Huckleberries

It’s true. All of it.

Scott Reed, the paterfamilias of a true-blue Idaho Democratic family, began adult life as a Republican.

Unbowed, Mary Lou Reed, the former Democratic state senator from Coeur d’Alene, confirmed the item in Huckleberries (Nov. 6) that her late husband ran for county prosecutor in 1962 — as a Republican.

“He tricked me into marrying him by supporting Adlai Stevenson (1952),” Mary Lou joked. “He wanted to please both his mother and me. Happily, the trick worked, and I forgave.”

In 1959, Scott accepted a job as a Republican assistant U.S. attorney in Boise. And Mary Lou was told by Scott’s boss that she should not “talk Democratic talk.”

“Understandably,” Mary Lou understates, “I was grumpy about being hushed.”

In 1960, JFK and the Democrats won. Scott lost his job. And the Reeds moved back to Coeur d’Alene.

The beginning of the end of Scott’s flirtation with the Elephants occurred when he, Pat Flammia, and Roger Young tried to join the Young Republicans, but were rebuffed for being too liberal. Then, in 1962, running under the Republican banner, Scott lost a close race to incumbent Democrat Bill Reagan.

In his final hurrah as a Republican, Scott tried to launch a Republicans for (Frank) Church sect.

“I think he was the only member,” Mary Lou joshed.

So, Scott became an enthusiastic Democratic convert, peace reigned on the home front, and the Reed children, Tara and Bruce, learned to campaign door-to-door.

That’s Bruce Reed, deputy chief of staff for President Joe Biden.

Says Mary Lou: “Son Bruce always quips that he first learned rejection, offering to put Democratic bumper stickers on pickups at the county fair.”

In 1984, Scott, the erstwhile GOP candidate for county prosecutor, spoke at Church’s funeral.

He never ran for office again.

A secure election

That iconic photo of young Duane Hagadone rushing into the CdA Press office, holding papers, was taken on Election Night 1952, the day America proved it liked Ike.

Duane was 20 and working in the ad departments of both the Press and KVNI. On Nov. 4, 1952, he was a gopher who collected results at the precincts and delivered them to his father Burl’s Press office.

In those days, the Press was the hub for compiling and announcing the results. Duane gave the returns to veteran reporter Frances Cope, who, surrounded by stakeholders, added numbers and posted them. Then, KVNI broadcast the updated figures.

A picture in a 1952 photo feature of Election Night shows Publisher Burl Hagadone hobnobbing with KVNI manager Wayne Olsen and Sheriff H.H. Haner, who won re-election to a sixth, two-year term that night.

And another photo, the one we’ve seen over the years, shows Duane hurrying into the office with results. The cutline describes Duane as the No. 1 “leg man” on duty Election Night.

Mayor and liberator

Sometimes, we forget that Ray Stone, the feisty, two-term mayor of Coeur d’Alene (1986-93), was also a war hero. On May 5, 1945, Pfc. Stone was in the second Jeep of the 82nd Airborne that liberated Woebbelin Concentration Camp in Germany. What he saw there was awful. A fourth of the 4,000 prisoners were dead. And many of the living weighed less than 50 pounds. Stone and his unit then went back to the nearby town of Ludwigslust and marched residents through the carnage. As mayor, Ray spoke often of the horror he saw that day and was an outspoken opponent of the neo-Nazi presence in Kootenai County. In 1988, he received the Eisenhower Liberation Medal. And 30 years ago (Nov. 11, 1992), he was invited to the dedication of the National Holocaust Museum the following spring.

Huckleberries

·“Those clouds you see/aren’t here to stay./They’ll leave again/sometime in May – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Song for a November Morning”).

·Armistice Day 2022 may have passed. But that shouldn’t keep you from visiting the dignified war memorial behind the county administration building. Twenty-five years ago, Commissioner Ron Rankin, a combat veteran, unveiled plans for a memorial that would list the names of 159 Kootenai County residents killed in action during American wars. It was to be unveiled on Memorial Day 1998.

·Mayor Jim Hammond was amused last week after reading of a woman who complained that her home was “bursting at the seams” following the birth of a second child. Says Jim: “Before my birth, my parents were already raising five children in a two-bedroom house. Perspective.”

·Seventy-five years ago (Nov. 10, 1947), Pine Splinters, a gossip column in the Coeur d’Alene High student paper, The White Pine, reported: “Wayne Workman would like to announce that he and the Workman who was fined in court for not having sufficient funds for taxi fare are not one and the same person.” Oh, to live in such a time when such trivial matters made the news.

·Bumpersnicker (on a green Honda parked at City Hall): “My religion is kindness.”

·CdA’s Norm Oss has this advice for winter-driving Newbies. When driving on ice or snow, Norm says, imagine your grandma in the back seat with a lidless pot of hot soup on her lap. “Now,” says Norm, “drive without hurting grandma or ruining the interior of your car.” Bingo.

·Twenty-five years ago (Nov. 5, 1997), three candidates – Nancy Sue Wallace, Sue Servick, and Deanna Goodlander – swept into office to become part of the City Council’s first female majority. Council president Wallace was re-elected. Servick won after being appointed two years earlier. Goodlander was the newcomer. They joined holdover Dixie Reid.

Parting Shot

The Nov. 1 passing of respected Judge Gene Marano reminds me of this old Huckleberry (Jan. 11, 2017): “After swearing in his son-in-law, Sheriff Ben Wolfinger, for a second term Monday, retired Judge Gene Marano tried to keep Ben’s pen. But Sheriff Ben wouldn’t have any of it. Tongue firmly cheeked, Ben asked for his writing tool back, ad-libbing that the District Court has its own budget for such things. At the fiscally conservative county courthouse, the bottom line is thicker than blood.” Gene’ll be missed.

D.F. “Dave” Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.