Summertime, And the Living is Easy

Here's another one of Dad's photos, City Beach in the crush of another beautiful Lake City day. You can see Playland pier in the back; dang, what a great place when you were a kid. Forget Coney Island, we had a reasonable facsimile right here that was good enough.

A kid could have a hell of a great day at City beach with a dollar bill. There was the Merry-go-round, Rock-o-plane, tiny tot roller coaster, Bumper Cars and the ever popular Swings which literally put you over Lake CdA. [We always imagined one breaking and sending a rider way out into the lake.] I rode everything at least a couple times but usually spent my money in the arcade. There were a few very special machines there.

You couldn't afford to do everything on a dollar but at least a couple times each summer I'd shoot the growling bear with the light beam (pre-laser days by a damn sight) rifle. It was great hitting that glass eye in his side, causing him to raise up on his rear legs, growl and turn. Great shooting! And there was skee-ball and pinball and ancient hand crank flip picture movie machines. One was a snake eating a rat and the other (if they didn't catch you looking) was a fan dancer.

Then there was the good stuff. There were two post card machines. For .02 you got a photo of a movie star (starlets on one side, hunks on the other) or, even better yet, hot rods and custom cars. Why or why didn't I keep all that crap? Yeah, famous words we all can claim.

But then there was the greatest arcade game of all time. There was an (of course, ancient) early try at a soccer game. It was basically a large aquarium size glass case that stood on metal legs (hell, it was all metal). On the front were a slot for a penny a hand lever on each side. In the case was a playing field covered with little players and a goal with goalie at each end. The field was lumpy and low spots were in front of each player so the ball wouldn't go dead. When you flipped your lever, all the men on your team would kick one leg, plus your goalie would cross the goal. So you'd flip that lever in an early version of foosball. The balls were steelies (yes, steel balls) and you got one for every penny.

Hell yes it was fun, and it got even funner as the game became more about trying to break the glass with a kicked steelie than it was pushing an abacus like bead for scoring a goal. And at a penny a ball, I tossed a good share of dollar bills, a penny at a time into that machine playing and trying to break that glass. Amazingly, and with what had to be like 1930's glass, it never broke. No matter how many solid shots on glass we slammed, it never even cracked.

A penny a ball. Try and have that much fun nowadays.

My father was the manager of the CdA Chamber of Commerce from 1948 to 1971. Summer of 1952 my mother was on vacation from Edmonton, Alberta. As Dad walked through City Park along the seawall he saw two women who were obviously on vacation (heck, there was only like 2,000 people in CdA, tourists were easy to spot). Dad, as I saw him do with thousands of people all his life, welcomed them to the Lake City.

The rest, as they say, is history. I am a direct product of the Chamber of Commerce, born in the Iron Horse parking lot (Lake City General, more on that some other time).

Dad had traveled all over North America reporting for a semi-weekly publication, The American Field, which is THE journal for anyone involved with bird dogs. But when he came through the Pacific Northwest, he knew this was the place for him. And he fell in love with Coeur d'Alene.

Involved deeply in tourism and the promotion of CdA, North Idaho and Idaho in general (he sat on the first State Tourism committee with Louise Shadduck), Dad came into possession of all sorts of things. The above poem is one of those items. My guess is this was printed somewhere around 1930. I believe it stands the test of time.

My dad, Kyle Walker, has been gone 20 years and I cherish so much of what he left me. Not the least of are his sense of humor, value of family and friends and love of CdA. This blog, and this entire blog site, is dedicated to him, Mr. Coeur d'Alene.

Lakeside Days 1957 Program

Let's see how many pages I can post.

Check out the ads!

MOhawk 4

60,000 visitors!

The waterfront looks pretty industrial at the time.

Ben's Spudnut, now Capone's.

RexRexall, in the Desert, see the previous blog for the pic.

Everson's address became 107, home of Ace Travel for 34 years, now an art gallery.

A tug-o-war between lumber mills, this was serious!

Miss Lakeside Days, insert wolf whistle.

Yes, many businesses are this old.

Broderick Motors, now Architects West.

The New Studebaker!

Club Cigar & Sport Shop, fishing licenses up front, booze in the back.
IXL Toggery, when your parents really wanted you dressed up.
Gridley's, now the Painter's Chair.

Louie's is of course the Paul Bunyan.

Hart Drug, great magazine rack, now Java.

YJ Packing, fresh meat & sawdust floors. Hwy 10 is now Seltice.

Yes, there was a time when sailboats weren't outnumbered by jetskis.

The parade featured Miss Lakeside Days & her court, that's over.

Pines & Powell's, now the Iron Horse.

The baseball games were at Person because there was no McEuen at the time.

Central Motors, now Tito Macaroni's.

The boat races were not the hydroplane races, that was a different date,

Cruise Lake CdA on the Dance-a-wanna and the Sea-wee-wanna.

The Showboat was roughly where the rental storage units west of the I-90/NW Blvd/Ramsey interchange are.

Inland Marine was where the CdA Resort Convention Center and cruise boats are now.

The Lighthouse was the biggest hunting & fishing store. They had cases on the sidewalk where local fishermen displayed their big catches on ice. The loan offices for Wells Fargo are there now.

Sunset Raceway was roughly where the Shilo Inn is on West Appleway.

Knudtsen Chevrolet is now Headmasters.

Can't remember if it was Holsum or Bogge Brothers who tossed mini loaves of bread at the parade. Much better than candy.

Must have got darker earlier then, fireworks at 9:30pm.

Ray Jones Marina is now 11th Street Marina.

Remember S&H Green Stamps?

The Shady Rest was a great place. When Hwy 10 became I-90, it was cut off from the road. It's the somewhat abaondoned place you see behind the fence east of town. Bummer.

Kennedy Buick is now Takara & the Olympia.
First Federal S&L is now Canton Chinese.

The Boots & Saddle is now the parking lot for O'Shea's Irish Pub. Their Thursday smorgasbord was awesome, said the growing boy (me).

Stay tuned for what I throw at you next.

dw