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The Slice: Unable to name him Ringo, nurses went for next best thing

Melody Gartrell’s husband, Edward Hiler, was born on Feb. 9, 1964 – the night the Beatles first appeared on “Ed Sullivan.”

“His mother remembers watching the Beatles from her hospital bed. And as my husband had a full head of hair at birth, the nursery nurses combed and cut it into a Beatles haircut, which delighted his mother and kind of creeped out his father.”

Name game: “I was supposed to be named Stewart Gordon,” wrote Nancy Kiehn. “Stewart because it’s a nice Scottish name and Gordon after my mother’s older brother who was killed in a tragic accident at a very young age.”

Instead, she went unnamed until her mother was about to be discharged from the hospital. In preparation for that, her father made a grocery run. An appealing young woman at the cash register had on a name tag that said “Nancy.”

“No fancy history for my name. Just a desperate grab at a nice-sounding name so I didn’t have to be released from the hospital as ‘Baby Girl.’ ”

Pat Williams’ parents were certain she was going to be a boy. “They didn’t even have a girl’s name picked out.”

She was to be Charles Michael and Chad would be her nickname en route to becoming an all-America linebacker at the University of Tennessee.

But her dad rallied and, in fact, doted on her. Years later she wound up naming a son Chad.

Had he been a girl, Mark Cosgrove would have been named Mary Jo, after his maternal grandmother. That eventually became the name of Cosgrove’s oldest daughter.

Carol Lindburg was going to be Charles, but still wound up with Charlie as her nickname.

Favorite part of the Winter Olympics: “Men’s figure skating, of course,” wrote Mac McCandless. “Cures my insomnia every time.”

Re: Differences of opinion about what constitutes a clean bathroom: “Only my opinion matters because I am the one who cleans them,” said Patsy Wood.

“Best solved with separate bathrooms if at all possible,” wrote Sherry Hutchison.

Today’s Slice question: If Spokane, Washington, had a middle name, what might it be?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Gary Polser said the marmot seeing its shadow guarantees six more weeks of Slice columns.

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