And you thought today’s politicians were heavy-handed

Politics are rough today. But heated words between polarized pols rarely come to blows as they did 40 years ago outside Bob Templin’s old North Shore (now site of the Coeur d’Alene Resort). At Huckleberries Online last week, Alice Rankin entertained us with a story from the 1966 Idaho Democratic Convention in which her late husband, Ron, decked a Sandpoint legislator and then filed assault charges against him. It began when Ron and Gary Ingram, both Republicans, slipped into the resort with copies of a newspaper article that depicted Demo gubernatorial wannabe Lloyd Walker in a bad light. They papered the resort with the copies, even rolling them into toilet paper rolls in the men’s restrooms. As they made their getaway, Alice recalls, Ron and Gary were spotted by a Democrat who yelled: “Rankin, you dirty rat, I knew it was you!” Gary got away. But the Democrats surrounded Rankin, exchanging angry words, until smallish Merle Parsley poked him in the nose, causing it to bleed. Rankin, an ex-Marine boxer, flattened Parsley with a return punch. Then, he walked a couple of blocks to the old sheriff’s office and filed charges. Parsley was arrested. But it was apparent to all that the case wasn’t going anywhere. First, Rankin was relatively unscathed, while Parsley, sez Alice, “was pretty messed-up looking.” Then, there was the fact that Democrats held all the elective positions in the county. Ron, of course, made the most of it, complaining to reporters about whiplash from his “brutal beating.” Sez Alice: “It sure was fun while it lasted.” (Alice will provide garden tips and answer gardening questions at Huckleberries Online again today, beginning around 10:30 a.m.)