Remembering a very good year

From a news person’s perspective, there didn’t seem to be all that much real good stuff to recall at this year’s end and I, personally, did not accomplish anything to enhance my reputation for great modesty. Therefore, we are taking the fun but lazy road of nostalgia to the year of 1986.

Things for 1986 included Jack Nicklaus winning the Masters and it was good to hear Johnny Carson got engaged to a young lass he met on the beach. He’s been keeping her around the house… to “play cards with.” I had worried the $450,000 a year he pays the last wife might discourage Johnny from sharing a “meaningful relationship” while he still had any meaningful left.

Also going down the aisle last year were people like Caroline Kennedy, Lee Iacocca, Zsa-Zsa Gabor and one Heidi Ostrom, whose father approved because the marriage gave high hopes to our clan, which currently has no people over six feet tall. He husband, Scott Duncan, is six foot, six inches tall. The one drawback is, I’m a bit intimidated standing on a chair to get that big kid’s attention.

For me personally, ’86 was one of the most memorable years, not for great events, but for hundreds of smaller things, mostly involving good friends and the outdoors. January started well with fabulous alpine skiing at Big Mountain with new runs in the North Bowl.

Then came our wives’ knitting club trip to the big island of Hawaii, where we found great snorkeling off the reefs, whale watching flights, exploring Volcano National Park and golf. There was a warm and cautious hike through tangled jungle with Ivan O’Neil to the precipitous Upper Waipi’o Valley with waterfalls a thousand feet high.

Returning from the Pacific, I resumed writing my column for the Hungry Horse News, where it started 25 years ago. There followed many weeks of unforgettable climbs with the “Over the Hill Gang” in Glacier Park, several wild river floats and some fine fly fishing. Marian and Ivan O’Neil with Iris and I will not forget a big grizzly we met in the trail bellow Granite Park Chalet. It is a fun memory because nothing bad happened. A young man and woman were mauled there a couple of days later.

There was a perfect August photography flight along the Continental Divide and another flight were son Shannon and I saw wild wolves of the “Magic Pack” in the North Fork.

A sunny but rainy June and July, with a hot August produced the lushest, most brilliant wildflower displays remembered in the these parts. Between flora and fauna, I shot 1,500 photos. Just loved the autumn. Mine was topped off with a fantastic trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. A winter bonus was working with very talented people who came to tape Amy Grant’s Christmas Television Special.

Had promised to Iris in ’87, I would get my head out of the clouds, knuckle down, toe the mark, bite the bullet, and keep my nose to the grindstone. Promised to clean out the basement and garage, do the lawn more that twice next summer and fix the shower that has been dripping since ’85. Though I am now facing penance, I highly recommend a year like ’86 of intelligent self-indulgence.

The stupid grass isn’t goin’ any place. Nobody ever died of dirty garagitis. It’s later than you think, and the Schlitz Beer man says, “You only go around once.”

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

G. George Ostrom is an award-winning columnist. He lives in Kalispell.