Someone I was getting to know in Oregon asked me who I was one night. I had to think about it for a bit, and (building on what I wrote in Purpose), here are the best answers I could come up with: I am a member of wonderful families I am a son, a brother, a cousin, and – for those of great caliber engaged in mutual support – a loyal friend, trusted partner, or cherished lover. I am a guardian I am a vigilant guardian, a tender caregiver, and a competent, professional leader. I strive to bring order to chaos, comfort to pain, treatment to the ill or injured, and solutions to problems without shrinking from the challenges or obstacles I face in my path.
I seek to make a difference in the lives of my fellow man by using the privileges, gifts, talents, random experience, and fabulous education that I inherited or pursued for the betterment of my world and those in it. I am a builder and creator I am an entrepreneurial relationship builder, meticulous organizer, and resourceful problem solver. I foster enterprise, instigate events, build or develop relationships, and refine systems or processes for shared successes. I create art and tell stories to share experiences, entertain, and inform.
I am an advocate I believe, support, advocate or hold space for, and treat the visible and invisible wounds of those who have been marginalized for their identity or expression, and for those victimized by crimes of exploitation or physical and sexual violence.
I can be a powerful foe For those foolish enough to pose a threat to the people and places I hold dear, I can be a formidable foe. I take note of risks, craft plans to mitigate danger, or prepare people or resources to communicate, and respond in emergencies. If dire necessity should require it, I will locate, engage with, and destroy the threat with the appropriate tools, tactics, or force required and available to me at the time.
I stayed up way too late the night of July 20-21st. I woke up to a text from my mom saying that my dad was going to the ER, and then another containing his vital signs. They weren’t good. Not at all good.
I took a lighting fast shower, tossed a few days of clothes in a bag, told my landlady I was leaving town and she’d have to wait for the rent that month, and left Portland. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, when I was coming back, and didn’t really care; the Universe (and a lot of clinical experience) was telling me that I needed to be in Idaho NOW. Fueled by Rockstar, adrenaline, and overpriced gasoline, I drove straight through and made it to Idaho in 11 hours.
My parents asked me to move home to care for my Dad that night; It took me about 2 seconds to say yes and start burning down my life in Portland via text Message. I quit 2 jobs and told friends I was leaving via texts and facebook posts. I wasn’t sure it was real.
I spent 3 days going back and forth between the ICU. Battered by complications from unvaccinated covid and the continual complications of, he wasn’t moving enough air in/out of his lungs to scrub the CO2 that builds up as a part of respiration. On top of that serious condition, his organs had been slowly failing and fluid was filling his abdomen up, requiring draining. On the evening of the 3rd day we got the news that my Dad’s condition was not improving; his CO2 levels were twice what a normal person should have and the damage to his organs mean that the fluid buildup would reoccur.
We all talked and my dad made the call to go home on Hospice so he could be comfortable. The doc told us it would be 2 weeks to 2 months. We all fell apart there in the ICU waiting room – first me, then my mom. I headed back for Portland the next day to pack my stuff; I made another 11 hour strait shot drive, stopping to fall apart somewhere on the shoulder of I-84 in the Blue Mountains. I got 4-5 hours of sleep when I returned to Portland, woke up, and started packing my life.
Tiffany came over to help pack….and be an expert shoulder to cry on as I fell apart some more. About 5 hours into packing, My mom called me to say “Get on a plane, things are not going well and I NEED you here”. I broke a little more and repacked my bag; Tiffany drove me to the airport and I flew home to Idaho once more.
Dad was home and doing pretty good–awake, alert, and mostly pain free. Hospice came in and got him set up with meds and supplies and all those things I had done hundreds of times for other people. For strangers. For people I saw 90 minutes out of a day 1-2 times a week. For people who did not have the same last name I did.
Dad did pretty well for about a day and a half–sitting up in bed, laughing, joking, seeing a parade of visitors. Then, as the CO2 built up, he got groggy and started having a hard tome staying awake and breathing easy. I started giving him meds to help him breathe easy and lessen any pain he had. I sat by his bedside, in chairs his mom had in her front room, and swabbed his lips with cold lemonade neighborhood kids brought him from their lemonade stand.
I kept a cool rag–something he liked when he felt rotten– on his forehead and gave him meds every few hours, shared memories from our lives, and held his hand. Late on the night of July 30th–sometime around 10 or 1030 pm– we shared a Dr Pepper. He sucked small sips of of the star shaped sponge above, I sipped from the tiny cans he liked. It was the last time he was awake or alert.
My mom spelled me at the bedside a little later, probably 1130 that night, and promised to wake me if anything changed. I went to grab a shower and make a snack, then looked in on them both before I crashed out. We’d had to move the beds–normally pushed together–apart so the nurses and CNAs could care for my Dad. Mom pushed the heads together so they formed a V. When I stuck my head in one last time, I saw this:
My mom woke me up about 345 that morning, saying that my Dad’s vitals were barely there. We sat with him for a while longer, talking, crying, laughing, reminiscing. We promised him it was OK to go, that things would be taken care of, and that we would miss him so. We told him to tell his brothers (stillborn before he was), parents, and grandparents hello for us. My sweet dad, my buddy, Stephen Paul Hovey passed away quietly in his bed at home with my mom and myself at his side at 0505 that day, 31 July 2026. —- When I got back to Portland prior to flying back, I’d dictated a goodbye letter to read to Dad when he was awake. I had my Mom read it to him so I did not miss lucidity while moving…….
Dear Dad, When I came home to say goodbye to Grandpa I couldn’t really find the words to do a good job. I wanted to put a little bit more thought into that with you now that we have a little bit more time.
First, I want you to know that I have long ago forgiven you for some of the things that I think we both agree could have been done better when I was young. I don’t want you to worry about that at all. I know it loomed large on your mind, since you have mentioned it several times in the last few years.
Second, and most importantly I want to say thank you so much for how you did raise me because you played a huge part in the man that I’ve become. I think we both know that getting here wasn’t always the easiest, and that it took me far away from home, you, and mom. I think that distance has been the biggest regret that I have carried with me these years.
Difficulty aside, I want to thank you for showing me the value of hard work, teaching me how to do so many things that have enabled me to be very self-reliant and help others over the years as well. I want to thank you for showing me how to treat a partner – how to love and celebrate them, even if times get difficult. I want to thank you for inspiring a lifelong love of history, for the ability to tell stories and share information in an entertaining fashion, for a love – perhaps slightly irrational – of engineer paper, ballpoint pens, hours spent wandering Dusty bookstores, sparkling new magazine stands like Barnes & Noble, and the smell of old books.
Some of the most fond memories I have of time spent alone with you involved wandering through Barnes & Noble browsing the stacks of books or trips to Old bookstores way back in the time of the Country Club Mall. I also loved the hours that we have spent just driving around “bumming” in Idaho falls, stopping at gas stations to get beef jerky and road trips snacks, and even time fighting with old used cars that kept overheating.
I loved the father and son outings that we did, those early, bright, and hot Sundays when You, Grandpa, and I would meet at church functions or sit together dressed up and ready to take on the world. I love taking care of our home and yard together, even if I complained about having to do it in between Nintendo battles or other Saturday morning shenanigans.
I loved getting midday phone calls from you at work, especially if it got me the chance to break away and tell you about what I was doing while I thought about the hard work that you put in to make sure that we all had comfortable lives. I always hoped that I would be able to work just as hard to make my own life or that of my partners and chosen family and friends as comfortable as you did for us.
It may not have seemed like it, and I was never really good about letting you in on my feelings, but you’ve always been my biggest hero, from the time that I was old enough to remember up until the present day. Your pride in me and the things that I have accomplished and how far that I have come has meant so much – more than I know how to adequately describe.
Although it may be uncomfortable and will definitely bring tears and some intense emotions I am so honored that you asked me to take care of you. I wish my skills were a little bit more current, but I’m going to do everything that I can to make you dignified and comfortable as this transition plays out. I will try my best to make sure that you are comfortable and not in any pain especially at the end.
Please know that you will be deeply missed, and this world will be less with my buddy gone. I will remember you in the smell of fresh cut grass, old books, gas station snacks, afternoons spent lazing on the couch watching movies with friends and family, and (even though you might not believe it) the simple pleasure of a clean house on a weekend.
I am never going to forget the time that we had together and cannot wait when we get some more time, preferably with Grandma and Grandpa and Mom there too. — I wrote a draft of an obituary for my mom to flesh out a bit more later that day, and then the talk I’d give at his Funeral later that week. I helped my mom with the business of dying–funeral arrangements, a casket, flowers, a cemetery plot. We said goodbye with laughter, tears, and more laughter. I spoke first, somehow keeping it together through most of the following remarks:
“One afternoon long ago, as I chatted with my dad about the ins and outs of working in home health and hospice, he asked if it was hard having the people I was caring for pass away. I explained that it was kind of hard, but I was glad I could bring them and their family members a little bit of peace and comfort. He got quiet for a moment and then told me “Well I hate to tell you this, but it seems like you have kind of a dead end job”.
My dad’s silly and at times irreverent sense of humor has been with me from my earliest memories, and has helped me get through hard times and some impossibly traumatic situations. His love of story telling and laughing about the varying absurdities of life is something we shared and that I will miss greatly.
My dad taught me many more things that have colored my personal life and professional experience, including how to care for or downright spoil a partner, to be self-reliant, maintain a home and a yard, the value of selfless service to others, how to communicate information in engaging and entertaining ways, and the simple pleasure of a clean,quiet home on a weekend morning.
I learned much more over the time we had together—even if the value wasn’t always apparent or if I wasn’t always ready for the lesson. These things included working hard, working to ensure workplaces or events were safe and well organized, how to relate to supervisors, care for subordinates, maintain a clean and organized workspace, how to communicate information humorously but matter-of-factly, and (sometimes) how to string together a few colorful words and phrases if things (or people) just weren’t working out.
I’m going to miss his wit and wisdom, our shared love of laughter and storytelling, stopping at gas stations to buy road trip snacks or jerky like a diabetic toddler with a credit card, riding around SE Idaho with no particular destination, the (perhaps irrational) love of engineer or graph paper and quality ballpoint pens, killing time on sunny afternoons watching silly movies and sci-fi shows, browsing old bookstores that smelled of old paper, and sharing bright mornings in a yard surrounded by the smell of freshly cut grass.”
— We laid my dad to rest a week later in a small country cemetery, far enough out of town to be quiet, but not far enough to be distant.
He’s on the path that he and I took the last time we went for a drive in the country. It’s not far from the little country library/post office that we stopped to take photos of an old AA gun/small town war memorial. He’s surrounded by fields and blue spruce trees, just like the HUGE one that used to live in my Grandpa Paul’s back yard, the one that provided so much shade for so many gatherings on so many summer days when I was a child.
Salt Lake City, UT – May 2015 So I was thinking the other day….
What would I miss if I were to leave Salt Lake City? I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and came up with a small list:
The Wasatch Mountains. Holy crap, the mountains! You can’t exist in Utah without noticing those omnipresent peaks, and you can’t appreciate or engage in much outdoor recreation here without getting to know them well. I would miss those–since you can’t miss them if you’re anywhere along the Wasatch front.
The temple square — church office building plaza area. There’s a lot of personal history there, going back as far as I can remember. Not only that, but the architecture is pretty cool, and I’ve had a great time walking and riding bikes through the area over the years. Never mind the hilarious fact that (if viewed from a distance) the twin globes on the adjoining buildings on the East/West sides of the lower 4-6 stories make the entire trio look rather…phallic.
#10 East Church Hill Drive. The amazing vista of the Salt Lake Valley that the parking space at this address offers would be a location and a perspective I’d miss. You can see everything from up there and get a pretty good sense of just how massive the Salt Lake Valley is.
Liberty Park.
The ‘pocket’ parks in the Avenues and Marmalade neighborhoods, especially the little one at 4th Avenue and I street and the other one on Pugsley Street and 600 North.
The heart of the OLD downtown area—especially Crossroads Mall and ZCMI Plaza. I’m not sure why; most of the time I spent at Crossroads was work related. Maybe because that’s where a lot of things started for me here in the city of salt.
The hot springs in Warm Springs Park. While I would NOT miss the crappy house and flaky property manager myself and my cousin shared nearby, I would (and do) miss the long soaks in the natural hot pools and staring at the crumbling abandoned building that once was the Children’s Museum.
The International Peace Gardens.
One-of-a-kind thrift or discount stores like U of U surplus, State surplus, and the NPS stores. Definitely NPS. I haven’t found anywhere like it/them in the country. Yet.
Memory Grove and City Creek too (the body of water-not the boring, overpriced mall).
The grid system. It, like the whole state, is a bit odd and does take a little getting used to. However, once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite easy to use for navigation. This is the EASIEST city to navigate in, including the one I grew up in.
Our crazy wide streets.
The little plaza/park behind Cathedral of the Madeline.
Gilgal gardens.
Long gone entertainment landmarks like Sanctuary, Bill ‘n’ Nada’s, Anchors Aweigh, and Area 51 (in its’ slightly grittier pre-2003 iteration).
The rest of the story: I left Salt Lake City in October of 2019, after taking a position that took me to Portland and then all over the US. The longer I was away, the more I realize that I missed select people and being near home (Idaho) the most. The places I noted above were great, and I have some very fond memories of them, but it was the people I knew in Salt Lake Citythat made living in Utah great. Sadly, it’s the people who make the thought of returning to both Idaho and Utah extremely bittersweet—especially with the dominance of mean-spirited far right weirdness found in both states of late.
With the death of my Father in July 2026, and my Mom’s erquest for help dealing with that and wrapping up or downsizing things, I’ll be seeing those places and faces again soon.
So earlier tonight I was helping OG get from a chair to standing upright, so as to help him into the bathroom and go take a dookie. Normal Son comes in and proceeds to spew forth with several ‘helpful’ suggestions and highlights of the many ways I’m doin’ it wrong. Sadly, all of his helpful suggestions would have ended up with OG face planting or knocking me over and him falling on top of me. If you don’t know me you might be thinking some really crazy things about how I accepted the constructive criticism and altered my technique to fit what my employer thought was best.
If you are one of those people, I’ll need you to go ahead and bang your head on the wall until you can’t see anymore.
I promptly advised Normal Son that I knew what I was doing and that’s why he paid me so good and put up with all my madness and assorted hijinks. He looked a little confused, so I smiled really big and told him to be nice, or I’d ship him off to Best Gorea. Normal Son hadn’t figured out that I was messing with him, that Gorea isn’t a real country, and hasn’t had the unfortunate ‘pleasure’ of dealing with Gorean asshats.
Not knowing what he surely did not know, he looked somewhat shocked and apologized to me for “telling you how to do what you do day in and day out”. Thoughtfully (and likely under the mistaken belief that I’d just threatened an involuntary trip to the “Democratic” People’s Republic of Korea [North Korea]) Normal Son looked up and said “Best Gorea sounds like an awful place”.
I completely agree.
The rest of the story: Google “Goreans”. They’re painfully annoying.
Education in Utah Salt Lake City, UT – February 2011
Education in Utah sucks. A lot.
If you don’t already know, Utah is #49 of 50 US States in per pupil spending right now. There are many reasons for this, amongst them the insanely high birth rate in the state thanks to the LDS church.
Methinks that the comic bunch of ultra rightwing fuckwits in the Utah Legislature should stop trying to fellate zombie Reagan by firing off idiotic message bills, naming state firearms, and focus on getting Utah’s education a bit better funded. If not, we are going to keep producing stellar morons.
Case in Point: Me and OG were doing lunch on MLK day when a herd of little shits walked in with their moms. The heard plopped down and proceeded to make me insane with a lot of babbling and other common hijinks inflicted on the public by little shits. After a bit, the little shits and their moms started to talk about why we celebrate MLK day. One of the little shits started to run off at the mouth about things she learned in school, all whilst furiously convulsing and jumping around like an epileptic meth addict in the throes of a VERY severe overdose.
Education in this state SUCKS or those kidlets’ command of World History does NOT impress. We Celebrate MLK day because of Dr. King, not anyone else…that is why the day bears HIS name and not some other tool’s. Lincoln did indeed free the slaves, but not by personally “fighting the bad guys with a cannon”. You did, however, get the “and then that one man shot his brain off” part right…mostly.
Likewise, “Anna Oakley” did not “beat the Nazis” by “shootin’ her rifle off her shoulder with a mirror”, though that sounds a LOT like a trick she used to do in Buffalo Bill’s Wild, Wild West show. You were dead on the money when you said that “Anne Frank had a secret diary in a secret room and got killed by the Nazis and throwed in a hole”.
So like I said, the Merps lost a CNA that works the weekends. They needed a replacement in short order, so naturally they quickly advertised, interviewed, and did all the other standard things employers looking for qualified people do.
Just kidding. They hired another church lady they know.
I met her briefly one Sunday night; it was shift change and she was leaving as I was arriving. As we walked past each other, she said “Hello Alex”. I forcefully said “WRONG NAME”, ignored her reply, and reentered Merp House. I had a decided lack of hope for finding the place in something approaching coherent order.
The place looked OK, so I went to the Kitchen and got the Report book. Even though the n00b couldn’t get my name right, her written report was actually pretty good. Her report included the plethora of wonderfully boring information about her shift in mostly complete fashion. Unfortunately, it also confirmed my suspicion that the person the Merps hired wasn’t chosen for any kind of clinical skills/experience.
“However did you know this?” you might ask. Well, I based my assessment on the fact that her report contained the following details: “1430 O’clock: OG made a #2, a fudgy”.
1430 o’clock? #2? A Fudgy!? Are you fucking serious? Religion is not and should never be a qualification to do a job, ESPECIALLY a job that has precious little to do with your (or any) religion. The Merps and this n00b might have shared the same religious delusion, but that doesn’t mean she’s any good at her job. Judging from her stellar performance this eve and those amazing notes, it looks like she’s not going to be, though the jury is out.
The rest of the story: Created to protect their privacy as required under HIPAA, “The Merps” was a less then complimentary reference to the patient family I was caring for at the time. Every member of the family, save one, had some kind of debilitating medical or psychiatric problem—if not both. The wife suffered the lingering effects of Polio, contracted in the pre-vaccine days of the 1950s. The husband (AKA OG or the Old Guy) had VERY advanced Parkinsons and Dementia, a son (AKA Merp Derp) had severe intellectual delays, the daughter (AKA Merp Daughter) acute mental health issues. One son was relatively normal—except for being very gay and very Mormon…so he got christened “Normal Son”.
N00b did not last. While she might have been a great church friend or person in general, her clinical skills fell flat on their face. While she consistently took great notes, she failed to understand and execute even the most BASIC nursing tasks. She also repeatedly failed to complete vitally important infection control and sanitation tasks.
On one occasion I returned from days off to find a patient’s bed made– with the waterproof bed pad upside down, plastic backing facing up, and adsorbent padding facing down. (This would have made it completely useless if bodily fluid was spilled on it, causing fluid to run off and into the bedding, instead of being trapped by the adsorbent fluff on the other side of the pad). On several other occasions, I located used latex gloves that she’d made into the patient’s bedding instead of throwing them away. Then there was the time she threw dirty gloves in the wash and set them out in the patient’s bedroom. Lastly, she tossed bloodied gloves aside or hid them in locations other than the trash instead of disposing of them immediately. Several complaints and fierce documentation helped her get fired several months later.
I went to a burning man event some weeks ago; It was nothing fancy–a small affair with just over 200 people total. The venue was a small farm nestled in a valley down a long forest road hidden in the foothills of the Coast Range somewhere in central Oregon. The event’s main area was a massive meadow usually reserved for growing hay; part of the meadow had been mowed short to allow different camps and things to set up.
Free of responsibility and with the summer sun dipping below the trees, I headed out on a walkabout one evening. As I wandered through the ankle height grass in the meadow, the smell of damp grass and sweet Mint tickled my nose. As I walked onward, the smell of Mint became more and more pronounced. I looked for someone close or a camp that had an incense burner going, but found nothing of the sort going on around me.
Seeing no obvious source, I looked at the path my feet had stomped through the meadow grass. The grass, cut to about ankle height, was interspersed with tiny mint plants. Every step I took over the last 100 or so yards had resulted in a crushed plant, a torn leaf, or some other way for the fragrant oils being released.
I wished you were there to share it with me. You’d have loved it– the silly bus dressed up to look like a GIANT winged dragon, the faux Vikings serving coffee on the rooftop platform, the music and voices drifting away from a party starting in the camping area, the pastel LEDs shining up into the night sky illuminating the trees, the still of the setting sun all the way out in the meadow, and the minty scent of the sweet grass.
Slowly killing off parts of a day traipsing through a thrift or antique store has become something I’ve become rather fond of the last few years. It’s easily one of the most “normal” hobbies I enjoy, and usually doesn’t need any kind of warning label or detailed explanation (looking at you, ham radio). Sheer economics started me down this road a long time ago — haunting DI, NPS, Savers, and others was an easy and inexpensive way to find household goods, clothing, furniture, and other random stuff I needed. Going thrifting can also be a great way to break up the tedium of running the errands needed to survive in the modern hellscape and work in a little light exercise too.
Burning a morning or early afternoon just “bumming around” as I take my time wandering the aisles for no practical reason is far more entertaining. A recent Saturday saw me with some free time, a bit of disposable income, and the itch to get out of the house; I’d worked the prior 14 days in a row, and decided I was going to make the day MINE and just go “bumming”. I decided I was going to wander through a pair of thrift malls I’ve come to enjoy here in Portland — I wasn’t on the hunt for anything special that morning, however as I headed out I thought of the usual suspects. (these are a few things I routinely look for as I wander — Men’s hats, razors, bar ware, ballpoint pens, stationary, and post cards from the 1940s-1960s).
I’m old (or so I have been informed), and going thrifting or antiquing and seeing things I clearly remember from childhood or that were daily (or close to) parts of life then has become a profoundly weird feeling. It’s simultaneously fun, and consistently brings a wry smile to my face—but it also makes me deeply nostalgic. I see these things and my mind lights up in the most acutely bittersweet way; I love finding things I’ve got a deeply personal connection to but it almost feels wrong or dirty, in some strange way.
These things were items I saw, touched, wore, slept on, or ate/drank out of as I grew up — items that were so present in my life or those that I cared for deeply. I love seeing them and remembering the times I had with them, who owned them, and where they were displayed or found in different homes. Sometimes I catch myself getting misty eyed, growing tight in the chest, or forming a lump in my throat. I look at these objects and miss the people, the places, and times those items were part(s) of. I stand there and think of them all and it feels wrong that they are just………..items on a shelf.
One of the items on that afternoon’s shelf was a round tin, formerly home to a Hostess fruitcake. To the casual passerby and uninformed luddite, this may look like another old tin. It was much SO more than a mere object. This tin was, in Grandma Kate’s hands, special. My grandparents, like so many of the dwindling “silent generation” were children of the Great depression of the 1920s and -30s. They knew what it was like to have little, and saved, reused, or recycled SO much, LONG before it was in vogue.
Somewhere in the 1940s, in that spirit, a fruitcake was devoured, and the tin repurposed. It predated me, and Gramma had one EXACTLY like this the whole time I was growing up—from well before I was a fun thought, as an infant, even as an adult, until the day she died. It lived deep in a cupboard under her kitchen counter, lined with wax paper. It was always filled with cookies, fudge bars, or whatever other goodies she’d created. If the tin came out, we–my brothers, my sister, my parents, friends I brought over, anyone–knew we were about to receive a special gift of a yummy treat from granny’s kitchen.
And here was one, on one of the last shelves, on the last aisle, at my last stop. I stopped for a moment, looked twice to see if I was dreaming, and picked it up to see what was inside. (It had exactly 0 cookies inside). I text messaged a few important people, asking them to guess how many cookies were inside as well. And then I left. Rational, adult me knew I was close to the end of my FUN budget, and the afternoon was getting shorter.
I text messaged a few more people and the memories—and a tear or two—flowed. I had to have that tin! I collected myself, shook off the fog of memories, and went back to the store I’d seen the tin in about 90 minutes later. I took the steps two at a time, made a beeline for the last aisle and nearly the last shelf, and took the tin home—but not before I stopped at a nearby grocery store and acquired a few cookies and some Andes’ mints to stash inside.
Perhaps, if you’re extra good, you can have a cookie out of the cookie tine when you come to visit.
It is nearly impossible to describe the fond memories of my youth on the west side of Idaho Falls that this simple photograph conjured up when posted in a Facebook group the other night. I can remember so many miles spent on bicycles zooming down there after a morning spent doing household chores or mowing lawns. Whether it was at home on Cameron or at Grandma and Grandpa’s (or a neighbor’s) on Jeri, if I had $5-$10 in hand (and after some conspiring with my brothers and our friends) I was probably headed to Walker’s where we would shortly descend like locusts borne on Huffy bicycles. We had all the time in the world, not a care in it, a decent amount of spending money, and were ready to spend hours browsing the shelves searching for the perfect combination(s) of VHS tapes, video games, and snacks—and spend the time we did.
The acute nostalgia I feel and the fondness for and of the memories I have of Walker’s are not rooted solely in any of the resulting activities. Watching grainy VHS tapes, playing “Retro” or “Classic” video games on some of the original consoles to hit US markets, or the fact that the sugary snacks probably kept a nearby dentist’s office in business was just our life at the time. Those things are certainly present in the intense yearning I currently feel, however they are but pieces of a whole—components of a time capsule. These adventures are but one link to times and places that are largely unknown to so many people younger than am I.
If you have never lived in Idaho Falls, are under 35, or are new to Idaho Falls you’ve likely never heard of Walker’s, saw Walker’s in its heyday, or know little of any of the businesses that used to sit on or around the Northwest corner of Skyline and Broadway during that time. Some of what I consider to be great parts of life on the west side during the 80s and early 90s had their homes there–IGA, Skyline Drug, Leo’s Place, Olan Mills, and Ben Franklin were all thriving. Immediately West of that sat the expansive retail and greenhouse spaces of City Floral and Garden Center.
The entirety of the buildings that housed Walker’s and every other business on that list has been lost to the voids of time, growth, and change. The strip mall that housed Walker’s and others has not existed in over a decade—torn down in late 2014 to make room for the Walgreen’s and its parking and street side landscaping. City Floral has been gone for roughly the same amount of time, closing after the Holmgren’s deaths. Google maps reveals images of foundations and cracked pavement; structures demolished but not quite erased from the earth or memories.
It was a different time and a drastically different world. People (largely) knew their neighbors, shopped in many of the same physical stores they had for generations, and the internet was unknown or in its infancy. Relatively few homes had computers when compared to today, and the plethora of interconnected devices or streaming services were nonexistent. The easy access to a wide variety of media we take for granted today was years away, not found on the phone in our pocket, on a laptop, or a tablet.
Your time was truly a valuable—and valued—asset. The choices about how to spend that time, who you spent it with, and what filled that time were products of intent, not an accident of an algorithm or mass media advertising campaigns oozing from every screen you touched. Everything about the experience was a conscious choice–who to go with, how many or what kind of movies or video games to rent, the snacks you wanted, who’s home you were going to go enjoy them all in, and who was invited.
What made Walker’s (and many of the other businesses I mentioned) truly special was not so much the ritual of going there, browsing the aisles chalk full of physical media of varying kinds, smelling the buttery popcorn that was always cooking, the flowers blooming or freshly cut from the greenhouse, or wandering the aisles of toys, candy, and scented craft supplies. It was, hands down, the time—time in those places, simpler times, and times with the people we called friend or family.
Beyond simple memories of times gone by, these reminiscences of Walker’s and other businesses are artifacts from a now distant era, fading into the mists of time and space, lovingly placed in a time capsule. This capsule contains slices of time from so many lives — young, old, and everywhere between – time and, in more than a few cases, lives now gone by.
It is a place, a time, and freedom from a world that I sorely miss.
Hey sports fans, if you are just joining us, this post is the sixth part of a series that began here. This series is nearly complete, but I haven’t found the energy to finish it just yet.
We now return to the program in progress. —–
“Long cool woman (in a black dress)” by The Hollies One evening a long time ago, in a jurisdiction far, far away saw me hopping into the Passenger seat of Deputy James Foster with the Bonneville County (Idaho) Sheriff’s Office. I had the opportunity to do a ride along, and Foster was one of a handful of Deputies I knew who worked the Swing or Grave shift(s).
Saturday night I was downtown Working for the FBI
Swings and Graves was where much of the ‘fun’ I wanted to get in on happened, so I eagerly jumped at the chance to go out in the car with Foster for a night. Foster was in his early or mid-30s, hilariously funny, a pretty big smartass, an engaged proactive cop, and a product of the 1960s and 70s. Many nights I spent with him in the mid 1990s saw us prowling the dark corners of Idaho falls and the (Bonneville) County, having fun bantering as we looked for miscreants and listened to classic (1970s) rock.
Bootlegging boozer on the west side Full of people who are doing wrong Just about to call up the DA man When I heard this woman sing a song
One evening we were somewhere on the far east side of town when the radio belched static, followed by the voice of a dispatcher. Calmly, but quickly, the dispatcher gave another deputy’s callsign, then ours, followed by the details of the call: “345, 342 Robbery in progress, Speedy mart, 3490 E Sunnyside Road. Cross streets Ammon and Sunnyside Caller stated they were being robbed and hung up on the call taker”. That location was just a few miles from where we were; Foster slammed the gas, then hit the lights and siren as my adrenaline surged. I took the radio mic out of its holder to respond to dispatch. I thumbed the talk button and announced we were en route, then looked over at Foster, who was grinning as wide as I was. He looked over for a second, before announcing “this needs music” and flipped the volume on the old Chevy Caprice’s AM/FM radio.
Then suddenly we heard the sirens And everybody started to run A-jumping out of doors and tables When I heard somebody shooting a gun
For the uninitiated, many calls that come out of Dispatch as “In progress” are not routine calls for service like a barking dog or an annoyingly loud stereo. Things that have the ‘magic’ words “In” and “Progress” means whatever caused someone to call in (think things like Burglaries, Robberies, Stabbings, and other bits of naughty behavior) is a higher priority call—usually the highest. “In progress” shenanigans are going on RIGHT NOW, are a HOT call, so you need to be there as fast as you can safely get your happy, shining ass there because life is in danger. This night though…..there was no robber—just a garden variety shoplifter who desperately needed a new 6 pack of some cheap beer and a timeline that had some stellar music.
