The Slice: Aussies recall Expo ‘74

The 30th anniversary of Expo ‘74 passed without much fanfare here.

But earlier this month, a group of Australians who worked at that nation’s fair pavilion celebrated the occasion by gathering to reminisce about their year in Spokane.

Traveling from all across Australia as well as from England and Washington, D.C., the 20 fair staffers got together in Sydney. Everyone invited showed up.

They pored over photos, examined Expo memorabilia and recalled good times in the Lilac City.

“I particularly remember the friendliness of Spokane people,” wrote Andrea Kloeden in an e-mail. “It was almost as if each of us was adopted by a Spokane family.”

Most of the Australians were about 20 years old when they worked at the fair. From all accounts, there was a lot of partying back then.

“The Spokane girls were really something,” said Brian James.

Mike Craigen, now a Spokane business executive, was the first American hired to help at the Australian pavilion. He remembers the Aussies as incredibly personable.

“They were, in my opinion, the best known and most well-liked of all the foreign exhibitors at the fair,” he said.

The Down Under memories of Spokane include cookouts, visits to area lakes, quick trips to attractions such as Glacier National Park and lots of little things.

“I remember the very first time I saw a flower encased in ice,” e-mailed Jane Reid, a native of balmy Perth.

She saw it early one frosty morning late in the fair’s run, as she walked to the pavilion from her place at the Chateaux Apartments.

Expo alum Andrea Kloeden said she’d love to see Spokane again and visit the site of the fair.

“Perhaps we can have our next reunion there,” she wrote.

•Late fur class: Rebecca Lind broke out in a smile the other morning when she saw a school crossing guard in Post Falls help a cat negotiate a busy street.

•Slice answer (memorable political moments): Back in 1968, Cathi Lamoreux and several other Eugene McCarthy supporters in Eugene, Ore., knew Robert Kennedy would be campaigning there. So they met him at the airport with big “McCarthy” signs.

“His plane landed and he worked the crowd along the chain-link fence,” Lamoreux recalled. “When he got to us, he stopped, looked at our signs, and said, ‘You are supporting the wrong guy, but I applaud your willingness to get involved in the process.’

“He shook our hands, gave us his famous smile, and moved down the fence. Three days later he was dead.”

•Warm-up question: What Spokane area woman spends the most time each morning trying to get her hair to look like she did nothing to it?

•Today’s Slice question: When you are choosing a seat in a theater, on a bus or wherever, do you check out the people already in place and find yourself thinking “Who here looks the least contagious?”