Things that might have been

I thought for most of my life that I would be a lumber grader.

My training was initially at Potlatch Forests Inc., in Potlatch, Idaho, just nine miles from my home in Palouse. I had been there for four years and decided after I met my wife to leave PFI and move to southern Idaho. Dorothy was from Buhl, about 120 miles east of Boise.

Of course, I needed work, so I found a job grading lumber in Gooding. The mill owners had a second mill in Fairfield, so I split some of my time there.

If you know Idaho at all, you know how bad winters can be.

The mills shut down when winter rolled in, and we decided to go to Palouse for the winter.

During the winter, I saw and answered an ad that appeared in the Spokesman Review. 

The position was for a mill at Lincoln on the Columbia River.

I made an appointment for the interview and was questioned by the head grader, a guy named Kelly. Then the superintendent interviewed me to see if I would fit in.

We found a place to live in Wilbur, and I was off and running again.

While there, I also graded lumber on the weekends at the Emerson mill in Wilbur.

After a couple of years, I decided to leave Lincoln and take a grading job at the mill in Grand Coulee, just above the dam.

I worked there for a guy named Kirkpatrick.  

There again, winter did me in as the mill closed. Again, an ad in the Spokesman put me back to work. This time it was for the Downer Lumber Company in Livingston, Montana.

There I graded what I called “sugar” because of the high grades that came out of the logs. It was actually Lodgepole Pine. Most of the boards graded number one and two with a lot of select mixed in.

This lasted through the winter, and when Kirkpatrick asked me to return, I decided to do so.

I was young and liked the adventure of change, and the next year I saw another ad for a lumber grader, this time in Grand Forks, B.C.

There the interview was different. The selling point to them was that British Columbia provided free milk for youngsters.

That wasn’t much incentive for me to move across the border. The money was good, and it appeared to be a pleasant place.

I always wondered what it would have been like living and working across the border.

I had a similar experience while living in Wilbur.

We lost our first child due to a sickness, and during the loss I got to know the undertaker, a guy named Bill Robertson.

He and his wife were very kind during this time, and again I answered an ad that appeared in the Spokesman.

This time it was a funeral home in Idaho. I went for the interview and was offered a job. The firm said that after six months if everything worked out, they would send me to school for a permanent position with the firm.

I asked Robertson about it and he advised against it, saying that these types of arrangements often resulted in jobs where you spent your time washing hearts and packing flowers for funerals. 

There again, I wondered what would have happened had I accepted.

Years later, while living in Othello, I found out what it might have been like. At the time, I liked playing tennis. I wound up as a lame member of a foursome that met every afternoon at the local tennis court.

In addition to me, was the owner of the newspaper, Dan Leary, the local undertaker, and the manager of the radio station.

I was telling the undertaker, Ted Muscott, of my decision about working for the funeral home, and he recruited me to be his assistant in picking up dead people.

A few times out and I came to know that I had made the right decision.

And so it goes. I don’t read the job section in any newspaper, because it hasn’t always been a good practice.

But things could have been altogether different had I accepted either or both job offers.