The Slice: A summer hidden by the cloud

The start of school is just a month away.

The time will go by at warp 9.

That reminds me how lucky I was to be a kid before portable electronic screens (which I use and enjoy today).

Like many of you, I devoured summer. We bolted through the front door at full speed and didn’t slow down until after dark.

That’s not myth or hyped nostalgia. Well, not totally.

I see kids today and want to say, “Hey, look up – there’s a whole world of things to see and do.”

And summer’s clock is ticking.

Something you don’t see every day: “My mother, an artist, wanted her casket to be of her own design and colors, and to be made by her nephew from pine taken from her youngest daughter’s land on Moscow Mountain,” wrote Anne K. Trail, of Spokane.

So the casket was finished and Trail and her sister were riding with it in her sister’s Subaru wagon.

It pretty much filled the car. “There being no other space for me, I was lying in the casket,” said Trail.

They stopped at a big store to pick up some material for upholstering it, parking in the far outskirts of the lot.

“While I was trying clumsily to exit the casket, a car came up beside us.”

The driver saw Trail getting out of the casket and his face took on a wide-eyed expression.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said after a moment. “It is something to write home about.”

If Ashley Steinhart had a band … : Potential names include The Creepy Rafters, The Useless Lumberpiles, The Unswept Sawdust and The Mysterious Oilstains.

On the other hand, John McTear would go with The Cluttered Mess.

Re: Dog hair in the lake: “My golden retriever doesn’t leave hair in the river or lake,” wrote Catherine Short. “He sheds it all when he shakes as soon as he gets back in the car.”

Slice answers: Most of those responding said a high percentage of residents don’t want Spokane to be a real city because a suburban vibe seems less threatening.

Today’s Slice question: Where and when did you encounter the best tomato you ever tasted?