A Night on the Dickensheet
BY John Olson
A Night on the Dickensheet
It had been one of those hot summer days in Spokane (circa 1949). Even Spokane gets hot when you’re working outside in the blazing sun. I just finished the work-week at the E.C. Olson lumber company. It was a good job for a 15 year old…don’t remember exactly how old…about 15 or 16…but it was hot out there in the lumber yard stacking lumber and unloading bags of cement. I was hot and tired and I wanted to go to the Lake. Priest Lake was paradise to me in those years, away from the city, on the beautiful lake where I spent almost every summer. But this summer I was working at my grandfather’s lumber company in Spokane. So I could only go to the Lake on the weekends. I was thankful for the job in Spokane and enjoyed it because it was very physical and helped me stay in shape for Coach Frazier and Gonzaga High football. But it was Friday evening and I just wanted to be at the Lake. I don’t remember where everyone was that late afternoon. Maybe they were home, but no one was going to the lake. I was on my own if I wanted to wake up tomorrow at Priest. I had no way to get there.
I decided to hitch hike. I don’t think I had ever hitch hiked before, but I had seen guys do it all the time. Got to be a cinch! I’ll catch a ride and I’m at the Lake in a couple of hours. That’s what I’ll do: catch a ride. So I’m on North Division on the outskirts of Spokane, and it was pretty easy as I remember. It didn’t take long before a man stopped and asked where I was going. To my amazement he and his daughter were heading for Priest Lake. I got a glimpse of the girl as I climbed into the back seat; she was pretty and a couple years older than me, I think. She was from our cross-town rival, Lewis and Clark High. I didn’t know her but had seen her somewhere and I knew she was from LC. I settled in for the two-hour or so ride. No one talked the whole way. Well, we must have talked a little but I don’t remember much talking at all. I do remember I was a shy 15 year old and she was very pretty, which made it impossible for me to talk to her.
After awhile, as we were getting close to the Lake, the father asks me where I was going on the Lake. I said Coolin where my grandfather had a cabin. Unfortunately, he and his daughter were going to the other side of the Lake. No problem. Just let me off and I‘ll hitch hike the final several miles over the Dickensheet. The Dickensheet was what they called the stretch of road from the main highway to Coolin. It had been an old gravel road when I first started coming to Priest Lake, but now had been straightened a bit in places and paved several years earlier.
It was a very dark night as I remember, just not much moonlight at all; but a beautiful, calm, balmy north Idaho night. I’ll get a ride and be in the cabin in no time. Except for the first half-mile or so it was a pretty flat stretch. I hiked down the hill and across the bridge over the Priest River but no cars yet. I didn’t have a watch but it must have been 8 o’clock or so. I knew a car would be coming along any minute and stop for me. It was really dark on that road; I could barely see the black asphalt surface as I tried to stay to one side. I think I was talking to someone, myself of course, and it made the time go faster. Not one car passed me in either direction. I was getting worried. Would I be out there alone all night trying to stay on the dark asphalt? I would run a while and walk awhile. I had heard that’s what the boy scouts did to cover long, boring distances. The tall trees on either side of the road made it darker still. It was impossible for me to see where I was walking sometimes. The noise and feel of my feet on the asphalt was my guide. Believe it or not, not one car passed me in either direction that night. As I look back, I can’t believe I didn’t see a single car on the Dickensheet, but I can’t remember any. Somehow the name “Dickensheet” seemed appropriate. How long I walked and ran I don’t know.
Finally I did get to Coolin and to the cabin. The cabin was open as usual; sometimes the handy man, Shorty Brackandorf, opened it in anticipation of someone coming up from Spokane on the weekend. I don’t remember what time it was, but I didn’t care. I was at the Lake at last. In the morning I would walk to the end of the dock and enjoy the view that I loved, outlet point across the bay, north toward Luby Bay and the islands. And maybe see the Meyers girls on their nearby dock. To this day I don’t know how far I traveled that night over the Dickensheet. One thing I do know, I vowed never to hitch hike again.