March 23, 2009 in Features

The Slice: Dam impressive? Not for this guy

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With the warm-weather travel season just over the horizon, The Slice thought it would be interesting to interview the only guy in the Spokane area who has never taken his family over to see the Grand Coulee Dam.

A transcript of that exchange follows.

To protect him from harassing calls from regional tourism officials, he will not be identified by name. In any case, you won’t believe what he had to say.

Q: So why haven’t you gone over to check out the dam?

A: You know, it just never seemed all that interesting to me.

Q: But it’s really big.

A: Yeah, I realize that. I’ve seen pictures. I just always seem to have something else to do.

Q: Do you have something against the dam because of environmental concerns or are you protesting the salmon thing and other implications for indigenous peoples?

A: What? No. I mean, I guess not. Look, I just haven’t gotten around to it. OK?

Q: It’s one of the world’s largest concrete structures. It is one of the biggest electricity-producing facilities anywhere.

A: So I’ve heard.

Q: Would you like me to sing a few lines of Woody Guthrie’s “Roll on Columbia”?

A: No, that’s not necessary.

Q:“The mightiest thing ever built by a man…”

A: Seriously, it’s OK. I know the dam was and is important to the Pacific Northwest. I know it’s big. I get it. I just haven’t seen the need to go stand there and stare at it.

Q: Are you afraid that you would fall off a viewing platform and get sucked into one of the mammoth underwater intakes?

A: No, not really. I just haven’t ever made driving over there a priority.

Q: What do you think of the word “staycation”?

A: Don’t care for it.

Q: Do you have something against incredible engineering feats or regional history?

A: No. I just think that if I said, “Hey, let’s drive over to Grand Coulee Dam this weekend,” my family’s reaction would be, shall we say, underwhelming.

Q: Well, have you told them that all the pyramids of Giza could fit within its base? Have you told them about FDR’s role? Have you mentioned that the generators are, well, dam big?

A: No. But still, I’m not sure that …

Q: Is it because Hoover dam has been in more movies and TV shows?

A: No, that’s not it. Maybe I’m just lazy. I usually end up running a few errands and watching sports on TV. Believe me, I’ve got nothing against Grand Coulee.

Q: So you might go check it out this summer?

A: I might. I hear it’s pretty big.

•Today’s Slice question: What do most of Spokane’s teenage criminals have in common?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098; e-mail pault@spokesman.com. For previous Slice columns, see www.spokesman.com/columnists. What do you think of nonreligious observances of Easter?

One comment on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  ScottHunter on March 23 at 10:59 a.m.

  Paul,
  I notice you didn’t even get around to mentioning the laser light show that spans about a mile across the river on the dam every night in the summer.

  In your interview subject’s defense (‘fess up, was it really you talking to yourself?), I think he’s in the majority; most Spokane folks have no idea about the colossal monument to our heritage in their backyard, one that is a very concrete example of what can happen when a nation responds to desperate economic times with Keynesian measures.

  Hope you all show up at some point this summer to be awed by it, learn about it and to consider what we can all do as a nation when we pull together — even if out of desperation.

  Scott Hunter
  Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce