My wife didn’t leave me when I interrupted our honeymoon 32 years ago this month to take in a baseball game between Los Angeles and San Francisco. She didn’t vamoose in 1979 when I put out a Sunday edition of a Montana newspaper while she was thisclose to delivering our first baby. But she should have left me last month when I decided to take our new Toyota 4Runner on a road trip to Denver to see my son and daughter-in-law instead of flying. I decided before the gas prices went haywire. I saved a coupla hundred bucks. But I was kicking myself for the road trip by the time we hit Bozeman on the way back. Three things I learned on the trip. Driving from Coeur d’Alene to Denver takes 16 hours at 80 mph, give or take 15 minutes. Secondly, gas prices were high in Coeur d’Alene – $3.05 when we left May 24. But they were higher elsewhere ($3.42 in Missoula and $3.29 in Denver). Finally, there are antelope in eastern Wyoming and not much else. I didn’t see another town along the Denver Trail that matched viewtiful Coeur d’Alene or North Idaho. The sky was as big as advertised. The road was as long as feared. And the look in my wife’s eyes when we stopped in Missoula for a dinner break on the return trip was unmistakable: You owe me this time.

Armed, polite – and dead?

Headliner: “Guest speakers’ policy under review: Coeur d’Alene parents want to know what class will hear.” DFO: The school board is walking a thin line. Parents should have access to material presented to their children – and, if necessary, pull their children out of classes or demand reading and lecture options. But the district has to balance the values of individual families with the need for a curriculum that speaks to a broad range of families … Quotable Quote: “An armed society is a polite society” – Zach Doty, 18. Let’s hope that statement doesn’t become a tombstone epitaph as a result of his decision, along with the one by brother Stephen, 15, to pack firearms in public places around Post Falls … French Fries (or, “congrats on your high school diploma, Beanie Boy and Drama Queen, but what are you going to do with the rest of your life?”): 1. Get a job; 2. UIdaho, EWU or bust; 3. PAR-tee; 4. What do you mean you’re pregnant?! And 5. We gotta get out of this place.

One toke over the line

Headliner: “Murder suspect says he’s possessed: Delling, accused in students’ deaths, being given medication while in jail.” DFO: It’s unfortunate that we no longer exorcise demons from cold-blooded killers, like John Delling – with 10,000 volts of electricity … Poet’s Corner: “Laughing and yelling/and making a fuss,/summer rode home on/the big yellow bus – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Last Day of School”) … Today’s edition of Hot Potatoes was brought to you by the No. 180. Or the number of George Washingtons paid by great-grandmother Christine Baggett for an ounce of marijuana to relieve arthritis and back pain, minus a pinch she gave to her dealer as a tip. Or whatheheck is the Spokane County prosecutor doing pursuing a felony charge against her? F’shame.

Read D.F. Oliveria’s Huckleberries Online blog at www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo.