Doug Clark: Dogfight over Hillyard sign dies down

It’s Lookback Thursday, so let’s begin.

Lookback 1 – It may be a dog’s world, but not in Hillyard anymore.

The “Dogtown” part of the Dogtown Auction Company sign was removed without ceremony this summer, thus ending one of the silliest controversies in the history of controversial silliness.

Earlier, I wrote about the tiff that erupted after tenant Mike Ferguson affixed the aforementioned sign to the broad beige building he had leased in the heart of Hillyard at Market Street and Olympic Avenue.

Jim Hedley, building owner and landlord, went ballistic.

The 75-year-old saw no humor or positivity in the term “Dogtown,” which ages ago was indeed a cruel slur against the modest residents of this former raw-knuckled, rail-based community in northeast Spokane.

“Nobody in his right mind would want the name Dogtown,” Hedley told me. “It’s so damned derogatory; it’s terrible.”

To Ferguson, however, Dogtown was a fresh and funny homage to a long-gone past.

“Everybody under the age of 60 loved it,” he said.

And the over-60 crowd?

Not so much, he conceded.

It looked for a time as if this landlord-tenant dispute was destined to enrich the coffers of lawyers.

Ferguson said he was “ready to go toe-to-toe in court” to defend his doggone right to name his business what he wanted.

Then the tempest evaporated from the teapot. Seeking a change of direction, Ferguson said he sold his equipment and auction company interests. Hedley, he added, agreed to let the new owners assume his 10-year lease with one unbending proviso:

“All they had to do is take the (Dogtown) sign off the building.”

I drove by the place Tuesday afternoon and was surprised to see that while only the Auction Company remains on the building, Ferguson’s “Dogtown Mercantile” sandwich board advertisement was parked on the sidewalk outside the front door.

Ferguson explained that he still sells items inside the building and Dogtown Mercantile is what he calls that enterprise.

And Hedley? Ferguson said the landlord gave him the OK, apparently realizing that sidewalk signage is beyond his domain.

Honestly. Maybe there’s something in the water up there.

Lookback 2 – The Rocky-like comeback of an aging former world-champion arm wrestler remains, for now, in the wishful thinking stage.

Spokane’s Mike Beggs, a 57-year-old grandfather of four, had planned to get back in the arms race at a tournament that was to be held in an area casino early in the summer.

The tournament, Beggs said, didn’t happen. So he’s now setting his sights on the October world championships that are held in the Los Angeles area.

In a column, Beggs revealed his unusual wrist-strengthening training method of gripping and rolling his hands over and over again around the steering wheel of his work rig.

Beggs, who owns Spokane Traffic Control, had rolled his hands 875,000 times, stripping off the tough steering wheel cover all the way down to bare metal.

Things have changed this summer, however. Beggs said he’s been “stuck in the office,” which has led to his relying on more conventional strength-building exercising.

“I feel like I could pull a bus right now,” he said.

One problem. Beggs said he let his weight balloon up to 268 pounds. He’s now back down to 252, he added, but wants to enter the tournament as a 218-pounder.

That’s a lot of salads, Mike.

Age definitely makes Beggs a long-odds bet. Plus he hasn’t competed seriously in nine years.

Still, those granite-hard arms (Beggs competes both left and right) did win him three world titles, five national titles, and a tubful of state and other awards back in the day.

Can he do it again?

Stay tuned.

Lookback 3 – You may recall the saga of Amy Mitchell and the stowaway marmot that refused to leave the engine area of her 2010 Toyota RAV4.

Never fear. It didn’t come back.

After Mitchell’s best efforts failed, the friendly folks at the Les Schwab Tire Center, 101 W. Second Ave., not only extricated the critter at no charge, but set it free near the river in Peaceful Valley.

My column on that ordeal, however, brought forth yet another shaggy tale of marmot motor invasion.

“We joined the club July 29,” Rosalia, Washington, resident Diane Nebel wrote in an email to me.

It began innocently enough. Sitting on her couch, Nebel looked out a window and “watched a marmot walk by our house from the direction of the Steptoe Battlefield, located down the road from us.”

Nebel continued. “As the marmot passed by, he stopped and sat in the middle of (the) road, looked around and appeared to be checking out our 1994 Toyota pickup, parked in the shade.”

The marmot vanished “in a flash” when the Nebels’ cat Buddy came after him “like a lion on hunt.”

Diane figured the marmot had beat feet into a nearby wheat field.

When her husband, Jim, came home she shared her marmot story.

Later, the two retired health workers were taken by the sight of Buddy the Cat gazing “up into the front wheelwell crouched in the hunt mode.”

Uh-oh.

Out went Jim to inspect. He opened the hood only to be greeted by “defensive chattering.”

Just like Mitchell’s marmot, leaving was the last thing on the thing’s mind.

The Nebels called an animal control officer. She was empathetic, having acquired “two marmots in her truck after visiting the Colfax Golf Course,” Nebel wrote.

What is it with these furry freeloaders?

Hoping to be rid of their unwanted guest, the Nebels left the hood open overnight.

No soap.

Next morning, Jim tried speaking to it gently. The marmot chattered back agreeably, but wouldn’t budge.

So Jim got a branch, a 3-footer. One jab later, “the critter’s chatter turned to loud shrills, which made Jim jump back abruptly.”

I don’t blame him. Just writing this is freaking me out. 

According to Nebel, the second jab did the trick.

“The marmot made his exit through the bottom of the engine compartment, dashed over to the borrow pit and headed south down the road, most likely back to his rock bed at the foot of the Steptoe Battlefield.”

Which, if you’re up on your local lore, was “the escape route for Col. Steptoe and his men in 1858.”

Crisis over, the Nebels are relieved although forever changed.

Neither Diane nor Jim will go anywhere in that truck without following their new protocol.

“Check the engine and listen for chattering.”