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Huckleberries: Chairwoman ready to bare shoulders, teeth if necessary

Shoulders bared, Chairwoman Christa Hazel of the Coeur d’Alene School Board marched right into that dress code controversy from the recent Coeur d’Alene High Homecoming Dance. Remember? The CHS administration caused a stir during homecoming by cracking down on dresses with spaghetti straps or ones that left shoulders bare. As a result, some parents and children boycotted the dance. Last Monday, the school board appeared warm to a proposal to change the dance dress code. Christa certainly was. On the following day, she posted five photos on Facebook from her glory days at Coeur d’Alene High (class of 1992), showing the prom dresses she’d worn. Forget spaghetti straps. Teen Christa’s shoulders were bare in all five photos. None of the dresses were revealing. Anyone want to guess how Christa will vote on this issue next month?

Stowaway

So, Spokesman-Review bud Alison Boggs and her sweetheart, Tim, are riding home after a hike in the Silver Valley last Sunday. Tired, Alison is in the passenger’s seat. The pups are crashed out in the back seat. That’s when Alison feels it. Something wet on her foot. She looks down. Nothing. Mebbe a sandal strap tickling her. Tim thinks she’s tired. Then, it happens again. The wetness, accompanied this time by a squeak. Tim, at the wheel, hears the squeak, too. They pull into a gas station in Kellogg, tie the dogs up and investigate. Under the passenger seat, they find the culprit – a chipmunk. “Poor scared little guy hitched a ride in the middle of the woods and ended up at a gas station in Kellogg,” Alison recounts. Alison and Tim catch the critter and leave it at a nearby tree. Alison and Tim hope that Chip – or was it Dale? – finds his way “out of the concrete jungle and back to the woods.”

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: “They’ll be swarming sometimes/when we go out walking;/we suspect it’s for romance,/but the aphids aren’t talking” – the Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Ash Aphids”) … My son-in-law, Okie Doke, from Oklahoma City explains the significance of Cracker Barrel opening a restaurant in Coeur d’Alene: “It’s like Rustler’s Roost (the rustic Hayden breakfast place run by Coeur d’Alene Councilman Woody McEvers), except with Southern cooking and ingredients. Chicken-fried steak. Collard greens. Black-eyed peas. Cornbread. Mmm-mmm … No less a light than singer Rihanna considers controversial Rachel Dolezal, of Spokane by way of Coeur d’Alene, to be “a bit of a hero.” NBC News quotes Rihanna as saying: “Is it such a horrible thing that she pretended to be black? Black is a great thing, and I think she legit changed people’s perspective a bit and woke people up.” … In Benewah County (St. Maries), the vehicles in Sheriff Dave Resser’s fleet now have a decal on them that reads: “In God we trust.” Which brings to mind a sign in a downtown Lewiston business in days gone by: “In God we trust; all others pay cash.”

Parting shot

In an article last week, Rolling Stone mag lists Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador among the “Right Wing Rebels Who Overthrew John Boehner.” The magazine goes on to say: “Labrador views his establishment colleagues as corrupt – selling out small-government principles for PAC donations – or, at best, mindless: ‘Any monkey can do what we do here, if all we’re going to do is what our leadership tells us to do.’ ” And you thought the monkeys running Congress were specially trained? Pshaw.

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