Hot potatoes: The bottom line
As I’ve said before, most people don’t look good nekkid. If you don’t believe me, poke your head into a health club locker room (being careful to be gender-sensitive, of course). Clothes cover a multitude of pounds, stretch marks, scars and wrinkles. Yet, people keep shedding their inhibitions to appear nude in public. Regionally, we have the Sun Meadows nudist resort, near Worley, Idaho, and Kaniksu Ranch, near Loon Lake, Wash., which sponsors the Bare Buns Fun Run. When I interviewed Bare Buns runner Shenelle Kraack, of St. Maries, for my Huckleberries Online blog this month, my overriding question was: “Why?” Why flop around for some three miles in the buff with hundreds of sagging Baby Boomers? Shenelle explained the phenomenon. But I still don’t grasp the concept. However, I understand why a fellowship of worker bees and friends of Ponderay’s Stitchin’ Sisters yarn and fabric shop have banded together to bare almost all for a 2008 calendar. Sorta. They want to raise money for three charities. The calendar comes with this warning from owner Audra Mearns: “This is not your Grandma’s quilting calendar.” It’ll sell, perhaps better than the Coeur d’Alene Library calendar fundraiser featuring local celebs. We like to be titillated. Most of us should be air-brushed, too.
Vick Shoulda Picked Idaho
Unquestionably, QB Michael Vick showed poor judgment by involving himself in a dogfighting operation in Virginia. He shoulda settled for Idaho, where dogfighting is a misdemeanor and legislators have killed legislation to upgrade the dastardly “sport” to a felony three times. In 2005, Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, successfully fought to kill such a bill in committee. He still doesn’t view dogfighting as a major problem. F’shame … Idaho Gov. Butch Otter wants to raise $200 million per year to upgrade Idaho’s (read: the Boise area’s) road system and also wants the Gem State to build a medical school. Who needs a big-spending Dem when you have a reformed libertarian in search of a legacy? … French Fries (or, “Not quite banned in the Coeur d’Alene School District”): 1. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” 2. “Fallen Angels,” 3. The Chocolate War,” 4. “Snow Falling on Cedars,” and 5. “Beloved.”
Lewiston’s rep-P-U-tation
In a word association game, you’d say something like “phew” if the town of Lewiston was mentioned. Yeah, the odor from the town’s Potlatch mill operations is that ripe. But that didn’t stop National Geographic Adventure magazine from naming the town as a top waterfront destination and one of the 50 best places to live in the United States. As a former resident, I don’t have to hold my nose to agree that you can do a lot worse than the Banana Belt town, particularly in the dead of an Idaho winter … This edition of Hot Potatoes was brought to you by the number 4. Or the number of books the typical adult in this country reads per year (although one in four reads no books at all, including a third of the men). Or the reason nasty political sound bites on radio and TV work so well.