Calvin Ray McCalmant, 72

Dear Uncle Calvin,

It’s a strange thing to encapsulate all of the things that are uniquely you, write them down, and sort through all of my own memories, as well as those from before I got to be part of your life. Before I start with the parts of your life that were shared with me, I’ll start with the day you were born to Glen and Bonnie McCalmant, Ma and Pa as you always called them, on Aug. 12, 1951. Your Pa was away from home working the day you were born at the Old Bonners Ferry Hospital, and your Ma wanted to be sure that Dr. Bowles was the one to help her bring you into the world. It was a busy day at the hospital and there was another woman there too, and apparently the nurses had a bet going on which baby would be born first. I’m not sure how much they bet, but your Ma’s nurse came out victorious with the birth of Calvin Ray McCalmant. You already had a big brother, Terry McCalmant, and I’ll bet he was glad to have someone to play with in the house Ma and Pa built up Ruby Creek when you got a little older.

I would have enjoyed running around with you and Terry up Ruby Creek, and from an early age it was clear to your Ma that you weren’t afraid of anything. One time when you and Terry were headed down to play in the creek, a horned cow was blocking the path. Most of us would have just gone around or tried to herd her out the way, but not you! You grabbed her by the horns and pushed her out of the way and kept right on going down the path to the creek. You also became fascinated with snakes at a very young age while living up Ruby Creek. Terry ran into the house exclaiming “The worms are biting Calvin!,” and when Ma went outside to see what was happening, she found you with a den of ticked off baby garter snakes. I know your love of the outdoors, fishing and hunting started up Ruby Creek.

You were gifted a baby brother, my dad, Jack McCalmant in July 1955, and I’m not sure you were ever thrilled at the prospect of having a younger brother. Conversely, I know your Ma actually wanted three boys and three girls; maybe you were lucky they stopped with my dad. I still laugh when I picture you and Terry, tying the baling twine to the tongue of the red wagon between your’s and Terry’s bicycles and suggesting he hang on tight as you went down the road. It was either that or leaving him behind since he couldn’t keep up. I think it was those types of character building events that was your way of showing my Dad you cared.

When you were in the seventh grade, Ma found a big gardener snake in a potato sack in the basement, and you took it to Mr. Carlson’s biology class for him to use in class. One of your other classmates let it loose and there it went down the hallway. Junior high was also about the time you started working for Cliff Lyle on his farm down the road, where you and Terry fixed fences, put up hay, and other jobs. By then you lived in Paradise Valley, and when you were in high school you played football and your senior you started wrestling making it to the state playoffs. After graduating from Bonners Ferry High in 1969, you went to college at the University of Idaho where you majored in wildlife biology and met lifelong friends including Ed Bounty and Pat McAleney.

I always enjoyed hearing about your college adventures, and especially the stories about horseback riding with Ed Bounty and his wife Joan’s family, Chet and Miriam Henning. The time you spent riding Pandy, a stout appaloosa, hunting and seeing the backcountry was a treat. I could tell that their place was a home away from home. Keeping with the snake theme, you went to southern Idaho to catch lizards for one of your professors, and of course when you found a pair of rattlesnakes those came back to Moscow too. You kept them in coffee cans on your front porch and made a recording of them rattling. This came in handy when you hit play on recording while Terry was just about to set supper down on the table. Terry managed not to drop any dishes and I can picture the glint in your gray eyes as you watched it all unfold.

You worked hard even during college, which I think was mostly to support opportunities for hunting and fishing, and gas money for your 1959 Jeep. Leondard Hite hired you to run his combine, followed by loading spray planes at Super Cat in Lewiston, with your younger brother Jack. You also worked for a company crushing rock, and eventually Jack connected him with Owenby’s near Potlatch, Idaho, where he drove Cat and worked in the mill. Eventually you landed a job at Idaho Cedar Sales, in Troy, Idaho, which started as nine months out of the year with three months off in the fall that lined up just right with archery and rifle hunting seasons. I bet you regret your decision to make it a full-time year-round job, although I don’t remember any hunting seasons that you missed. Although most of your hobbies involved archery, guns, hunting and fishing, your great friend Pat introduced you to golf during your college years, which you kept doing as long as you were able. You played golf in the University of Idaho Men's League, along with Terry and your friend Ron Long.

August 1980, was when I first got to meet you, as our birthdays were just five days apart. I’m sure you weren’t quite sure what to do with a niece most of the time. By the time I was 6 and through your role with the Troy-Deary Archery Club things must have gotten more interesting, because you hooked me up with a compound bow and I loved going to your trail shoots. I was so proud of my first trophy. I remember when you let me pick the colors of the knocks and the feathers on my arrows and watched you put them together at Hawkeye Shooting housed in your basement. Your nephew and my older brother, Brandon McCalmant, were the only two kids going to Frederick Post Elementary that got to sight our bows in a basement while being careful not to shoot an arrow in your freezer. You “took” me hunting on Ma and Pa’s place with you, when I was pretty little, probably not quiet at all, and carrying my sling-shot and pocket knife in the hopes we’d find a grizzly. I know you hoped we didn’t stumble on any bears as you were just hoping to fill your deer tag, let alone my childhood notion of hunting any kind of bear with a pocket knife.

Brandon and I used you and Terry as horses, and no offense to Uncle Terry, but Calvin was the best. I could always count on him to be the type of horse that bites and he always bit my dad, Jack on the leg. You were always patient with me on fishing trips, of which there were many. My favorite trips were up Ball Creek, Deep Creek and Dawson Lake, and usually involved huckleberry picking, if the time of year was right. You were like following a freight train through the woods and as long as I kept a foot behind you it was easy hiking, because much like the horned cow you moved out of the way as a kid, bushes were much the same. Your cousin RuthAnn, remembers many fishing trips with you up Ball Creek as well. Your Aunt Miriam used to tell you that the best coffee had a frog in it to stir the grounds, and RuthAnn laughed as she told me about the coffee cup with the frog molded into the cup that you gave Aunt Miriam later on.

Like you, Terry and my dad, I, too, went to college at the University of Idaho. Since you still lived in Moscow, I used to come hang out at your bachelor pad sometimes. You’d call me up on Friday evenings, and invite me along to a gun show or my favorite was the black powder show up in Coeur d’Alene. I counted on you in a few unplanned things too, like when my pickup broke down and you towed me back to my duplex. Or the time one of the heifers I was feeding on a research project jumped the fence, and you and Terry came to help me get her roped and penned back up. You took me hunting up the St. Joe in your 1974 F-250 HighBoy, and we always got to hunt grouse on the way up. I loved our annual Christmas morning trap shoots, as you always had the best shotguns to try out. I’m so glad my husband Brian and our son Cameron, and Brandon and Kris’ boys, Jade, Theodore and Raistlin, had time with you. A mountain of a man, with the beard and heart to match.

Life has a way of putting distance between people as they live their lives, which was true for us in the last 10 years and I was too far away to make the trip to Bonners Ferry to see you as much as I wanted. You approached life as someone who didn’t let much get in the way of the path you chose, and that was also true on Aug. 13, 2023, when you decided it was time for another path. Say hi to Pa, my grandpa, go on another ride with Ed Bounty, and please don’t catch any more snakes, as your Ma had enough of that with those two rattlers you caught in college.

Your Favorite Niece,

Tanya (McCalmant) Thrift

P.S. I couldn’t resist signing off that way, since I’m the only niece and that’s how I signed stuff that I sent to you, or when I’d call to see if you were home.