Inlander 07/02/2020

THE FOURTH HOW TO CELEBRATE IT THIS YEAR PAGE 34

TACTICAL CHANGES SPOKANE COPS CONSIDER TRAINING PAGE 14

BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR SIZING UP THE FIRST HALF OF 2020 PAGE 37

JULY 2-8, 2020 | NEAR NATURE. BUT NOT LOST.

CAMPING, HIKING, MOUNTAIN BIKING & MORE WAYS TO ENJOY NATURE

PAGE 16

“Integrity.”

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2 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

INSIDE VOL. 27, NO. 38 | COVER DESIGN: TOM STOVER

COMMENT NEWS COVER STORY CULTURE

5 8 16 30

FOOD FILM MUSIC EVENTS

35 37 38 39

ADVICE GODDESS I SAW YOU GREEN ZONE BULLETIN BOARD

39 40 41 45

WE ARE OPEN

EDITOR’S NOTE

A

mong the stories in this week’s OUTDOORS ISSUE is a tale about Jordan Jonas, a native of Athol, Idaho, who’s made a career out of simply surviving. Simply is the wrong word.

Nothing’s simple when you spend 77 days alone in Artic, fending off cold, boredom and insanity with aplomb while living off the moose that you killed.

Jonas was the last man standing on Alone, a survival reality show on the History Channel, and won $500,000 in the process.

His outdoor skills were essential, of course, but so, he says, was his mindset, his ability to deal with isolation and uncertainty — a brand of resilience we could all use right now. Find his story as well as truly simple ways you can get out in nature, too, beginning on page 16.

Also this week: staff reporter Daniel Walters has a story on how the Spokane City Council smacked down a proposed police contract (page 12), and culture writer Nathan Weinbender takes us back to the halcyon summer of 1999 — “one of the wildest, jampacked years for mainstream pop music” — with a look at the songs that had us swooning then (page 38).

— JACOB H. FRIES, Editor

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WHY WILL/WON’T YOU WEAR A MASK IN PUBLIC?

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Normally, we ask our question of the week of people we randomly encounter on the street. But with the coronavirus pandemic, we instead asked our followers on social media to share their thoughts.

JORDAN HILKER: I will wear one because to me it is not a political issue, it is not a matter of rights being taken away. Instead it is about being an empathetic, responsible community member and showing care and concern for those around me. Also, I will not shame someone for not wearing one as I do not know their reason for not wearing one (medical, deaf family member, etc.).

WHITNEY ROSE: Yes, because I trust the public health doctors who have the knowledge to say that it is an important part of reducing virus transmission. It’s inconvenient, it’s uncomfortable in the heat, but it’s more important to me to protect my neighbors.

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LORI KVAMME SALISBURY: I’ve been wearing one (on the rare occasions when I go out in public) since I saw studies saying they helped. I continue to wear it in public to prevent me from unknowingly spreading COVID and as a layer of protection for myself, too.

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LUCAS McINTYRE: I wear a mask because I can’t guarantee I haven’t been exposed and I would never want to unintentionally spread it to someone else if I had been. It’s a courtesy to people around me. Like holding a door and saying “please” and “thank you.”

Created AlexProject Muravev from theby Noun

JESSICA BOYER: I have been pushing for mask use since COVID-19 was first announced. If medical professionals wear them to prevent germs it makes sense that we should, too.

It’s also common sense that any barrier is better than none!

MERI LOUISE: I am wearing a mask because I could spread a life-threatening illness to someone else unknowingly. They are terribly uncomfortable, but seemingly less so than a ventilator!

TAMMIE PEACOCK: I can’t breathe in them. So nope. n

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Confederacy of Dunces

OLEKINDERHOOK/CREATIVE COMMONS PHOTO

Toppling statues is an American tradition, not historical erasure

BY LAWRENCE B. A. HATTER

I

n the searing July heat in New York City, radical militants gathered in a Manhattan park, determined to tear down a statue. Over the past few years, this public monument had become the focus of protests against unpopular government measures, including a shocking act of police brutality in Boston that cost the lives of five civilians. The statue was a frequent target of graffiti. This time, however, it was coming down.

With ropes tied around the statue, protesters heaved together, pulling it down. In the frenzy that followed, the crowd decapitated the statue and cut up what remained.

It was July 1776. The protesters were the Sons of Liberty. The statue was of King George III. This event in New York almost 250 years ago

could almost be snatched from today’s headlines.

Over the past few weeks, a popular wave of Black Lives Matter protests against systemic racism has targeted statues around the globe in response to the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department. From the felling of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia, to a crowd throwing the slave trader Edward Colston into the sea in the English port city of Bristol, protesters have attacked symbols of white supremacy in our commemorative landscape.

Opponents of this iconoclasm argue that the

destruction of statues is an act of historical erasure. By removing monuments to Confederate generals and colonialists like Cecil Rhodes, they claim, protesters are tearing down history by ignoring aspects of our past that do not conform to their 21st-century multicultural values. Without statues, the reasoning goes, there is no history.

Not so. Just as we still know who won the American Revolution over 200 years after the Sons of Liberty destroyed the statue of King George, the removal of statues honoring white supremacists will have no effect on our understanding of the past.

Statues are about our collective memory; they are not history itself.

We can remove statues without erasing the past.

Monuments are not history. They may depict historical figures or events, but statues and other monuments use the past to articulate the civic values of the present. Statues demonstrate what it is that we want to celebrate about the past. Statues are about our collective memory; they are not history itself. We can remove statues without erasing the past.

History and memory are two different things. History is the study of change over time. Historians (of which I am one) try to make sense of the past by asking new questions and carefully looking for the answers in primary source material — sources that were produced at the time of the events that we are studying. You find history in archives, libraries and museums, where written and material sources offer a window into the past. History is complicated and often contradictory because human beings are complex creatures. Historians generally do not waste their time looking for heroes or villains because, if we’re honest, we can find bits of both inside ourselves. But we are constantly engaged with rewriting the past in light of new research. The past is not dead, which is why it is hard to reduce it to a timeless, metal object, like a statue.

Memory is how we choose to remember the past. Memory is about our present relationship to the past; it is not about the past itself. Statues are a key expression of historical memory and, as with the statue of King George, they are inherently political.

Most statues were erected to tell a contrived story about the past that served a distinct purpose in that specific moment. In the case of Confederate statues, they were largely built decades after the Civil War. Figures like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson dominated public spaces in the South after the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to make it clear to African Americans that the Confederacy may have lost the war, but white supremacy still ruled supreme. These statues were not about educating local citizens about the Civil War. They were about celebrating the supposed racial superiority of white Southerners and intimidating black Southerners. Statues are blunt instruments, which are incapable of expressing the true complexity of the past. They are a sanitized, caricature of history, rather than the real thing.

The civic values that we celebrate as a society change over time. It makes sense, then, that our public statues and monuments should change to reflect these values. This is not an attempt to erase history (I don’t want to put myself out of work, after all!), but it does mean reckoning with our collective memory of the past. Do we want to continue to dedicate our civic landscape to celebrating values of treason, white supremacy and genocide? Or do we want to recover the stories of other, forgotten figures from our past, who demonstrate our republic’s avowed commitment to democracy and equality? n Lawrence B. A. Hatter is an award-winning author and associate professor of early American history at Washington State University. These views are his own and do not reflect those of WSU.

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JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 7

EDUCATION

COLLABORATIVE LEADER

Departing Superintendent Shelley Redinger YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

As Spokane schools superintendent Shelley Redinger leaves Spokane, the teachers union is eager for new leadership

BY WILSON CRISCIONE

S

helley Redinger never wanted to be a dictatorial, overbearing leader for Spokane Public Schools.

Rather, when she took over as superintendent for the district eight years ago, she intentionally took a collaborative approach.

“I like to get a lot of input from different stakeholders. My leadership team is always seeing what everyone thinks and gets a lot of input before we make a decision.”

Redinger tells the Inlander. “But then we make decisions.

And sometimes that’s the hard part. Not everybody is going to necessarily agree.”

As Redinger prepares to leave Spokane Public Schools to lead the Richland School District, she’s looking back on her tenure in Spokane. Her collaborative approach served her well in what she considers the district’s greatest accomplishments during her time as superintendent: Working with community organizations to raise the graduation rate, partnering with the city to help cut costs on bond projects, and listening to community activists who demanded a reduction in arrests and suspensions for Spokane students.

But Redinger’s departure comes at a critical time for the district. She happens to be leaving just as members of the Spokane Education Association, the local teach-

8 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

ers union, wanted to hold Redinger accountable for the budget issues facing Spokane and the turnover within district administration. Multiple sources indicated to the Inlander that SEA was considering holding a vote of no confidence in Redinger just days before she announced she was resigning.

In the announcement, Redinger said she plans to leave the district by July 31. But as soon as that announcement was made last Tuesday, the union sent a letter to the school board requesting that Redinger leave sooner than that.

“We find no compelling reason to keep her in the superintendent’s position past June 30,” the letter says.

It also requested that the school board appoint Adam Swinyard, currently associate superintendent, as the interim superintendent, saying that “without a clear leader who provides continuity and stability, we face potential chaos.”

On Saturday, the school board agreed, and it went even further, making Swinyard the next superintendent without the interim title.

Redinger says she’s not surprised that teachers and staff in Spokane have had concerns with the current budget issues. But she’s not looking back with much regret.

“The decisions we made,” she says, “I stand behind.”

PROGRESS MADE

When Redinger started as superintendent eight years ago, the graduation rate was just 75 percent, which was actually an improvement from a few years earlier. She remembers seeing billboards around town lamenting the poor graduation rate.

“I was like, ‘That is not helpful,’” Redinger says.

“Let’s work together on it!”

Today? It’s up around 90 percent.

“I’m very, very proud of that,” Redinger says. “That was the hard work of our staff and partnering with our community partners.”

That’s just one of several accomplishments under Redinger’s tenure. In particular, she says she’s happy the district was able to offer more options to families.

The district began a Spanish immersion program, and it expanded the On Track Academy, the Community School and Spokane Virtual Learning, she says. Spokane was also the only school district in the state to authorize charter schools. There are two currently in Spokane, with another planned to open soon. ...continued on page 10

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NEWS | EDUCATION “COLLABORATIVE LEADER,” CONTINUED...

She’s also proud that the community supported projects for new school buildings. In 2018, Spokane Public Schools passed its largest bond ever, a $495 million measure that allows the district to build new middle schools in order to accommodate moving sixth grade to the middle school level. That change also should help ease overcrowding in kindergarten classrooms. It was made possible by a unique partnership with the city, which involved land swaps benefitting both the school district and the Spokane Public Library.

“The school district talked for years and years about moving to a K-5, 6-8 model, and we got it done,” Redinger says. “I feel that is really important, and that’s done and moving forward.”

Halfway through Redinger’s time as superintendent, community activists started to raise serious concerns about the discipline rate in Spokane Public Schools. By 2016, Spokane was disciplining students with suspensions and expulsions at a higher rate than nearly any other district in Washington, and it impacted students in special education and students of color at disproportionately higher rates. Students of color were also much more likely to be arrested than white students.

Since then, the district has pushed for restorative practices that have dramatically dropped the number of suspensions, expulsions and arrests in the district — though the racial disparities still remain. In June, the school board passed a racial equity resolution that vows it will eliminate arrests of students by any school employee.

BUDGET ISSUES

The district budget, however, has been an ongoing challenge for Spokane Public Schools, as it has been for other

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districts in Washington. In the last decade, the landmark McCleary court case, which argued the state underfunded education, led the state Legislature to pump in more state dollars for education while limiting a local school district’s ability to generate local revenue through levies.

That hurt Spokane, which relied heavily on local levies.

“When that changed, it had an adverse effect on our school system,” Redinger says.

It impacted teachers, who argued the new state money should go toward pay raises. Indeed, in summer 2018, Spokane Public Schools and the Spokane Education Association negotiated huge pay raises for teachers. Both sides knew the deal would put the district budget in the red, but it was approved anyway.

Months later, the district announced layoffs impacting hundreds of educators.

When the state then gave some more flexibility in local levy funds, Redinger pushed for Spokane to put a supplemental levy on the ballot earlier this year. But in a close 3-2 vote, the school board rejected it.

Redinger says she was disappointed.

“We needed that levy,” she says. “I was very vocal about that.”

That vote took place just weeks before the COVID-19 crisis hit. And amid the pandemic, the budget projections look dire again, causing teachers to question what next school year will look like. In a budget forum SEA held last month, the union’s leadership expressed frustration with Redinger, asking how they can hold her accountable. The SEA sent out communication saying “we are developing a plan for all of us to hold her ac-

countable. These forums and communicating with [the] board are our first steps.”

SEA President Jeremy Shay acknowledged to the Inlander that members were concerned — not only with the budget, but with the amount of turnover within the school district, which included recent resignations of Linda McDermott, associate superintendent, and Ramon Alvarez, executive director of Human Resources. McDermott, Alvarez and Swinyard led the bargaining negotiations with SEA.

“We see Adam as someone who has demonstrated a willingness to work with us, which we see as vital.”

“Consistently having new leadership at the top, it filters out to changes and practice at the building level,” Shay says.

Despite multiple sources indicating that the SEA was preparing to hold a vote of no confidence in Redinger, Shay — a day before Redinger announced she was leaving — insisted that wasn’t the case.

Redinger says she didn’t know anything about any planned vote of no confidence. She says the district turnover should not be a concern, adding that, in her view, “change is continuous improvement.” In McDermott’s case, she had been with the district for 11 years and left to take a promotion elsewhere.

But as soon as Redinger announced she was leaving,

SEA wrote the letter to the school board pushing for her to leave sooner than later. Between the questions about how to reopen schools in the fall and the recently passed racial equity resolution, the SEA and district will have plenty to bargain this summer.

The letter criticized Redinger for pushing for a memorandum of understanding on the duties of teachers in distance learning this spring.

The letter pushed for Swinyard — “the only person with bargaining experience left” — to take over.

“We see Adam as someone who has demonstrated a willingness to work with us, which we see as vital in mapping the path into the uncertain future we face,” the letter says.

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LOOKING AHEAD

Spokane Public Schools faces major challenges ahead: How schools will hold in-person classes during a pandemic; how Spokane Public Schools will manage a projected budget shortfall; how to develop a new safety plan promised by the school board to eliminate student arrests by school employees.

Redinger says her leaving is a family decision. She applied for several jobs around the country earlier this year, trying to find a good spot for her and her husband, an engineer. In Richland, she gets to return to where she got her first teaching job in a place that works for the whole family, she says. She grew up in Eastern Washington and says she’s glad to continue serving students here.

“We felt really good about it,” Redinger says.

When asked if she’s worried that she’s leaving now, as the district faces so many difficult decisions, Redinger says she “thought a lot about that.” While she says there’s “never a good time” to leave, she points out that Spokane Public Schools is getting started on a new strategic plan, with a relatively new school board.

“In that case, I think it is a good time,” she says. “I think Spokane is situated in a really good place. And I’m not going that far.” n wilsonc@inlander.com

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JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 11

NEWS | POLICE REFORM

For Such a Time As This The Spokane Police Guild’s proposed contract ran into a City Council with a police-reforming lawyer and a black community activist

BY DANIEL WALTERS

I

n the past four and a half years, Spokane City Councilman Breean Beggs has attended countless marathon meetings, the sort that are packed with Spokanites yelling about some of this country’s most incendiary topics: climate change, homelessness, immigration, abortion.

In more normal, more apathetic times, the approval of a union contract might not spur that sort of passion.

But with the Spokane Police Guild contract at stake, and with police brutality protests still dominating the nation, these aren’t normal times.

Beggs says he’s never seen anything like it.

“Literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people have been emailing us,” Beggs says. “It’s the most democracy I have seen in my terms on City Council.”

In the end, the council on Monday night rejected the police contract unanimously in a 7-0 vote.

For one reason the contract was rejected, you could point to the national outcry for police accountability.

But you could also look to Beggs — a longtime police reformer at a time when the country is crying out for police reform. He’s the man who once sued the city on behalf of the family of Otto Zehm, a mentally disabled janitor who died after being beaten, tased and hogtied by Spokane police.

But you could also look to the newest councilmember, Betsy Wilkerson, a longtime black community activist at a time when the country finally says it’s ready to listen to the black community.

“It feels like the stars have aligned,” Wilkerson says, “for real change.”

I

n one sense, passing a police contract was long overdue. The Spokane Police Department’s rank and file have gone more than three years without a contract.

In a statement on Monday, Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward argued that the proposed Police Guild contract provided more accountability and set the stage for greater reforms to come.

“Tonight is an opportunity for Spokane to enhance a civilian police oversight model that is already ahead of what most communities are doing nationally,” Woodward wrote in support of the contract.

But during her campaign last year, Woodward bragged about her endorsement of the Police Guild. She said the power of the police ombudsman — the civilian charged with scrutinizing the actions of SPD — should remain “limited” and proposed subjecting him to a term limit.

But Beggs?

He was the attorney whose push for reform helped lead to the creation of the ombudsman in the first place.

12 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson and Council President Breean Beggs And Beggs savaged the proposed contract as a huge step backward.

All its minor improvements to oversight were washed out by a huge downside, he says: The proposed contract would have allowed the Guild to attempt to get the ombudsman or an ombudsman commission member fired for “exceeding their authority.” To Beggs, that threat represented a chilling effect so powerful that it would freeze police oversight entirely.

“You might as well not have an ombudsman if you have that provision in there,” Beggs says.

After more than two hours of public testimony opposing the contract on Monday night, Beggs started to explain his vote with a history lesson. He goes back to 2004, when he first started at the nonprofit Center for Justice. He describes sitting with a dozen different families who lost loved ones.

“I was struck with their pain, and not understanding of how the people who were paid to protect them could have turned on them,” Beggs says. “It wasn’t ‘bad officers.’ It wasn’t ‘bad apples.’ There were really bad policies. Really bad procedures. Officers were behaving as they were trained to do.”

And from there, Beggs describes the repeated attempts to ensure independent oversight of the Spokane Police Department, only to be thwarted by mayoral compromises, labor law, and union contract negotiations.

Even when the public overwhelmingly voted to embed the ombudsman’s independence into the city’s charter, that promise still remains unfulfilled, he says. The ombudsman is still handcuffed in how he can investigate and what he can say about those investigations.

“And that’s a problem. Without that, we can’t get where we need to go,” Beggs says. “It doesn’t meet the charter. I don’t know how we can legally vote for it.”

I

n this moment, a month after Spokane Police launched tear gas at both looters and peaceful protesters demonstrating against police brutality, the contract was met with unprecedented community opposition.

“NO POLICE CONTRACT Without Complete Independent Oversight” reads a full-page black and white advertisement in Sunday’s Spokesman-Review, arguing that allowing the Guild to influence who oversees the department “sets a very dangerous precedent!”

The ad is signed by 21 African-American leaders, including Black Lens publisher Sandy Williams, the heads of the NAACP and Spokane Community Against Racism, and a number of black pastors.

It was all paid for by the Carl Maxey Center, an

African-American community center. Wilkerson — one of the councilmembers the ad is targeting — serves as the president of the Carl Maxey Center’s board.

Wilkerson says she abstained on the board’s vote to run the ad, but she also says she agrees with the ad’s message.

So Wilkerson says she’s been deliberate with the contract vote. “I’m really fighting my own biases,” Wilkerson says. “I’ve had my own personal interactions with the police. Having to put that aside has been my own personal challenge.”

Like a lot of black mothers, Wilkerson says she’s had “the talk” with her son, the one about how to survive encounters with law enforcement. For her, it came when her son was 16, got home late, and told her about an awful encounter with the cops.

“I said, ‘BJ, All you got to do is to live to fight another day,’” Wilkerson recalls telling her son. “You’ve got to get home safe, and we’ll take it on, but you can’t do it if you’re not alive.’ And that’s what most mothers and fathers say to the kids of color.”

Wilkerson brings that experience to the council dais.

But she also stresses how much she doesn’t want to be tokenized or reduced to a councilwoman who only represents the black community. She describes the precarious balancing act of both representing her own experience and representing everyone in her district.

“I feel like I’m on a trapeze wire,” Wilkerson says.

“My fall could be real heavy and hard.”

She says she went on her first police ride-along this past weekend and got the opportunity to look through the eyes of an officer. When she announces her vote at the council meeting Monday, she takes pains to stress that not all cops are bad.

“My problem isn’t the police. I have met some amazing men who are committed to caring for us in the community,” Wilkerson says. “I too support the police. … Don’t get this twisted.”

But she also says that she doesn’t want black children to grow up fearing those who are supposed to protect them.

“We are in a nation where many black voices are being heard, and many for the first time,” Wilkerson says. “As an African American councilwoman, as a black woman, I want to say, ‘I hear you, I see you, and I feel your pain.’”

And then she quotes Carl Maxey — the black civil rights lawyer for whom the Carl Maxey Center is named: “‘You cannot allow the police to investigate themselves.’”

A

unanimous council vote against a police contract and in favor of more police oversight might sound unprecedented. It’s not. The exact same thing happened in 2013, and according to Beggs, it still didn’t result in the oversight the city demanded.

Beggs hopes this time will be different. The police contract dispute could be decided by a state arbitrator.

The Washington Legislature could modify labor laws to mandate police oversight statewide. Or, he says, the city and the Police Guild could finally hammer out an agreement that provides oversight.

In the meantime, the council is debating a number of other police reforms, including effectively banning controversial uses of force. Ideally, Beggs says, that would mean fewer chokeholds, fewer police dog bites, fewer rubber bullets — and fewer deaths.

That’s something that Wilkerson has been hoping for a long time. She doesn’t want Spokane to become the next Minneapolis or Ferguson.

“I don’t want Spokane to be the next hashtag on the news,” Wilkerson says. n danielw@inlander.com

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NEWS | LAW ENFORCEMENT

Tactical Changes

With the knee-on-neck tactic under fire, Spokane law enforcement officials speak to needed changes in training

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

W

hen George Floyd’s neck was pinned by Officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis for nearly 9 minutes, killing Floyd, viewers around the world were outraged.

The specific pin maneuver has since come under fire, as communities around the country wrestle with how to respond to injustice and disproportionate use of force by police against people of color.

Lt. Rich Gere, the master defensive tactics instructor for the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, says he’s never seen such inappropriate use of that tactic in his time in law enforcement.

Typically, officers are trained that if a subject is pulling away or fighting and a “high-risk” handcuffing technique needs to be used, they should place a knee on the shoulder to pin the person until they stop fighting and handcuffs can be placed on their wrists, Gere says.

But it doesn’t seem that being “combative” was even the case with Floyd.

“If a suspect is combative or the knee on the shoulder is not working, an officer may go to the neck, to get control, but once they get control, they don’t sit on the neck for 8, 9 minutes like they did with George Floyd,” Gere says. “I’ve never seen that in 20 years. That’s why it shocked the conscience of everybody, not just the public, but law enforcement as well.”

Following Floyd’s death, the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, which operates the state training academy where all law enforcement officers get certified, issued an open letter to the community.

“We want the people we serve to know that we do NOT train officers to place their knee on a person’s neck either in the process of gaining control or while they are being restrained awaiting transport,” the letter states.

“Effective immediately, our trainers will explicitly state in training that placing the knee on a subject’s neck and applying pressure is deadly and should never be done unless the situation clearly warrants the use of deadly force.”

With the official word from the state academy, Spokane-area law enforcement agencies say they’ll follow the new guidance. But whether that tactic should be used at all, even if just momentarily to subdue an aggressive suspect, has come up for debate in the police training world.

KNEE ON THE NECK, KNEE ON THE DECK

Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich says he was surprised to see the training commission’s letter claim that state trainers do not teach officers to pin suspects on their necks and never have. “[The state academy] states that they don’t train ‘one on the neck, one on the deck,’” Knezovich says. “It’s been taught that way for years. You’re not supposed to keep your knee on the neck. As soon as the handcuffs are on,

14 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

you remove it. It’s even in their testing. For them to come “Knee on the neck, knee on the deck like it’s written out and say they don’t train that, that’s disingenuous.” there, it can be used but it really should be used for more Spokane County Sheriff Training Director Tony violent, potentially deadly force type situations, and not Anderman confirms that at least at one point, the tactic just as a standard high-risk cuffing,” Gere says. was taught at the state academy, where he worked for Regardless of what was taught in the past, the state 20 years before joining the Sheriff’s Office in 2016. He academy will require explicit statements that a knee shares with the Inlander a copy of a midterm skill-testing should never be applied on the neck unless the situascoring sheet from July 2014 labeled “Basic Law Enforcetion warrants the use of deadly force. Spokane County ment Academy Force Training Curriculum.”

Sheriff’s Office training will follow suit, Gere says, and On the second page, it states the class should warm the Spokane Police Department similarly announced the up, then, “Given a practical closed skill test, the student tactic will now be considered a last-resort type tactic. will correctly demonstrate the above listed techniques.”

Under “High-risk cuffing, coercive prone,” the list of primary cuffing techniques that a grader would look for In addition to questioning knee-on-neck training, includes: “clear verbals, weapon control, scoop the arm, thousands in Spokane have recently asked regional law hug to chest, knee on neck/knee on deck, pat the waist, enforcement agencies not to allow Dave Grossman’s correct cuffing “Mindset Bootcamp” training sequence, sufficient scheduled for this fall. They’ve speed.” called out the so-called “warriorAnderman style” training as the opposite draws attention of what they want for police to the “knee on officers. Instead, some have neck/knee on suggested additional implicit-bias deck” checkbox and de-escalation courses. While as evidence that Spokane Police Department offihe and others corcers won’t be attending the trainrectly remember the ing, Sheriff Knezovich supports method was previGrossman’s training and says he ously taught, even if plans to have Grossman offer a training has shifted public Q&A event beforehand to away from that in answer community concerns. recent years.

In the meantime, Anderman, “Specifically for the sheriff’s training director, high-risk cuffing, says there’s a larger conversaat one time they tion to be had about which did teach one on training is effective, which isn’t, the neck, one on and how the public can ensure the deck, but it got the changes they want in police away from that,” training will result in better, less says Gere, who violent policing. has been teaching “In the United States alone, defensive tactics for we’re spending close to $500 20 years. million a year [for training],” But staff at Anderman says. the state academy The Basic Law Enforcement dispute that the Academy in Washington intechnique has been cludes 720-900 hours of training taught anytime for new officers, and there are recently. continuously new things added Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO Jerrell Wills, into that, he says. manager of the “But with all the money we academy’s applied skills training division, has only been invest there’s little to no research demonstrating behavior with the academy for about nine months, but says while change or if that training is working,” Anderman says. he found some former cadets and trainers who were For example, Anderman says, there’s no evidence familiar with the technique, a defensive tactics trainer that use-of-force training or bias training works before who’s been there for the last seven years says they it’s added to the curriculum, and importantly, little to no haven’t taught “knee on the neck/knee on the deck” in all follow-through research to figure out how those officers that time. later behave in real-life situations. Anderman says fundBefore joining the academy, Wills was a police officer ing that type of research could go a long way in helping for 31 years on the west side of the state. He attended figure out what’s truly effective in reducing violent interthe academy in 1988, and says he has never been taught actions (or other outcomes people want to examine) and to put a knee on the neck. “Certainly when you’re in a additionally, could save taxpayer money in the long run. struggle, all sorts of things can happen, but it’s all about Anderman and others in the Sheriff’s Office help run getting the person secured, and under control, but I have the internal department training academy in Spokane, personally never been trained to put my knee on somewhich they hope to get certified to provide basic training. one’s neck,” Wills says.

Their plan would be to incorporate some of that effectiveGere notes that in all cases, potentially deadly tactics ness training, but that takes money, he says. and handcuffing techniques are taught to be responsive to “We’re trying to locate funding in case we get our the situation. Similar to batons, which officers are taught academy certified through the state,” he says, “so we can to use on big muscle groups before more dangerous open our door to researchers to find what we’re doing places like the head — rising to deadly force — Gere says right, and then nail us on what we’re doing wrong and instructors teach students not to move to the neck unless really hold us accountable.” n a situation is very dangerous. samanthaw@inlander.com

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JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 15

Tim Dunn, the Bike Hub’s downtown store manager, works on a customer’s bike.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

16 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

THE ROAD BACK

Natural State

As people clamor to get outside, outdoor recreation businesses recover

S

BY WILSON CRISCIONE

ince the COVID-19 pandemic began, Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. Owner and founder two local stores selling outdoor supPeter Grubb says the company didn’t run any plies have already fallen: Mountain trips in May. Instead, they developed protocols Gear and White Elephant. to maintain physical distancing and sanitation for But that doesn’t mean the outdoor when trips resume. recreation industry as a whole is struggling in the ROW Adventures started running some trips same way. In fact, local businesses say there’s just on the Spokane River in mid-June, but trips are as much demand for outdoor supplies and activilimited to a maximum of 12 people. Raft trips ties as there’s ever been. have been reduced from seven people to four, “Things are going great here,” says Mark and they’re encouraging people to use kayaks, Schneider, owner of Rambleraven Gear Trader. which Grubb calls the “ultimate physical distanc“We’re not going anywhere.” ing” tool. Simple things like having the guide For Schneider, the shutdown due to the COtighten straps on a life vest have been scrapped — VID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for instead, the guides encourage two members of a the store formerly known as Northwest Outdoors household to check each other’s straps. consignment shop. He decided to rebrand as “We’re taking it seriously,” he says. “We want Rambleraven Gear Tradto protect our guests er during the stay-home and protect our guides AN ONGOING SERIES order. They launched a and staff.” new website and started They’re reminddoing some mixed retail. ing those wanting to In June, he says, sales are schedule a trip to wear The Inlander is checking in on local industries and up compared to last year. a mask, unless ROW how they’re evolving in a world with coronavirus.

“We used it to our doesn’t have to provide Follow along at Inlander.com/recovery. advantage,” he says. transportation to the “Sales have been great. river.

Feedback has been good.”

“If somebody says they’re not going to wear Yet while some businesses try to recover from a mask because of their civil liberties, they’re being shut down, other outdoor businesses were not going to be able to participate in our trips,” spared from the shutdown completely. Bike shops Grubb says. were considered essential under the stay-home But the May closure did hurt business, he orders, because some people use bikes as their says. The company had to lay off staff, and only form of transportation. they’re losing money because there’s no internaTim Dunn, manager at the Bike Hub in tional travel. downtown Spokane, says business was slow “Normally May is a good month for us,” he for about a week in early spring, but it quickly says. “In June we’re expecting 80 percent less started to ramp up after that. Now, business is business than normal.” booming.

Up until early June, the people calling were “This has been one of our busiest years,” mostly just canceling trips. In the last three Dunn says. weeks, he says, “that’s reversed.”

Why? Because if people can’t go to the gym, “We’re getting sign-ups, and a lot of lastthere’s not much else to do to keep fit besides minute, three days to 10 days in advance trips,” ride bikes, Dunn says. They’re actually having a he says. “More last-minute calls than normal.” hard time keeping up. With everybody deciding Grubb says they should be fine down the they want a bike, they’re running out quickly — road, mainly because they were doing well before especially mountain bikes and hybrids. the pandemic.

“The other day, three bikes came in and they “If you weren’t on solid footing going into all sold in under 24 hours,” Dunn says. this, it could be difficult to survive,” Grubb says.

The situation is a bit different for outdoor “Somebody asked if I was ever worried about goguide companies like ROW Adventures, which ing out of business. This is our 41st year. I kind leads rafting, kayaking, biking and fishing trips in of tell people defeat wasn’t really an option.” n

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JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 17

Camping is a perfect way to embrace life’s simple comforts.

CAMPING

Camping for

Beginners Sleeping outside is a great way to relax, rejuvenate and gain perspective

A

ildren’s Foundation

st Ch Proceeds Benefit Valleyfe

18 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

s I held the small nylon rope in my hands, looking up to see the impossibly small tree it was tied to, I imagined me and my overstuffed backpack tumbling down the steep headland on the Olympic wilderness coast.

There was no way to go around — the ocean slams against dangerously slippery rocks at impassable headlands on that route along the beach. There’s no hiking trail carved into the rock. Just a sheer, 30-foot muddy wall and this little rope. The only way to go is up.

So I took a deep breath, stuffed my boots against the slippery hillside and pulled myself up, one shaky step at a time. The fear of falling grew the higher I got, but then a beautiful thing happened. Despite my seeming lack of strength, my self-doubts and my fear, I made it. At the top, I shouted the adrenaline-driven internal mantra that had repeated in my mind: I AM ALIVE. Whether I’m backpacking in the wilderness, or with friends at a popular campground where you can pack chairs and fancy camp stoves into your car, I’ve found that the simple act of eating, sleeping and existing outside is a constant, beautiful reminder of that. I’m stronger than I think, and I am alive.

Camping offers a break from the stresses of work and forces us to live in the now: I’m cooking breakfast. I’m swimming. I’m staring at the hypnotizing beauty of a fire. It reveals how much we rely on creature comforts at home, humbles us as nature displays its awe-inspiring power, and reminds us of the simple comforts of a hot meal.

Thankfully, anyone can experience that. You just have to take that first step outside.

GETTING STARTED: PICK YOUR CAMPGROUND

A good place to start is making a reservation with one of the many beautiful campgrounds in the Inland Northwest.

Many popular sites fill up early, but don’t get discouraged.

Can you take a few vacation days and camp mid-week? Can you go later in the season? Does another park nearby have space?

Here are some beginner-friendly sites: Farragut State Park on Lake Pend Oreille offers more than 200 forested campsites on what was a World War II naval base.

There are bathrooms with running water and flushing toilets, and the park offers hiking trails, a swimming area for kids, and a boat launch, all to help you get closer to the beautiful, massively deep lake. Reserve through Idaho State Parks.

Luby Bay Campground on Priest Lake offers spacious campsites perfect for people who want to get out on their boat.

The family-friendly site with flush toilets is close to the lake, where people also kayak, canoe, hike and swim. Be bear aware: Bear-safe containers help keep your food and coolers close at hand but safe from Yogi. Reservations at recreation.gov.

Steamboat Rock State Park on Banks Lake offers a unique grassy oasis in the middle of the hot scablands of Central Washington. With fish-cleaning stations, boat launches and bathrooms with showers, the site has a little something for everyone. Go swimming, hike the butte, or drive up to Grand Coulee Dam for the nightly laser-light show. Reservations through Washington State Parks.

WHAT TO BRING

Every good Girl Scout will tell you to always bring the 10 Essentials, whether you’re going for a day hike or camping for a week, including: 1. Food: Bring more than you think you’ll need.

2. Water: Bring extra in case you get lost, your car breaks down, or it’s just hot.

3. Shelter: Tent, sleeping bag, pillow.

4. Clothes: Plan to layer for hot and cold, and wear wicking fabrics (not cotton).

5. Fire: Matches or a lighter.

6. First Aid Kit 7. Navigation: A compass and a map. (Yes, they still print them!)

8. Flashlight 9. Sun protection: Sunscreen, hat, a bandana (can help with injuries).

10. Knife and tools: I’ll share a secret passed on from my dad: Tongs are awesome. Need to turn a log on the fire?

Tongs. Flipping bacon? Tongs. No bottle opener? Tongs.

TIPS FOR COMFORT

Air mattress and pump: Goodbye back pain.

Tarps (with rope and stakes): Stay dry and provide shade.  Handwashing station: Bring a 2-gallon jug of water with a pour spout, poke a small hole in the top so it can breathe, and place a bucket underneath to catch your soapy water (good to put out the fire).  Cooler Hacks: Crack your eggs into a cleaned out coffee creamer container to take up less space in your cooler, freeze your meat so it stays cool longer, and pre-chop veggies and put them in sealed containers.  Fire starters: Pack dryer lint into an empty egg carton, melt paraffin wax and pour it into each vessel.

Snap into 12 individual fire starters. n  

SPOKANE IS OUR HOME.

WE ARE SPOKANE STRONG. A Message from Visit Spokane COVID-19 has become synonymous with confinement and fear.

We’re all feeling it. The tourism and hospitality industry is feeling it a bit harder than most. Our restaurants, hotels and event facilities have faced incredible stress. They’re changing how they do business, shutting down, going dark.

Visit Spokane’s primary mission has always been to market the region. We’ve had to change, too. We work hard to highlight everything this area has to offer and entice people to visit and spend money in our businesses. The tourism and hospitality industry was the first to feel the impact of the lockdown, but we’ve marched on, focusing on the things we can do, safely. COVID has highlighted Spokane’s unique position. Spokane County’s geographic isolation has made it the perfect spot to tough out the current situation.

Road trips and outdoor exploration are hot right now. Spokane was already a big drive market, and now we’re capitalizing on that more than ever. We also have the luxury of the vast expanse.

We’re surrounded by the great outdoors, rivers, lakes, trails to run, and basalt cliffs to scale. The Spokane region is more significant than you may realize. Now is the perfect time to seek out fresh air, wide-open space perfectly designed for social distancing.

Take the time to plan out a hike with your children or rent a standup paddleboard and explore one of our many lakes for an afternoon. Get to know a part of Spokane you never had time to discover pre-COVID. And if it’s an escape from crushing anxiety you seek, climb to the top of a hill or mountain to scream and curse in the wind, you have plenty of options. It’s the beauty of the Spokane region.

VisitSpokane.com Visit our website to find ways to safely enjoy the region, updated travel advisory information and also a variety of ways you can support our community.

This space was provided by the Inlander as a public service

CAMERA READY

JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 19

SPOKANE RIVER GUIDED FLY FISHING TRIPS

FORAGING

Forest Foods

PICTURE YOURSELF right here

this Summer

From huckleberries to wild mushrooms, the region offers a bounty of edible species for the taking

BY CHEY SCOTT

I

The fabulous lakes, mountains and forests around Sandpoint, Idaho provide the perfectly distanced escape for residents of the Inland Northwest.

You’re invited to visit us, safely, this summer!

Get visitor information at

20 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

208-263-2161

www.VisitSandpoint.com

t’s embarrassing to admit, but after living in the Inland Northwest all my life, the first time I went huckleberry picking was last summer.

It was by chance we even encountered the prized sweet-tart berry on a hike at Mount Spokane, although I packed a gallon-size plastic bag just in case.

The bushes laden with perfectly ripe, rubycolored berries were everywhere along a popular trail. By day’s end, we’d collected more than a pound, later baked into huckleberry hand pies and pancakes. As we excitedly picked, I remember constantly thinking how unusual it was that these bushes were right here, and still had fruit on them!

I’d always believed one didn’t just “stumble upon” huckleberries, that the prime picking spots were secrets passed down through generations, and that the berries were sort of rare. Or that bushes on publicly accessible lands, certainly in a popular state park, would be quickly stripped of their bounty before many others would get the chance.

Foraging expert Josh Yake, who’s run the local farmers market stand and wholesale business Gourmet Foragables & More for a decade, laughs at my story.

“Are you serious?” Yake asks.

“On Summit Road in the summer you have

cars parked bumper-to-bumper and families there just picking berries,” he continues. “If you go in an extra 30 yards and find a little spot and pick for yourself, there’s acres and acres where there’s nothing but huckleberries.”

While huckleberry season is still several weeks out, usually mid- to late-July into August, Yake doesn’t think it’ll be a bumper year with the wet spring we’ve had. Some of the bushes he’s seen while foraging for other plants don’t show signs they’ll be heavily fruited this year.

Yake started in foraging by selling handpicked huckleberries at local markets, but then he discovered wild mushrooms and now focuses most of his time harvesting morels, chanterelles and other native varieties. He sells weekly at the Kendall Yards Night Market (Wednesday, 5-8 pm), Liberty Lake Farmers Market (Saturday, 9 am-1 pm) and occasionally at the Spokane Valley and South Perry farmers markets.

B

efore setting out to discover the wild bounty of edible, native plants, Yake has several tips to offer.

“First and foremost, make sure you have [the plant] identified by an expert or are with an expert the first time you go out,” he says, especially for mushrooms. “That sounds obvious, but every year I hear from people, experienced

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foragers even, who screw up.

“Foraging is also highly seasonal,” he continues. “You not only need to have an idea of what you want to look for, you gotta know when to go.”

For example, morel mushrooms are in season now at higher elevations, around 5,000 feet and up. Meanwhile, the harvest window for fiddlehead ferns, tightly coiled young shoots of an ostrich fern with a nutty, earthy flavor, just ended. Nettle season has also passed, Yake says.

“The other thing that I try to keep doing every year is to open my eyes to what else is available,” he says. “The latest thing for me is edible wildflowers. Learn to find value in what you find for yourself, because there is just endless food out there.”

While commercial foragers like Yake are required to carry permits to harvest on public lands, rules differ for personal use.

In the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, a trio of forests managed by the U.S. Forest Service stretching across Eastern Washington, North Idaho and Western Montana, commercial picking of native plants is not allowed, says forest spokesperson Patrick Lair.

Permits aren’t needed to pick huckleberries for personal consumption, Lair says, but visitors are asked to only gather as many berries as they can consume. Personal-use permits to pick morel mushrooms are occasionally required, but not if a person picks no more than 1 gallon of morels per day, or up to 5 gallons total in one season.

In Washington State Parks, including Mount Spokane, commercial harvest of any edible species is not allowed, and limits for personal consumption are capped at two gallons per person per day, unless otherwise posted.

Meanwhile, at the privately owned Schweitzer Mountain Resort outside Sandpoint, huckleberry picking is open to visitors with no limits; the resort even offers a Saturday huckleberry shuttle during picking season.

If you’re unsure which rules apply where you’re visiting, the best option is to contact the forest, Yake says.

“Even in-state, Mount Spokane might have different rules than Mount St. Helens, so just check with the forest you’re going to,” he says. “The other benefit of that is they’ll help you out.

[Rangers] are out in their trucks every day, and it’s part of their outreach to help people recreate.” n

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CLIMBING

‘A Brutal Confrontation’ So you want to be a mountain climber?

Start with the Spokane Mountaineers Mountain School

BY QUINN WELSCH

Mountain School isn’t for everyone. “You can’t just show up and half-ass it,” says one organizer.

W

akeup was at 3 am. The winter campsite was getting hit by 40-mph winds and had 9 inches of new snow. The mountaineering students had to tarp off their snow shelters and build a makeshift kitchen for food.

There was talk of calling it. Turning around.

“We collectively made the decision that this is what mountaineering is like and let the students ride it out,” Spokane Mountaineers Vice President Li Ciavola recalls of last year’s Mountain School trip to Stevens Peak in North Idaho. “Students are going to come to a brutal

confrontation of what can change and go wrong.”

The three-month, intensive class begins in February each year and culminates with a summit of Mount Athabasca (11,453 feet) in Alberta’s Columbia Icefields.

“It’s more intense than a full-on semester of a college course,” Ciavola says.

Although, this year, things were a little different.

When the initial coronavirus shutdowns hit Washington, the Spokane Mountaineers had to make a tough call.

Should they cancel Mountain School?

The Mountaineers tried to keep the classes alive

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through distance learning at first, but in the end, they decided instructors wouldn’t be able to do enough handson teaching with their students for important, lifesaving skills at high altitudes. Instead, the 2020 students were given a choice of a refund or a do-over in 2021.

After the 2020 quarantine, Ciavola expects a surge of renewed interest with new students looking to experience the wilderness unlike they ever have before.

“I think the purpose of the Mountaineers and the purpose of Mountain School is, in general, we want people to understand the freedom you can feel as a

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competent outdoors person,” Ciavola says. “That sense of selfsufficiency and accomplishment you can feel by accomplishing outdoor feats is irreplaceable in the world.”

But Mountain School isn’t for everyone.

Applicants need to have a solid foundation of outdoors skills and gear before they can be considered for the course that begins in February each year. They should also be in good physical and mental shape. (Ciavola recommends taking the Mountaineers Backpack School before applying. “We would happily accept anybody who’s completed Backpack School into the Mountain School program,” he says.)

Mountain School instruction takes place in the classroom after business hours on weekdays, but students can expect regular meetups on the weekends and overnight trips to learn necessary skills, such as snow camping, summit climbing and crevasse rescue.

“You can’t just show up and half-ass it and graduate,” Ciavola says. “Mountaineering is a sport where you choose your own destiny. You set your own teams and routes and you shoot from the hip on these mountains.”

Beginning climbers are expected to provide their own gear, including at a minimum:  Backpacking gear: backpack, tent, sleeping bag/pad, stove, and other camping equipment  Essential climbing gear: harness, carabiners, helmet, ice axe, crampons  Appropriate mountaineering clothing In addition to the $325 tuition and $50 organization membership, Ciavola says students should expect to pay about an extra $1,000 if they’re planning on purchasing new gear. It’s “not an inexpensive sport,” he says.

“It’s step one of 10 for some people. It’s a bucket list for others.” n The 2021 Mountain School application period begins in November. Head to spokanemountaineers.org for more details.

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ith people antsy to get out of their houses, many of us are finding new hobbies.

Although starting a new sport can seem daunting, mountain biking offers an easy way to get outside and can be personalized to suit your individual goals.

With myriad mountain biking trails close

by in the Inland Northwest, this sport is accessible and a great way to meet with friends if you are tired of your typical hikes or neighborhood jaunts.

Grafton Pannell, mechanic for the local mobile cycling shop Velofix, is an expert at all things cycling. He was riding bikes by the age of

3 and has been involved with the Velofix franchise as a bicycle mechanic for almost five years after being trained by the United Bicycle Institute.

Most choices in gears and bikes are based on preference and depend on the individual shopper, but Pannell has some tips for beginners. He recommends looking for a bike that is an “allmountain bike,” meaning it can take on various types of trails.

Beginners should also look for adequate suspension to absorb the shock of small jumps or bumps they might encounter along the trails.

Single-track trails (trails where only one biker can ride at a time) are plentiful in the area, and Pannell says there are quite a few that are perfect for beginner-level mountain bikers. He says Riverside State Park offers “a really good introduction to get people thinking about the sport” and offers mellow trails for those interested in flatter, cross-country-style rides.

The area also has double-track options, which means wider trails that create a less-intimidating riding experience. The Saltese Flats provide enjoyable rolling hills with good beginner terrain.

Pannell adds that Beacon Hill holds a variety of trails based on difficulty level, with some suitable for beginners to learn singletrack skills.

There are some cheaper options, of course, but you’re quickly going to realize you should’ve bought the nicer bike.

Both the bike and its wheels are other factors to consider when getting into mountain biking. Although the 26-inch wheel size has become more outdated in the sport, 27.5-inch and 29-inch wheels are growing increasingly popular. According to Pannell, a 27.5-inch wheel allows for a more playful ride. On the other hand, the 29-inch tires easily roll over obstacles on the trail, creating smooth rides; they are great for someone looking for speed. However, Pannell says shorter riders should consider sacrificing speed for the smaller wheel sizes as they can be easier to control. Again, tire size is all up to personal preference.

The gear needed is another part of mountain biking that depends on preference. Pannell says all bikers need the essentials: a helmet, pedals (bikes do not typically come with nice pedals), and gloves.

Pedals come in two styles: clipless, which require clip-on shoes, and flats, which work without clips. Pannell says riding shoes in particular “have a different style of rubber that will grip the little pins on flats better, and if you’re riding clipless, you obviously need a shoe that your cleat will clip in to.”

Gloves are integral to the riding experience, too, Pannell says, since there are no “zero-consequence crashes,” and riders will almost always break skin. Gloves also protect against hot spots, and purchasing riding shorts with a shammy insert to provide extra seat padding can also be beneficial.

As far as the bike goes, Pannell strongly recommends beginners rent bikes before purchasing. Trying out a bike before purchasing can save more money on bike repairs in the end.

“Nice or worthwhile mountain bikes start at about $2,500,” Pannell says. “There are some cheaper options, of course, but you’re quickly going to realize you should’ve bought the nicer bike.”

Above all else, Pannell says the one major tip he would tell new bike owners is “your bike is going to need work done, so having a good relationship with a mechanic is important if you want cycling to be something you continue to do.”

Mountain biking can ultimately be whatever type of experience you want it to be. n

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HIKING

Beginning Your Trek

Embracing the benefits of hiking in a pandemic and how to prepare

BY JEREMEY RANDRUP

W RENTALS E AVAILABL

e live on a beautiful planet, and hiking is the epitome of being able to experience and enjoy it fully. Being raised in Alaska, the outdoors is something that I grew up in. It’s a great activity to do with friends and keeps you active. Plus, there are so many trails around for you to check out! All it takes is a little preparation.

Emily Bowen, an associate at REI, has a lot of helpful advice for people curious about how to get started hiking, and what to bring.

“Think about where you’re going and for how long,” Bowen says. “Backpack, water, snacks and a standard first-aid kit with gauze, Band-Aids and painkillers are the fundamentals.”

When it comes to what to wear, there’s a golden rule.

“Cotton kills,” Bowen says. “That’s what we say in our industry. You need a better material in terms of handling moisture. Instead, look for moisture-wicking clothing.”

I kept Bowen’s advice in mind when preparing for a hike with my friends. It’s an easy enough list to think about even when you’re not hiking. Snacks, water, first aid — check. It was hot, so we were all wearing airy clothing that would help us not sweat, plus some sturdy shoes that gave us good traction on the descending trail. Also, I go by the unspoken rule about always hiking with partners. I feel much safer and have a more fulfilling experience when others are around, which could be very important if it’s your first time going on a hike.

My friends and I drove to North Idaho to

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Evans Landing, one of the trails in Farragut State Park by Careywood. It’s a 4-mile hike that takes you all the way down to a lake and has some nice scenery on the way. It reminds me a lot of why I like hiking.

Hiking can be as intense as you like. It’s a hobby that’s as old as dirt for a reason. For me, my life has been a bit more sedentary with social distancing, making me a little more out of shape than I’d like. Even if someone isn’t fit, a few Google searches will find you the trail that is right for you. Getting myself active was much needed, but it was also important for me to get a healthy dose of real human interaction.

As we began our journey and descended toward Lake Pend Oreille, we talked about all sorts of topics, reminding me how much I enjoy the social aspect of hiking. We caught up on each other’s lives and enjoyed the company. The distraction of technology was no longer around. It was just an amazing view and us, too busy watching where we step to dig our phones out. This is pretty groundbreaking for us millennials, but also for everyone else trying to find social interactions that are intentional and full.

As I get older, I realize how important it is to be able to find some time to be completely stress-free. We found that time as we got to the end of the trail and sat by the shore, eating our granola bars and apples while lobbing some rocks into the still water. I like hiking because it’s a simple, no-pressure time for you and whoever comes along. Bowen would agree.

“Just enjoy the journey. Don’t think so much about the distance you want to go or the altitude you want to reach. Just think about the enjoyment you’ll get,” Bowen says.

We made our way back up the trail, our chosen shoes really coming into play as they helped us make sure we didn’t slip. We took breaks whenever we wanted to on the way up, embracing the journey. We stopped, enjoyed the view, then continued up back to the car. Evans Landing was a rewarding hike that hit all the reasons why I enjoy hiking. n

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SURVIVAL

He Will Survive Jordan Jonas has faced down moose, bears, wolverines and the bitter cold — and he wants to teach you to do the same

BY DANIEL WALTERS

S

tuck in the Arctic alone, dropped in with only a handful of tools, a video camera and no food immediately on hand, Jordan Jonas is positively

chill.

The other contestants on the sixth season of Alone, a History Channel outdoor survival reality show now streaming on Netflix, may have fretted about their rumbling stomachs or the dropping temperatures or the encroaching madness of being alone. But throughout nearly all of it, Jonas — a native of Athol, Idaho — seems almost entirely at ease.

Sure, he experiences plenty of setbacks.

He kills a moose, but when he slices the stomach, the guts pour out, contaminating a good portion of the meat. He forgets to take down a ladder and a wolverine climbs it and pillages his food stores. He loses weight and realizes that he can only lose so much more.

But he reacts to all with his wry almost aw-shucks understatement. He chuckles to himself as he talks about the harrowing moments he’s experienced.

By contrast, when something good happens? He’s ecstatic. He pulls a massive fish out of the hole in the ice and whoops a victory cry.

“Woohoo! Look at that pike!” he yells, staring into the camera with an ice-encrusted beard, “Weehee! I’m in the Arctic!”

Jonas knows that gratitude is crucial.

“I feel mentally crisp,” he reassures producers of Alone on Day 77 in the Arctic wilderness. “I feel good.”

And that’s when he learns he’s the last man standing, a feat that earns him $500,000.

“I killed a wolverine, too, with a hatchet,” he brags to his wife after his victory, using the same tone that other people might use to brag that their boss complimented them on their third-quarter sales presentation.

He attributes his mindset — almost as much as his bow hunting and fire building skills — as one reason why he made it through.

Your mental readiness, how you process the loneliness and isolation and uncertainty, is a crucial part of the survival tool kit.

He says he spoke to another contestant on his season who had all the right training — he’d taken survival courses in the military — but dropped out early because he couldn’t handle the isolation.

“He was actually doing very well out there,” Jonas says. “He just wasn’t ready for the mental aspect.”

M

ental fitness is one of the biggest lessons that Jonas teaches at his survival school. This summer, he’s been offering $1,800 survival expeditions through the Idaho woods. You’ll ride out on horseback and spend six days in the Idaho mountains. You’ll harvest and forage, learning how to build shelters and catch fish. And also maybe learn a thing or two about psychological resilience.

Jonas has learned from the best. He spent a decade living in Siberia, where he worked with fur trappers and herders from the indigenous Evenki Tribe. He’s learned to ride reindeer. And he’s learned how to live alone.

“One of the guys sent me out to the land and showed me the ropes for fur trapping,” Jonas says. “He left me in the wilderness for like five weeks.”

And in an environment like that, mistakes aren’t just whoopsy moments. A boneheaded move can get you killed.

“The temperatures are extreme,” Jonas says.

“There’s a small margin of error. Random accidents, unpredictable accidents are the most dangerous.”

Jonas says he met an old Evenki man who lived in

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Jordan Jonas is a native of Athol, Idaho.

a teepee, a grizzled herder who’d been saving reindeer herds since the fall of Communism. But the man didn’t speak. His sons told Jonas that he got caught outside in bad weather one time with only a cotton hat for his head protection and the damage left him nearly mute.

And Jonas has screwed up, too. He fell through the ice once, he says, when he was “young and dumb.”

Another time, he was stuck in the middle of nowhere in the winter and let his matches get wet. And then there was the time he tried to siphon gas and ended up swallowing a tremendous amount of fuel.

“I thought, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to wake up from this when I pass out,’” Jonas says, laughing. “I wrote down my last words.”

B

ut here’s the payoff for all that risk: incredible stories. He regales the Inlander with an account of being woken up in a Siberian trapping cabin to a dog barking. Maybe the dumb dog was just barking at a squirrel?

It isn’t a squirrel. It’s a moose. Specifically, it’s a moose that’s being killed by a Russian bear. The bear runs into the woods, leaving Jonas’s camp with a bunch of free moose meat.

But then a few days later, the bear comes back, and begins stalking around their cabin. That’s how he ends up in the tall brush, hunting a bear with a Siberian buddy. His Evenki friend is armed with his Soviet-era rifle. He’s armed with a camera. He can hear the dog barking.

And then he hears the unmistakable snort of the bear in the brush right next to him.

“My buddy just took off running and he left me there,” Jonas says. But Jordan couldn’t follow. He’d had a bad knee — blame an injury he suffered when he used to ride freight trains. All he could do is wait.

It’s a moment when having the right mindset comes in handy. He doesn’t panic.

“Not that many people get killed by bears. Just stay calm. Relaxed. Fairly low odds,” he thinks. “It’s better not to run anyway, even if I could.”

Nearly half a minute passes, a long time to spend with a bear. But then his friend returns.

“He’s like, ‘Man, I can’t do this! My knees are shaking,’” Jonas says. “And I was like, ‘Don’t run!

You’ve got the gun!’ And as I said that, the bear stood up in front of us.”

He’s about seven feet tall on his hind legs, he says.

His friend fires his magazine into the bear, and the bear runs off to die.

Jonas has survived. And each time he survived — whether from facing down a bear, killing a wolverine or stomaching gasoline — he’s become a little smarter at surviving in the future. n

SURVIVAL TIPS FROM JORDAN JONAS Jordan Jonas didn’t want to give all of his survival secrets away. For that, he insists, you need to take his class. But here are a few of the basic principles to stick to.

STAY LIT

If you don’t have a fire going, have a plan to start one.

“You don’t want to ever find yourself in a situation where you have to rub sticks together,” he says. “Make sure your matches are protected or your fire steel is not going to get lost.”

STAY WARM

“Nobody in Siberia lives through the winters just because they’re really tough and can handle the cold,” Jonas says. Wool is one of the best materials to be prepared. If you’re not, there are a few strategies you can rely on. Maybe build a snow cave. Maybe have two fires, one of each side of you. And in particular, don’t let your feet get frostbite.

“Before they go numb, stop, dry your socks out, start a fire,” Jonas says. “That’s something a lot of people forget.”

STAY ON TARGET

“You need to be a bit of a jack of all trades to survive out there,” Jonas says.

Address your most immediate need first. Water is the most important resource, but usually it’s relatively easy to find a water source. If it’s cold, you might want to focus on heat and shelter. Otherwise, look for food.

Fishing is often your best bet once you know how to do it, he says. And if your goal is to be rescued, toss a lot of green boughs into the fire to create a ton of visible smoke.

STAY SANE

When you’re trying to survive, it may seem absurd to be thankful. But Jonas says that gratitude is one of the most crucial survival skills.

“If you don’t have the right mental framework, you can really kind of make you go crazy a little bit,” Jonas says. “Positive gratitude for what you have will help you get through some of the suffering.”

— DANIEL WALTERS

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OPERA

HITTING THE STREET

Artistic Director Dawn Wolski is leading the Inland Northwest Opera through the coronavirus with passion and some creative planning

BY LIZZIE OSWALT

I

n trying times, art is often a way humanity can connect over a shared experience. And live music is one of the best ways to make that connection.

Of course, that’s a lot harder when a global pandemic forces audiences apart and performing groups like the Inland Northwest Opera to cancel months’ worth of shows. That’s why the INO, under the leadership of Artistic Director Dawn Wolski, is getting creative when it comes to replacing its traditional programming with new

ways to get the region’s opera artists heard.

New events including Opera Grams, delivering arias right to your door, and an Opera Truck taking the opera’s artists to the region’s streets, are helping keep the organization alive and in the public eye even during trying times. Wolski was hired in 2017 to lead the organization formerly known as Opera Coeur d’Alene, with the goal of leading INO in new directions and enlarging the local opera-loving community. COVID-19 is a serious obstacle, but Wolski is determined to

Dawn Wolski performing in Don Giovanni in 2014. INLAND NORTHWEST OPERA.

30 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

keep pursuing her mission.

“Everyone deserves access to incredible art,” Wolski says.

Raised near Washington, D.C., with a father serving as director of the National Security Agency, Wolski’s early path led straight toward the military from a young age.

“I tend to walk through doors that open,” Wolski says. “I also bang down some that don’t.”

After joining her high school choir, she pursued music at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, intending to be a teacher. Instead, she discovered a talent for performing and went to grad school at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City to pursue this passion. Performing at venues like the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., she met a lot of singers and actors who were part of the U.S. Army, and discovered her childhood military dreams and new musical ones could coexist. She joined the Army and eventually performed in 49 states and for four presidents.

W

olski’s first performance in Les Misérables was what really got her interested in singing live, and after the Army she pursued a career in opera and as a voice teacher. Her passion for inner growth and trying new things has allowed her to excel because she is a very driven and motivated person.

“Opera was an exciting challenge to work through,” Wolski says. “It takes a lot longer to hone that instrument because it’s not just about the color or the range.

It’s actually about the physics of the sound.”

Opera uses no microphone, so singers have to perfect the art of voice amplification over an entire symphony while harnessing emotion and articulation like other genres of music.

“You have to let your bones rattle so they magnify the sound,” Wolski says. Her own voice is categorized as a “coloratura,” or a voice that sings very high and ...continued on next page

+

Now on Inlander.com: National and international stories from the New York Times to go with the fresh, local news we deliver every day JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 31

CULTURE | OPERA

Stay Saf e Hav & e Fun !

“HITTING THE STREET,” CONTINUED... oftentimes very fast.

Opera intertwines the emotional, intellectual, and physical connections to music into one performance. Wolski says live performances are typically done in such a way that “everything is sort of drawn out to give you that suspension of time.” There is no right way of interpreting the art being presented to audiences.

A y a d s r u h T th

JuL5-Y8p9m

S E Z I PR

LIVE Musoniecy Okay H

2 0 1 9 D R INK L O C A L PA R T NE R S

inlander.com/PartyonthePatio 32 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

DRINK SPECIALS

fter her husband, Spokane Symphony Concertmaster Mateusz Wolski, received a job offer in Spokane, Wolski moved across the country with him. She’s worked with INO for a little over three years, and her main role as the general and artistic director is to raise money, hire the singers for opera performances, and propel the INO’s vision forward. She is ultimately the face of the organization, but Wolski says she could never do it alone without the help of her board and the mentorship she receives.

“Art is a great unifier,” Wolski says, “and we should never turn down an opportunity to learn from people around us.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, INO created innovative ways to bring live opera performances to the Inland Northwest this summer.

Opera Grams allow people in the area to purchase live opera experiences for $100.

“They pick a window of time, and then I give them a couple of choice dates,” Wolski INO’s Dawn Wolski. says. “The artist will call you 30 minutes before they’re showing up so you can be prepared.”

The pop-up opera events will all be held outdoors to align with COVID-19 restrictions, and the Opera Grams can even be sent to friends or family as a surprise.

The Opera Truck, scheduled to start this August in both Washington and Idaho, is a flatbed truck where opera artists will sing to the public as it moves through different neighborhoods.

“Think of an ice cream truck,” Wolski says, “You don’t get a route for where the ice cream truck is going to be, but when you hear that sound, you get excited and run outside. That’s kind of what the Opera Truck is going to be.”

The goal is to hit a variety of parks, neighborhoods, retirement communities and other public spaces to reach as many people as possible. It’s a completely free experience for people of the Inland Northwest. “You bring people together outdoors,” Wolski says.

The previously scheduled events for the summer season have shifted into future years. The launching of CODA, a new young professionals branch of INO, the “interlude” luncheon and concert with acclaimed NFL player and opera singer, Ta’u Pupu’a, educational outreach to local elementary schools, the sunset cruise-set Opera on the Lake in Coeur d’Alene, the annual August gala at the Hayden Lake Country Club, and INO’s full show at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, La Traviata, were all effectively canceled for 2020 by the pandemic.

With all the national unrest right now, Wolski and her work with the INO reminds us that introspection and stopping to take a breath are perfectly healthy things to do.

“There’s always uncertainty in the arts, and there’s always a curveball,” Wolski says. “We spend our entire lives trying to grow and expand our crafts and examine ourselves.”

For Wolski, the coronavirus is just another hurdle to get over.

“With everything that has happened with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many others,” Wolski says, “it’s just natural for us [artists] to look at ourselves and be willing to be humble enough to make changes even when it doesn’t feel great.” n For more details on Inland Northwest Opera and its programming, visit inlandnorthwestopera.com.

CULTURE | DIGEST

PATHWAY’S SKILL CHECKS Pathway, a charming little computer game offered for free from the Epic Games Store, is an Indiana Jones riff on a turn-based strategy game. Your adorable pixelated characters go on quests in places like Egypt and Morocco as you battle Nazis, cult members and zombies in your rush to find supernatural artifacts. The best part is the way your characters’ unique traits can change the outcomes of certain events. A character with the “Brute” trait might, say, roll a big boulder down a hill and crush a squad of Nazis. And the Baron character has the “Trickster” trait, allowing him to bamboozle the Nazis into doing all sorts of things that are against the Third Reich’s interests. (DANIEL WALTERS)

Fantasy Island

U

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

nlike most millennials, I haven’t purchased a new video game system in at least a decade. I do have a video game library, though it consists entirely of Nintendo and Sega Genesis cartridges. I tend to be vexed by any game that requires more than three buttons.

But even I went hunting for a Nintendo Switch the moment it became clear COVID-related quarantining would last longer than a couple weeks. The Switch has moved 55 million units since hitting the market in 2017, but its numbers really went through the roof in March, which is when seemingly every retailer was sold out of them.

That boom coincided with the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which everyone, including your favorite Twitter celebrities, seemed to be playing. If you aren’t familiar, the Animal Crossing series is part “life simulation,” part task-oriented RPG, and this fifth entry

THE BUZZ BIN

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST Some noteworthy new music hits online and in stores July 3. To wit: PAUL WELLER, On Sunset. Former leader of the Jam and the Style Council has had a remarkable run of solo records of late.

WILLIE NELSON, First Rose of Spring. A new album by Nelson is always reason to rejoice, especially given his health issues last year.

SPARKS, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip. I spent too much of my life missing out on Sparks’ brilliance. Don’t let that be you. (DAN NAILEN)

begins with your avatar moving to a deserted island with some charming anthropomorphic animals. You wander around at your leisure, completing such objectives as planting trees, catching fish, and gathering branches to craft into tools. It’s refreshingly conflict-free.

In March, New Horizons sold more digital copies in a month than any game before it. The boost was no doubt a byproduct of global self-isolation, as well as a universal desire to vicariously inhabit a place where everyone’s always smiling and a broken butterfly net is your greatest inconvenience. Surely, though, there’s an irony in millions of people escaping the nuisances of the adult world via a game that involves performing menial chores, paying off debts and engaging in small talk — you know, all the nuisances of the adult world.

I’ve managed to log about 50 hours of Animal Crossing in the last month, which is nothing compared to the hundreds of hours some friends have played. It sounds ridiculous, but I’m really enjoying disappearing into a game in which I’ve spent untold minutes pulling weeds. There’s also something quaint about a 2020 game that lets you purchase an insane variety of ingame items but makes you wait for the next day’s mail to receive it.

As I wander around my personal island of Amity (named for the town in Jaws, though the sharks here are friendly) with its jaunty theme tune floating along on the salty virtual breeze, I feel relaxed. Even for someone as video game-illiterate as me, I understand that’s the appeal.

Games that harness kinetic energy and require a gunslinger’s hand-eye coordination — not my jam. But one that lets me go fishing all day at my own speed? I’m on island time now. n

KEEPING TIME Don’t tune in to Dave Chappelle’s new half-hour special, streaming on YouTube, expecting knee-slapping laughs. Filmed two weeks after George Floyd’s murder in front of a masked, socially distanced audience, Chappelle’s 8:46 (named for how long the cop kneeled on Floyd before he died) is a raw, angry and occasionally funny outpouring of grief by one of the country’s most noteworthy commenters on race. You might not feel better after watching, but it’s worth hearing Chappelle explain that the world needs to listen to the streets right now, not celebrities. He’s certainly listening.

(DAN NAILEN) MODERN HISTORY Frontline on PBS is great at turning complex stories into highly watchable television, and their recent episode “The Virus: What Went Wrong?” streaming now on pbs.org is no exception. Correspondent Martin Smith creates an eye-opening narrative as he tracks how COVID-19 spread around the world, and turns a damning eye at America’s leaders for their failure to react accordingly. You might be avoiding virus news after nearly four months of shutdown, but this 90-minute Frontline is a must-see. (DAN NAILEN)

SERIOUS COMEDY Golden Globe-winning sitcom Ramy, which recently released its second season on Hulu, pivots from hilarious to serious in an instant as viewers follow the title character. Just when you think 20-something Ramy realizes how horrible he treats friends and the women he dates, he does something unfathomably worse. But the raw emotional writing, showing the struggles of Ramy’s Egyptian immigrant family, along with his efforts to connect with his Muslim faith (with a new mentoring sheikh played by Oscarwinner Mahershala Ali this season) are what set the show above and beyond. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)

JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 33

CULTURE | JULY 4

We believe you.

You matter.

Have you experienced unwanted sexual contact or comments? Have you been made to do something sexually that you didn’t want to do?

Speak to someone who can help.  24/7 Free & Confidential Support Call or Text 509-624-7273 to speak with a Victim Advocate @lutherancommunityservicesnorthwest

@lcsnw509 @LCSNorthwest #HealthJusticeHope

Fireworks are high on the list of socially distanced entertainment options.

Still Booming

Everything is a little bit weird this year, so why should Independence Day be any different?

BY DAN NAILEN

T

he upside of celebrating July 4 during a pandemic is that many of the activities you’d typically participate in — backyard barbecues, fireworks shows, day drinking — can be done safely and socially distanced. So buck up if you’re bummed out that Spokane isn’t doing fireworks at Riverfront Park this year, and Coeur d’Alene isn’t doing its downtown parade or fireworks, either. You still have plenty of options, and you can find them at Inlander.com.

Here are some of the highlights:

TRADITIONAL FUN

Spokane Parks is hosting four DRIVE-IN FIREWORKS shows, all starting at 10 pm Saturday, so pack a picnic MORE EVENTS and keep your Visit Inlander.com for distance while complete listings of you enjoy the local events. celebrations at Avista Stadium, Ferris High School, Merkel Sports Complex and Plante’s Ferry Sports Stadium.

Pullman is hosting its 45th FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION with a fireworks show, and is asking visitors to get some takeout from a local restaurant and sit at socially distanced intervals for the show. LIBERTY LAKE is also doing fireworks at 10 pm, and asks viewers to watch from home or their cars. And in Worley,

34 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

Idaho, a parking lot barbecue and fireworks at dusk are the perfect capper to a day of golf if you can swing it at the CIRCLING RAVEN INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATION.

EAT IT UP

Wild Dawgs in downtown Spokane is hosting its first FOURTH OF JULY HOT DOG EATING COMPETITION Saturday. You’re too late to sign up if you haven’t already, but the social distancing will come in handy if anyone hurls.

The fun starts at 5 pm, and remember to bring your mask and get there early since space is obviously limited. At Calypso’s Coffee Shop in Coeur d’Alene, they’re hosting a FOURTH OF JULY VEGAN BBQ in the parking lot starting at 11 am Saturday.

MOTORIN’

The Stateline Speedway in Post Falls is hosting its regular DEMOLITION DERBY AND FIREWORKS show Friday, July 3, so you can take in all the Phase 4 fun and still do Independence Day on Saturday. The real appeal is the motorhome division of the demo derby — big vehicles make for big crashes. Meanwhile, Spokane County Raceway in Airway Heights is hosting INDEPENDENCE MATSURI DRIFTERS July 4-5, and among the track’s COVID-19 precautions are requests for race fans to pack their own face masks, hand sanitizer and garbage bags. n

Beacon Hill co-owner Eliie Aaro.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

THE ROAD BACK

Skip the Cooking Local meal delivery services become a helpful resource for businesses and households as the pandemic continues

BY CHEY SCOTT

W

hen it became certain that large-scale events wouldn’t be happening for several months this year — weddings, graduation parties and other special gatherings — owners of Beacon Hill Catering & Events had to figure out a way to keep staff working.

About a month into Washington state’s initial March shutdown order, the northeast Spokane event venue and catering company, operating for more than two decades now, launched a new meal delivery service called Beacon at Home.

Each week since, Beacon Hill’s culinary team has created premade meals ($45) to feed up to four people, containing a protein-based main course and two sides, usually a salad and a veggie-based dish, and a dessert.

Customers can preorder online (beaconhillevents.com) for pickup or delivery (offered free within 10 miles of the venue) on Thursday and Friday afternoons.

Last week, for example, the featured meal was lobster roll-style salmon sandwiches, pesto pasta with peas, mixed green salad with quinoa and lemon vinaigrette, and lemon ricotta cookies for dessert. Each week’s options change, occasionally featuring diet-restrictionfriendly choices like gluten-free food, says Beacon Hill co-owner Ellie Aaro.

“This helps keep our name in the community, and I guess it’s also a sense of purpose for all of us,” Aaro says.

“We’re accustomed to feeding and making people happy on a daily basis, and on the event planning side of our company, when you go from having 300 events in front of you when the shutdown occurred to basically just fielding cancellations and postponements all day long, we needed to bring back that sense of purpose.”

While restaurants in Washington and Idaho have been open for limited dine-in service since mid-May, takeout orders remain a major source of sales for most

food providers, yet even more so for venues like Beacon Hill and others that don’t serve food outside of privately hosted events.

Aaro says the Beacon at Home meals will continue through at least September — even when the venue can again host guests at limited capacity, a change pending Spokane County’s move to Phase 3 of Washington’s Safe Start reopening plan (gatherings of 50 people or less are allowed in Phase 3).

“Our plan is, because the outlook for events is so greatly reduced really for the next year, to continue doing it indefinitely,” Aaro says. “It does provide us with a modest amount of income that helps keep our chefs employed, and that was critically important to us.”

The scenario is similar for other local caterers and event venues, like Nectar Catering & Events in downtown Spokane. ...continued on next page

JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 35

FOOD | THE ROAD BACK

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A salad of mixed greens, quinoa, sunflower seeds and raspberries from Beacon Hill.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“SKIP THE COOKING,” CONTINUED...

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Exclusive food news & a calendar of culinary events Delivered to your inbox every Thursday Subscribe at: inlander.com/newsletter

36 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

Nectar launched a make-at-home meal kit subscription basis. menu and premade, heat-and-eat meals in early Because of a boost in business as households April, both under the umbrella of its new nectarhave recently found themselves at home more HOME brand. The cook-yourself meals offer six often than usual, owner Martha Domitrovich was choices, portioned either for two ($23) or four able this month to move the business into its own ($35) people. Executive Chef Steven Swanson space at 1908 W. Northwest Blvd. on Spokane’s includes cooking instructions and all the needed north side. Domitrovich estimates that since the ingredients with each kit, available Monday pandemic began, she’s added about five new through Friday for pickup or local delivery ($5 customers a week. fee). Options include pad thai noodles, ratatouille That growth “afforded me the opportunity stuffed peppers, honey chipotle pork and tacos. to move into a space, which I didn’t think I could For the ready-made meals ($40 each; feeds do,” she says. “It was not only doable, but easy.” four) with reheating instructions, some of the Customers can place orders online (letmarchoices are tikka masala, lasagna and a fig thamakeit.com) for home-style meals, all from balsamic roasted pork loin, each with a side recipes developed by the self-taught cook, any salad and veggies. Wine and beer from Nectar’s time before Friday at midnight to be delivered vast collection can also be ordered for takeout. the following Wednesday. Meals arrive frozen Additionally, Nectar is offering the nectarPARTY with easy reheating instructions, and weekly meal service to cater small, in-home plans range from $50-$120 with wine dinner parties ($40 or $70 options for individuals, couples THE ROAD BACK per person). and families.

“We had to pivot and try to “Being able to provide for The Inlander is checking in generate some sort of revenue, a few elderly clients I have has on local businesses and how and the difficult piece of that is been really nice,” Domitrovich they’re evolving in a world with we’re known as a catering and says. “And my favorite is the coronavirus. Follow along at events place, not necessarily a moms who are like ‘I ordered Inlander.com/recovery. restaurant,” says Nectar owner 40 breakfast sandwiches and Josh Wade. “It’s not been an overwhelming thought we’d be good for a month but the kids success, but it’s been something we’ve become ate them in a week!’” proud of and we can see as an ongoing revenue The new company has a charitable focus, stream when things get back to a sense of nortoo, donating a meal to a local nonprofit or fammalcy.” ily in need for each meal purchased.

Nectar’s at-home meals can all be ordered “The philanthropic part has been rewarding online at nectarcateringandevents.com. for me, personally,” Domitrovich says. “There have been dozens of people I’ve just shown up or one local meal delivery service, the and given dinner to, and several regular customtiming of its launch and the arrival of the ers pay for dinners and then give extra. coronavirus pandemic were coincidental, “It’s been a good way for people to reach out but the latter brought at least one unforeseen to those they know are affected [by the pandembenefit. ic] and still allow them to maintain some dignity,” The. Supper Club (the period in the business she continues. “I think that is one of the more name is intentional) started in a commercial painful parts in some of this, people having to ask kitchen last December, offering ready-to-eat for help who aren’t used to doing so.” n meals for home delivery on an as-needed or cheys@inlander.com

F

BEST OF

SUPERLATIVE CINEMA

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

A rundown of the best films released in the first half of 2020

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

W

deeply moving documentary that’s not only a snapshot of an idyllic place but a history lesson of a civil rights movement that’s too often overlooked. Streaming on Netflix.

AND THEN WE DANCED

Spike Lee’s latest joint is a tour through recent history and a wild genre deconstruction, as four black Vietnam veterans return to the country to both retrieve their dead friend’s remains and a buried cache of Viet Cong gold.

Like the Hughes brothers’ overlooked epic Dead Presidents, it’s a slick thriller and a melancholy reflection on black men fighting and dying for a country that sees them as expendable. Streaming on Netflix.

e’re already heading into the second half of 2020, though the last six months have felt like a decade. We haven’t been able to congregate in movie theaters since March, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some great cinematic options out there. You just had to dig a little deeper.

Here are the best movies 2020 has offered thus far, all of them available to stream or rent.

In the Eurasian country of Georgia, an unlikely friendship develops between two male dancers competing for a spot in the national ensemble, a sure bet for escaping an impoverished environment. As passing glances turn into outright affection, they realize they’re harboring secrets from a deeply traditional society. This film inspired controversy in its native country, which will seem surprising to the U.S. audiences who discover this gentle, bittersweet coming-of-age gem. Available to rent through the Magic Lantern.

BACURAU

It’s impossible to pigeonhole this bizarre Brazilian thriller into a single genre: It begins as a slice-of-life drama about the denizens of a remote village, turns into mystery after the appearance of flying saucer-shaped drones, and ends with the blunt brutality of your average grindhouse movie. Despite that stylistic juggling, the film is most obviously an off-kilter allegory about colonialism, appropriation and subjugation. Rent through the Magic Lantern.

CRIP CAMP

Deep in the Catskills of the 1970s, Camp Jened was a summertime safe haven for teenagers with disabilities, a place where they could escape the scrutiny of the outside world. Using archival footage and current interviews, directors Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht (the latter of whom was actually a Jened camper) have crafted a

DA 5 BLOODS

THE INVISIBLE MAN

One of the few 2020 films to play in theaters nationwide, this is an uncommonly elegant mainstream thriller that finds fresh, contemporary angles in a seemingly exhausted premise. If you think about the plot for more than a couple seconds, it falls apart, but it works in the moment as a slick exercise in suspense, as a scary allegory of abuse and gaslighting, and as a showcase for Elisabeth Moss’s terrific performance. Rent on iTunes and Amazon Prime.

NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS

The latest film from director Eliza Hittman, whose unvarnished, documentary-like aesthetic brings an authenticity to this story of two teenage girls who travel from rural Pennsylvania to New York City so one of them can get an abortion. Although it’s about a hot-button issue, this isn’t a polemic, but rather a carefully observed, beautifully acted portrait of young women. Rent on iTunes and Amazon Prime.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

Celine Sciamma’s aching romance was the last movie I saw in theaters before the world shut down, and I’m

grateful that I was able to see its beautiful, sweeping images on a big screen. It’s a love story between two women in the late 1700s — a young woman fighting against her impending marriage, and the artist who has been commissioned to paint her portrait — and its romantic confessions are spoken on wind-whipped cliff sides, ocean shores and by the light of lonely candles. Streaming on Hulu.

REWIND

A warning in advance: This movie contains disturbing descriptions of sexual violence, but if you can handle this sort of thing, it’s a harrowing and unbelievably moving experience. Director Sasha Joseph Neulinger reflects on his own childhood through home movie footage, and what he’s crafted is a haunting journal of abuse that, hidden in plain sight, had plagued his family for generations.

Rent on iTunes and Amazon Prime.

SORRY WE MISSED YOU

You could argue there’s no better filmmaker to tackle our current economic climate than British director Ken Loach. His quotidian style and blue-collar politics are out in full force in this gritty kitchen-sink drama about the daily struggles of a working-class family — dad’s a driver for an Amazon-type company, mom’s an in-home caregiver — and how one bad decision creates a ripple effect of devastation. Rent through the Magic Lantern.

A WHITE, WHITE DAY

An appropriate title for a film set in rural Iceland, great performance by Ingvar Sigurdsson as a former police chief who, in repressing every emotion he’s ever felt besides brute anger, becomes obsessed with an affair that his recently deceased wife may have had. It vacillates between arthouse meditation and macho revenge thriller, with visual studies of nature and inanimate objects interrupted by bursts of violence. Rent through the Magic Lantern. n

JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 37

MEMORIES

21 RUN

TLC , back in the day when they were three (R.I.P. Left Eye).

Remembering the summer singles of 1999 as they turn legal drinking age

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

F

lashback time: It’s the summer of 1999. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense is blowing audiences’ minds. The newly popular Now That’s What I Call Music series releases its second song compilation in the U.S. People are starting to voice concerns that the Y2K bug could inspire a global catastrophe.

Flash forward 21 years: Shyamalan is a hitmaker again after a string of flops, the Now series is on its 74th volume, and we’re in the midst of an actual global catastrophe.

But back to ’99. It was one of the wildest, jampacked years for mainstream pop music, and as we head into summer 2020, we’re reminiscing about the summer singles from 21 years ago and celebrating the milestone of them finally reaching legal drinking age. Wanna feel old? Read on.

BACKSTREET BOYS, “I WANT IT THAT WAY”

Fresh off his first No. 1 with Britney Spears’ “...Baby One More Time,” songwriter Max Martin recorded this power ballad with the Backstreet Boys, then at the peak of their popularity. Even BSB haters came to admit the song was pretty good: Rolling Stone called it a “genre-transcending classic,” and it regularly appears on lists of the best songs of its era.

SMASH MOUTH, “ALL STAR”

It might be difficult now to illustrate how inescapable “All Star” was. Merging Smash Mouth’s retro lounge style with more contemporary alt-rock, the song was featured on soundtracks and played at sporting events, and every pop station seemed to have it in hourly rotation. The band still exists, but nothing they’ve done since has touched their brief glimmer of mega-fame.

38 INLANDER JULY 2, 2020

SANTANA FEAT. ROB THOMAS, “SMOOTH”

CHRISTINA AGUILERA, “GENIE IN A BOTTLE”

This unlikely team-up of the Latin rock god and the frontman of Matchbox Twenty seems an ideal summer song, being about a Spanish Harlem heat wave and all.

And though it was released in June 1999 as the lead single of Santana’s collab-heavy Supernatural album, “Smooth” blew up in October and it sat atop the Billboard charts for a whopping 12 weeks.

Though she was unfairly written off as an obligatory successor to her former Mickey Mouse Club costar Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera was already carving out her own vocal stylings on her self-titled debut album. This leering ode to teenage hormones was a massive hit in the summer of ’99, topping the charts and establishing Xtina as a pop star to be reckoned with.

RICKY MARTIN, “LIVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA”

DESTINY’S CHILD, “BILLS BILLS BILLS”

JENNIFER LOPEZ, “IF YOU HAD MY LOVE”

LOU BEGA, “MAMBO NO. 5”

Though he was hardly the first Latinx artist to make the English language crossover, Ricky Martin was (for a little while, at least) the face of the 1999 Latin pop boom. The former Menudo member broke out in America with this hugely energetic, brass-drenched single, which topped the charts for the entire month of May 1999, until...

...it was knocked from its perch by another Latin pop superstar in the making. Before she was simply J. Lo, the actress and dancer dropped her debut album On the 6 in ’99. It became a surprise smash, its opening track “If You Had My Love” skyrocketed up the Top 40 charts, and Lopez found another medium she could dominate.

BRITNEY SPEARS, “(YOU DRIVE ME) CRAZY”

Britney’s debut album blew up as 1998 came to a close, and by the summer of 1999, there was no bigger teen pop star in the world. This song, which lent its title to a longforgotten Melissa Joan Hart-Adrian Grenier rom-com, didn’t have the longevity of “...Baby One More Time,” but it holds up as a bouncy bit of bubblegum.

Back when they were still a quartet and before Beyonce was, well, Beyonce, Destiny’s Child established themselves as a dominant girl group force with “Bills Bills Bills.” Not only was it a No. 1 pop hit, but it topped the R&B charts for nine consecutive weeks. It also deserves credit for blessing us with the Shakespeare-worthy portmanteau of “automo-bills.”

The late ’90s brought about a revival in retro swing sounds, which perhaps primed audiences for Lou Bega’s modernized take on a 1950s Cuban song about a dude who loves nothing more than rattling off the names of the ladies he fancies. “Mambo No. 5” was a monster hit all over the world, but Bega never had another Top 40 hit.

TLC, “NO SCRUBS”

Although it technically peaked on the charts in April ’99, TLC’s massive comeback single “No Scrubs” had ubiquitous radio presence throughout the summer, an instant pop classic that saw the trio abandoning its rough-aroundthe-edges roots for a sleeker, futuristic vibe. The song was so popular, in fact, that a hastily recorded parody called “No Pigeons” was a Top 40 hit at the same time.

EVENTS | CALENDAR RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, “SCAR TISSUE”

Californication didn’t exactly signal a rebirth of the Chili Peppers, but the hit album saw the band settling into a new style, reuniting with original guitarist John Frusciante and leaning into their more laidback, introspective inclinations. “Scar Tissue” was a bold choice as the LP’s lead single, and the gamble paid off: It topped Billboard’s Modern Rock chart for 16 weeks.

LFO, “SUMMER GIRLS”

With its nonsensical, rap-adjacent lyrics that name-dropped everything from Abercrombie & Fitch to Kevin Bacon, the signature song from Massachusetts trio LFO is a dorky but somehow still charming time capsule of what teenagers considered cool in 1999 (well, some teenagers).

Two of LFO’s guys have since died, adding a dark footnote to an otherwise innocuous single.

BLINK-182, “WHAT’S MY AGE AGAIN?”

Snotty, self-aware pop-punk was nothing new when Blink-182 hit the scene, but what separated them from contemporaries was that they almost carried themselves like a parody band.

“What’s My Age Again?” is a self-deprecating take on arrested development, and the video, complete with blurred-out nudity and a dude in a banana costume, feels like a Jackass stunt set to music.

MARIAH CAREY, “HEARTBREAKER”

Mariah Carey didn’t so much close out the summer as drop the pop music gauntlet, releasing one of the catchiest songs of her career while we were all heading back to school. With a featured verse (and songwriting help) from Jay-Z, who was just establishing himself as an inestimable figure in mainstream hip-hop, “Heartbreaker” became Carey’s 14th No. 1 hit. n

Advice Goddess DOOM RAIDER

I think the guy I recently started dating might run in the same circles as my ex. (He’s said a few things that led me to think that.) This terrifies me because I really do not like my ex and don’t want there to be any overlap in our lives. I keep having nightmare scenarios play out in my head where I show up to the bar after my new guy’s poker game and my ex is there. What can I do if this happens? —Distressed

DRINKS PATIO PARADISE

Enjoy one of the best parts of summer in the Northwest with the monthly (through September) Party on the Patio series, an event co-hosted

by Three Peaks Kitchen + Bar at the Spokane Tribe Casino, the Inlander and local drink purveyors Townshend Cellar, No-Li Brewhouse and Dry Fly Distilling. The series launched last year, and is back for 2020 but this time in a socially distanced setting — don’t forget your masks to wear when you’re not sipping on your drink or snacking on apps like pretzel sticks, stuffed mushrooms or pulled pork sliders! Drink specials include Dry Fly lemonade ($6), One Tree’s lemon basil cider ($2), No-Li’s Day Fade hard seltzer ($2) and a selection of pours ($6) from Townshend Cellar. There are also prizes and swag giveaways, and live music from local group Okay, Honey. Leave the driving to someone else, too, and hop on a free shuttle from one of several locations; details at link.

— CHEY SCOTT Social Distancing Party on the Patio • Thu, July 9 from 5-8 pm • Free admission • 21+ • Three Peaks Kitchen + Bar • 14300 W. Highway 2, Airway Heights • Inlander.com/partyonthepatio

WILL SMITH, “WILD WILD WEST”

Before Wild Wild West hit theaters in June of ’99, its high-energy, Stevie Wonder-sampling theme song made it seem like it was gonna be pretty cool. But that track turned out to be easily the best thing associated with the movie: It topped the Billboard charts, while the film received the Razzie Award for worst picture.

RELATIONSHIPS

FILM TROUBLE IN MIND

The Magic Lantern Theater continues to bring international film to our living rooms, and the latest title they’ve added to their virtual cinema library is the new documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble. Director Dawn Porter takes a look at the ongoing legacy of the lifelong civil rights activist, whose work alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s led to a career serving Georgia in Congress. The film will be followed by a conversation between Lewis and Oprah Winfrey, filmed just last month; beginning July 9, rentals will also feature a panel presented by the Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. All proceeds from the rentals ($12) will go directly to Spokane’s chapter of the NAACP. — NATHAN WEINBENDER John Lewis: Good Trouble • Digital rental at magiclanternonmain.com

FOOD VEGAN VITTLES

Favorite local vegan cafe Allie’s is bringing back some elements of its popular but discontinued brunch service on Sunday mornings this summer. A new outdoor market and breakfast to-go format kicks off this weekend, offering Allie’s signature sourdough cinnamon rolls with cashew cream cheese frosting, breakfast burritos and Roast House Coffee’s F-Bomb cold brew. Joining the festivities is a farmers market stand offering fresh produce from two local urban farms: Three Birds Garden and Dragonfly Urban Farm. If you go, take note that the restaurant is closed to customers this day, and face masks are required. More details on Facebook.

— CHEY SCOTT Sunday Market & Breakfast • Sun, July 5 from 9 am-noon • Allie’s Vegan Pizzeria & Cafe • 1314 S. Grand Blvd. • facebook.com/ alliesveganpizzeriacafe • 321-7090

AMY ALKON

It helps to suddenly become British when you run into someone you dread seeing, because a posh British accent is ideal for conveying a polite greeting like: “What a surprise. I was sure someone would’ve poisoned you by now, or at least electrocuted you in the bathtub.”

What doesn’t help is ruminating on how you’ll feel if you do see your ex. Unfortunately, our mind is not our BFF, and it has a habit of sending us off in directions that cause us needless suffering. For example, we are our own worst emotional fortunetellers, or in psychologists’ terms, we are crap at “affective forecasting.” (“Affect” is a fancy-schmancy researcher word for moods and emotions we experience.) Social psychologists Sarit Golub and Daniel Gilbert find that we tend to overestimate how bad some future event will make us feel. This overblown prediction of how miserable we’ll be in the future serves to bum us out in the present. Accordingly, the researchers observe that “it may be” as the Stoic philosopher Seneca noted nearly 2 million years ago, “He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.”

When the ex pops up in your head, instead of rerunning your usual social horror movies, recognize that you have what it takes to deal with whatever comes your way.

After all, what’s the worst thing that’s likely to happen, an uncomfortable silence preceding an uncomfortable moment greeting each other? (This is rarely fatal.)

Keep reminding yourself of this whenever dread arises, and though you might never become a pillar of chill, you should find your overall level of hysteria dialed down considerably.

Eventually, if your paths do cross, you should be able to stand there like it’s no big deal, which suggests you are barely cognizant of his continued existence...in a way running outside and hiding between parked cars like it’s a hostage crisis just can’t.

UNDERCOVER SMOTHER

I’m a 33-year-old bisexual female manager, and a co-worker seems to have an intense crush on me. She invites me out for drinks and buys me little gifts (a teddy bear, chocolates, flowers, a heart-shaped necklace). I make excuses to get out of drinks and show no enthusiasm for the gifts, but the more I don’t show interest, the more obsessed she seems. How do I get her to stop without making it awkward? —Disturbed It’s really uncomfortable when any conversation she has with you includes the breathy subtext: “I like your outfit. I’d like it even more if it were in a pile on the conference room floor.”

It’s possible she’s experiencing limerence, a constant, obsessive romantic longing for another person that leads to often-smothering acts intended to get that person to reciprocate. Though limerence can seem like a form of love, love involves concern for the other’s feelings and well-being. In limerence, the limerent person’s target is a love object they’re pursuing: the romantic obsession version of a dirty tennis ball a dog’s chasing that never rolls to a stop.

However, there is a way out. Psychologists Albert Wakin and Duyen Vo explain that “limerence is sustained and fueled by uncertainty,” which heightens the limerent person’s hope as well as their cravings for emotional reciprocation from the object of their obsessive desire. They add that “the limerence reactions tend to dissipate in conditions where there is complete certainty,” whether it’s “absolute reciprocation or the other extreme of absolute rejection.”

The kindest thing you can do (for yourself and for her) is help her give up hope — immediately, lest Tacky Gift Mountain start growing a twin peak. Take her aside and say: “I just want to clear up any possible misunderstanding. I’m not interested in ANY relationship beyond being co-workers.” If she tries again or the gift barrage continues, tell her again in unambiguous language (providing the necessary “absolute rejection”). Don’t explain why. You are not interested in her. Period. Revealing this to her will surely be awkward, but it gives her the “complete certainty” she needs to escape the claws of limerence and, best of all, before you run out of excuses to escape her regular “Wanna go for drinks after work?”

You: “I have to feed my cat.”

Her: “I thought your cat died last year.”

You: “I have to feed its ghost.” n ©2020, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. • Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)

JULY 2, 2020 INLANDER 39

LAST DANCE You, a blonde, me a guy in a mask. You came up to me and asked to dance. I responded with I’m not a really good dancer to which you responded with “neither am I just go with it.” After the dance you gave me a hug and told me to not forget my worth and then you walked out the door. I am not sure if you realize how much I needed to hear that and I hope you continue to be a beautiful human like that.

I SAW YOU REFLECTION Reflection. Now is the time that people everywhere take that one opportunity to look up, dig deep, and reflect. “If we are not committed to ensuring that each of us stands as a part of G-d’s plan, then: First, they will come for Black people, and some will do nothing because they are not Black.

Then they will come for the Latinos, and again some will do nothing because they are not Latino. Soon they will come for Asians, and once more, some will not speak up because they are not Asian. Then they will come for Caucasians, and others will not speak up. Then they will come for indigenous people, the Keepers of the Earth, and once more, some will not speak up because they are not the Keepers of the Earth. Then those who are left will be asked the question. Where is your brother? We are all our brother’s keeper. B.L.A.C.K. Lives Matter. When they come for one of us, “HE” has provided the reason we all must speak up.” - Dg Garcia RE: MADE MY FATHER’S DAY We were right behind your daughter when this happened! We turned around as soon as we could, but luckily 2 other cars stopped already and she was walking around. Glad that she is OK! It was scary to witness, I can’t imagine how it was for her.

SPD - 6/27 I saw you pull up responding to a complaint about a tweeker with 2 minivans overloaded with detritus. A conversation ensued, after which at least one unmarked car and one marked police car rolled up. Sixish officers confronted said tweeker, whose obeisance was apparently sufficient for you all to leave. After which HE DEALT METH AND OPIODS OUT OF THOSE MINIVANS TO AT LEAST FIVE PEOPLE. One punched a gas station customer’s vehicle. A couple ranted at passerby. At least 6 ended up darkening adjacent doorsteps on this otherwise lovely day. How did you not see what was going on?! Was it just a case of no one wanting to deal with those nasty minivans? Didn’t care cause it was a white guy? Good work team...

JEERS NO DISTANCE WHATSOEVER Jeers to all the idiots at Northpoint Walmart early Saturday 6-27-20. Most notably in the pharmacy department. There was a couple in maroon shirts with no masks on touching all the vitamins. Blocking the aisle. I was waiting patiently to enter the aisle at the proper distance. Another guy tried to crowd in with a cowboy bandana and I said loudly that I was waiting for the touchy Feely couple to move on. Cue the clueless old man in a white shirt dark pants on a motor scooter who I thought was trying to pass behind me.

Nope-he barged right through nearly running me over!! “Oh I can make it” is what he said. NO YOU CAN’T!! No one should do that. Here’s how it’s supposed to go. If someone is halfway

down the aisle you want you have to wait at the beginning or go get other stuff in other aisles and come back.

People in the middle of the aisle when more people show up at the same row as you hurry up and pick what you want so others can file through.

Make a list you can even do it on your

“

at Mission and Indiana??? It’s always a mess and cars always finally getting to turn when the light turns red. Of course no one ever stops after the light turns yellow. You can also see the countdown on the pedestrian signals. I find it just amazing and crazy.

you to judge and just DECIDE they are being selfish is totally arrogant on your part! Do you really believe a mask decides whether you will get a virus, or not? There a some things in life that we DONT control and that is one of them. Next time you see me at Fred Meyer try not to laugh. I will be wear-

The late comedian Bill Hicks called humans ‘a virus with legs.’ These pathetic people are literally giving legs to the coronavirus.

phone. Don’t run people over on motor scooters and don’t crowd. WEAR your damned masks!!!! Harvard and Johns Hopkins and a bunch of other prestigious medical places know what they are talking about when they say masks will help stop the spread. VZ CORONA-WANNA-BEES Damn all you Non Mask Wearers. You know who you are! Wearing a mask is not a political nor state government issue. We have a deadly virus amongst us. Disregard your selfcentered mentality, or your all about me attitude! Especially the 20-40 yr old idiots. Think about your parents, grandparents and your community, who you can infect with this virus and potentially kill them, due to some knucklehead reason. It’s time for businesses to refuse entry or service to selfish, inconsiderate people. Perhaps mask wearers should take pics of the knuckleheads, post them to a shame page. After all they already have signage that’s states “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service“ let’s add “No Mask, No Service.” Let’s keep Spokane healthy.

COSTCO FRIENDS To the two unmasked women who paraded around the Valley Costco during the afternoon of June 24th, smirking at the rest of us wearing masks, proudly prancing around: you folks are the reason Spokane County is not moving into Stage 3. If you truly cared about Spokane businesses and helping those out of work get jobs, you’d stop thinking about what you and your buddies call your “civil rights,” (which by the way do not cover the right to refuse to wear a mask during a pandemic) and start thinking more about what you can do for your country, county, and city. I’m as healthy as you seem to think you are, but I wear a mask (which I don’t find very enjoyable, FYI) because I support the right of everyone to be able to go out into the community and public without the fear of getting sick and I want our economy to go back to normal. I know masks alone won’t solve the problem, but it’s one small thing I can do to help those most vulnerable not get ill, help the unemployed get back to work, and help businesses reopen to full capacity.

WHY IGNORE MAJOR TRAFFIC CONGESTION Jeers to Spokane traffic planning. Why, why are there no left turn signals at the intersections of Hamilton

TO THOSE WHO JUDGE Who gave you the right to judge? YOU cant possibly know the reason why a person is not wearing a face mask in public. For

”

ing my Darth Vader mask because that will protect me best of all... and dont judge!

ANTI-MASKERS Jeers to the antimaskers, with their ignorance and arrogance, the gun toting guys with their fragile masculinity and the smug adolescents with their selfish indifference. If C-19 sent only young people to hospitals and cemeteries you can bet their parents and grandparents would gladly mask up to save them.

And don’t forget the precious well tended Karens who don’t want to mess up their makeup. The late comedian Bill Hicks called humans “a virus with legs.” These pathetic people are literally giving legs to the Coronavirus. n

THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS 1

1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3.

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

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hen camping, people take great care to keep what they drink ice cold in coolers. So why not apply the same level of preparedness to what you’re smoking? Here are three ways to elevate your outdoors experience when it comes to cannabis.

STORE IN A COOL, DRY AREA

How you carry your cannabis says a lot about your level of outdoorsmanship. You need to prepare for the environment you’re heading into. If you’re heading out for a day trip to hike some trails, then the plastic tube your pre-roll came in might suffice. But if you’re hitting the water, you’re risking a ruined joint.

Dry bags are a staple among people recreating on the water. You’ll throw your phone in, of course, but remember to throw your stash in there, too, because wet weed doesn’t work. You can even keep your cannabis separate with products like the aptly named Chrontainer — available online for under $10 — which is meant to keep your cannabis, and just your cannabis, safe and dry.

LEAVE NO TRACE

So, you need a container to bring your weed with you, but you might also need one to bring it back out. If you’re smoking a joint, a blunt or anything that generates waste, you need to pack it out like you packed it

in. Which is tricky, since transporting cannabis once it’s been opened is illegal, but so is simply stomping out the crutch from your joint — not to mention rude as well.

The problem is, that crutch is going to stink.

Fortunately, the rules that apply to keeping water off your weed before you smoke it also apply to keeping the smell on your weed once you’ve smoked it. Anything with an airtight seal — think Ziploc bags or freezer-safe containers — will do the trick.

BURN BUD, NOT YOURSELF

Now that you’re prepared to take care of your cannabis, it’s time to let your cannabis help take care of you. Going outside in the summer means applying sunscreen, and sunscreen, like everything else, has found itself caught up in the hemp explosion in recent years.

THC-infused sunscreens are on the market, though it appears not currently in our region. Their hemp-infused cousins, though, are available nationwide. Target, the big-box behemoth, and Martha Stewart — a surprise were it not for her work with Snoop Dogg — sell Uncle Bud’s Hemp Sunscreen and related products through their online marketplaces. n

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cda4.fun for more events,

COEUR D ’ ALENE

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Festivities on the Fourth

Celebrate Independence Day in North Idaho

T

he upside to most Independence Day celebrations this year is that they’re outdoors and typically free. Both are true throughout North Idaho, with festivities planned from prairie to lakefront to mountaintop.

Head south to HARRISON on the Fourth of July for old-fashioned fun in this charming lakeside town. Boat or drive in and spend the day swimming, exploring the town’s history, sampling from any number of restaurants — ice cream anyone? — and then settle in for live music from Jam Shack from 4-8 pm.

Fireworks start at dark.

Farther south in Plummer-Worley, the COEUR D’ALENE CASINO is hosting a twoday celebration of America’s independence so consider staying overnight with one of their convenient stay-and-play packages.

Fireworks will be held Friday, July 3, around 10 pm, and on Saturday, the casino is having a block party in the parking lot from 5-9:30 pm and featuring several area food trucks. A hometown favorite, the Rhythm Dawgs play at 6 pm, with fireworks starting at dark.

Just North of Coeur d’Alene in beautiful North Idaho

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East of Coeur d’Alene, Kellogg’s SILVER MOUNTAIN is the place to be for fireworks and one-of-a-kind views of the Silver Valley.

Bring the family and consider staying overnight — check out their stay-and-splash

Riverstone Summer Concert Series JULY 2

Proof that summer is finally here — Riverstone’s popular free, weekly outdoor concert series kicks off with headlining blues/jazz artist, CeCe Curtis and opener Pamela Benton. Free, 6-8 pm, at the Village at Riverstone.

Silver Mountain Ride & Dine JULY 3

Every Friday in July and August enjoy a scenic gondola ride, live music, and a savory mountain top barbecue. Your lift ticket is included in the price. The menu usually consists of Huckleberry BBQ Ribs or blackened salmon, with sides of mashed potatoes, salad, beans and toast. Better yet, earn your feast with an afternoon of mountain biking. Visit cda4.

packages for a day at the water park. You’ll also find packages that include whitewater rafting, golf and mountain biking.

While the annual parade, festival and fireworks aren’t happening in downtown COEUR D’ALENE this year out of an abundance of caution, that doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to plan your own family celebration in the Lake City. Rent a pontoon boat from RESORT BOAT RENTALS, CDA BOAT RENTALS or HARRISON PERFORMANCE PONTOON RENTALS and spend the day leisurely touring the lake. You can even find some rentals with waterslides! If you have a need for speed, look into their sport boat or jet ski rentals.

Plan a picnic in the park at MCKEUEN PARK or CITY PARK, or find your place in the sand at CITY BEACH or around TUBBS HILL. Don’t want the hassle of packing your own picnic basket? Pickup some barbecue from RELIC SMOKEHOUSE AND PUB or the veteran owned TRIPLE B BACKHILLS BBQ. When the sun goes down, head to TRIPLE PLAY FAMILY FUN PARK. For only $17.76 plus tax per person (get it?!), you will have access to all available attractions and waterpark from 6 pm to close (11 pm for Triple Play and 10 pm for Raptor Reef Indoor Waterpark).

Toyota Tuesday at Silverwood JULY 14

Mark your calendar Toyota owners!

The driver of any Toyota gets in free at Silverwood Theme Park when they bring an admission coupon from any Inland Empire Toyota Dealer.

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See Bingo venue for more details.

FRIDAY, JULY 10TH , AUGUST 7 TH & SEPTEMBER 4TH 6 PM - 8:30 PM

See the Coeur Rewards booth, CDA Casino app or cdacasino.com for promotional rules.

Food and drink specials! Free Event!

W E LC O M E H O M E .

HOTEL

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CASINO

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DINING

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SPA

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CHAMPIONSHIP

GOLF

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