10 Cents For A Smile
Chuck Stockdale turned himself in the other day. He’d heard I was hunting for him and came prepared.
As I strolled toward the thin, grayhaired man, he slowly slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a pair of sparkling earrings.
“Can I brighten your day with a pair of diamond earrings?” he said, dangling before my eyes two plastic disks with dimes in their middles.
This grinning retiree was indeed the unidentified good Samaritan who had given a woman earrings at the Hayden Lake post office to make her smile.
Chuck hands out his handmade “dime and earrings” and similar pins whenever the mood hits him.
“The gratification I get out of it is worth it to me,” he says, a day later in the basement workshop of his Hayden Lake home.
His drafting table is cluttered with tubes of No. 16 clear thickened cement, a rainbow of self-sticking trim, sheets of American flag stickers and boxes of safety pins. Evelyn, his wife of 46 years, fusses tenderly at the mess.
“Twenty, 25 years ago, if someone had told me I’d be cutting strips of paper, I’d have told them they’re crazy,” Chuck says, his partiallyparalyzed hands slicing trim with machine precision.
The souvenir world nabbed Chuck Sept. 2, 1945 - the day the Japanese surrendered on his ship, the U.S.S. Missouri. He made ashtrays out of old firing shells and bent pennies and gave them to the sailors. Their pleasure hooked him.
Now, at 77, Chuck crafts Happy Face pins with upbeat sayings and dime earrings one piece at a time. He peddles them at craft fairs for a dollar or two each. And he keeps enough in his pockets to win smiles from unsuspecting strangers.
“It’s just a hobby. I just want to recoup my expenses,” he says, without lifting his eyes from his work. “As long as I’m busy, I’m at peace with the world.”
Who’s got the button?
In the good ol’ days, buttons were works of art. People painted masterpieces or glued photos on them. Artists carved them out of bone, ivory, even rubber.
If you haven’t seen more than the plain plastic buttons on most of today’s clothes, unbutton your eyelids and go to the Idaho State Button Show 1-5 p.m., Saturday, at the Holiday Inn in Coeur d’Alene. It’s free.
Rats!
Coeur d’Alene’s Phoebe Hruska couldn’t show her daughter’s pet white rat the same affection the girl showed the rodent. When Bonne Hruska spent the night at a friend’s, Phoebe fed and watered Mr. Rat but didn’t cuddle him.
That was a mistake. Mr. Rat gnawed through his cage and Phoebe found him quivering under her bed covers that night. She gingerly dropped him in a wastebasket which she set in the bathtub and covered with a cutting board, leaving a crack for air.
That was another mistake. In the morning, she found him swimming laps in the toilet. “I resisted the urge to flush,” she writes.
Magic powers
As Coeur d’Alene’s Annie McKinlay struggled up Snoqualmie Pass on her bicycle, she wished for a roll of tape to secure her bothersome handlebar pack. The pack fell every time she hit a bump.
The wish had hardly formed in her brain when along the roadside a roll of black strapping tape appeared. Annie’s friend said it was lucky she hadn’t wished for a watermelon.
Annie sent that tale in response to my search for hidden treasures. What great treasures have you found digging in your garden or through the sand at the beach? Brag about your finds to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 83814; fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo