An e-mail making the rounds of the region contains photographic evidence that Harrison Ford stopped in Kooskia last week and had lunch at the Rivers Cafe.

Here’s what it says:

Harrison Ford and friends were flying to his ranch and landed in Kooskia for lunch last Friday. They ate at the Rivers Cafe. Picture of (cafe owner) Irene Smith was taken. … Ray said he was really nice.

And here’s the evidence:

I grew up in Kooskia, so what else am I going to search for while dinking around on YouTube?

The funny thing is kids have been jumping off that bridge (and its previous incarnation) since my dad was a kid, but it always looked dangerous to me. I much prefer my Aunt Colleen’s Rebel Without A Cause moment on that bridge. Back in the early 1950s, disgusted with school and her teachers, she picked up her stack of school books, walked out to the middle of the bridge and dropped them off, thus ending her scholastic career in Kooskia. Whenever school got too stressful, I’d think of my Aunt Colleen and smile.

Now back to our show:

There are few places like the Kooskia Variety Store left in this part of the world. There used to be one of those types of stores in most of the small towns around here — a five-and-dime like you’d see in “Leave It To Beaver.” The store was one of four that loomed large in my childhood; Gilroy’s General Merchandise, Pankey’s Foods and the Kooskia True Value were the others. Of those four, only Pankey’s Foods and the Kooskia Variety Store (barely) remain in business. The others are the victims of the Wal-Martization of America.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Kooskia’s downtown was a thriving place for a kid. The True Value had the toy room upstairs (where the Old Opera House Theatre now operates). That was the place to be when Dad wanted to buy some nails and what-not and Mom needed a new toaster, all of which were boring to a kid.

Gilroy’s had everything you could possibly want in the way of dry goods and groceries. Most of my school supplies and clothes came from there. It had old-fashioned oiled-wood floors and towering shelves stuffed with everything you could imagine. Plus, Mr. Gilroy provided free delivery service via the postal carrier. When Mom needed groceries and couldn’t make it to town from Syringa, she’d call in an order to Mr. Gilroy. He’d box everything up, tally the amount, put it on the books and send it upriver with the mail carrier. At about 3 p.m., Mom would get her baking powder, eggs, flour, coffee and ketchup. You can’t get service like that from Costco or even Albertsons or Safeway. Gilroy’s later passed to Jim and Charlotte Gilroy Baylor, who later retired and sold the building. It’s now the Kooskia Medical Clinic. That’s a valuable service, but I still wish Gilroy’s was there.

And then there was the Kooskia Variety Store. When I was a kid, the proprieters were Doris and Alfie Cheesbrough, who seemed as ancient as dust to my 10-year-old eyes. (They were probably in their 40s and 50s then.) The Variety Store was a marvelous place, chockablock filled with everything from baby dolls, rubber snakes and stuffed animals to crafting supplies, sewing notions and touristy souvenir kitsch. Best of all was the old-fashioned soda fountain, complete with spin-around stools, a chrome-and-formica counter and delicious hard ice cream. On a hot summer day, there was nothing as fun as trooping into the Kooskia Variety Store to order a hand-dipped ice cream cone from Mr. Cheesbrough. They usually came with a bonus shoulder squeeze from Mrs. Cheesbrough, who also happened to be my Sunday school teacher and one of the sweetest women you could ever imagine.

The Cheesbroughs sold the store in the mid-1970s. Wilma Link has operated it since and with the same sensibility that Mr. and Mrs. Cheesbrough gave it. She had loads of craft supplies, lots of this and that, and a little room upstairs that had toys too. Now she’s looking to retire and is hoping to sell the store. It’s listed for what I consider the bargain price of $155,000 through Remax Summit Country realty. The store is closed temporarily while she’s on vacation, but rumor has it if she can’t sell the business soon, she’ll close it permanently and begin a long-delayed retirement.

Coming on the heels of the closure of the True Value, it leaves a couple of noticeable holes in the downtown corridor. Fortunately Pankey’s Foods is still going strong. It’s been renovated over the years and it’s still one of my favorite places to shop. Pankey’s has the best cut and wrapped slab bacon around. In fact, whenever Tribune photographer Steve Hanks swings through Kooskia, I have him pick up a package of bacon for me from Pankey’s.

Kooskia’s downtown is seeing an upswing in growth, spurred mainly by Mike and Lara Smith of Three Rivers Resort. They have renovated the Western Motor Inn at Kooskia. The remodeled rooms look terrific. This summer, they’re opening the Western Bar and Cafe, which adjoins the inn. The nearly 100-year-old building is notable as a former residence of Lee Morse, a Kooskia girl who went on to worldwide fame as a singer in the 1920s.

I hope someone buys the Kooskia Variety Store and keeps it the way it is now, but I suspect that won’t be feasible. There’s a price to be paid for all those cheap Chinese goods we so love to cart home and stuff our houses with. That price is often the past, and the future, of rural America.

It can’t be a comfortable feeling to have waterfront property in some areas these days. Snowmelt-swollen rivers are making it difficult to rest easy in my hometown of Kooskia and surrounding area.

I grew up along the Middle Fork and South Fork of the Clearwater and have seen both rivers running high water. While this year doesn’t appear to be as bad as the terrible flooding of 1997, volunteers and red shirts are mobilizing to fill sandbags and protect city and private property.

A friend who lives near the South Fork said the river yesterday was running so high and fast it seemed to have a peak in the center. She took this series of photos Monday. They are of the Middle Fork near the area of the east bridge and of the Myers place near Maggie Creek. Becky Myers, who has lived on the property for 29 years, is prepared for whatever happens. Tribune reporter Elaine Williams spoke to her Sunday for a story in Monday’s Tribune. (See story below).

Good luck to everyone who’s trying to stay dry.

Homeowner near Kooskia keeps eye on river levels as flooding threat continues

By Elaine Williams

Monday, May 19, 2008

Water covered parts of the private road leading to the home of Becky Myers on Sunday and was creeping closer to her foundation.

“I have it over the driveway in three spots and the deepest one is 2 feet at the moment (and it will likely be) 2 to 3 feet higher by Tuesday,” Myers said. She lives about three miles upstream from Kooskia on the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River on the side across from U.S. Highway 12.

Myers and her husband, Michael, appeared to be the people in north central Idaho and southeastern Washington facing the most immediate threat Sunday from rising levels in rivers and streams, said Jerry Zumalt, disaster management coordinator for Idaho County.

Zumalt spent part of the weekend supervising a crew of a dozen prison inmates who placed sandbags to protect six to eight modular homes in Kooskia, just as a precaution.

He was keeping a close eye on water levels at more than one location, particularly along the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River below Lowell, which may feel the brunt of any floods first.

“We have some places that are close to being in trouble, but we don’t know what it’s going to do until tomorrow morning,” said Mark Anderson, Kooskia’s fire chief.

As of Sunday evening everything seemed to be holding aside from the Myers’ place. Zumalt expects the Middle Fork of the Clearwater and the main Clearwater to crest sometime today or Tuesday, based on forecasts he’s seeing.

How accurate those forecasts are is difficult to judge. The predictions of when the rivers in Idaho, Lewis and Clearwater counties would be the highest has changed more than once since flood watches were issued last week.

Myers seemed calm as she described the situation at her residence. They’ve lived at the property for 29 years, fully aware of the flood danger. “I know I can be safe,” Myers said. “I like this place too much. I can’t walk away from it. That would be hard.”

But she was ready to leave just for a short time if the river threatened her house. She and her husband planned to hike to a neighbor’s house on higher ground where they left their vehicles if the water made the house structurally unsound.

They did everything possible to prepare, Myers said.

They stacked a barrier seven to nine sand bags high around their home, a precaution they’ve taken only one other time, in the floods of 1997. As of late Sunday evening, the water was 10 feet away from their house.

The makeshift dike might not keep out the water, but it would at least divert the current, Myers said. They moved all their possessions away from places that were most vulnerable such as their unfinished basement.

They don’t have any immediate reason to go to town. She raises sheep and he’s retired. She had stocked up on groceries and had filled containers with 25 gallons of drinking water. That supply is in addition to a spring on the property she could use for other purposes.

All that remained on her to-do list was to hope the situation wouldn’t worsen that much. “There’s not a whole lot you can do to stop it,” Myers said.