Idaho Voices

Fashion wise, different cultures bring in the New Year in a variety of different ways. For example, fancy panties are de rigueur for folks in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela; red underpants are supposed to bode well for love in the new year, while yellow knickers indicate dreams of money. Here in North Idaho it doesn’t really matter what color your skivvies are, at least for the most part.

Oh. How does a person write something for the day after Christmas without it being anti-climactic? To avoid that, I’ll try to keep this dull today. However, Star Belcher won’t. She’ll used finely sharpened, high-tech tools for Star’s Pet Grooming opening this week in Unit H of Northgate Mall at 3650 Government Way.

This’ll be my last Huckleberries column as part of Handle Extra. When you next see Huckleberries, it’ll be after the new year, included in the weekend edition of the regular Spokesman-Review. The Handle Extra is going away at year’s end. Huckleberries has morphed several times over the past 26 years, beginning in January 1985, a few months after I joined the Coeur d’Alene office as a government reporter.

COEUR D’ALENE – Tickets for the North Idaho College Foundation’s 18th annual Really BIG Raffle are now on sale. Prizes include the $250,000 home; a car valued at $20,000; a $10,000 boat; a $3,500 vacation package; and a $2,000 shopping spree.

The Lake City High School debate and speech team placed third overall at the Coeur d’Alene Challenge tournament, held at Coeur d’Alene High School in early December.

Today Bill Reid (Jazz) – 1 p.m., Di Luna’s Cafe, 207 Cedar St., Sandpoint, (208) 263-0846.

The first day of winter (which was Tuesday) was relatively snow free across the region. In fact, the first three weeks of December saw less than 10 inches of snow for Coeur d’Alene with only 5.9 inches in Spokane. Because of a bountifully snowy November, seasonal totals are still nearly 30 inches above normal in Coeur d’Alene and 16 inches above normal in Spokane. The other day while snowboarding at Silver Mountain in Kellogg, I was able to shift my focus away from the big picture of snow amounts, to the “little picture” of the individual snowflake. Temperatures were nice and chilly that day, and I was able to see the perfect little white stars as they landed on my jacket.

A five-story addition and renovations to the existing structure of Benewah Community Hospital will bring major changes to the St. Maries area. The addition to the hospital at 229 S. Seventh St. will include departments of medical surgery, a family birth center, rural health clinic, a specialty clinic, physical therapy, administration and billing, the kitchen and cafe and the information technology department. Renovations will be to the emergency department, pharmacy, admitting and medical records, with the whole project about 75,000 square feet. New equipment will aid medical surgery, radiology, physical therapy, and the kitchen and waiting area. More parking spaces also will be added.

Filings from Dec. 1-9. Chapter 7 (liquidation petitions)

Coeur d’Alene Clearwire, 5505 N. Government Way, commercial, antennas addition and equipment cabinet, valued at $25,000.

For 12-19-2010

It seems everywhere I turn, I hear of someone newly diagnosed with cancer. And it is not just the elderly. It is affecting the young, the middle aged and the physically fit. The prevalence of this horrific disease struck me recently as I sat in church thinking about two friends who had recently died from the disease. Both were men in their 50s.