Seven years ago today one of the most brutal crimes ever to take place in our community claimed the lives of Brenda Groene, her middle-school aged son Slade and her fiance Mark McKenzie. Brenda's two youngest children, Dylan, 9 and Shasta, 7 had been kidnapped by the murderer. Looking back in my column archives I re-read what I wrote just after Shasta was finally rescued. It still breaks my heart. Shasta is now a teenager living in another state and Joseph Duncan awaits his earthly punishment on Death Row.

From Main Street 2005: "With the first news of a horrific triple murder and two young children kidnapped in the dead of night, it's been hard to fathom that something like that could happen here. Although it's rather unreasonable to think that bad things only happen to other people who live in other towns with names national newscasters mispronounce. We all waited for news we knew would not be good and speculated on who could have done such a thing and why would they do such a thing and where could those innocent young children be ... and how their family must suffer the not knowing.

Then miracle of miracles, little Shasta Groene was rescued and we had a brief fleeting moment to rejoice, as long as we didn't think too much about the tragic, horrible fact that she'd been nearly two months in the clutches of a genuinely evil and perverted predator and that her brother, Dylan, was nowhere to be found. He would be found and then it became too awful again to imagine what unspeakable terror Shasta must have survived and that Dylan did not.

The mother of a Fernan Elementary classmate of the Groene children has agonized over the questions she's been asked by her 7-year-old. Mommy, what is a sexual predator? We tell our kids that monsters aren't real.

They don't live under the bed or in dark closets. Or do they?

Joseph Duncan has visited a lifetime of sorrow and tragedy on three families. He's unsettled an entire community and stolen a bit of innocence from thousands of our children. For the most part sexual predators look like anyone you might see at the grocery store and gas station, just like Joseph Duncan."

Thirty-two years ago on May 18 the most incredible natural disaster in the Pacific Northwest took place when Mount St. Helens erupted. Even hundreds of miles away the ash blocked the afternoon sunshine and turned our town dark. The fallout from the ash was felt for days, even weeks. People went about their daily lives ... wearing disposable white face masks to keep from inhaling the ash and limiting use of vehicles during the worst of it. A cottage industry of souvenir sales of bottled volcanic ash flourished for a year or two. The images from the volcano are still incredible to see.

Oh my, thanks to everyone for the overflowing of well-wishes on my 60th birthday on Monday. One of my daughters said that I was actually just an 18-year-old with 42 years of experience. I like that. :)

Happy birthday today to Michelle Richter (50!), Diane Wahl (60!), Kari Malkovich and Brad Maskell. Tomorrow Brad Finney, Jared Janke, Brad Enders, Christine Brannon, Skip Ryman, Shawntel Shofner (18!) will put on their party hats. On Friday Vicki Isakson marks her 40th along with fellow May 18 birthday celebrants Jeanne Helstrom, Amy Corbett, Tina Haskin, Shaun Johnson and Tom Ball. Saturday Laura Stensgar, Tom Lien, Tammy Rupinski, Kandy Tenney, Jessica Smalley, Burt Hissong, Rick Nowoj and Alison McArthur will celebrate. Sunday birthdays belong to John Goedde, Jeannie Wood Steele (50!), Lindsay Herbert, Heather Hart, Barry Lee White and Billie Sue Gross. Blowing out their candles on Monday are Jessica Bauman, Cater Hamby, Dick Epstein, Pam Freeman and K.V. Nelson. On Tuesday, May 22 wish Michelle Fehling Purcell, Fred Glisson, Ken Keast, Helen McFarland and Jonathan Larson a happy birthday!

Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. She was voted Best Local Writer for 2012 by the readers of the North Idaho Business Journal. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri is on the air Mondays and Wednesdays on 1080 ESPN AM (KVNI).