Celebrating Jeret "Speedy" Peterson

The last time I saw Speedy was a little over three weeks ago. He joined me on a river outing on the South Fork Boise along with some other friends. A few years back I told him he needed a summertime sport like kayaking or rafting. He took me up on teaching him how to roll a kayak. He was such an exceptional athlete who understood physics of body movement. He learned to roll in three attempts. That was it.
How I came to know Speedy was a bit of a quirk. At about the time he made the US Olympic team in 1998, I think it was, I was then the mom of a toddler. I went to watch a US Ski Team event in Moguls at Bogus Basin. Jeret was only 15 or 16 then, and he was the star attraction. This wild pink jacket he wore just cracked me up. "Pink is the new Black", he joked to me as I stood in the lift line with him on his way back up to compete. The kid just effused a mix of cockiness of a 15 year old, and the charm that everyone who ever met him came to know. That little episode encouraged me to keep my eye on him as he matured in his sport. And it led to periodic phone calls, emails and personal contact. When Megan left the ski team after USASA Nationals in 2009 I took the money I would have spent on her and donated it to Jeret to help support his 2010 Olympic bid.
In 2002 when he was awarded the last spot on the freestyle team for the Olympics when Emily Cook was injured, I knew I had to go to Salt Lake and see him in his aerials event.
By then Megan was skiing and the next year she started ski racing. She finally met Speedy in 2007 at a ski team event. Jeret took an interest in her ski "career" when he found out she was competing in Skier X. Not a lot of girls were doing that event. And it wasn't under the onus of the US Ski Association either but rather USASA which was a snowboard organization. When she made it to Nationals in Skier X in 2008 and 2009 he seemed as excited as she and I were. He even texted her before her race in 2009 to tell her "Stay out of the back seat, breathe deep and ski fast!" He always seemed to make time for the little things with other people.
He was the best at whatever he attempted, whether it was skiing moguls, throwing the "Hurricane" (his signature aerial jump), swinging a hammer as a carpenter or earning himself a Dean's list honor at Westminster College where he was working on finishing his degree until fate took a different turn. Click on the blog title for an article from the Idaho Statesman.
Jeret suffered terribly from depression. He seemed to be a poster child for bi-polar with the worst of the symptoms from manic to crawling in a cave emotionally. Having dated someone who was bi-polar I tried hard to encourage him to always seeks help. And he did, regularly and through his closest friends. But it just wasn't enough to take away the pain that chased him each and every day. How he managed to get up every morning and push himself was beyond belief. I wish, as we all do who knew him intimately and from farther afield that he could have been helped. He gave so much joy to so many people it is unbelievable.
Yesterdays Memorial Celebration was a cathartic experience for everyone in the room. I met people in his life many of us not having ever known each other or about each other. But every single one had something special they had shared with Jeret. That's just how it was with him. Dino, a close friend of Jeret's from Park City, sat next to me. I'd met him on the rafting outing. We both wept openly and held each others hand. There was alot of that going around. I'd never seen so many men openly weeping. We shared laughter, grief, tears, and warm hugs. I know the pain won't go away right away for me. I do know the pain for Jeret is finally gone and his energy is swirling in cosmos sprinkling particles of himself upon all of us. I will miss him.

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Okay, so I've gotten your attention. I kind of had a bad week last week. One of those times full of "when it rains, it pours" life changing and life annoying issues that turn a person into an irrational and distraught person. I knew the best thing for me was to get out of "Dodge" or in this case, Boise, and visit with folks who are always uplifting to me.
At the suggestion of my brother in law, Steve, I drove from Boise to Bliss and hopped off the freeway (I-84) and headed toward Gooding. I didn't take any pictures at Gooding but wished I'd had the "smell o' meter" so I could somehow give your olfactories a whiff of the 1000 plus head industrial dairy that comes into view just slightly west of the highway once you get off I-84 and head north toward Gooding. Gooding County commissioners seem to love trashing the landscape with industrial dairy farms, not to mention the smell, and the waste stream. Imagine this--we ship out nearly 100 percent of the milk products and keep 100% of the cow poop. Gotta love the Idaho dairy industry. Instead of "got milk?" the motto should be "got poop?" Then I drove through Shoshone where gas prices were a dime cheaper than Boise. Heading just barely south out of Shoshone you turn east picking up state Highway 24 that then zooms you over a great paved road hardly used that takes you through MOAN country. That's MIddle of Absolutely Nowhere for the uninitiated. MOAN in this neck of the woods, means driving through such esteemed places at Dietrich, Kimama Butte, Acequia, and Minidoka.
It's also not far from where our nation made one of the worst errors of their history other than abject slavery--the Minidoka Internment Camp. The Camp was where over 10,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were citizens of this country were rounded up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Nation of Japan. Our government had the audacity to question their allegiance to our country and placed them in concentration camps. You really can't call them anything else, because that in essence is what they were. Most of these folks came from near cool, rainy Seattle and were dumped into the scrub 110 degree heat of the high desert of Idaho with shanty barracks to live in.Ultimately water was diverted from the MIlner Gooding Canal so they could grow crops. The children were educated. A couple of renowned artists were interned at the camp. But it was a dark day in history from my point of view that this could ever have happened. I looked in vane to find Hunt Road, which surely goes by the Mormon road numbering system and I think the signs had been pulled down. I do know that virtually nothing if left of the camp buildings and maybe that is really a blessing in disguise.
The highlights of the drive along this portion of the route included the train station at Shoshone, where Amtrak no longer stops. I remember picking my mom up there at 3 a.m. when I lived in Ketchum from 1981 to 1984. The Union Pacific still runs the train depot which has fallen into considerable disrepair. Bricks are falling out of the building walls. There were about 4 people working there when I stopped by on Friday. Shoshone doesn't have much glamour anymore. It used to see alot of sheep herders, and the tracks went to Sun Valley in the early days taking people like Marlene Dietrich (gee, maybe they named the town after her--bummer for her) to ski. After touring the train station and having not really paid any attention to it for 25 years I hit the road to get on highway 24. Dietrich is a tiny town of farmers and not much else. I didn't even drive off the road to go into town. The last time I set foot in Dietrich was in 1993 or 1994 because they were trying to get a grant from the state to improve their drinking water system, or maybe it was the sewer. Either way, the town had no money and needed help. It's also the site of a sugar beet dump, though there are far more later near Kimama, Minidoka and Acequia.
Kimama is known for its Butte which serves as a focal point from the bleak landscape, actually. And there remains an amazing water tower right next to the rail siding at Kimama. Mindioka is home to the Idaho Youth Ranch juvenile detention facility that gives young first or second time offenders of non violent crimes an opportunity to get their act together and learn how to live in civil society. And Acequia is something I skipped entirely but it does have a rail and stock yard as I recall. I used to go that way and cross over on the Jackson Bridge to get to the other side of the Snake River to the Neilson Family Farm, but the bridge is now closed so I had to drive in on Meridian Road into Rupert near the town of Minidoka.

Next stop--Neilson Country aka Goose Beach Farm

Back in the late 1970's I married into the Neilson family. Scott and I tied the know in 1978 after meeting in 1976 and I joined a clan of characters and some dysfunction where I remain welcome to this day, despite the fact that Scott and I later divorced in mid 1980's. Steve is my brother in law and he and Marcy have remained steadfast friends. They are hands down two of the smartest people I've ever met. Amazingly educated and self taught on a variety of topics. I love to come visit and hang out with them, dog Callie, and several cats that include Waylon, Willie and now Vanna. There are chickens and turkeys raised for eggs and meat, an amazing garden, a view of the Snake River from the porch and the Albion Mountain and Mt Harrison in the distance.
There is also Glenn, my father in law, who I remain close to. Glenn always was one of those men with an eye for the ladies. It got him into some trouble over the years but he's still plugging along. When he retired from farming, most of the farm was sold off. Steve and Marcy have some acreage, Glenn has some along with his house and another shirt tail cousin has a small piece on the what's left. Scott and acre on the river, too.
To truly understand my relationship to the family I quote Steve upon my marriage to Scott "Well, Marti, welcome to notoriety!". Boy howdy. Being a Neilson was rife with notoriety, and not being a shrinking violet I added some to the coffers when I shot a snowmobile dead in a snow trench Scott and I set to keep trespassers and would be thieves out of the Mt. Harrison summer cabins.
Steve and Marcy read alot, so I'm always talking with them about the latest books they've read, sharing books and geology, and all manner of politics and whatnot. A visit to Goose Beach Farm, as Marcy calls it, is always a joyous occasion.

Idaho Falls Was the Place to Be!

Idaho is a state that seems to have many waterfalls named after towns. Or are the towns named after waterfalls? It is a true chicken and egg dilemma. I've been to Idaho Falls, Twin Falls, Post Falls. Shoshone is a town but doesn't have "falls" in its name. And Shoshone Falls therefore isn't named after the town. Also, Shoshone isn't anywhere near the water, actually. It's on the edge of the Arco desert and lava beds.
But I digress. Idaho Falls was the place to be this weekend as my 2nd major stopover on the my 4 day road trip. Johnny Montezuma and his lovely bride Susun move their Second Chance Ranch selves northerly from the oppressive heat of Camp Verde, Airy Zona to IF for six months out of the years. After two very cold and snowy winters, and due to a fluke of the economic downturn that led them to get their lovely straw bale house back from the buyer, they live in two places--but not at once.
John and Susun have managed to entrench themselves in to the day to day life of IF. Johnny enjoys going shooting with several other gentlemen of leisure a few times a week at the local shooting range. Susun has made various and sundry friends over their past 4 years living in IF and finds her self doing volunteer work at places like the ReSTORE for Habitat for Humanity.
But much of the time is spent entertaining those of us who simply can't stand not to be around two of the great human beings on this planet.So a steady stream of friends far and near drop in and out of their place for various kinds of frivolity. Such was the past two days I spent with them. We'd not seen each other since my trip to Second Chance in March to visit and also kayak in the Verde River Canoe Challenge.
Susun has the most awesome little garden that John has helped her with. It's loaded with the tallest most sturdy hollyhocks I've seen. We picked fresh zuchini to go with dinner, first of the season. And Johnny has ensured that there is a stellar croquet court in the lawn for us to play several games a day. But even better is the mini foosball table Susun found at a yard sale. We jerry rigged that thing so it was attached to a tool work table with rope and some clamps. Top it off with some bubble makers, wine coolers and two wild and crazy gals and you've got foosball mania.
Not to be outdone, however, is Johnny's renowned "three hour tours", of which we partook of on the bicycles to view the IF Greenbelt that goes along the Snake River. Topping it off, are dozens of innovative public art works benches that the City Parks Dept raised money for and John helped jury for the selection of the winners. It's a real highlight. Plus riding through old town IF on a Sunday is perfect because there just isn't any traffic. We were given nice cool biking weather with overcast skies.
All I can say is IF is the Place to Be. It was just like "Green Acres" without the pig.

There's Something About the Arco Desert

Day 4 of my 600 miles road trip my afternoon was spent driving across the Arco Desert past Craters of the Moon National Monument south towards Carey, Idaho. The Arco Desert in my humble view is that stretch of road near Craters all the way to Carey and southerly towards Minidoka and Shoshone. The heart of the area is crossed by Goodales Cutoff, a spur of the various Oregon Trails and wagon train routes. Goodales came across more or less from Ft Hall, cut through some nasty lava rock areas with narrow wagon tracks, and heded toward Mountain Home cutting over toward Boise at a place called Bonneville Point. There are many variations on the theme. Those travelers had to be tough as nails to do this. The most successful didn't go by wagon but rather went by horseback The easier routes were those that went near Cauldron Linn but stayed north of the Snake River rather than crossing there, or else they crossed at Glenns Ferry.

Rain Storm Pummels Boise's North End

So I just returned home from my 4 day soire to find hundreds of pine cones littering my yard. The rain barrel that I water the chickens and hanging planters outside is full again. Despite the .85 inches of rain; it looks like I need to add some more Huma Green to the soil (iron and magnesium) for better tilth and feeding the lawn in this heat. I went form 65 and rain in Idaho Falls this morning to blazing sun and 94. That's okay, it's the reason I live in Boise. And I have my first cherry tomato turn red today. Raspberries are in full tilt, too. And Reuben the wonder dog is happy to have me home. It's great to have an awesome chicken and dog tender when I want to wander about.