Huckleberries: Now that’s what I call an appetite for news

North Idahoans know that huckleberries are delicious – the state fruit, if not a certain column by that name. The latter has helped put bread on my table since January 1985. But I’ve never heard of it being served as a main course for anyone’s supper. In her relatively short time with The Spokesman-Review, Cindy Hval achieved something that neither I nor any other columnist/reporter has. She wrote an article that was so good that a reader called to say that he’d eaten it. Cindy, for those keeping score at home, also subs for me during my vacations from the Huckleberries Online blog. She was poppin’ buttons last week over the description used by her fan to describe her Pig Out in the Park review. “Delicious” being one of the adjectives. The fan left an S-R phone recording: “It was so good that I cut it out and actually ate it.” Then, he backtracked and admitted that he hadn’t eaten it. Instead, he had licked the newsprint. Wonder how Cindy’s writing works on waffles?

You say ‘extradite’

S-R buddy Alison Boggs heard this exchange over the police scanner Thursday: “Extradite or expedite?” one person asked. “Whatever it takes to get them here faster” was the response … Facebook Friend Christopher Meyer had mixed emotions while photographing heavy equipment tearing out American Legion Baseball dugouts at McEuen Field last week: “The dugouts are coming down and I must admit I’m a bit nostalgic. However, I won’t miss the sea of asphalt (Third Street parking lot) in the foreground!” Bingo … “I know this crossing also, and I must say anything can happen. If you’re thinking about something else for one second it can be all over. It scares me to death to think my daughter is close to driving age” – a Huckleberries Online commenter reacting to the Thursday fatality at the railroad crossing at Boekel and Ramsey, near Rathdrum, that killed a 22-year-old Rathdrum woman.

Huckleberries

Rick Cooper learned something when a deer broke its leg on his neighbor’s property on Lake Coeur d’Alene recently. Neither he nor his neighbor owns a firearm. Which might be a first in the state of Idaho. Huckleberries didn’t ask how the deer was put out of its misery … “I am not mentally ready to make a fire. So I am sitting at the computer working, wearing a coat” – Publisher Trish Gannon of the River Journal … Poll: 60 percent of Hucks Nation says Coeur d’Alene School District should allow Coeur d’Alene High cheerleaders to wear uniforms to school on game day, although the attire violates the current dress code. Given the right-wing bent of the new school board, one Huckleberries Online wag said, cheek firmly tongued: “Make them wear burkas!”

Parting shot

On her Slight Detour blog site, Marianne Love of Bonner County offered this eulogy to summer Wednesday: “There’s a definite chill in the air along with a lot of dead plants in the gardens. I’m noticing that the vine plants seem to be the biggest wusses when it comes to cold air. No longer will zucchinis pop off those vines, and the golden yellow pumpkins are clearly visible in their manure-pile patch. The leaves and vines that kept them hidden have shriveled considerably and transformed to a deep dark dead green.” (Psst. Don’t tell Marianne that I’m still enjoying a bumper crop of tomatoes and zucchini off the vine in milder Coeur d’Alene.)