Here's to bars, beers, cocktail napkins and all the great ideas that emerge

I always knew that many ideas — possibly even a few good and some even great ones —are hatched over a beer or two or more?

Problem is the bar napkins get wet, the ink runs and memories somehow fade unless somehow the voice texting is engaged on the iPhone.

Sure enough, mentalfloss.com has a list and it’s pretty impressive.

In 1966, Rollin King owned a small commuter air service in San Antonio, Texas and had been discussing the idea of a commuter service between San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. Out of that plan sketched out on a cocktail napkin, Southwest Airlines was born.

Add to that the Pet Rock. How could that NOT have come from an alcohol-induced session?

So were the U.S. Marines, in Tun Tavern in Philadelphia in 1775, and Shark Week — which “was definitely scribbled down on the back of a cocktail napkin”— and the Ironman Triathalon, just to name a few. But since when is running 26 miles, biking another 100 and swimming 2 miles a good idea?

Several weeks ago, fellow Eastern grad and my 40-year friend Al and I were at our semi-regular Friday meeting called “Standard Lunch” at Jack & Dan’s Bar in Spokane. We’ve been doing this gig at a variety of establishments, “solving the problems of the world since 1984” as our onetime business cards used to proclaim.

We decided a new problem needed solving, that being the upcoming football season opener for the Easter Eagles, albeit before landing Central Washington as an opponent on Sept. 1.

Al the season ticket holder said that regardless of whom the Eags would play that day, he would not be there, choosing one final weekend at his lake place at Coeur d’Alene.

I was wondering if the date would be home or away — maybe far away — which would allow my brother and I who are longtime fans of Notre Dame football to jet back to South Bend to see the Irish and Michigan. In my now 12 seasons of covering EWU football for the Free Press, however, I have missed just one home game.

We convened at JDs a couple of weeks later, once Central was confirmed, and got to chatting. Al suggested that since the opponent was three hours, not three time zones away, why not move the game to Thursday night, Aug. 30? That way he could enjoy the game, and the lake. I liked it because it allowed me to pursue sticker shock of the Notre Dame trip.

While our rational was of course selfish, it had other pluses we thought for the university.

It opened other fans options for the last summer holiday weekend.

The Eagles could play under the lights, NOT in the heat of the day. Fans, which would likely be hard to come by considering there were no students on campus, might like the evening atmosphere, too?

Moving to Thursday and becoming the first college team to play in the state of Washington in 2018 meant a less crowded in local media picture since Washington State, Idaho and the Huskies also play on Sept. 1.

There were also plenty of marketing opportunities that could be associated with being the only team in the local college football spotlight.

We got it all nice and semi-professional looking in the form of an email and shipped the admittedly “off-the-wall idea” to EWU Athletics Director, Lynn Hickey and head football coach Aaron Best.

After an electronic prod or two, Hickey got back to us with a thanks and let us know we had not been the only ones with that line of thinking.

“It is not an off the wall idea and we actually pursued this thought after scheduling the game,” Hickey wrote in an email. They too thought that playing on Thursday or Friday of the weekend might be of help to fans.

While having to first get the OK from Central, Hickey said they did a survey of some of our “die-hard” tailgaters and the majority requested keeping the game on Saturday.

We both agreed that playing football on Labor Day weekend has gambles on a number of levels.

For me, I’ll be there certainly with more money in the bank account and knowing that a trip back to South Bend will certainly wait.

Plus Indiana in the summer with potential 90-degree temperatures and 90-percent humidity. Been there, done that. It would require more time in the bar and who knows what might come of that?

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].