Small Towns

The numbered entries are my continuing "list" of things I'm thankful for in America. Since it's National Poetry Month every entry this month is a poem.

15. Small Towns

To say, “City folk just don’t understand,”

Is to make vast assumptions:

“Probably won’t like it,” “Too close to land,”

“Don’t know how to do an honest day’s work.”

But people from small towns do enjoy friends;

Take care of their neighbors like family;

Like shared meals at community events;

Volunteer for the rural E.M.T.’s.

People from small towns enjoy a brisk walk.

They see stars and know all the planets,

About the phases of the moon they talk

And of crackling fires or of a cold snap.

It’s not a hobby to know the flora

And fauna of where they live, a glimpse from

Audubon, no, but true knowledge of a

Way of life from birds, and deer, bears and all.

Many people probably understand

And some quietly deride from envy.

But it’s a choice not someone’s countermand,

Nor a contest to see who is better.

Picking up the hard white chalk

Picking up the hard white chalk

against the crashing background noise

as if water were pounding against rocks,

I am reminded of you.

Awkward laughter escapes us both

as we chase the waves,

shoes thrown aside,

pant legs rolled up to the knees.

Words escape me

as the waves engulf our laughter

and my protagonist lecture

drowns somewhere between

the chalkboard surf

and our escape from your mother’s

ten minute stop.

I skip the white object

across the green waves

of the chalkboard

and the questions of childhood

disappear into the sea

of humanity that sprawls itself

in desks before me.

You disappeared between the pebbles

of the Devon shore

and the bells that control

the classroom waves,

leaving me to scrawl

dusty questions to stares

as vacant as

mine.

McCall Brewing Company

14. McCall Brewing Company

McCall Brewing Company ‘bove the shores

Of Payette Lake is a place to get good

Beer and a hearty plate of scrumptious food.

It’s clean, has a homey feel to adore.

Your friends can come and share a stout and more.

It has those walls of dark paneled barn wood

And maps on tables of places you should

Take those friends on hikes to where eagles soar.

Have another ale ‘fore you hit the trail:

Dark brown porter, a golden wheat lager,

Doesn’t matter what you order, just drink

To your delight (not to the point of fight).

Then go out on your hike, carry that growler

As up hills you walk, the courage you drink

Must have come from that IPA. ‘M I right? 

Hernia Surgery

In honor of National Poetry Month I'm going to post poetry entries for this month. Here are my thoughts on running and my situation right now:

Hernia Hiatus

Staying in shape to move, to jump, to run

Makes me love life, the chance to be, to grow

But hernia hiatus is no fun.

How can life be lived on hold? Suspension

Between stop and go? Slush, not rain or snow?

Staying in shape to move, to jump, to run…

Our lives should be fluid, stopped for not a one,

Cups overflowing, bubbling down the road.

But hernia hiatus is no fun.

Guts bulging out, pushed back in. Oh so dum.

Better to go under the knife to go

Staying in shape to move, to jump, to run.

Can’t lift twenty pounds now that I’ve begun.

In to work each day I have to go

But hernia hiatus is no fun.

So now I will take a quick shot of numb

To keep pain from my gut stitch even so.

Staying in shape to move, to jump, to run?

This hernia hiatus is no fun.

Potlatch

13. When I think of all the great things this country has to offer I have to be thankful for the community in which I have lived for nearly 25 years: Potlatch, Idaho. Potlatch sits at the base of the Hoodoo Mountains on the rolling hills of the Palouse. Here we get the four seasons in full force so you get to see every shade of beauty that comes from our lush evergreen forests and the rolling farmland of the Palouse Prairie. Right now at the end of winter and the budding of spring the remains of the last of the dirty snow banks are flooding the rivers and the fields are beginning to look like grasshopper pie with the green crème de menthe of wheat fields against the chocolate hues of the muddy, as of yet, unplowed fields. And of course there are plenty of gray misty days with the constant dampness of the season that still, on certain cooler mornings, gives way to snow.

Our community supports each other. When someone is sick we have fundraisers to help them pay for incidentals. We have a food bank for those who are hit by hard times. We have community gatherings to celebrate our heritage from logger sports to fiddle concerts. We have athletic events for our kids through our Parks and Rec. District and our schools. We have community band and a community choir for our Easter Cantata. We have a great EMT and Fire Department made up entirely of volunteers.

Another great thing about Potlatch is that with all its beauty, it is just off the radar for tourism. We don’t have a whitewater river, rugged mountain peaks for climbing or skiing, nor any big lakes right here. We do have a large place in the history of the Northwest as the founding company town of Potlatch Forest Industries, home of incredible families that continued to make other big timber corporations and people instrumental in the invention of Teflon. But most of that is just quiet keep-to-ourselves information that doesn’t attract crowds. It’s the amazing beauty of the area, the community support, the four seasons—all of these things make me really proud and thankful for this little town where I live: Potlatch, Idaho.

Bear Lake

12. Bear Lake

      Another lake that has always captivated me and for which I am thankful is Bear Lake, a beautiful turquoise gem that rests on the border of southern Idaho and northern Utah not far west of the Wyoming border. It is definitely an alpine lake formed by glaciations in the Bear River Mountains as they call them in Idaho or the Wasatch Range as they’re better known in Utah. The lake is easily approached in Idaho from Montpelier south to Paris, St. Charles and Fish Haven. But the most spectacular approach is to come through Logan Canyon out of Utah so that you get spectacular scenery of the canyon itself and the high mountain forests and then an incredible overlook of the lake itself in all of its beautiful blue. While there are no large towns on Bear Lake there a number of small burgs such as St. Charles, and Fish Haven, Idaho as well as Garden City, Garden, and Meadowville, Utah. There are also some bigger towns very nearby in case you need any amenities. The famous sculptor of Mt. Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, was born in St. Charles, Idaho.

            As far as the scenery around Bear Lake is concerned, it is that curious high desert with timbered north slopes of all the surrounding mountains. If you look to the west you very much feel a sense of woodsy-ness, but in late summer if you look east you might suddenly feel the need for a cold drink and a bottle of sunscreen. You’ll see plenty of raspberry bushes and you will want to stop at a local drive-in for a raspberry milkshake, the one amenity all the little burgs have.

           The waters of the lake are of a Caribbean blue. That comes from the silt carried into it from the aforementioned mountains and their desert character. Its color is unlike any other lake I’ve ever seen. Because of its unique isolation from other waterways (as is true of so many Great Basin waterways) it has some special kind of fish that are only found in its depths.  The lake is at a high elevation and freezes over nearly every winter so it is a great place for ice fishing. While it is a big body of water it still has a distinctly alpine feel. You know you are in the mountains when you are at Bear Lake. It’s kind of a secret hideaway for a select group of people in Idaho and Utah. And that, along with its beauty is something I am thankful for.

Aches in my back from running?

Whenever I get out of shape to run and then I get back to it, like now after the winter ice hiatus, I find myself getting all tight and knotted in my back between the shoulder blades. I’m never quite sure what to do about it. I’m also not sure if it’s just me with this problem or if other people have similar experiences. I can’t decide if it means I have a weak core or what. Sometimes I’ve just thought it was coincidental along with some other stress I might be having. I don’t usually stop doing crunches or pushups or other core work just because I’m not ready to run on the ice or because my mileage has been slack. I don’t know what causes it but I do know it coincides with getting back into running and it happens to me in the spring or fall when I pick up my mileage.

            So you would think that if you were going to get sore after a run following a winter hiatus that your legs would be the muscles that were sore, wouldn’t you? That doesn’t usually seem to be the case with me. I get all sore and tight between my shoulders. It slips up on me and more often than not I don’t associate it with my running. I start scanning all my activities in my head. What is causing me stress? It seems a huge irony that any stress build-up during my lay off didn’t cause aches in my back and shoulders. Sometimes it has taken me a couple of weeks to even realize that the center back tension is actually being caused by my reintroduction to running. Sometimes the ache creeps up and down my spine causing me to be stiff and to have tension headaches. I usually take ibuprofen or Tylenol at first.

            If the aching continues I build up to a heating pad and icy hot. Generally it doesn’t last any longer than soreness from any other activity but it just takes it awhile to click in my head that it really is from running. I also wonder why that’s where I get tight and achy instead of my legs.  My conjecture is that I always do enough cross training activities that my legs don’t drop off too much—that and the fact that when I go back to the trails I don’t ever overdo it anymore. I start up with a few (3 or 4) miles and then a day off. But I don’t do enough cross training for my upper body, especially my back, to keep that part of my body in shape. It’s either not enough shoveling of snow or that’s just not the same kind of work out I do with my back when I run. If you have any thoughts, drop me a comment.