[Vision2020] Moscow old and new

[Joan Opyr]

On 12 Jan 2006, at 11:08, Julie Crumley wrote:

> Gonna bust your chops a bit....it's Elk Creek Falls, and Dan would 
> like me to tell you there is no river called Elk River. He says you 
> flunked your local test.
>
> Area Sister,
> JC

Hey, give me a break!  I've been to Elk River (the city) and written a 
great story about Shithead Abell, Elk River's most famous deceased pet! 
  If I've confused Elk Creek Falls with a non-existent Elk River, then 
that's because I was frickin' scared to death.  We hiked off the trail 
with Melynda's sister, Molly, and came to this enormous drop off.  I 
reckoned we were going to die.  The falls looked huge -- not a creek 
but definitely a river -- and the area where we picnicked was littered 
with bear scat.  Melynda and Molly swore it was black bear scat, but I 
didn't believe them -- definitely grizzly.  Huge, man-eating grizzly.  
There was part of a hunting boot in that scat, I swear.  But it wasn't 
a Filson.  It was a cheap Chinese-made hunting boot purchased from 
Wal-Mart.  Ha!

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com

PS: Can I take another local test, please?  I know all about Cougar 
Dave Lewis -- I just read an excellent book about him by Pat Cary Peek. 
  Oh, and I've read Julie Monroe's book about Moscow, and I'm in the 
middle of 'Renegade Tribe: The Palouse Indians and the Invasion of the 
Inland Pacific Northwest,' by Clifford E. Trafzer and Richard D. 
Scheuerman.  And, since I bought all of these books at Bookpeople, I 
should get local points for that.

PPS: Also, I want to start my fresh and fair local test with 1000 bonus 
points for having Carl Westberg, Jr., on my team.  His family is very 
modest; they only claim to have settled here in 1884, but the truth of 
the matter is that the Westbergs first came to North America with 
Bjarni Herjolfsson and Leif Eriksson.  Back then, the Westbergs weren't 
interested in conquest or homesteading -- they'd just forgotten where 
they'd buried the lutefisk.  It might have been in some Greenland 
ice-flow, and so, being frugal folk, they weren't about to let it 
vanish without a hunt.  They came in Viking longships to Newfoundland 
with lutefisk on the brain.  It wasn't long before Bjarni and Leif got 
bored with Vinland and decided to sail back home, but the Westbergs 
were made of sterner stuff.  They made their way West to what is now 
Idaho and the Palouse, and here they found something better than 
lutefisk -- delicious fresh salmon, courtesy of the Nez Perce.  
"Delicious," they cried.  "This doesn't taste a bit like stinky feet or 
dirt!"  And thus they decided to stay.  A thousand years later, here 
they are -- modest, unassuming, and eating fresh salmon with sour cream 
and dill sauce on lovely fresh lefse.  The end.