Here's a full-circle story, and one of the many reasons I love where I live.

The Post Falls Community Volunteers held its annual Sweetheart Ball at the Greyhound Park Saturday night. On Sunday morning, Tom Lien brought veggie trays, buns, dressing, chips and cookies that they didn't use to American Legion Post 143. The Legion breakfast volunteers sent some with the Idaho Army National Guardsmen who were having breakfast on their drill weekend, and some was delivered to the St. Vincent de Paul warming center.

As Post 143 has done this winter, we packed up what was left from breakfast at the Legion - bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes, biscuits, gravy and hash browns - also for the warming center. The Post had a number of other items, including canned and pantry goods nearing expiration that were delivered to Post Falls Food Bank and the Post Falls Senior Center.

An unbroken circle of a generous public, volunteers and four nonprofit service organizations sharing their resources.

For 61 years, I've marked the actual date of my birth in May, but Feb. 24 is when I celebrate my second-chance birthday. That's the day in 2006 that coronary stents were placed in two coronary arteries that were nearly 100 percent blocked. I dodged the heart attack bullet by maybe a day or a week or a month. Without the intervention of the Kootenai Heart Center, I would have had a heart attack that I may or may not have survived. I did have a heart attack two years later on Jan. 17, 2008 but getting to the emergency room at the outset allowed the trained medical professionals to again place stents, and permanent damage was prevented.

Coronary heart disease is America's No. 1 killer, claiming twice as many lives as all forms of cancer combined. It is not a man's disease or an old person's disease. It's an equal opportunity disease that has been particularly prevalent in my Baby Boomer generation. We're not dumb, we're in denial.

Listening to your body. Being proactive and assertive where medical care is concerned is vital. I continue to be humbled by the knowledge that for whatever reason I've been given not one but two second chances at life. www.heart.org.

Here are a couple of quotable quotes from Facebook friends:

* Jenni Grimmett, veterinarian: "The very best gifts are the ones you have to feed."

* Suzanna Spencer, who commutes from Spirit Lake to Post Falls: "Driving is easy... stopping is a problem. Be careful out there."

Happy birthday today Faith Valente, Bonnie Guindon, Kim Edmondson, Rochenda Crane and Laura Wilson and tomorrow to Elmer Currie, who's celebrating his 94th, Rachel Fehling, Sam Crawford, Ron Vieselmeyer, Jim Prussack, Sherry Adkins, Ken Martin and Toby Flood.

Valentines Day birthdays will be celebrated by Don James (84!), Jason Hayes, Tripp Rogers, Jan McDaniels, Joe Doellefeld, Susan DuBois, David Lunceford, Jean Bledsoe, Mike Shepperd, Kaelyn Bingham and LaDonna Beaumont.

Feb. 15 is a special occasion for Jeff Conroy, Linda Jaegar, Mindy Hatcher, Tracy Dickinson, Craig Smith, Art Sullivan, Sandi Hall and Donna Montgomery.

Sunday, Bob Hough, the perennial bobby-soxer DJ turns 87, sharing a birthday with Stephanie Smith, Paula Rehrmann, Tom Thompson, Diana Farquhar, Adam Averill, Deanna Goodlander, Morgan Dickinson, Bruce English, Quinn Kennedy and Jim Wilson.

Blowing out their birthday candles on Monday are Mike Kennedy, Dorene Russell, Dewey Berndt, Helen Pischner, Lisa Ortize, Steve Mills, Don DuBois, Chuck Ethridge and Mary Button, and on Tuesday, Jill Monroe, Steve Shepperd, Susie Bingham, Pershia Moser and Abbie Nowland.

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 2013 by the readers of the North Idaho Business Journal. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email mainstreet@cdapress.com.