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Huckleberries: ‘McScrew’em Park’ enlivens council meeting

Coeur d’Alene Councilman Mike Kennedy was ready when school board Chairman Tom Hamilton approached the lectern during the public comments section of the council meeting Wednesday.

First the bait. Kennedy asked Hamilton how talks were going regarding the city’s attempt to buy the school district’s half of Person Field, a green space at 15th and Garden. Not so well, responded Hamilton. That was the cue for Kennedy to read a Dec. 28 post from Hamilton’s Facebook page in which the chairman referred to the controversial McEuen Field upgrade downtown as “McScrew’em Park” and to Councilman Woody McEvers, who supported $4 million more in “McScrew’em” upgrades, as “the perennial ’70s burnout.” Hamilton, who removed the post from his Facebook wall Wednesday, replied to Kennedy that he was being sarcastic on Facebook. Then, defensive Hamilton claimed Kennedy tried to link him to the Aryan Nations when Hamilton ran successfully for the school board in 2011 – a claim Kennedy denied. Later, Councilman McEvers, whose golden, surfer locks still touch his shoulders, stole the show by admitting that he, indeed, is a child of the ’60s and that he’s older than he looks. Which in Woody’s 1960s-speak is “bitchin’ ” (read: swell).

Bunny of Seville

“My favorite opera aria,” posts S-R photographer Jesse Tinsley on his Facebook wall, “is from ‘The Barber of Seville’, and I torture my family by singing it all the time.” Jesse’s 14-year-old son wrote down the only opera he could name when he got a question in a Quiz Bowl contest: “What opera starts out with the song ‘La Donna e Mobile’?” Again, Jesse: “He thought it sounded like the opening lyric of my favorite song, ‘Largo Factotum.’ The correct answer, of course, was ‘Rigoletto.’ You can only learn so much opera from Bugs Bunny.”

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: “May the 12 months ahead/be the best you have seen –/I wish you good fortune/in Twenty Thirteen” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“A New Year’s Greeting”) … Huckleberries didn’t catch the names of the couple in their bathing suits racing from the Spokane River to a dark Toyota with Shoshone County plates parked along the Dike Road alongside North Idaho College on Dec. 29. But the 20-somethings told Huckleberries they decided to take the plunge early because they couldn’t attend the annual Polar Bear Plunge at Sanders Beach on New Year’s Day … Huckleberries Online finished 2012 with a blog record 2.6 million page-views and 10,810 readers (blog/Twitter/Facebook). So what’s keeping you from joining us online in 2013 (spokesman.com/hbo)? … Poll: Sure, 8 percent of my Huckleberries blog readers admit they got sloshed on New Year’s Eve. But 54 percent said they didn’t have a single drink. May you also have a sober 2013.

Parting shot

My bride of 37 years and I celebrated midnight on New Year’s Eve with a kiss while listening to Ruth Pratt, of Coeur d’Alene, and Tuxedo Junction perform “Auld Lang Syne” in the DoubleTree ballroom at Spokane’s First Night celebration. Much of the ballroom had cleared out to see the few minutes of fireworks at Riverfront Park. Bad call. Spokane’s fireworks can’t touch Coeur d’Alene’s bombardments on the Fourth of July and on Black Friday. Then, Coeur d’Alene’s New Year’s Eve celebration can’t touch Spokane’s swell First Night event.

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