Making friends in the Magic Valley

Marce and Lester, great friends

We’re sitting on a tour boat on the Snake River in Idaho, sipping great coffee as the storied 1000 Springs area unfolds before us.

Look! Up there! Waterfalls erupting from the canyon walls. It looks like the mountains are weeping. And those birds! Mud swallows by the thousands. Flocks of black and white ducks? Gulls? Pelicans? Not sure.

Sadly, the “stories” of this area are mine to discover elsewhere, because the tour boat captain's not one for talking. Much.

I expected a narrative from him. All I get are notes. 

  

Until Lester sits down.

Lester and Marce, his long-time friend and fellow Berkeley graduate, are part of the Road Scholar group on this tour boat with us. They sat in the rear of the boat until the sun got too hot, then asked to join us in the shade.

From this moment on, Lester entertains with his non-stop stories, about the time he was asked to be an astronaut, got to meet John Glenn, but then turned down the opportunity. Or about bunking with a general in Vietnam. Or writing a supply acquisition order signed off without comment by McNamara himself. Or how his cousin was appointed ambassador to Finland, simply because he spoke Finnish.

And on and on. He then recites lengthy beautiful passages from "Kubla Khan."

Marce says little. She just grins as Lester tells his tales. She lightly touches his upper arm now and then. Probably when the tales get too tall.

Doesn’t matter.

The stories have nothing to do with this beautiful part of the world, called the Magic Valley. But they color my world magnificently, because Lester (who’s been a doctor, a geologist and a fighter pilot, and is 90 years old) tells them.