Caruso doing OK without college

William Petersen as “CSI’s” Gil Grissom may have retired. But that doesn’t mean county Demo chief Thom George will switch allegiance to David Caruso and Miami’s version of “CSI.” Thom has a hard time taking his ex-classmate Caruso seriously. Caruso was the Class of ’72 clown at Archbishop Malloy High School in Queens, New York. Thom and the future star were among 12 students enrolled in Mr. Egan’s American history class. Caruso had a reputation for not doing his homework. One day, he presented a small scrap of paper to Mr. Egan, with an excuse that the dog had eaten his home work or it’d been trampled on the subway. Mr. Reeves told Caruso that he should write his assignments on toilet paper because that’s what they were worth. So the next day, Thom recalls, Caruso presented Egan with a roll of Charmin upon which he’d written his assignment meticulously with a ball-point pen. Says Thom: “It was the only assignment I can recall that he turned in.” Also, Thom recalls that Caruso was one of only a handful of students from his Catholic school who didn’t go onto college. Mebbe there’s a lesson in that?

Watch Yer Mouth

Huckleberries Online commentator Cindy Hval launched a discussion when she opined that newspaper editors are in a league of their own when it comes to suh-wearin’: “All I know is they must have a special, secret profanity test for editors. If they know all the words and can use them in creative sentences, they get the job. Photographers are a close second. Then again, having hung out with off-duty police officers, I now know why they call them the ‘men in blue.’ Yeesh!” Which prompted others to chime in. Berry Picker Lynne said: “I’ve been known to let a word or two fly. I’ve also gotten up and moved, or left, a business due to loud, obnoxious, foul-mouthed (mostly) youths. Dining on the patio at the Iron Horse in the summer is the worst.” Cabbage Boy said that editors have nothing on mechanics. Sisyphus offered attorneys as the most foul-mouthed. Others getting votes included systems administrators, Navy drill instructors, and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Finally, Berry Picker Kibby nominated bartenders with one exception – those at the Powder River Saloon on Sherman. Bartenders there will levy a quarter for the first two F-bombs. And toss you out of the bar if you offend thrice. Be careful out there.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: “It is dismal and dark/and travel’s impeded,/but still I applaud it/for shovels aren’t needed” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“In Support Of Fog”) … Silver Valley native John Austin enjoys visiting tourist spots in historic Wallace, including the Brothel Museum. Quips John: “It’s kind of like visiting the Little League diamonds of one’s youth. Only, with the latter, of course, it was more difficult to get to third base.” Badabump, onward. … At Tumblewords, poet Sue Turner provides her impression of winter (“Cold And Crazy”) with this short piece: “solstice point/winter day unrolls/meets noon dusk” … In one of those odd twists, the SR wrote online stories Thursday about the apprehension of the “Pregnant Bank Robber” and an arrest in a murder on the Colville Indian Rez. What’s so odd? Christie Lynn Brisboy, 26, of CdA robbed the Bank of America and the victim’s body in the rez murder was found on the same day – March 20, 2006. OK, mebbe it’s just colleague Meghann Cuniff and me who think it’s a bit spooky … My constant misspelling of inaugaration finally stirred the teacher in retired Sandpoint High educator Marianne Love. Quoth: “It’s ‘inaugUration.’ I’m pretty sure if you remember the augurers in Shakespeare – they foretold the future. I believe ‘inauguration’ is related in that it signals a beginning.” Mea culpa.

Parting shot

Wayne Hoffman, the controversial ex-PRmeister for equally controversial ex-congressman Bill Sali, has resurfaced as executive director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation. And, before you ask, he informed Editor Vickie Holbrook/Idaho (Nampa) Press-Tribune what Idaho Freedom Foundation is – “a new nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that looks for free-market solutions to challenges facing the state.” Nonpartisan? Hoffman, the cantankerous uberconservative who even fought with conservative newspapers? This I got to see.