Huckleberries: Word of advice brings chocolate-chip reward

Everyone seems related to everyone else in North Idaho. This includes the female jogger that S-R sports scribe Greg Lee and I met near the LCSC/UIdaho branch campus Wednesday.

We flagged her down during a noon walk along Coeur d’Alene’s waterfront – to warn her. Greg and I had seen a strange guy hiding in the thick pines a short distance up the trail. We made eye contact with him – and he moved deeper into the trees. The jogger thanked us and turned around.

Later, I posted an item on my blog about the incident, warning trail users, especially women exercising alone, to be careful on that section. Meanwhile, jogger Keri Alexander told of her encounter with us on her Facebook wall. Which prompted a mutual friend to connect the dots. Which prompted ex-Shoshone County Commissioner Sherry Krulitz to friend me on Facebook, to say she’s Keri’s mama. Which prompted Shoshone County Sheriff Mitch Alexander to comment on my blog, thanking Greg and me for protecting his wife. Which prompted Keri, a Coeur d’Alene Press ad executive, to bring fresh chocolate-chip cookies to the S-R’s Coeur d’Alene office. Which prompted Greg and me to gobble them, voiding the calories we’d burned off on the walk.

Set ’em up, again

One of the three men who had a brush with hypothermia Thursday when his canoe capsized in chilly Lake Coeur d’Alene bought beer at a gas station later. One of my Huckleberries blog readers was in the store when the guy told the clerk about the incident. The gendarmes said in a news release that alcohol was a factor in the mishap. Sez the blog snoop: “I’m guessing that the cold water (52 degrees) sobered him up and a case of Natty Ices would get him back where he was comfortable” … Wanna know what Shannon Forbes of Coeur d’Alene learned from reading the small print on the brownie packages at her favorite supermarket’s shelves? That the low-fat version of the same brownie brand had – (drum roll, please) more calories and more fat than the regular one. And you wonder why it’s hard to shed pounds? … Facebook friend Margo Mossburg of Spokane quips: “I have been eating salad all week. I wonder if that makes up for the chocolate someone gave us?” Try again.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: The Bard of Sherman Avenue offers an ode to our beautiful spring. In “The Dark Side of Spring,” he rhymes: “The sun is warm,/the grass is green;/he’ll mow from now/till Halloween” … Dunno if the gendarmes caught the crew-cut thief who swiped a tan 1995 Honda Accord from Ponderay’s Wal-Mart, near Sandpoint, last week – you know, the car with a dreamcatcher dangling from the mirror and an “Evict Obama” sticker below the rear license plate. Musta been a Democrat … At City Park Tuesday, a teen girl burst into profanity after receiving a text from her boy toy. Whatdidhesay? asked a girlfriend. The F-bomber replied: “I love you, baby.” Fighting words.

Parting shot

Leave it to Rachel Dolezal, formerly of the Human Rights Education Institute of Coeur d’Alene, to come up with this brain teaser: “So, if Idahoans only earn 84 cents to the national dollar. And: Coeur d’Alene residents only earn 79 cents to the national dollar. And: (white) women earn only 77 cents to the dollar nationally, while women of color earn approximately 58 cents to the dollar nationally. Then, how much would a black woman in Coeur d’Alene expect to make compared to the national average of a white male with her same qualifications?” Blog reader John Austin guessed 45 percent. Reader Randy Myers calculated 58 percent. And one wag responded: “Trick question; a woman of color can’t get a job in Coeur d’Alene.” Which is funny but not true because Rachel did.