Full Moon Could Bring About Multitude Of Emergency Calls

Tue., Aug. 4, 1998

D.F. Oliveria Opinion Writer

Whatever happened to the good ol’ days when one person insulted another by saying, “Your mother wears army boots”? Now, the streets are filled with cussing youths, motorists settle traffic disputes with weapons - and the ol’ one-finger salute has given way to a new insult du jour: mooning.

Sure, sure, mooning has been around awhile. The football coach’s kid during my high school days in the ‘60s used to amuse himself on road trips by hanging his bare bottom out of the bus window. Today, however, adults - and Hot Potatoes uses that term as loosely as possible - are making statements with their exposed posteriors.

Last year, Steve Mealey, director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, made headlines by mooning sculpture on the Lake Pend Oreille shoreline. In December, hip-hopper Busta Rhymes told a Spokane Arena crowd not to cuss or use drugs - and then mooned it. In January, Jack Nicholson fake-mooned a Golden Globes crowd.

And, recently, Robert A. Vermeulen, 19, of Spokane, was arrested for indecent exposure after he allegedly mooned a neighbor and his 9-year-old daughter.

Admittedly, it’s hard to think of a good comeback to a naked derriere. But 9-1-1 might be the answer.

Tater Tots: A good reason for hysteria

Defense attorney Glen Walker blamed “hysteria created in the public” for the relatively stiff six-year prison sentence imposed on his client, Connie Bickley. But doesn’t the public have a right to strong feelings about the Post Falls woman, who got blotto, decided to drive and ended up killing Nick Scherling, 13, a middle-schooler? Bickley still made out better than Nick did … Marie Ward’s survivors will be happy to know Janet M. Holmberg, 38, of Hayden, feels “really bad” about beating and stabbing Grandma to death last week. Holmberg, who has admitted she broke into the neighborhood home and murdered Ward, 82, says she took her anger out on the wrong person. The “right person” should be relieved that Holmberg won’t be out and about for quite some time, if ever … The weather deserves a Hot Potato for shining down brightly on the neo-Nutsies hate march July 18 - and then greeting Art on the Green and all the downtown Coeur d’Alene fun last weekend with a downpour … Consumers got a break from Washington - finally. President Clinton signed legislation last week that eliminates private mortgage insurance once borrowers attain a little more than one-fifth equity in their homes. How’d that one get past banking lobbyists?

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