As some of you may know, I’ve recently relocated from North Carolina to North Idaho. How about a real short travelogue? This isn’t the only one you’ll get, but it will do for now. Note: “CDA” means Coeur d’Alene.
One of my ulterior motives, of course, is to get enough of you folks to move into this area to help make North Idaho what it once was—as blue as the sky. You guys thought the Mormons were evil for funding Proposition 8 in California? Oh no. That was just icing on their devil’s food cake, because in 1980 they turned Idaho Republican by funding a lot of Republican candidates in various elections, including Steve Symms’ Senate run against Frank Church. Before 1980, Idaho was a very purple state. We had at least one Democratic senator, House District 1 (the western half of the state including the entire Panhandle, where I live) was always represented by a Democrat, and the governor was usually a Democrat. Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andrus, was a Democrat who was plucked from the Idaho governor’s mansion. House District 2 was always represented by a Republican, but District 2 is Mormon Country. Plus, one of the finest Democrats who ever lived, Senator Frank Church, was an Idahoan. He was also an extremely decent man who, thanks to Wide Stance Larry and some of the other Republicans who were imposed upon us, is spinning in his grave so fast it’s affecting the rotation of the earth. We generally went GOP in the presidential election, but you can’t have everything. In 1980, the South Idaho Mormons—Idaho Falls is basically North Salt Lake City—and a lot of out-of-state money loaded us up with Repukes. In the Year of his Noodly Goodness 2010, about half the elections in my county, which is one of the most populous counties in Idaho, are decided in May because Democrats don’t even bother running. We can change that.
North Idaho isn’t like most Republican-infested areas, because it’s a good place to live. I’m sorry, folks, but I have been to Mississippi and Alabama. If the Republicans want Mississippi, I say “more power to them!” The Pukes can HAVE those saunas; Idaho is way too good for them.
So…on to the art!
Simon and Garfunkel fans may remember the bouncy “Richard Cory,” which spoke about the guy who “owns half of this whole town” and throws around charity money so he can look like a little saint and get his picture in the paper all the time, but treats his workers like shit. Well…Duane Hagadone owns half of THIS whole town, but there are a couple of differences between him and Richard Cory. First is he never gets his picture in the paper. He could since it’s his, but he doesn’t—putting your picture in your own paper is tacky. I’m not really sure there’s a photo of him at all; if he walked right up to me on the street, I’d have to ask him who he is. And second, I work in his factory and he treats his workers pretty damn well, thank you very much. Everyone else working for him thinks the same thing; turnover in his companies (there are many) is essentially nonexistent. (Well, three things: Richard Cory was loved by the press; the Spokane Spokesman-Review goes after Duane Hagadone every chance they get. 'Course, they're not exactly simon-pure either; go to
http://www.spokesmanjobs.com and look at the employment ads. These run in the Spokesman too...and about half of them have "NWE List Service $185" in the text. Northwest Employment in Spokane is a private employment agency that supposedly has all these wonderful jobs...stuff like "polish motorcycle exhausts for $15 per hour." These jobs have wages no real employer would ever pay. Supposedly, if you go to this outfit and pay them a "registration fee" of $185 they will attempt to get you a job. No one is going to get one of those jobs, but the Spokesman keeps running the ads because they pay money.) In this image you see two of Hagadone’s properties: his corporate headquarters--the brown building in front--and the Coeur d’Alene Resort. And no, you are not imagining things—the corporate headquarters is in the lake. It’s on big pilings, and it’s about 100 feet from the edge of the water. There’s a big footbridge leading up to it.
The resort was built in the late 1980s. It was the catalyst for significant change in the quality of life here. The townspeople cleaned up the place but good. They ran all the white supremacists out of North Idaho, and we had a bunch of them. They polished up the town. Our main drag is Sherman Avenue, and it’s been turned into this nice bohemian arts community. It used to be where you stayed the hell away from, and now it’s where you go. We’ve got galleries, lots of coffeehouses, fun bars including several microbreweries, restaurants with sidewalk tables…it’s really nice here. It’s even clean away from the downtown area. We also have something really neat and funky in this region: brick-and-mortar roadside coffee stands or food stands on just about every corner. I’m starting to save up my nickels now so I can afford to open a Berlin-style Imbiss on my very own corner in five years or so. People would chow down on some doner kebabs, currywurst, bratwurst and schnitzel sandwiches. Or maybe I’ll start a program to clone Duane Hagadone so every town can have one.
CDA is in the Northwest ski-resort belt. A lot of celebrities from the California entertainment industry like to ski here; it’s not outrageously expensive, it is outrageously beautiful here and the skiing is excellent. Some of them noticed CDA was nice now, and they started to move here. Our current celebrities include Patty Duke and Ellen Travolta. There are many others; those are the two I remember just off the top of my head. One thing they like about North Idaho is, no one here really makes a big deal about them. They’re just part of the community, which they like.
When Mr. Hagadone’s office staff look out their office windows, this is what they see. We’ve got one of the largest marinas in the Pacific Northwest. Boating is very popular here. The thing about those covered slips is, they’re cheap enough to rent that just about anyone who can afford a powerboat can afford to park it here—which means you’re likely to actually use your boat. I’ve walked through here and there are boats of all vintages; you see brand-new cabin cruisers parked next to runabouts from the 1950s. There is not a huge amount of snobbery here.
Well, that’s not exactly true. The cool kids at this marina have wooden boats. They’re made from varnished mahogany or varnished teak, and most date from the late 1940s through the 1950s when wood was king in the Northwestern boatbuilding industry. Imagine a piece of fine hardwood furniture that floats, and you have an idea of what these boats look like.People build new wooden boats, though. Hagadone Corporation has a wooden boat building company that can build a good-size boat by the steam-bending process. Strangely enough, they’re constantly busy. However, wooden boats are still rare enough that most of the boats in this marina are fiberglass and no one looks down on you for having a fiberglass boat, or an old boat.
There are actually five interconnected lakes up here. If you were to look down on it from a plane, you’d think it was one enormous lake. Negative—it’s five smaller lakes that kinda run together. We’re on Coeur d’Alene Lake. There’s also Benewah Lake, Lake Chatcolet and two other lakes whose names I don’t recall, sorry. Now here’s where it gets entertaining. This lake system is fed by two rivers, the St. Joe River and the Coeur d’Alene River. The system is drained by the CDA River. Geologists and hydrologists have proven the two rivers don’t terminate at the edge of the lake system; rather, they have determined the flow of the rivers run through the large body of water, and the St. Joe River actually drains into the CDA River. The five lakes are divided by these two rivers and by some constrictions along the shoreline. Hydrology aside, it’s a gorgeous body of water. It’s also a ten-minute walk from the plant, so I can go to the office early, hang out on the beach until it’s almost time to start work, and go in. It’s not listed as an official benefit of our company, but it’s one all the same.
This is in our city park, which is on the edge of the lake as one would expect it to be. This was here before the resort. Even when no one gave a shit about CDA, there were still beautiful things here.
If you think you would enjoy having this life-size statue of a buffalo in your living room, come to CDA and make an offer. It belongs to a gallery, and there’s a laminated “available” sign on his right rear leg. I think you need to provide your own crane; the medium for this piece is arc-welded plate steel, and it’s got to weigh five tons. Over his left shoulder is, as you can see, a four-wheeler. What you
cannot see in this image is the license plate on the back--this statue is right down on Sherman Avenue. It is legal to operate a four-wheeler on the city streets in Idaho, under certain conditions. I don’t know what they are, though I would assume you can only do it in good visibility. There are also street-legal golf carts here, and it’s legal to ride skateboards right down the middle of the street.
Everyone’s really tolerant of pedestrians, bicyclists, skateboarders and other such conveyances. You can cross the street in front of cars and they will stop. You know that “bike to work week” you guys in cities that aren’t CDA celebrated last week? We didn’t really celebrate Bike to Work Week in CDA because CDA has bike-to-work week every week there’s not a foot of snow on the ground. We also have a public transportation system consisting of several buses. They run every day. They do not have fare boxes—just jump on and go, no money required. They’re owned by the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, who runs a casino south of CDA that makes money hand over fist. (I promise I’ll take a brick of film to Worley and make some pictures of the Coeur d’Alene Casino, which features a fine hotel, several restaurants and a championship golf course.) The people who work at the casino live in either CDA or Plummer. The casino itself is closest to Worley, but Worley is literally a wide spot in the road. It can’t get any bigger than it is because it’s surrounded by tribal-owned wheat fields. The tribe bought buses to take their employees to work; they bought a few more and use them for public transportation. They are the smaller buses built on van chassis; even if there was a need for big transit buses they couldn’t use them here—the corners downtown are way too tight.
Mudgy is going to take some explaining. The City of Coeur d’Alene needed a new library. There wasn’t enough money in the budget to build one, and Idahoans don’t do supplemental levies. So…a local author and a local artist collaborated on a children’s book, “Mudgy and Millie.” In this heartwarming tale, Mudgy, who is a moose calf, is friends with Millie the Mouse. (She’s sitting on his nose in this sculpture.) Mudgy couldn’t find Millie one day—she was sitting in the palm of one of his antlers—so he went all over CDA looking for her. At the end of the book, he was thirsty, bent down to drink from Lake CDA, and saw her in his antler. The book was donated to the library. They printed it and sell it—you can buy copies even now, and it’s been out for a few years. You can also get shirts, stuffed animals, all the things you’d ever want. They’ve also got a Mudgy suit and a Millie suit, and when there’s an event children will be at, Mudgy and Millie come out. Well…to make a long story a little shorter, the proceeds from selling all this stuff built a really incredible library, no tax dollars required. I haven’t seen the library, but my friends, family and coworkers just rave about how wonderful it is.
You may have heard of the “Christmas Box Angel.” There’s a book called “The Christmas Box” that contains a description of a statue of an angel where parents go to grieve over their late children; real grieving parents started looking for it, which led to the author giving permission to build angel statues to sell to churches so they can put them in city parks. Mudgy is a little like that, except this story is happier. Parents were taking their children to all the places Mudgy went in the book looking for Millie; if you start in the place he began to look and follow the trail all the way out to the end where he finds her, it's an easy two-mile walk that takes you through the nice parts of downtown and along the lakeshore. A sculptor in CDA found this out and created five Mudgies for a "Mudgy and Millie Trail" after Mudgy illustrations in the book; this is one of them. They’re the size of a real moose calf--Millie’s about the size of a guinea pig--and they’ve been placed where they should be according to the book. Next to them are plaques showing that page in the book. It’s cute, people like it and I’m sure the downtown merchants see a positive economic impact from it.
BTW, you may be wondering about Walmart infestations. As of right now, there’s no Walmart in CDA or Hayden*. They’re building one just inside Hayden against the wishes of the mayor (who, it must be said, owns five very good supermarkets), but Walmart has a huge problem: big boxes don’t take over in the Inland Northwest the way they do in other places. You may have heard of Cabela’s, the big outdoors store chain. They built one in Post Falls, and it was supposed to be a “destination” store—it would wipe out the locally-owned stores because people would travel from Spokane to Post Falls simply to shop at Cabela’s, right? Wrong! Spokane already has a “destination” outdoors store called the White Elephant. It may be the single biggest collection of weird shit ever assembled by the hand of man. People come from Seattle to shop there. Cabela’s is doing okay, but the White Elephant, the Black Sheep in CDA and a few other hunting & fishing stores are doing even better. There’s a Walmart in Post Falls. People go there, but they also go to all the various Northwest-owned stores in this area. If you go to Spokane Valley there’s a Walmart on Sullivan Road, but the city fathers in Spokane Valley were so generous to WM they put the worst intersection in the known universe next to it. If you’re going south on Sullivan you really have to want to go to Walmart to turn left into it. Most people don't turn left because the corner is such a bitch to negotiate.
So…after you’ve kept the pukes from taking over your own district in November, move to mine and live the best way.
* Hayden is a city north of CDA. It used to be a few miles from CDA, but after a lot of construction and a few annexations, the “entering CDA” and “entering Hayden” signs are on opposite sides of the same pole.
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