Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

There Must Be 50 Ways To Leave Your Troubles

Here’s my 1997 New Year’s list of 50 cheap, easy, meaningful ways to make life better around the Inland Northwest:

1. If you own a snowblower, clear at least one other driveway during the next snowstorm.

2. If your driveway gets cleared, offer to take in your neighbor’s mail during his or her vacation.

3. When it freezes again, go ice skating on Lake Fernan east of Coeur d’Alene.

4. Buy a pair of hourglass skis at the end of this season.

5.Invite a relative from California up for a summer visit and don’t utter a single California-bashing comment.

6. On each trip to Seattle, tell at least one stranger something nice about Spokane/Coeur d’Alene.

7. While in Seattle, politely challenge at least one put-down of Eastern Washington or North Idaho.

8. Quit worrying what Seattle thinks.

9. If you do worry, go ahead and move there.

10. Shop locally for birthdays and big occasions, not in Seattle.

11. Find a place of business where the owner works on-site and make a point of spending some money there.

12. Quit thinking you are a cheapskate because you shop at a big warehouse with no soul.

13. Plant a tree in remembrance of the ice storm.

14. Clear away the branches and brush in your yard or on your property before summer.

15. Offer to clear away the branches and brush in front of the junkiest house in your neighborhood.

16. If you live in a neighborhood where there are no junky yards, go to the central city or the rural countryside and find someone with a junky yard there to help.

17. Buy an extra can of food and donate it to a regional food bank each month.

18. Bake cookies and take them to someone who is shut in or lives alone.

19. Keep saying hello on the street.

20. Visit a farm on the Palouse and talk to a farmer about where food really comes from.

21. Drive around Lake Pend Oreille and stop and consider the view from Hope, Idaho.

22. Take a person of color, or disabled person, or a person who doesn’t look at the world the way you do, on that drive.

23. Stop and hear yodeling at the Fireside Inn in Spirit Lake on your way back.

24. Invite someone who has never heard a classical music concert to go with you to the Spokane Symphony.

25. Encourage a regional local radio station to play more Van Morrison, less Alanis Morissette.

26. Read three good books about life in the Pacific Northwest, starting with “Snow Falling on Cedars.”

27. Volunteer to read one of those books to kids in a neighborhood school, particularly if you don’t have kids in school anymore.

28. Find a tough or mixed-up kid in your neighborhood and offer to take the kid to a Spokane Chiefs hockey game and talk about life.

29. Read up this winter on the region’s history and attractions, rather than watch reruns on TV.

30. Plan a trip to see the laser light show at Grand Coulee Dam in the spring.

31. Pick a weekend to drive to the top of Steptoe Butte once the Palouse wheatfields are up and learn the definition of the color green.

32. Before you go, research the battles around Steptoe Butte and consider whether the Indians got a fair shake back then.

33. Visit Worley, Idaho, and consider whether the Indians are getting a fair shake now with bingo and fireworks.

34. Drive to Spalding, Idaho, and see the best little collection of American Indian Art on public display in the Northwest.

35. Catch and release a steelhead on the Snake River.

36. Float the lower Salmon River.

37. Pack out your trash from the trip.

38. Float the Spokane River in an innertube.

39. Avert your eyes at the nude beach.

40. Register for Bloomsday using your real finish time.

41. Write to the Davenport Hotel and wish them well on their renovations and express your interest in attending a a grand-opening New Year’s Eve party on Dec. 31.

42. Show up at a public meeting about growth before a decision is made, rather than gripe about things afterward.

43. Find someone on the edge of becoming a militia member and ask what they’re really afraid of.

44. Remember that it’s the government that ends up patching the roads and keeping the traffic lights functioning.

45. Obey those traffic lights.

46. Disobey the urge to get depressed during gray periods in the weather.

47. Make a list of the reasons you are glad you live here and put it on the refrigerator to read on gray days.

48. Consider cutting back on your coffee consumption.

49. No kidding, learn where to pick huckleberries.

50. Be happy you are here and vow to contribute in your way to making life a little better for others who call this place home.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review.

Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review.