Conlan remembered with laughs, love
SANDPOINT — One measure of a man is the way in which people say his name. If they feel that the last name alone carries enough weight, all the better as a benchmark of his impact on those around him.
Since the mid-1960s, residents around Sandpoint have intoned one fine, Irish surname on a regular basis — sometimes with gravitas, other times in mirth, and always followed by a mystified shake of the head and a hearty laugh.
“Conlan,” they’d say, as if the name was the only possible way to punctuate any number of stories about the man. Close friends called him “Joe Veal” — a play on the word jovial. For a time, he was known around town as The King of Fun.
John Conlan died on Dec. 4, after a life that was led with the hammer down and a heart wide open to the world.
His son, Chris, immediately contacted lifelong friend Amy Borup to let her know is father had moved on.
“Chris texted me and said, ‘Last call was at 12:31 p.m.,’” Borup shared. “That’s how I found out.”
It was a fitting sendoff. As one of Sandpoint’s best-known and most colorful bartenders over the past nearly 50 years, Conlan heard more confessions than a busload of priests, gave more counsel than a warehouse full of psychiatrists and told more jokes than a comedians’ convention.
“I don’t know where he got ‘em all,” said Conlan’s cousin, Jack McDonnell. “He’d call me up every couple of days with a new one. He never said ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’ — just told me the joke and hung up.”
When he swaggered your way across a parking lot or down the aisle of the grocery store, you knew a good joke was in the offing. If he started twisting is moustache during the approach, it was going to be a really good one.
Conlan moved to Sandpoint in 1964, fresh out of the U.S. Marine Corps and ready to have fun. He succeeded to the point where he hauled a large fan club of revelers in his wake. One of those early friends was Bill Currie, who formed a musical duo with Conlan on ukulele and Currie on gutbucket bass. The repertoire was limited, at best — a handful of Tahitian songs and folk favorites such as “Yellow Bird.”
Playing for beers, the duo would exhaust their song list at one location, then pack up and move to the next watering hole for a repeat performance.
“He was part of the fabric that made Sandpoint what it is,” said Currie. “John was a unique guy that graced us for about 50 years and he leaves a big void.”
At first working as a bartender at the legendary but long-gone Ricardo’s Pizza establishment and later running the place with McConnell, he amassed a collection of running buddies who look back on the era with gratitude for having known the man, as well as for having survived hanging out with him.
John Pucci lived with Conlan during college, soon after the latter moved up from California.
“John was a classic guy and I’m going to miss him,” said Pucci, recalling how his friend used to start his old DeSoto with a screwdriver “so he never had to worry about losing his keys.”
The two were guaranteed at least one meal every week, since Thursdays were peanut night at the local bar, allowing them to spend
what little money they had on essentials like beer, while filling up on free peanuts.
Pucci worked on ski patrol at Schweitzer, which prompted Conlan to think a job on the mountain might be a good fit for him, as well. On his first day, the new hire showed up as a lift operator dressed in all the wrong kind of clothes and with a less-than-helpful approach to working with the clientele.
“The first couple that came up the chair fell off right in front of him,” said Pucci. “He thought it was funny, so instead of helping them get up, he stood there and laughed at them.”
By lunchtime, Conlan had decided that it was time to end his ski industry career.
“He rode down the chairlift, walked into the office and told them he wanted his check,” Pucci said. “I was the longest-term employee Schweitzer ever had — and John was the shortest.”
During his time in Sandpoint, Conlan drove a beer truck for Bill Jones Distributors, worked for Anson Saccomanno at his glass business and later opened his own glass company. But it was in tending bar that Conlan found his calling, serving as mixologist for a long list of establishments that included Ricardo’s, Traveler’s Bar, the T-Bar, City Club, Chateau, Middle Earth, Shenanigans and the Kamloops.
“John was a popular bartender and he tended to draw his own crowd,” said Bob Waterous, who installed windshields with Conlan for a time before hiring him as barkeep for the Kamloops. “He always had a million jokes, but he was also a genuinely good soul who had a connection with people that was uncommon.”
“And he was the greatest pool shot I’ve ever seen — absolutely amazing,” added Currie.
Waterous described watching Conlan best any number of opponents and meet their grumblings about the quality of the cues or the balance of the table with an unusual invitation.
“He would beat somebody and, if they started complaining, he’d say, ‘OK, I’ll play you with a broomstick,’” Waterous said. “Then he’d chalk up the end of a broomstick and still run the table. He was that good.”
At pool, it was skill that carried the day. In the game of life, the luck of the Irish came into play. One on occasion, his friends insisted that he accompany them on a trip to Banff. Conlan emptied his pockets to show them he only had $1.25 to his name, but his companions threw him in the car and off they went.
Three days later — after eating and drinking like a king during his stay at the Mount Royal Hotel — John Conlan came home with $1.60 in his pocket.
Luck must have played a part in a more explosive chapter of Conlan’s life, when he and friend Max Singleton bid on and won the contract to blow up and remove the old docks at City Beach in the winter of 1974. Never mind that neither of them had any experience whatsoever in blasting or demolition. They hastily concocted a business name -Wrenco Wrecking & Salvage — purchased four boxes of dynamite and set to work.
“We only worked on days when the wind was blowing toward the shore, so we wouldn’t have to go out on the water and chase the wood around,” said Singleton. “We traded the wood to the Garden Restaurant for $2,500 in lunches. We’d blow up 16 pilings at a time and then go to lunch.
“When we were just about done, somebody who worked for the city came down and asked us, ‘You guys do have a license for this kind of work, don’t you?’” he continued. “When we told him we didn’t, he said, ‘Well, don’t tell anyone now! You’re almost finished with the job!’”
Legions of newcomers to Sandpoint have listed John Conlan as the first person they met in town. Among those ranks was singer/songwriter Cinde Borup, who came to town with her daughter, Amy.
“He was the first friend my mom made when we moved here in 1975,” Amy Borup said. “I was seven and John used to stay at our house and take care of me when my mom was away at gigs.
“I would come downstairs in the morning and, if John was on the couch, I knew they’d had a party,” she added. “If he was on the floor, it was a good party. And if he was on the floor and the coffee table was turned over, it was a great party.”
Borup grew up around Conlan’s son, Chris, with the two of them playing together and putting on living room plays for their parents.
“Chris wore an ‘afro’ wig and pretended he was the bartender and I played a patron at the bar,” Borup said.
The costume, for Chris, was appropriate, since his father was known in the early days as the owner of some of the largest hair in the Northwest.
“It was pretty outrageous,” said Chris. “His hair was so big that it would move independently of him. He would take a step and his hair would show up a couple of seconds later.”
The full scale of his mane was on display in a video that captures something Conlan helped organize with friends — the Super Fools Olympics. Held in Clark Fork, the competition included such rigorous events as the Chump Wagon Race, featuring two people and a wheelbarrow in a backwards-only run. An obstacle course was made up of items like a two-by-four placed on the ground, a single tire, a bale of hay and a bar stool — the final prop being the only one that actually mattered, since timed beer drinking was the critical element at this stage of the competition.
Beyond the jokes and the larger-than-life escapades, the thing most often mentioned about John Conlan is the man’s generosity of spirit.
“He would take the shirt off his back for you,” said Dyno Wahl, executive director for the Festival at Sandpoint. “He was honest and kind and jolly and fun — people loved him. You find people of all ages and from all circles who say that John touched their lives.”
Conlan ran the bar during the Festival at Sandpoint concerts, which Wahl said was “the biggest profit center on the field.” Working alongside co-manager Jenni Hewitt, they developed the business to the point where a second bar had to be opened on the field for the 2013 season.
“People always referred to us as the Odd Couple, but we actually complemented each other very well,” Hewitt said.
When she learned that her friend had died, Hewitt broke into tears. After a bit, her daughter, Madi, stepped up beside her and held out a tiny key.
“She said, ‘Mom, I think you should have this — John gave it to me,’” Hewitt said. “I asked her why John had given her a key and she told me, ‘He said it was the key to his brain and that’s why it’s so small.’
“I could just hear his voice saying it and it made me smile,” Hewitt added.
Just as his humor lives on, John Conlan’s big heart stays rooted in the town he loved.
In the 1990s, he twice ran for mayor. It was no joke, friends attest. Responding to complaints about what was perceived to be a heavy handed approach to law enforcement at the time, Conlan was the guy who put his behind on the line and ran for office, because he thought he could make a difference.
One of the “Conlan for Mayor” signs was framed and, for several years, has circulated through various fundraising auctions to help raise money for good causes, his son pointed out. It brought in nearly $300 at the first such event and, most recently, fetched $700 for charity. Each time the sign goes to a new home, the winner must pledge to donate it for the next benefit that comes up.
“That’s indicative of my father,” Chris Conlan said. “A kinder, more giving creature has never graced this planet. And it’s very apropos that he’s still giving, even though he’s not with us in person.”
Hydra Steakhouse owner Mike Armstrong came to know Conlan a little later in the story.
“He kind of came with the place when I bought it, like a permanent fixture,” said Armstrong, who purchased the restaurant in 2004.
“John was a no-nonsense guy,” he went on. “He did exactly what he wanted to do and said exactly what he had to say, but everybody still felt like he was their best friend. He was all about the moment. That’s the way he lived his life. He was happy — and you can’t put a price on happiness.”
Chris Conlan said he plans to take some time before deciding how to spread his father’s ashes. Part of the reason is that he is faced with honoring a paternal directive that involves the most unusual approach to bar hopping imaginable.
“He told me for years that his last request was that we take a little bit of his ashes and flush them down the toilet of every bar in town,” Chris Conlan said. “That was my father. He wasn’t just unorthodox, he was anti-orthodox.”
An Irish wake-themed celebration of life for John Conlan will take place on Jan. 11, starting at 4 p.m., at The Hive in downtown Sandpoint.
The Festival at Sandpoint has set up a memorial fund to help the Conlan family with medical expenses. Those interested can donate in person at Panhandle State Bank, or on line at: www.gofundme.com/5o8hik