Huckleberries: Hagadone’s partner has plenty of space to hide

If you look from the sky, as Google Earth does, at Jerry Jaeger’s 10,000-square-foot mansion, you might think it’s shaped like a gray handgun. The house belonging to Duane Hagadone’s partner in hospitality is near the Jewett House on Sanders Beach. Asks the Berry Picker who provided the Google Earth photo: “How is it that Jerry Jaeger flies so effectively under the radar while his partner doesn’t?  I bet most people in the area couldn’t even tell you who Jerry is.  I suppose the lack of a 180-foot-long yacht might have something to do with it.” Jaeger’s father, of course, provided the “J” to Bob Templin’s “T” in the old TJ’s Pantry in Post Falls. Younger Jaeger became Templin’s partner when his father was killed in a plane crash and later sided with Hagadone in the hostile 1983 takeover of Templin’s Western Frontier hospitality company, which led to the Coeur d’Alene Resort and all that Hagadone Hospitality north shore development. Templin, meanwhile, used an exception in his noncompete clause with Hagadone to build Templin’s Resort in Post Falls. All have done well. But I don’t think Templin breaks bread with the HHospitality partners.

She said yes!

Benjamin Drake and wife Jennifer followed the final launch of the space shuttle with more interest than the average bears (as Yogi would say). Before a shuttle launch three years ago, Benjamin asked Jennifer to marry him. Benjamin tells Huckleberries: “It was a bit nerve-racking flying across the country, going through (security), and having my bag searched when entering Kennedy Space Center (east of Orlando) with an engagement ring in tow.” Benjamin said he was so nervous after the bag search that he grabbed Jennifer’s hand, ran to the unoccupied Rocket Garden, found his beloved’s favorite rocket (she has one), and got down on a knee. Jennifer took the ring and hugged and kissed Benjamin. She was so shocked that she forgot her part in the proposal. A few minutes later, she blurted out: “Yes!” And they’re living happily ever after.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: Pay no attention/to the calendar’s date,/our summers prefer/to be fashionably late – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“The Usual Late Arrival”) … Dunno which powerful female leader in Coeur d’Alene styled more in the Fourth of July Parade: Mayor Sandi Bloem on the back of a motorcycle driven by Heart of the City Pastor Jonathan Owens, or NIC President Priscilla Bell at the wheel of a Peterbilt truck … Scanner Traffic of the Week honors go to those two teens jumping on a trampoline in northeast Post Falls. What’s the big deal with that? Reportedly, they were naked.

Parting shot

You have to hand it to that 24-year-old driver who was pulled over for possible DUI in downtown Coeur d’Alene early one morning recently. According to the Downtown Coeur d’Alene Bar Report, he began by telling a patrol cop: “Sir, I’m not going to lie, I have been drinking tonight.” Then, when asked to take a field sobriety test, the honest drunk (blood-alcohol level of 0.147) said: “Can we just skip this? I’m not going to pass the evaluations. I’m drunk.” Seems he’d consumed three 12-ounce beers at the Rendezvous earlier in the evening. Go directly to jail. Do not pass “Go.”