Now there’s a compliment worth buying

Elder care adviser Carol Romero was sitting in an airliner at Spokane International, waiting for it to get under way and fly to Portland.

She couldn’t help but overhear a seatmate’s phone conversation. She could tell he was a salesman talking to someone at his home office.

“Yeah, I was in Spokane for a week for the first time,” he said to the person on the other end of the call. “People here are really nice, even if they aren’t trying to sell you anything.”

•A small but important recurring role: Holly Bickford was worried.

“Every morning, there is a man who walks by my house – winter, spring, rain, shine. I can set my clock by him.”

Then, several days before last weekend’s big snowfall, he didn’t show.

“When the appointed time came and went and there was no walker I found myself starting to worry like I did when my sons were in high school and were late coming home. Look at the clock, back out to the road, back to the clock.”

Was he sick? Had there been an accident?

“I can’t tell you how relieved I was when he finally did stride by in his purposeful, no-foolin’-around manner.”

Bickford wonders if others keep track of strangers who are a daily part of their real life loop-tape.

“I say ‘Hi’ to my walker when I’m out and about as he goes by. Maybe someday I might even tell him that his consistency is a comfort to me and I wish him well.”

•In the matter of what people at the office say about the smell of things you eat at work: “A colleague called my sardine and onion sandwich ‘Fear Factor,’ ” said Jackie Ogden.

•One reader wonders: “Am I the only one bugged by (Spokane County sheriff’s spokesman Sgt.) Dave Reagan’s moustache?” wrote Tomas Lynch. “It moves around when he speaks to the point that I don’t listen to what he has to say.”

•Downtown buildings readers like: “My love of architecture stems from growing up in Spokane,” wrote Molly Spencer. “My very favorite is the S-R building. Who doesn’t like turrets and rounded windows?”

Among others she likes, she noted that the Bennett Block has a “certain dignity.”

Eileen Bakken loves the gargoyles on the Chronicle Building.

•And the award goes to…: Jim Camden, a colleague who has seen it all, wondered which Spokane TV station will be most out of control about congratulating itself for its recent storm coverage.

•Speaking of TV and my co-workers: Jim Meehan in the S-R sports department said that if he shows up on camera for “a millisecond” while he is covering a GU game, THAT’s what his nonmedia friends mention to him – not how much they admired his story about the game.

•Today’s Slice question: What happened when you needed your car but a power outage kept you from using the automatic garage-door opener and your vehicle was essentially trapped?