Small world

This all stemmed from guilt.

Every week, I hear from at least a few Slice readers who live in the small towns dotting this newspaper’s circulation area. And every week I worry that my column does an inadequate job of acknowledging the lives of those people.

So, five Sundays ago, I asked a question: What’s the best Inland Northwest town with a population under 1,000?

I said this wasn’t really a contest. I just wanted to know what made certain places special.

“Nice people,” said Gail Kopp of Rockford.

“Don’t ask,” suggested a reader in Northport.

Others wrote to me about Latah, Harrington, Sprague, Rosalia, Republic, tiny Prichard, Idaho, and other communities.

But Marlys Kissler got right to the point. “It’s too bad this isn’t a competition,” she said in an e-mail. “Odessa would win, hands down. Odessa has less than 1,000 mostly happy people.”

I decided to pay her a visit.

Odessa

About 75 miles west of Spokane, low-slung Odessa is a remarkably self-sufficient agricultural service center on the fringe of the Columbia Basin in southwestern Lincoln County. If you’ve ever checked out the Ice Age-carved channeled scablands, chances are you’ve been through there.

The population used to be slightly above 1,000. Most agree it has since dipped below.

There’s a small hospital, churches, banks, restaurants, a grocery store and a weekly newspaper.

Don Walter, 82, is editor and publisher of the Odessa Record. He’s a local boy who came back about 15 years ago after living in places as varied as Spokane and Paris (11 years).

His office is right on First Avenue, the main drag.

Walter’s frank assessment of life in his town is stunningly free of Chamber of Commerce boosterism. He isn’t putting it down. He’s just being honest.

Odessa might be a bit provincial. The people could be a tad clannish. But, he adds, the town is largely free of phoniness.

Outside on the sidewalk across the street, farmer Clark Kagele agrees. Plus, he says, it’s quiet, the schools are decent and you don’t have to worry much about crime.

Moreover, it’s not a place where it makes sense to hold grudges. “There’s not enough people to insult, you’d run out of them,” says Kagele, who is 52.

When I meet Kissler for lunch at Chiefs Bar and Grill, I ask her about what Kagele said about grudges, et cetera.

The 76-year-old wife of a retired farmer smiles just a little. That sounds like something he would say, she says. “He’s a nice man.”

She assumes I can fill in the blanks: Not everyone is like that.

Kissler, who makes cabbage rolls for the annual Deutschesfest, proves to be a delightful dining companion. Seriously proud of her town, she’s not willing to pretend it is perfect.

Apparently Odessa used to be somewhat famous for its beautiful, manicured lawns. Not so much anymore, she says, making a face.

Before heading back to Spokane, I notice an item in the Odessa Record’s police log.

“After telling Odessa police that he was ‘verbally assaulted’ by a neighbor, a resident of the 100 block of East Third cancelled the complaint because the neighbor apologized.”

Palouse

Another e-mail that sent me out on the road came from the mayor of a Whitman County town just a couple of miles from the Idaho state line.

“Palouse is like a tulip sprouting from a long winter’s nap,” wrote Michael Echanove. “We are growing and changing and having more fun than should be allowed along the way.”

About 65 miles south of Spokane, Palouse is the town with the name usually associated with the scrunched-rug farming region.

Unlike relatively isolated Odessa, Palouse is less than 20 miles north of college towns Pullman and Moscow, where many of its approximately 1,000 residents work.

From the standpoint of those trying to make a go of it with retail businesses, that proximity has been a mixed blessing.

In fact, the town was already struggling when, in 1996, a devastating flood of the Palouse River threatened to do it in.

But then something happened. Palouse didn’t die.

“What could have been the final coffin nail on our community turned out to be a turning point from which we have never looked back,” wrote Echanove, who is 49 and moved to town in 1984.

A savvy juggling of grants and aid dedicated to infrastructure improvements are part of the reason.

Today, Main Street is still a work in progress. But it is a colorful, cheerful one.

This is America without the franchises and gridlock.

Will Thurman, who used to live on Spokane’s South Hill, operates the Palouse Market grocery. He’s encouraged by his sales growth. “This is a good community,” he says. “It can support a store.”

He’s proud of his little wine section. And he likes the fact that, in a small town, children don’t have to be sports stars to play for the high school teams if they want.

When I arrive at the Green Frog restaurant to meet the mayor, he’s not there yet. I’m greeted by wheat farmer/community volunteer Janet Barstow. She has something she wants to say.

“I will tell you this before he gets here because he will deny it if I say it in front of him, but Michael Echanove is the reason Palouse is the way it is now, without any doubt.”

His positive energy has been contagious, adds Mike Milano, an engineer who is a member of the town council.

There’s even a street named after him.

A little while later, Echanove – who works as a computer specialist at Washington State University – seems uncomprehending when asked to react to the idea that some believe there would be nothing to do if they lived in a small town.

What? With all the tree-plantings, spruce-up projects and numerous other events crying out for volunteers?

Seeing that the mayor is dumbstruck by the idea of there being a shortage of stimulating activities, Barstow steps in. “You see, those are the sorts of things we really like to do,” she says. “That’s what makes us different. We really do enjoy it. I look forward to those things because that’s where my friends will be.”

Palouse is a quirky place where you can’t buy a garden hose, but you could purchase a $10,000 painting at a gallery in what used to be a bank. There’s a museum dedicated to newspapers and printing.

The town’s biggest asset, says Echanove, is an upbeat, creative spirit. “The people are so cool here.”

When I try to transcribe the tape from my interviewing at the restaurant – I recommend the barley-lentil soup – it’s almost impossible to hear what is being said. The Q-and-A is all but drowned out by the happy chatter and buzz of children and families in the background.

An e-mail arrives from 28-year-old veterinarian Andra Edwards, who grew up in Palouse and moved back after college. She and her husband have a little girl.

“I am positive that making the decision to come back here was one of the best my family has made. So what if I could have made top dollar in a big city. We have everything we need here.”

Next stop: Marcus, a town that had to pick up and move.

Marcus

About five miles north of Kettle Falls in Stevens County, Marcus is tucked between Lake Roosevelt and a piney ridge. It looks like a setting for a summer camp. It smells like a tourist’s idea of the Northwest.

The advent of the Grand Coulee Dam forced the town to move to nearby higher ground in the 1930s. Some of the houses were literally hoisted and inched along to the new site.

When the water is low, you can still see traces of “Old Marcus.”

Then, in the early ‘70s, the focus of local pride – the high school – closed.

Today, Marcus has a population of about 185. But there has been a building boom – three new houses just recently.

When something happens to a resident, just about everyone signs the card at the post office.

My invitation to visit came from the mayor, Fran Bolt.

Now 60, she moved to Marcus from Spokane 25 years ago. Before that, she had lived in Albuquerque and Dallas. She has had a variety of careers, including real estate and counseling, and raised children.

Her office is in the shed-like town hall. But you can tell right away that there’s nothing second-rate about her affection for her adopted hometown.

She likes the sense of connectedness that comes with being in a place the size of Marcus. “When you live in a city, it’s very rare that you would know 185 people right around you,” she says.

Bolt does not pretend that everyone gets along all the time. (Back when she was just a member of the town council, she got voted out of office. Then she was voted back in.)

Often, there’s a tendency to either romanticize or demonize small-town life. Bolt does neither, at least not while talking to me.

If you don’t count the retired Purdue professor who builds contraptions at his small foundry or the tiny Presbyterian church, there’s virtually no commercial activity in Marcus. The town store closed a few years ago. The kids go to school in Kettle Falls.

There is, however, no shortage of colorful characters.

I shake hands with Dennis Jenson, an affable 65-year-old town leader and all-around go-to guy. He moved to the area in 1969, in search of Big Foot.

Come again?

Twice, I ask him if he was kidding. Each time, he swears he is on the level. “I was at it for six years.”

He built the showpiece cider press that is an attraction at the annual Marcus CiderFest – the first Saturday in October.

The abandoned high school eventually burned down. The shell of the surprisingly big school gym survived, though. Bolt has visions of turning it into a performing arts amphitheater – a process already under way.

I asked her to tell me the key to getting along in a place like Marcus, where you can’t count on anonymity to mask off-putting behavior. “You try to treat people the way you yourself would like to be treated.”

Athol

The final leg of my small-towns tour was set in motion by a note signed “Just two Athols.”

That e-mail was written by Linda Camp, who moved with her husband from California to North Idaho near the end of 2005. (Their son had already moved to Post Falls, and grandbaby access was at stake.)

She talked about the natural beauty of the area and what-not. Then she got down to making her case.

“What really makes it for us are the people. They have been so nice. Very welcoming. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer bunch of people. Often, when you are new to an area, it takes a long time for people to accept you. We have felt like, excuse the expression, Athols since coming here.”

Takes one to know one.

Athol is a few miles north of the Silverwood amusement park, hard by Highway 95 up at the top of Kootenai County. Depending on which sign you read, the population is either 600-plus or 700-plus.

I arrive too early for my lunchtime appointment with the Camps. So I drive around and then step into the Pastime Club. It’s a tired, ultra-smoky bar that looks like something from a country song about somebody getting his butt kicked.

Bartender Donna Tillberg says she would love it if there were a bank in town. But as for Athol being friendly – it’s true, she says.

A guy at the bar who doesn’t really look like a skier or a golfer touts the easy access to both. He doesn’t want his name in the paper, but he’s nice about it.

A few minutes later, at the Camps’ attractive home inhabited by two sweet-faced dogs, I meet Richard, 62, and Linda, 55.

They don’t mind the jokes about their new hometown’s name. They once lived in Hicksville, Ohio.

He talks about how he used to drive more than 60 miles one-way every day to his job as a heavy equipment operator near Oakland. Now he’s retired.

Linda worked in a Frito-Lay plant in Modesto. Now she is a school-district baker in Rathdrum.

They both use the word “neighbor” as a verb. By the time they left California, there wasn’t much of that happening where they lived, they say. Maybe everybody was too tired from commuting.

Athol – one of the grandkids says “Apple” – is different.

“The lady behind us brought cookies after we moved in,” says Linda.

The winner

Is that enough to make Athol the best small town in the Inland Northwest?

It’s not for me to say.

I know. That seems like a cop-out.

But we aren’t all exactly alike. It takes different things to make us happy.

Maybe you would enjoy being out where you could really see the stars at night, but you wouldn’t dig being on a septic system.

Perhaps you would prefer a bedroom community within striking distance of big stores and movie theaters. And so on.

I like that the people I met – and many of those I didn’t meet in person – are proud of their towns. They have a right to be.

I have a hunch they will understand why I now think it would be bad manners to declare just one a “winner.”

Why so sensitive all the sudden?

Let’s just say I fell in with some good company.