Look off to your right the next time you're driving down Northwest Boulevard to the lake, just before you get to City Park.

Yeah, I know - you're going to say that nothing's changed in years in that area. But, no, - you'd be wrong.

As you scan the area between you and North Idaho College a little closer, you notice things look a tad bit different. Then it hits you.

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Memorial Field has been spruced up.

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It's all thanks to Americorps of North Idaho, a national volunteer group, and the Coeur d'Alene Parks Department, who teamed up to give Memorial Field a fresh coat of paint in late April.

No matter which way you drive by, the once run-down bleachers, which had more exposed wood than paint covering them, and now the mossy green paint on the large wood structure blends in well with the lush City Park between it and the lake.

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And not a moment too soon.

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Summer's here (finally) and droves will drive to the lake shore, ditch their car near City Park and enjoy the all the fun and festivities downtown Coeur d'Alene has to offer.

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And they won't have a negative image of Memorial Field to remember.

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Back in July 2006, I wrote a column about what Memorial Field has meant to the area over the decades, and after doing my research it was clear that the ball field and the adjoining park factored heavily into the daily life of North Idahoans for decades.

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Doug Wood was a member of the 50-and-over Alamo Excavating team that played at Memorial Field on Sunday nights back in 2006.

Wood began playing on softball teams at Memorial in 1954, and at the time had lost track of the number of teams he had been a part of that played in leagues or tournaments there.

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Wood relayed the routine of he and his teammates back in the late 1950s and early '60s: On Fridays, the team would play at Memorial, then some of them would change into their swim trunks in the locker room and head over to the lake for a swim.

"Maybe later we'd pick up some girls and go cruise Sherman," Wood said. "We'd take in a movie, sleep in the park, then wake up and play softball all weekend. That was the freedom we had back then."

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"We had six local teams then," Wood said, looking out onto the diamond. "And there was also a pitcher's mound here, since this was the only field around, it was also used for baseball."

During the interview, Wood said he was very surprised that Memorial was still around. The vast majority of the nation's wooden stadiums were lost to fires, and he was amazed, with all the fans that smoked for decades in the bleachers, that a stray cigarette butt didn't set the structure ablaze.

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Now with a nice, thick coat of paint, the chances of that happening anytime soon have decreased dramatically.

Long live the Field of Dreams by the lake.

Jerry Hitchcock is a copy editor for The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2017, or via email at [email protected].