The search for Bing Crosby.

The town of Spokane lies in the eastern desert of Washington between the two great ranges of mountains, Cascades and Rockies.

Don’t give the name the long “a” its spelling suggests. It’s pronounced “Spoke-Ann”.

Spokane has few claims to fame.

It is a very proud and proper town. Not small. It has a wonderful river with suspension rides along it. It has a carousel and a fountain in a riverside park.

It has a giant Nordstrom store and a posh and polished three-floor city mall. It has skywalks, to keep people protected when shopping in the winter.

It has a frightfully old-school and posh Spokane Club in the heart of town. It was once an esteemed and exclusive gentlemen’s club, now made family friendly with a formal restaurant and the city’s most popular health centre.

For some reason, we are staying there. As it turns out, it is nothing to write home about. So I will.

The pompous facade and rather puffy oldies who are strutting around proprietorially belie the dowdiness of the rooms. The walls are brown. Entirely unadorned. The bathroom is too small to lay out one’s wetpack. That must be why it has L’Occitan bathroom products dispensed from bottles attached to the walls.

The bed is spongy and squeaky, albeit it brags handsome wooden high posts. There’s a sheet and a blanket. The air conditioning works in two modes: arctic and off. It leaks water on the floor. My requested “view” results in a 4th floor room and an aspect over the next door sporting building and some sad wasteland, across which is what looks like a mosque. It turns out to be the city’s medical centre.

Spokane has a respected university, however. Oddly named. Not Garbanzo…um, Gonzaga.

It is really very large and very handsome.

Spokane has produced some famous people:

Neil LaBute

David Lynch

Hilary Swank

AND

of course

its most famous son

BING CROSBY

This is America. I want Bing Crosby souvenirs. I want Bing postcards, memorabilia…I want Bing kitsch, for heaven’s sake.

I go into a souvenir shop. It has a few Spokane items but, mainly, it is coming apart with things to do with huckleberries. Mugs, measuring glasses, teatowels, fridge magnets, keyrings, preserves, candies, cookies, even huckleberry coated pretzels. I ask at the counter if there is any Bing Crosby matter.

The woman is taken aback.

She says nothing for a while.

I burble on about how this was his home town and surely…?

“You know,” she says slowly. “I’ve worked here for 20 years and you are the first person who has ever asked. I must tell the owner.”

Spokane is not so proud of this superstar son, it seems.. I find a picture of him on the Spokane Club journal under the title “You’re in Good Company at the Club Hotel”. It’s a publicity shot at the Club’s switchboard circa 1946. No other mention.

It's a mission. Bing must be here. Fired up in investigative journo mode, I hit Google and find that his family house is in the grounds of the university and that there is a Crosby Centre and he donated his gold records to the university and there and, yes, there is a statue.

Out with the maps. It’s the other side of town. Not exactly prominent. Not a bit prominent. But thanks to my navigator extraordinaire, Bruce, we find it.

And here it is. Bing and his golf clubs.

Of course we understand why they don’t want to make too much fuss about that silken-voiced old Rat Pack crooner in Spokane. Everyone knows that behind the lovely, warm voice was a cold-hearted man.