Hunting season tends to bring out all kinds

Sure, Silver Valley native John Austin enjoys hunting season. But he also relishes the dichotomy he sees between old-timers who hang out year-round at Rose Lake junction Conoco and greenhorns in their Cabela’s camouflage get-up. At Huckleberries Online, John discussed the difference. First, the newbies: “They pull into the junction with their brand new Cummings-powered trucks, with the ‘straight-from-the-showroom’ ATVs. They’re towing the brand new 38-foot Arctic Fox trailer. They’re going to rough it, all right, what with the twin air conditioners on top, next to the Sat TV dish. It’s 15 degrees out and they need air conditioners? Not to worry, they’ve got the furnace to keep ’em warm and the generator running full time keeping the ice maker going. A guy’s gotta have his Chivas Regal on the rocks, after all. As they exit their rigs (smoking $20 dollar Cuban stogies), the locals chuckle at their attire. Camo’ed from hat to boots from the Cabela’s Deer Camp Collection, they are hell-bent for killin’ something. Even their faces are camo, we guess just in case they run into a herd of ‘commando’ elk along the way.” Their guides arrive a short time later, pulling horse trailers. Which confuses the locals: Will they ride the ATVs and pack with horses? Or the other way around? Concludes John: “The only guide a local’s ever needed was their father and late Uncle Buck.” Now, John’ll explain the right way to hunt.

Hunting Idaho’s way

The natives, meanwhile, are wearing “their Carhartts from work, suspendered via the green-and-white plaid shirts topped by an old felt fedora.” John continues: “They look like they belong in the woods with their ’90s-era Dodge pickups laden with camp gear, including the canvas Army-issue tent, potbellied wood stove and cast iron Dutch oven. If they have an ATV, it’s the same one they use to get firewood in the spring and to plow snow in the winter.” The oldtimers watch as the newbies showed off their high-tech gear (GPS, spotting scopes, binocs, etc.) And they chuckle as the greenhorns mention they’re ‘goin’ up Marble Creek, ’cause they heard it was good.’ The oldtimers know there ain’t any elk left in the Joe. (What last winter didn’t kill the wolves have.) But that’s okay, John concludes, the oldtimers “don’t want ’em anywhere near their elk, anyway.”

Huckleberries

County Clerk Dan English offers a challenge along with the following percentages from Kootenai County for the last three prez elections: 1996 – Dole, 48 percent, Clinton, 35 percent, Perot, 16 percent; 2000 – Bush, 66 percent, Gore, 32 percent; 2004 – Bush 66 percent, Kerry, 32 percent. Can you predict what percentage John McCain and Barack Obama will receive in Kootenai County Tuesday? … Quotable Quote: “I haven’t dressed up in years (for Halloween), and apparently everything that is available in the mainstream for females is some sort of variation of a prostitute costume – construction worker with a short dress, a milk maid, a bumble bee, etc. Seriously? – Alexis Roiszen, UI Argonaut … Berry Picker JeanieSpokane sez Spokane has far worse drivers than Coeur d’Alene: “Every day I feel like I am in some kind of road rage derby; speeding, tailgating, cutting you off, passing on a residential street, running yellow lights and acting like the Pied Piper by dragging five, six, seven cars behind you through the now red light. I buckle up, turn my lights on, and am half tempted to reach for a helmet” … If things really go to heck, former S-R colleague Taryn Hecker lists her survival goods as “Miller High Life and fine chocolates.”

Parting shot

Anyone with a mailbox knows how state Sen. John Goedde, R-CdA, has spent some of his $77,140 (and counting) that he has raised for his race against Demo Ken Howard and Independent Jeremy Boggess. On direct-mail fliers. I’ve gotten a dozen or so from Goedde and his allies. So has Berry Picker Bree who cried “uncle” on my blog this week. Quoth Bree: “I’m going to save them all up and shove them in an envelope and mail them back to them. It’s ridiculous. Are they trying to annoy me into voting for him?” We’ll soon see if Goedde’s annoy-’em-to-death strategy works.