Hey, Principal! Little Brother’s Watching You

Coeur d’Alene High Principal Steve Casey is proud of younger brother Greg, the first Idahoan to serve as U.S. Senate sergeant at arms. As such, Greg oversees a $90 million budget and has the power to arrest the president (and some of us wish he would). Still, each family has a pecking order, and Steve decided recently to remind Greg of theirs. Swaggered Steve: “I can still take you.” Countered Greg, without missing a beat: “No you can’t. You couldn’t even get near me.” Guards!

Here come duh judge

Attorney Mike Verbillis, representing a woman who claims chemicals in North Idaho College’s Hedlund Building made her sick, has a strange way of impressing judges. During a recent proceeding, the Coeur d’Alene lawyer said to Judge Gary Haman: “You don’t need to be really bright to read this statute and understand it, judge.” … Sports staffers appreciated NIC wrestling coach John Owen’s personally signed letter inviting them to the big dual-meet match with powerhouse Ricks on Thursday. Even though they got it Friday. But, hey, it’s the thought that counts. … What would a day of Huckleberries be without mention of the zany Bonner County government? The Bonner County Underground has suggested a name for their new masters’ gang: Citizens Against Virtually Everything. Or CAVE. Clever. … The resistance also suggested a slogan for the next Bonner County department that gets the ax, the ax, the ax: “Last one out turn off the lights!”

Norm’s brother George

A cutline from the typographically impaired Bonner Daily Bee caught my eye. You know, the one that described a photo of skaters on Sand Creek as a scene from a George Rockwell painting. Hmmm. It must have run in the family. … Deep Thoughts from D.F.: Can Canfield can Mather? You bet it can. At least, the very least, it can can the hugging epidemic. … Old men behaving badly: Then, there was the geezer walking around Coeur d’Alene’s Sta-Fit Friday during the lunch hour with a T-shirt that read: “Quit it or you’ll go blind.” … This Huck’s for the young bozos who were westbound in a red Chevy on I-90 near Post Falls last week: The guy flashing his brights in your rear-view mirror didn’t like the way you tossed burning cigarette butts out the window. I-90 isn’t your personal ashtray!

A prize in each box

How’d you like to be NIC student Amber Yohe? Recently, she ate one little box of raisins but couldn’t quite reach the contents in the bottom of another. So, she opened the other end. Big mistake. There, she discovered a little worm. Still wiggling. Upset, Amber opened the bottom of a third box. And, voila. There was another small, wiggling worm. Now, the question that haunts Amber is: Was there a worm in the first box, too? Apparently, she’s never experienced a Tequila Sunrise.

Huckleberries

For the second time in three years, Ron Rankin, now a Kootenai County commissioner, slipped and fell during the annual parade protesting abortion. The big guy gave himself 7s for grace and technical merit and a 6.0 - on the Richter scale. … And, on the ninth day, Rankin rested: Believe it or not, Kootenai County commissioners canceled their regular business meeting last week - for lack of business. Eat your heart out, Bonner County. … Three and a half years ago, Ryan Dredke was an undersized athlete trying to make the Coeur d’Alene High freshman football team. Now, he’s bringing $40 at an auction for senior dates. The girls are fighting over him. They grow up so fast.

Parting shot

Paul Friend, publisher of a Silver Valley weekly, questions the wisdom of “Dante’s Peak” movie makers. The Hollyweirders have scheduled a champagne reception in Wallace before the Feb. 8 premiere - in Kellogg. Frets Paul: “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to get people tanked up and then send them 12 miles down the highway.” But it sounds to me like nothing more than a winter version of the Lead Creek Derby.

, DataTimes MEMO: Gotta Huckleberry? Call the Huckleberry Hound Hotline: (800) 344-6718 or (208) 765-7125; daveo@spokesman.com.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria The Spokesman-Review