Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Oh, the stories she’ll tell of Spokane

Yuxing Zheng The Spokesman-Review

I can see it now.

My college buddies will ask me what I did on my summer vacation while I interned at The Spokesman-Review.

And I’ll have to be honest, despite how hard it’ll be to keep a straight face.

I went to a nudist camp.

To explain, it was a story for 7, the paper’s weekly arts and entertainment guide. I don’t normally frequent nudist resorts as a leisure time activity.

As I explored Spokane this summer, I met an incredible range of funny, compassionate and downright weird characters. I’ll soon return for my sophomore year at Northwestern University just north of Chicago, but I’ll take with me memories and stories I could’ve collected only here.

There were a couple of “sob stories” I wrote that made it clear that people in Spokane sincerely care about others in the community.

In one story, a disabled girl’s specially fitted tricycle was stolen, but readers purchased her a new trike within a week. In another story, a couple from Clarkston were in Spokane so the husband could receive treatment for terminal liver cancer, but all their money was stolen. Readers chipped in for the couple’s hotel room and donated food.

In both instances I was floored with the deluge of calls and e-mails from concerned readers. These were people willing to help total strangers in difficult times, and it made me feel like I was part of a secure and cohesive community.

But the cracks in the community were also evident, especially in terms of geographical divisions. I heard so much hype about the South Hill in my first weeks, it took an unreal amount of self-control not to camp out in some random South Hill park just so I could say I lived there.

I have nothing against people who want to raise a family in a good neighborhood, but there seems to be too much importance placed on where one lives in Spokane. It’s as if somebody’s value in society can be determined by whether one lives on the South Hill or in Felony Flats.

Does it really matter? I met generous and kooky people from every neighborhood. But it seems that people only associate with others in their neighborhood, that differences in economic class truly separate Spokanites. At times it felt like high school all over again with different cliques based on wealth and social connections that somehow defined our worth.

But the division that really annoyed me was Division Street.

People in Spokane simply can’t drive. The traffic on Division can send any driver into road rage mode, partly because of the overcrowding, but mostly because everybody actually drives the bloody speed limit! Who goes 30 mph in a 30 mph zone, especially on a main drag like Division? Coming from Chicago, nobody gets anywhere without cutting everybody else off, and I definitely employed my creative driving skills here.

As far as entertainment in Spokane went, the concert choices made me cringe. Between Rod Stewart and … Rod Stewart, I wanted to stab myself. But before all the Rod fans send hate mail, I’d like to point out that they should all be happy somebody my age has even heard of that octogenarian. I mean, that 59-year-old.

Despite my grumbles, I more than enjoyed my time in Spokane. I used to live in Missoula, but grew up in Oregon for the most part. I loved living in the Northwest again this summer, and I certainly didn’t miss the stifling Chicago humidity. It’s magical seeing the stars in the night sky rather than some unnatural orange glow of lights and pollution.

My parents called a few weekends back and asked out of the blue, “You went to a nudist camp?!?!”

Somehow, I’d neglected to tell them about that assignment and they’d found the story on The Spokesman-Review’s Web site.

Oh, the stories I have to tell about my journey in Spokane.