Huckleberries: Serious decade winding down

If life was roarin’ in the ’20s, reasons Ryan Brodwater, (and) if the Great Depression consumed the ’30s, and if World War II was hosted by the ’40s, what are we going to call this decade? The “zeroes”? Last week, on his Otis G Experience blog, the ex-Post Falls city engineering inspector, pondered this less-than-eternal question, clicking off other characteristics of decades past. Fifties? People started rockin’. Ryan: “The sixties were a blur, from what I’ve heard. The seventies (when I was born), also birthed the computer. Everyone looks back fondly at the eighties, to memories of big hair and power mullets. I was in my personal prime in the nineties, when pop culture imploded and “alternative” became mainstream.” Now, with 2009 in the headlights, Ryan laments that he feels like “we’re currently in an ‘indescribable’ era, which sucks.” Correctly, he points out that serious things have happened in the double-oughts. 9/11. Iraq. Obama. Financial meltdown. “Fifty years from now,” asks Ryan, winding down, “what will people Google to find out about this period we’re living right now?” In response, Berry Picker Idawa suggested we call this decade the “Aughts,” as in “I aught to have saved more, I aught to have watched my 401K, or I aught not to have bought that SUV or that house I couldn’t afford.” And we aught to leave this subject now.

Ice pee

You may think there was an element of humor in that story last week about disgruntled workers suspected of urinating in an ice machine at By The Lake Assisted Living/Hayden. But don’t let Kendra Goodrick-Martinez. Kendramama, as we call her at Huckleberries Online, is disgusted by the situation. After all, she did time on drug charges before cleaning up her life. She’s seen jailers “slimed” with feces, urine, saliva and other bodily fluids. If it was up to K-Mama, she’d “prosecute (the culprits) to the full extent of the law for the offense” of – what would you call it – ah, “exposure to/causing of one to ingest quantities of potentially hazardous body fluid.” K-Mama, whose beloved grandmama was recently released from a care facility, fumed that the prank was doubly heinous because the culprits carelessly made the residents of the nursing home targets, too. “You’d think they would target the alleged ‘villains’ in this – not innocent elderly folks just looking to parch their thirst.” I make a motion that we put Kendramama in charge of sentencing in this case, once the urinators are exposed, tried and convicted.

Huckleberries

At Notes On A Napkin, blogger Katrina rates “two bathrooms” as the top feature of owning her own home. Quoth: “I can be in one, and the kids, whose bladders were apparently set at birth to go off whenever mine does, can use the other one! No more pounding on the door, no more frantic calls of ‘hurry, mommy!,’ no more bursts of cold air intruding on my hot shower as the kids go in and out the door in search of toothbrushes and hair barrettes” … Bumpersnicker (on a yellow Toyota with Kootenai County plates): “Californian by birth; Idabilly by choice.” Colleague Jesse Tinsley snapped a photo of the VW, driven by a baby boomer female, en route to the public defender’s office … My police scanner offered a report that had me calculating the distance between my CdA office and Costco at 4:10 p.m. Friday: “(Reporting party) reports that a man at the Costco pumps is filling up a 500-gallon tank in a trailer that’s loaded with fertilizer.” Isn’t that how Timothy McVeigh got his start?

Parting shot

Herb Huseland of Bayview (aka, Sweet & Sour Herb) and the old woman in the shoe have something in common. The old woman didn’t know what to do with her many children. Herb? He has so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that he lost track of two double-G’s until he made a recent trip to California and other points south, increasing the count to 16 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren for a total of 22 next-generationers and beyond. Herb also discovered there’s three more double-G’s on the way. Which prompted him to boast a bit at Huckleberries Central and to challenge: “I wonder whether any of your readers can top that count?” Hey, don’t look at me. At age 59, I’m stuck on zero in the grandchildren category. Mebbe I can rent some of Herb’s.