What’s It Like Now? By Diana Braskich Photos Courtesy of Ramsey Magnet School of Science My daughter, age seven, started first grade this fall. Technically, Lila was born in Spokane. I was born and raised in Coeur d’Alene, but she’s … Continue reading
About a Woodworker’s Tool Story and Photos by Keith Knight My friend Ken Lustig has always known a lot about old tools. A few years back, when I called him about what to do with some old hand planes I … Continue reading
A Halloween Good Guy By Diana Braskich Growing up, I did not take Halloween lightly. It was not a minor occasion. It was an event, and one to be celebrated with gusto. I recall my childhood home as extravagantly decorated, … Continue reading
Going Back in Time to a Bronco Upset By Garth Profitt Not long ago, I rolled out of bed at two o’clock in the morning, ambled over to the time machine, and typed in, “Boise State University versus University of … Continue reading
We Beat the City to It By Diana Braskich When I was in elementary school, the Fourth of July was one of my favorite holidays. As long as I can remember, my hometown of Coeur d’Alene has held events to … Continue reading
An Architectural Centennial Story and Photos by Larry Telles I had been coming to the majestic house sitting by Lake Coeur d’Alene since joining the Idaho Writer’s League (IWL) in 2001. Several times at our bi-weekly meetings, I had been … Continue reading
Remembrance of Things Past By Diana Braskich Since my birth in 1983 at Kootenai Memorial Hospital, or “The Big Blue Hospital,” as my friends and I loved to brag (as if being born at the nearest regional hospital were somehow … Continue reading
A Sports Junkie’s Reward By Garth Profitt I’m shopping in a second-hand store, looking for a shade umbrella for my street vending business, when I see an autographed baseball sitting on the shelf all by its lonely. Three dollars. The … Continue reading
A Woman Who Made Things Happen By Kerri Hanley McIntosh If you find anything, can you let these people know, too?” asked the person behind the counter of the Health and Welfare Department’s office in Coeur d’Alene. She handed a … Continue reading
Furniture, stationery, books, and boats feed my soul, for they hold in common the fibers of a tree.
Why am I drawn to trees and their products? All I know is that when I was in a Boise consignment shop and first saw the pattern of sixteen book leaves on the wooden table that’s now in my living room, it called to me, “Take me home.” Maybe my decades of sending and receiving letters is what hooked me on paper, which is most often born of wood. Maybe the touch of book pages on my fingertips imprinted a need in me to feel the foundational fibers of wood.
As for boats, I suppose my passion for rowing a skull drew me to them. It could also partly be a family influence, from my uncle’s stories of World War II training in wooden boats at Farragut Naval Training Station (see “Boot Camp by the Lake,” IDAHO magazine, March 2014). Could junior high wood shop classes be responsible for spawning my love of wood? Nope, that wasn’t it. But maybe, just maybe, I was conceived under a tree, and my soul remembers the safety, comfort, and joy of that original moment.
In any case, a clarion call awakened me during the 2013 “Man Show” in Spokane, when I encountered a wooden boat made in northern Idaho. As I walked along talking with the person who had invited me to the show, I stopped in my tracks and interrupted the conversation with, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. I am completely distracted by this boat.”
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