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The Slice: Avoid the paper at the peril of your poor child
Remember when I generously offered to assist parents with baby name consultations?
Well, I haven’t been inundated with requests for assistance. But I have gotten a few calls on this. And almost invariably the parents I do hear from have selected fine monikers for their about-to-arrive newborns. That makes my job easy.
I can’t prove it. But I suspect that the most unfortunate baby names are cooked up by moms and dads who have never looked at a newspaper.
Slice competition: “I’d like to enter the fall leaf contest but there is not a category for the pine needles that blanket my lawn,” wrote Joyce Becker, who lives on Pinecone Court. “My pine needles are in the Earnest category, as in earnestly trying to cover my entire lawn. Prickly and Tenacious would be good categories as well.”
Remember to wear gloves, Joyce.
Phone books in the Internet era: “When our daughter moved out on her own, we offered her a phone book,” wrote Nancy Kiehn. “She didn’t need one, she said, because she would just look up numbers online.
“However, several times she has phoned home asking how to locate certain organizations. Even after I found the number in the phone book, she still claims that phone books are unnecessary.”
Insert line from “Cool Hand Luke” here.
Personal perspective on the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962: “I was 10 years old during the two weeks of the crisis and was confined to my house with the measles,” wrote Fran Menzel. “There was nothing on TV to watch but news, news and more news.
“To make matters worse, my birthday fell within that time and I didn’t get a birthday party!
“Everyone rushed out to the stores to gather supplies and then stayed in and hunkered down watching the news, news, news. I was quite miffed at not getting the attention I thought I deserved.”
Oh, well. It wasn’t the end of the world.
Today’s Slice questions: Who is the Inland Northwest’s Firewood King? Who is the Firewood Queen? Who is the Firewood Dauphin? Reich Marshal? Czar? Sultan? Pledge Chairman?