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The Slice: Irresponsible owners aren’t exactly cool cats

Readers weighing in on house cats killing birds were pretty polarized.

And as no one imagines pet owners are going to stop letting felines go outside, it seems like the one thing about which people might agree is the need to reduce the overpopulation of cats. Of course, the big problem there is the fact that responsible pet owners are not the ones dumping their animals or refusing to get their cats fixed.

Slice answer: Of course he knows his neighbors, said John Hancock. “They make life sweet.”

He named names. “Sherry, Pat, Candace, Nancy, Dave, Sophie, Art, Spen, Destiny, George, Betty, Rick, Ari, Judy, Paul, Rob, Ron, Ivan, Sonya, Mike, Renee, another Rob, Kylan, Mark, David, Howard, Tim, John, Lexie, Phoenix, Kim. And so on.”

One on-shore activity if cruise ships came to Spokane: “Walking around arterial street corners and noting how many 30- to 45-year-old Vietnam war veterans have signs printed on cardboard attesting that they will work for food.” – Jack Thompson

Blood pressure theater: “If the nurse takes my blood pressure and doesn’t tell me I usually don’t worry,” wrote Gaylen Wood. “They’re often very busy. If they take my blood pressure and leave the room without telling me and I hear a siren a few minutes later THEN I panic.”

Slice answers: Plenty of people in our midst can claim to have crossed paths with people born during the Civil War. A few remember encountering actual veterans of that conflict.

When Dick Barney was a small child, he was taken to a parade in Bridgeport, Conn., where he saw two little old men riding in a convertible – one in a gray uniform and one in a blue uniform.

Larry Blanchard saw Civil War veterans in parades while growing up in Louisville, Ky. “And I’m only 75.”

Feedback on Saturday’s Slice: “I nearly snorted my coffee at seeing my hometown mentioned in today’s paper – Athol, Massachusetts,” wrote Diane McAdams.

Today’s Slice question: What have you already penciled in on your 2013 calendar?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Please don’t comment on the details of your diet when emerging from the bathroom.

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