Voices

Hitting the open road with your best canine pal at your side is almost an American tradition. For Chris Nielson, leaving his pooches at home when he went out on his Triumph motorcycle just didn’t seem fair. Nielson got Cosmo as a Christmas gift from his wife, Lisa Rosier, in 2002, the same year he bought a new motorcycle.

“Bullfrog Windsocks on the Green.” “Blue Bubblegum Ice Cream on the Green.” “Kind Hippie Mamas Dancing Like Whirling Dervishes on the Green.” Maybe even “Tri-Cities Hip-Hop on the Green.” These are just a handful of the infinite delights to be had Friday through Aug. 3, down in the lush confines of the North Idaho College campus during the 40th annual Art on the Green festival. I’m sure the NIC landscaping staff works extra hard to make sure that every bush, tree and patch of lawn stays as green as possible, but I can recall some very dry years when it might have been closer to the truth to advertise as “Art on the Crispy Yellow.” Certainly, like my suggestions above, that just doesn’t quite have the same catchy ring to it.

Idaho is known as the Gem State, but her true treasure lies not in star garnets, opals or precious metals. Her treasure is in her citizens. Bonner County’s native son Bud Moon was a gem of rare distinction. His grandfather, a lumberman and the first Lawrence Gillman Moon, brought his family to Idaho in 1906, having purchased 1,000 acres on Bottle Bay on the west side of Lake Pend Oreille. His grandson Bud was the third in a proud string of Lawrence Gillman Moons, now reaching into the sixth generation – hence nicknames to set them apart.

Until recently, I was never sure when corporal punishment was eliminated from Spokane Public Schools. I graduated from Spokane’s John Rogers High School in 1966 and paddling, sometimes called “hacking,” was used liberally at that time. Several of us students were the recipients of hacks throughout those years at Rogers, although my punishment usually resulted from false testimony spoken by my fellow classmates, or I was pulled down to their deplorable level due to my naïveté.

When the invasive Eurasian milfoil plant was found in Liberty Lake in 1995, it was initially controlled by a diver hand-plucking each plant from the ground. Since then the hard-to-kill plant has spread along the eastern and southern shores of the lake, and herbicide must be put in the lake every year to keep the plant in check.

John Owen is now an Eagle, and Tuesday morning he surrounded himself with eaglets. After six seasons at Central Valley, where he led the Bears to back-to-back Greater Spokane League championships and a third-place state finish a year ago, and 20 seasons at North Idaho College, where he won eight National Junior Ccollege championships, Owen signed on last week to coach wrestling at West Valley High School.