Who’s the bulliest of them all?

In her now-monthly CdA Press column, community scold Mary Souza claimed that Councilman Mike Kennedy intimidated one of her OpenCDA.com gang. And demanded that such intimidation by Mayor Sandi Bloem, ex-LCDC chairman Charlie Nipp, Kennedy, and other city, ahem, knuckle-breakers must stop. Which prompted your Huckleberry Hound to consider possible community intimidators. For some reason, Duane Hagadone’s name popped to mind. So I published an online poll to see who my Merry Hucksters considered to be the most intimidating individual in town. His Duaneness won – with 44 percent of the 108 votes cast. In a distant second among the eight named individuals, with 10 percent of the vote, was – (drum roll, please) moi. (Dang those SR circulation guys!) Interestingly, Kennedy and Souza tied for third, with 7 percent apiece. Bloem and Nipp combined for a total of four votes. Mebbe intimidation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, too.

A blade too wide

Sometimes, in small towns, something as minor as a snowplow can decide future events. In Hauser, city officials were meeting at the Rainbow Inn (now Lakeview Inn) when D.J. Nall moved to town in 1977. In her Hauser Thoughts blog, D.J. (aka Frum Helen Back) tells how she’d never set foot in a bar before her first council meeting – and then vomited on the flowers outside after several locals greeted her by buying drinks. Later, the council met at the fire station and the front office of the then-new City Hall. At the time, the current council chambers served as the garage for the snowplow and other city equipment. That changed when then Mayor Gary Mallon appointed D.J. and another council member to find a new snowplow. They did. Only they didn’t measure the width of the blade. Which was too big for the garage doors. Undaunted, Mallon, a career military man accustomed to occasional snafus, transformed the garage into a meeting room and ordered the existing metal building constructed to house Hauser equipment. That’s DJ’s Hauser her-story – and she’s sticking to it.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: Quite frankly, sir,/it gives me pause/to behold the creatures/that make our laws – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Concerning Televised Congressional Hearings”) … North Idaho counties voted a paler shade of red in the 2008 prez election, according to the Center for American Progress. But not as pink as Idaho overall. Where Demos made presidential-level gains of 13 percent. In North Idaho, Benewah County shifted 12 percent toward D’s; Kootenai, 8 percent; Bonner and Boundary, 6 percent apiece; and Shoshone, 4 percent. Meanwhile, Sandpoint-born Sarah Palin governs the state of Alaska. Which shifted the most toward Repubs, 26 percent … In responding to news that CNN had featured the Sun Meadow (Nude) Resort near Worley in a story about “nakations” this week, SR photog Jesse Tinsley recalls taking photos there once, adding this: “From far away, it’s hard to tell nude old men from nude old women” … In the “Kids Say The Darndest Things” category, blogger Nic Casey tells of this conversation between two small fries: 3YO: “What are we having for dinner?” Nic: “Spaghetti.” 3YO: “Bughetti? I love Bughetti!” 4YO: No! – not bughetti. … It’s pasketti” … Bumpersnicker (spotted in Kootenai Medical Center parking lot by Steve Sibulsky): “God bless our troops; especially our snipers.”

Parting shot

If you can remember the ’60s, an old saying goes, you weren’t there. Well, former solon Gary Ingram did attend Idaho’s version of Woodstock – the 1971 Universal Life Church Picnic at Farragut State Park. But it’s not what you think. As chairman of the Kootenai County GOP, Gary was raising a young family and curious about the invasion of long-hairs into North Idaho. Gary told Huckleberries Online readers what he found: “My vice chair and I took my boat out on the lake and took pictures of people (having sex) on the beach; went into the park and witnessed the selling of drugs and selling beer and wine without a license; watched young people drunk or stoned and out of control; witnessed a large cache of entry money being collected and whisked away to places unknown in an old pickup with hippie folks in charge of the steering wheel.” Sounds like a good time was not had by all.