Tuesday
We are going home today from
Sandpoint to L.A. Maybe I have that wrong. Maybe now Sandpoint is
home. But we are going south, like the osprey, as even Indian
summer promises to wane.
So, goodbye to our condo with its views over the lake and the
comforting 24 hour a day roar and rumble of Mr. Buffett’s trains.
Goodbye to the prime rib at Trinity on the lake at the Edgewater.
Goodbye to the glorious meatless pasta at Ivano’s and Gabby, my
economist-parented friend there. Goodbye to the friendly girls at
Vanderford’s where I get my Wall Street Journal every
day.
Goodbye to Tim Farmin, my boating guru and guide and friend who
can fix everything and anything. Goodbye to Penny, his lovely wife,
who is one of the most insightful women I have ever met.
Goodbye to Starbucks and Coldwater Creek, where my wife found a
jacket that looks like Chanel but only cost a hundred bucks.
Bye-bye to Wendy, the bakery manager at Safeway, who sold me
fabulous chocolate cakes for my bride and agreed that these are the
latter days and that our refuge is in the Lord.
Goodbye to the great people at Sandpoint Super Drug, who
actually know their customers and care about them. (They also have
the best air conditioning in town.)
Adios, muchachos, to the men and women at Bottle Bay Resort and
the Falls Café. Please, don’t go there. I would like it to be my
secret. Those places are too cool for school.
Goodbye to the people at the Laclede Store in the middle
of nowhere but that stocks everything. Goodbye to Mama Mac’s gas
station and eatery and to the Priest River Police, who keep a close
eye on me.
Goodbye to Ivano’s in Hope, with the best steaks and the best
sunsets on earth. Goodbye to the chef there who asked me if I would
give her a “fellowship” to culinary school. Goodbye to Hill’s, far,
far away from Beverly Hills, but worth the trip.
Au revoir cute girls at City Beach who show me their ice cream
confections and want photos with me and who all remind me of the
girls I had crushes on at the Silver Spring Armory in 1959. Please
remember to stay forever young. Don’t leave Sandpoint. Go see “Lost
Horizons” and you’ll see what I mean.
Goodbye to the refreshment stand at City Beach where the high
school girls who work there make me fresh popcorn and smile and all
have haunting blue eyes. They keep a salt shaker just for
me. Goodbye to the girl on the swing who wants to be a lawyer.
Good bye to the Dairy Depot and their moose tracks chocolate
milkshakes.
Goodbye to watching Tim fly his remote control seaplane. Good
bye to the Cobalt cutting through the water at 60, 26 feet, three
inches of pure pleasure. Goodbye to the Vissers, my pluperfectly
beautiful and polite neighbors and friends.
In Fiddler on the Roof, a Jewish shtetl dweller in
Russia asks the rabbi if he has a prayer for the Tsar. “Yes,” says
the rebbe. “May God bless and keep the Tsar… far away.” That is my
prayer for our President and Sandpoint. To keep Barack Obama and
modern America far from Sandpoint.
Now, I have something to live for: to come back to a place where
no one brags, no one cuts you off in traffic, where you do not hear
one car horn honking at you all summer, where everyone has an
absolutely unreserved love of America and no one starts an
argument. Where you race in your boat under osprey and bald eagles
that are impossibly powerful and swift and yet real and not in
captivity.
Dear, dear Sandpoint, stay as magical as you are, stay free and
far, far away from the captivity of the modern.
