There were four of us who arrived in Russia together; Gerald, Hazel, Eugene and I. We arrived in Moscow as most Americans do, dead tired and unprepared for the seemingly eternal phalanx of forms and uniforms one must pass through to enter the Mother Country. Time is already distorted for someone who has just flown half-way around the world, and… Read more →
Comes a time in many lives when we find ourselves orphaned. Some of us — most of us — are blessed with waiting until we are well-grown when that happens, which might make it somewhat easier, but might not. In our case, it was a combination. We lost our dad in 1986. It was a long and drawn-out affair, and… Read more →
God’s Will I, God, being of infinite mind and inscrutable body, do hereby declare My continuing Will and Testament, human edition. Planet Earth, I leave to its inhabitants, large and small, magnificent and mundane. The smarter should take care of the not-so-smart. I leave it to you to figure out who or what that might be. The rest of the… Read more →
Readers following the exploits of Archer MacClehan had a to wait nine years, but author Sandy Compton of Heron says it won’t be as long for the third and fourth installments, both have already been started. Compton published the first novel of the series in 2005. That tale, Archer MacClehan and the Hungry Now relates an adventure through the wilds… Read more →
Twenty-sixteen. We’re gifted with a whole ’nother year to play with; 365 whole days. Oops. 366. It’s Leap Year! We get an extra. Hooray! I will try to use it wisely. Joyfully. Gracefully. Gratefully. I commend this to you as well. In spite of its travails — sometimes, even because of them — life is good and sweet. Results of… Read more →
April, 2015 — Unpredictability. This morning, a snowshoe hare hopped across my line of sight, still completely and unfortunately white in the face of our disappeared winter. It was in a hurry, as if it knows how well it stands out against the forest. It was a poignant sighting. I felt a bit of grief that such a well-adapted critter… Read more →
This appeared in the July 16, 2015 issue of the Sandpoint Reader, for which Sandy Compton is an irregular contributor. Has it been hot or is it just me? OK. Damnably hot. Not hellishly hot, yet, but still. A friend pointed out yesterday that if global warming isn’t real, a great majority of the world’s scientists are idiots. Love that kind… Read more →
As it was, there was no way out of it, and even if there had been, Nadine would have done the same thing, no matter the crazy, trying circumstances nor the strident, screeching disapproval of Mother Sednick when Nadine called to tell her the plan and finally hung up shaking, crying and more determined than ever. Being in Montana made… Read more →
Twenty Questions Are you an addict? There is really only one person who can answer that question and that’s you. Others might be able to see it in you, and be convinced of it by your actions, and even take their own steps to obtain help for you or themselves. But you are the one who must decide whether you… Read more →
Step One “We admitted we were helpless over the problem — that our lives have become unmanageable.” So, let’s talk about addiction. I have already expressed that I think of it as cancer of the soul, a malignancy that begins growing in our spirit when we first indulge our addiction and eventually replaces maturity: growupus interruptus. I have already told… Read more →
One day at a time, you can get your life back through the Twelve Steps. Resource pages for addicts and addiction information are collected below in no particular order. We have first included links to associations and twelve step programs that are open and free. If something is eating up your time and money, or providing a place to hide… Read more →
There’s a snowshoe hare living somewhere around my yard. I see her (him?) almost every day. Medium brown. Medium sized. Medium-length ears. Extra fast. Most often, I see it when I come home from somewhere, sitting sentinel in the yard. As soon as I drive in, it blitzes off into the brush. GC — my dog — has either not… Read more →
On the tarmac at OAK — 7:31 pm Pacific. According to the screen above the loading ramp door, Flight 2793 was underway for 6 minutes already when I began down the ramp. We had left at 7:20; on time. Not true, sorry to say. Here in 23-F, second row from the back, starboard window seat, I wait for a passel… Read more →
When my mother was growing up and her children and her grandchildren, many of the kids living between Hope, Idaho, and Paradise, Montana, grew up wild, and they still do. Folks trying to get started in the Clark Fork valley often have to work so hard to plant themselves that there’s no time to cultivate the children, also. Instead, we… Read more →
Following the message, a long, plaintive beeeeeeeeeeeep told Della that Mix hadn’t checked messages for some time. It was as if the machine was as lonely as she, also lamenting his neglect. She imagined it listening for his fumbling fingers at the door, praying he would get the key into the lock before it died of longing. When the phone… Read more →
The trouble with loving someone like Angel is that sooner or later, it’s going to break your heart. Sooner or later, she will fade out of your life completely and leave you wondering whatever happened to that girl with the aversion to makeup, the perfect eyes, the smile that twisted left and the slightly whacked sense of humor. You don’t… Read more →
“He was not a war chief, you know. Some things they say he did, he didn’t do.” — Marguerite, who introduced me to Thunder-Rolling-in-the-Mountains It’s a long way from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Nespelem, Washington, in the hilly scrub and sage country north of Grand Coulee Dam — a long way and a long time. But I’m reminded of the… Read more →
This morning, I’m at White Bird canyon in north central Idaho. A red-tailed hawk sails along the bottom of a scree slope below me at the edge of the White Bird Battlefield segment of the Nez Perce Trail National Historic Trail. I am standing in a display that explains the beginnings of the Nez Perce War of 1877. Below me,… Read more →
Dear Mother, We are six months in the United States, now in a place called Montana. We came here from Washington State because we heard of work, but the orchards are small, and the crop is not good from the cold spring. Since my last letter, we have been disappointed and hungry much of the time. Our old bus has… Read more →
