The Slice: Reading between the lines

Rob Wright’s 11-year-old daughter, Chari, asked to borrow a pair of his reading glasses for her drama class.

He said OK.

A little while later, Wright overheard her talking to a friend on the phone: “My dad has the best nerd glasses,” she said. “So we have that covered.”

Her dad isn’t sure how he feels about that.

Support your local rodent: “Shouldn’t we celebrate Marmot Day here in Spokane on Feb. 2nd?” wrote Don Kardong.

Slice answers: OK, lots of people around here reside in dwellings built before they were born. But next year Bob and Laurie Newell, who live in the Garland neighborhood, will celebrate both their house’s centennial and their 40th wedding anniversary.

Libby Beck, who lives in Marshall, said county records show her house was built in 1910.

Both the Newells and Beck recalled being visited back in the 1970s by elderly people who grew up in those houses long ago.

Have you ever gone back to see your childhood home? If it’s still there, it can be a powerful experience.

I guess there’s no mystery why that Miranda Lambert song, “The House That Built Me,” stops some people in their tracks. Especially that line about the dog.

Rethinking downtown Spokane: Eric Rieckers recently heard a teenage girl ask the following question.

“Why didn’t they build the skywalks at ground level?”

Land grab: “When our daughter and son-in-law (who live in Maine) bought property on the Pend Oreille River a few years ago and were telling his New Hampshire family that they had bought property out west, his family asked where it was,” wrote Joanne and Bob Botterbusch of Spokane.

“Ione, Washington,” answered the son-in-law.

“You own WHAT?” said his family.

It’s all relative: Spokane’s Tammy Brevet said Seattle’s Brad Brevet — www.ropeofsilicon.com — is the movie critic she trusts. He is her stepson.

Today’s Slice question: What percentage of Spokane area residents feel the need to announce their plans when getting up to go to the bathroom?