the entire width of the bay.  He put up a 40' dock and he put up a sign that read, "FOR SALE."  Skip wasn't gonna put up with any of it.

You knew, just by looking, that this was not the real lake level.  You could see the water line on the basalt surrounding the cove.  You'd be an idiot to buy this land.  But I guess the fellow selling it thought he was pretty smart.  The access road was inaccessible in Winter and nearly impassable in Spring but not for the Fuck Truck.  Skip and I just put on the chains, dropped the Jimmy into compound low and drove in.

It was about a week after I had turned 16.  It was dark, about 11:00PM when we got there so right off we didn't see the FOR SALE sign and accidentally backed over it a couple of times.  We were so embarrassed that we took the sign and hid it in the lake.

The road was not clearly marked anymore either so we got a little lost and accidentally drove over 400 feet of fence.  The fence likewise, was not clearly marked.

The dock was a problem.

We couldn't do anything about the piling.  That was driven down to bedrock.  It was simple to detach the chain; bolt cutters, even a 3/4" ratchet would get the thing loose.  To get the dock to some other part of the lake where it did not constitute a safety hazard required a boat.

The Silver Spray had sunk.

Dick Smith had a boat.

Dick Smith was an amiable fellow.  His face was almost perfectly round, as were his shoulders.  A junior City Councilman, Dick was well liked and well connected in the community.

As a sportsman, Dick had all the accoutrements; guns, a snowmobile, a goat (a small sort of motorcycle), and a 10' aluminum boat and an 8 horsepower outboard motor for fishing and trapping.

It was nearly 1:00 AM by the time we made our way around the lake road and out to Dalton Gardens and Dick's home.  Dalton was a little North of town.  We had to stop to take the chains off the truck and we wanted to get a can of gas so that Dick couldn't say, "I don't have any gas!"   We stopped at Elsies for some hot coffee and donuts as well.  Dick would want coffee.  The donuts would seal the deal.

By 2:00 AM we were on the lake putting along at maybe 8 miles an hour.  The property was an hour away at that rate.  Dick was cold.  He wasn't used to adventures the way Skip and I were.

Skip and I had gone on a number of adventures in the Fuck Truck.  We went windmill salvaging through Central Oregon.  We took every back road in Washington for a few days just to see where they lead.  We went hunting for dilapidated railcars to line the road approaching Harrison.  And in the pre-satellite days we drove up to the relay tower that fed the West Coast ABC affiliates to see how hard it would be to patch in a gay porno during My Three Sons.  It was do-able, we just didn't do it.

When we got to the dock it was easy going to unchain it and lash it to the boat.  The little engine chugged along and by the time the sun was rising over the mountains we were smack in the middle of the North end, close to the city and our destination, the Blackwell Slough.

That's when I lit the joint.

Dick was steering so Skip and I stretched out on the dock passing the joint back and forth, giggling.  It took a while for Dick to catch on but when he did he started to panic.

"OH GOD!  I'm out here in the middle of the lake with a stolen dock and couple of acid heads!" Dick exclaimed.

It was a nice dock, well made, brand new; we should have taken it to Harrison.  Skip and I looked out at all the beautiful summer homes and cabins that lined the lake shore.  We talked a little about what the residents might think seeing a dock in the middle of the lake chugging along with Dick Smith at the helm.

This just made Dick crazy so we cut it out.

At the mouth of the Spokane River the current began to move us along at a pretty good pace.  We steered the dock into the slough and with very little effort the current helped it snap into two 20' pieces that wedged neatly into a bend.

Somehow we'd managed to be on the wrong side of the dock in the end so we had to go out the other end of the slough.  It was the long way around and meant going under the new bridge and past the Old Folks Home, an old mansion that had been converted into a state home for the elderly.

Dick was still rattled over our blatant violation of city, state, and federal narcotics laws, as well as the damage done to his person having seen it all so when we passed the pipe that dumped raw sewage from the Old Folks Home directly into the Spokane River, he just about came unglued.

"Did you know about this?" he demanded.

"Everybody knows about this, Dick.  It's been like that since before the railroad."

Dick's junior city councilman mind went numb with the implications.  There would have to be a special levy or an L.I.D. to extend sewer service to the Home.  The pipe might be out of city limits but there were developments downstream and Post Falls.  Those fatheads were always raising hell about the crap floating downstream from the city.  No, this was terrible.  There would have to be a special session called.

"We can fix it if you'll buy breakfast at Elsie's."  It was my idea but Skip saw the whole thing as soon as I said it.  Dick argued a little but we assured him we had the solution.  He agreed.  We loaded his boat and motor back up on the Fuck Truck and drove to Bum's Jungle.

Bum's was a little stretch of pine parallel to the river and adjacent to the rail line that ran North out of town and right under the new bridge.  It was used primarily by The Mob as a place to have beer parties since no one else in town would go there.  We could hop freights there and go for rides.  We could get loud and rowdy without disturbing anyone and in the summer we could fly on a rope swing hung from the new Blackwell bridge and into the Spokane River.

Yes, we were swimming in raw sewage but it was a really good rope swing.  You had to lift your legs to clear some rotten pilings then go out far enough to miss the deadheads floating just under the surface of the water.  Clearly a superior rope swing in every respect.

Dick asked us maybe 40 times, "What're you gonna do?"  We just told him he'd see when we got there.  It didn't take long.  We turned the Fuck Truck around so we were ready to go out.  I reached into the lockers for the blasting caps and dynamite I had stashed there after staking mining claims the previous summer.  A half stick would do the job so we took two.

One last tap on the door to make sure Dick was okay, "I don't wanna know what you're doing, I'm not watching, I don't see anything, I don't know anything."

"You sure, Dick?  It's gonna be pretty cool!"  No response so we went on our way.

It only took a few minutes and we were back by the truck staring in the direction of the bridge and the river.  It was a righteous blast that blew a 10'x10'x10' hole in the river bank and eliminated any sign of the existence of a sewage drain.

We climbed in the cab of the truck and drove off down the rough road.  The first cop car just whizzed past us.  The second cop car stopped us.  It wasn't unusual to see a vehicle like the Fuck Truck, with a boat and motor lashed to the rear, and three passengers in the early morning hours in North Idaho.  The cop wanted to check us out so he could say he did.

"Oh, good morning Mr. Smith!" said the officer, immediately recognizing the councilman, "Doing some fishing?"

"No, just testing the waters." said Dick.

"Say, did you hear anything like an explosion back there?" queried the cop.

"I did hear that." said Dick, "you say it was an explosion?"

"Yeah, we think so.  Did you see anything up there?" the cop stared right at Dick.

Dick looked right at the cop and said with a clear eye, "I didn't see a thing."

"Okay then, thanks for your time.  You be safe now." and the cop waved us on.

Breakfast at Elsies on Dick Smith's dime was more than welcome after such an adventurous night.  The side benefit of having a 10'x10'x10' hole by the river in Bum's Jungle was that The Mob would never have to carry empties out after another beer bust.