By Alan Sorensen
With the powwow just over and the fair in full swing, I let my column slide this week. I rolled into work at 6 to proof some early run pages and get to work on the days stories and my column.
As you see, I did get a bit of a start on a column earlier in the week:
Its 7 oclock Tuesday morning and Roger Philippi says, Its good to be here, isnt it?
And I respond with, Yeah, I woke up smiling about coming to work.
Then he says, Now youre pushing it a little far.
But I had to admit that once I got into Spudnik and headed up Third, I felt myself smiling in anticipation of work.
I may be one of those people Bill Cosby talked about during his televised stage performance Cosby Himself. He said something about his employees not doing well on their own. They were fine and dandy (George Carlin, notwithstanding) when they left work Friday afternoon but were completely wasted when they returned to work Monday morning.
They arent any good on their own, Cosby said.
He said some even went so far as to ask him not to let them have weekends off.
Im much the same. I need somewhere to go and something to do and someone with a whip to get me to do it.
Because of powwow, I didnt make it to the Youth Baseball reunion and oldtimers games last weekend, but I still had a rush of memories.
Today, I marvel at all my Little League buddies who have their own businesses and are their own bosses. And there are still others who have risen to management positions here and away. I dont think I would handle the pressure of having employees or of being a supervisor.
In my house, the cats decide when its time for me to let them out, not for me to decide when its time for me to put them out. The same with the kids in every other thing (they can open doors by themselves).
Well, thats as far as I got Tuesday. But its just as well, because I only found out later that day that Wells Lameys team won its oldtimers game. That wouldnt have gotten reported here if Id just stuck with what I knew Tuesday morning.
It still amazes me how much more I learn on a daily basis. Read on.
It was between downpours at fair Wednesday night when I ran into another aging east ender in the scone line who gave me another column topic. It was Rick Harada (one of the successful east enders) who pointed out an egregious error in one of my recent stories.
It turns out that my entire life Ive been under the misapprehension that the large inlet on the northeast shore of Fresno Reservoir is Kings Bay. Wrong, as evidenced by Martin Kidstons Hi-Line Living page story today about fish at Fresno. Its really Kiehns Bay, named for a Havre family, one of whom, Im told, worked at the public library.
That reminds me of the Great Falls Tribunes booboo eons ago. For as long as I could remember as a kid, the GFHS team was referred to in print and over the airwaves as the Bisons. Then one day, an astute reader pointed out that bison is the plural for bison, and everybodys pretty much had it right since then. That was in the days when Dave Little was sportscaster at KOJM.
My next duty will be to go on the street (another excuse to go to fair) and get peoples opinions about something relevant. This week, I think Ill ask them what they think of the plan to make Willow Creek Port of Entry a 24-hour-a-day border crossing.
As much as I like the idea of getting into Canada anytime day or night, Im more of an Alberta person than Saskatchewan person. Of course, with 24-hour access, Im sure Ill learn to love Saskatchewan nearly as much as Alberta. After all, its got Climax, and Im a mystery buff.
I missed the public meeting in Havre last week about the proposed remote-controlled crossing, but hear that it was well attended. Jon Weigum, area port director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at Sweetgrass, said between 40 and 50 people turned out, about two thirds of them from Canada.
Whadda you think?
