The Slice Spokane Is Not All That Different, Really, It’s Not

Let’s start with a fill-in-the-blank exercise.

The Spokane area has pretty much the same cross section of (your answer here) as anyplace in the United States.

Big triangles: Mike Johnson’s parents are in Buffalo, his wife’s live in England.

Jennifer Leake’s mother is in New Jersey, her husband’s family is in Georgia.

Four different Spokane area couples told us about having parents in New York and Florida.

Rob Diebold’s in-laws used to be in San Jose, but have moved to Olympia. But his mother lives in Florida.

Spokane’s D.E. and D.A. Hutchisson have a son in New York City who is married to a woman whose parents live in Japan.

And one correspondent suggested that, given the realities of extended families in the ‘90s, “Family geometry” should not be restricted to triangles but should include rectangles, pentagons, et cetera.

A case in point. Colfax’s Derek Cutlip has parents in Arizona while his wife’s father lives in Spokane and her mother lives in Florida.

Overheard in a preschool parking lot (a kid had just spotted Old Glory): “Look Momma, there’s that candy cane flag!”

College town more boring than Cheney: La Grande, Ore. - nominated by B.J. Freeman

Slice answers: Personal ads in various farm-oriented and mainstream publications are the way Inland Northwest bachelor farmers meet women, said several callers.

But one guy who lives near Colville told us he has tried that. And he never got a nibble. “How do we meet women?” he said. “We don’t.”

We hadn’t noticed this, but: Dan Anderson says more than a few Spokane area residents pronounce “wash” as “warsh.”

Warm-up questions: What can you tell about parents from the names they choose for their children? Is it possible to live a full, rich life AND own a reclining chair that you proudly refer to as “fully loaded”?

Today’s Slice question: What is the single most foul-mouthed workplace in the Spokane area?

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

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