CdA’s finest brave the elements

There’s a reason you heard muted Christmas music coming from Coeur d’Alene City Park during the annual Christmas kickoff Friday. Coeur d’Alene Police Department Blue was test-driving its new public safety building for the parade, tree-lighting ceremony, Hagadone Corp. fireworks display and Festival of Trees. It worked pretty well, too, says CPD Blue spokeswoman Sgt. Christie Wood, who earned extra credit from fellow copsickles on the cold, drizzly night by showing up for work with a space heater. That, Starbucks coffee (provided by the chain’s local shop free to the officers and locals who checked out the new safety building) and a boombox boomboxing Christmas music lightened the mood for the regulars and several COPS volunteers who were assigned the stressful task of protecting 20,000 observers who crowded onto Sherman Avenue and Northwest Boulevard to see the kickoff to CdA’s Christmas. How did it go, from a police perspective? Sgt. Wood told Huckleberries Online readers: “The fire department … treated a few people for minor injuries. … We only had one lost child who was found approximately five minutes after his frantic mother reported it.” Chief Wayne Longo, according to Sgt. Wood, did his part, too, driving the chamber of commerce float in the drizzling rain. He was “blue in color” by the time he reached the end of the parade route. Seems Wayne and other CPD Blues earned their Huckleberries nicknames that night.

Just the ticket

One-half of Idaho’s U.S. Senate Repub dynamic duo hasn’t been sworn into office yet – and already the twosome’s making headlines in the Hill. Small headlines, as in: “Idaho’s senators bond – to a point.” Seems the must-read Capitol Hill publication was on hand as U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo showed U.S. Senator-elect Jim Risch around the Capitol before Thanksgiving. Everything was going well, according to the Hill, until the two Idahoans were about to part company. That’s when Risch asked Crapo for his extra tickets for the Jan. 6 swearing-in ceremonies. Now, such tickets are harder to get than extra graduation tickets in a local high school gym. Incoming senators receive 16 tickets, while incumbents get only one. In other words, Risch was asking Idaho’s senior senator for his only ticket. The Hill: “Crapo hesitated, stepped back and said he would like to share but couldn’t promise anything.” Crapo’s spokeswoman Susan Wheeler, however, insisted that Crapo agreed to give Risch his ticket. Hey, after a year of toe-tapping embarrassment caused by an Idaho senator, we’ll take a low-key controversy like this.

Huckleberries

If you have a few coins burning a hole in your pocket and a desire to experience life in the fast lane, you should check out the link ( www.ladylola3.com) advertising the sale of Duane Hagadone’s Lady Lola III. Yeah, that’s the 72 feet of “inspired tri-deck design” that CdA’s Native Son and the original Lola lived on last summer on Lake Coeur d’Alene. If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it … The CdA Press finally has learned that online commenters can be too unruly. The paper is now requiring registration to keep the nasty bunch in line, asking for name, rank, serial number and more. Wonder how many of those anonymous cockroaches who regularly defame local officials and civic leaders will be willing to let anyone know who they are? Stay tuned … Kevin Richert, Idaho Statesman opinion editor, continues his lonely attempt to win favor for Idaho’s underwhelming two-bit piece. In a recent blog comment, he said: “The Idaho quarter marks the role of Boise’s Peregrine Fund in pulling this species from the precipice of extinction. That’s what I like about it.” Ah, OK.

Parting shot

Larry Spencer, the conservative gadfly known for his last-minute electioneering letters, had a brush with the Grim Reaper over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Seems he was going down a hill near Deer Park when he saw the headlights of a pickup coming toward him. “There was nothing I could do other than hope he was out of my lane by the time our paths crossed,” Spencer said in a Huckleberries Online comment. “He slid to the left, then to the right, then in my rear-view mirror I saw him leave the road and roll onto his roof. The news said he died.” Spencer sounds like he was describing an accident closer to Diamond Lake. However, a pickup was involved in a head-on collision that killed two near Deer Park. Whichever accident it was, Spencer’s parting words are worth heeding: “Life can be short, live each day as if it might be your last.”