The Slice: Some memories just don’t let go

Charles Dickens had no monopoly on Christmas ghosts.

More than a few of us can still see and hear people who won’t be with us for the 2013 holiday.

Let’s move on.

Seasonal doctrine: Sometimes we forget that children can be sensitive to the feelings of others.

When a certain reader was 6, he grilled his mother with questions about an iconic aspect of a certain holiday. Her pained look answered his questions in a way no words could. But he realized he should pretend that the light bulb had not switched on. “For her sake.”

This date in Slice history (1995): Maybe this kid was just expressing stage fright: “My father often told this ‘funniest Christmas pageant’ story,” wrote Coeur d’Alene’s Linda Lewis. “Five small boys, each carrying one of the five letters to spell the greeting ‘H-E-L-L-O’, skipped out on stage for the introduction to the Christmas pageant. In his exuberance, letter ‘O’ ran to the head of the line — (‘O-H-E-L-L’). The audience rolled in the aisles.”

Making her case: “I should be entitled to one coveted reporter’s notebook as I did not annoy you in 2013,” wrote Diana Lynn Rehn. “If I have one I can keep track of what is going on in 2014. However, that might annoy you.”

Warm-up question: What was your experience with seeing a movie via Web streaming on a portable device? (I recently watched part of a movie I have seen countless times over the decades — “The Apartment” — and was floored by the clarity of the picture. Constantly noticed visual details I had never seen in all those previous viewings.)

Today’s Slice question: There’s a passenger on my bus in the morning who tries to go to sleep between boarding and arriving downtown. Everything about his body language suggests this is by design and is not an involuntary keeling over. As I get off before the bus reaches the STA Plaza, I don’t know if he has to be roused upon arrival. But it made me wonder.

Is anyone in your family capable of falling asleep in public places?