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The Slice: Midseason resolutions?

You have until Friday to come up with your list of Second Half of the Year’s Resolutions. How about “Always put the remote in the same place” and “Watch less TV”?

“Slice answer: Spokane Valley’s Gary Clizer said there’s no doubt. Wallace, his old hometown, is the best small town in the Inland Northwest. He cited 28 reasons. Here’s the last one: “Friendly, sincere people.”

“The buzz: One way to make many transplants to this area snort is to complain about mosquitoes. (Nobody who has lived in the Midwest, Northeast or Southeast thinks the bloodsuckers are much of a problem here.)

“Family Phrases Department: When Bobbie Bowen’s daughter, Laurie, was about 7 or 8, the girl presented the Bonners Ferry woman with a Mother’s Day card addressed to “The best mother in carnation.”

That left Bowen to ponder a question. If Laurie had intended to say “tarnation,” was she correctly defining the word to mean eternal damnation? As in, “You are the best mother in hell.”

Or did the child imagine it was a synonym for “the whole world”?

Probably the latter. In any case, it became a family tradition.

“I’m still receiving my annual greeting to ‘the best mother in carnation,’ ” wrote Bowen.

“Another dam story (“Welcome to the

West”): “Several years ago my husband hosted a Spokane reunion for the 84th and 62nd Army Combat Engineers who had served in Korea,” wrote Marjorie Lefevre of Ritzville.

He arranged for a bus to take the visitors, almost all of whom were from “Back East,” to see the Grand Coulee Dam.

At one point on the way there, a passenger asked the driver when the bus would get to the dam.

The guy behind the wheel looked out the window at the backcountry highway stretching out before them. It traced a long, straight line, practically extending to the horizon.

“It’s just around the next bend,” he said.

“The gifts of August: Danelle Kennedy’s family has shuffled some funds from the summer vacation budget to the August presents pot.

“My friend’s birthday is on Aug. 2, my grandparents’ anniversary is on the 3rd, my son’s dad is getting married on the 6th, my cousin is getting married (in Boston) on the 13th, my friend is due (with twins) on the 13th, my birthday is on the 17th, my brother-in-law is getting married on the 20th, and my mom’s birthday is on the 26th,” wrote Kennedy. “I also have two aunts, an uncle and a cousin with August birthdays.”

Dee Hunter’s extended family has six August birthdays. “It’s almost as expensive as Christmas,” she wrote. “No one is allowed to get married in that month.”

“Today’s Slice question: At Spokane area high school reunions, the classmate coming from farthest away usually lives where?

A) Florida. B) Asia. C) Bellevue. D) Alaska. E) Gotham City. F) Other.

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