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The Slice: First bragging rights go to training camp vets

I’m guessing that if the Seattle Seahawks still had training camp in Cheney, the crowds of spectators out at Eastern would have been bigger than ever this summer.

Of course, that would have afforded longtime fans an irresistible opportunity to grouse about front-runners.

“Look at all these people! I didn’t wait for the team to win a Super Bowl before jumping on the bandwagon. No, sir. I was out here, sweating almost as much as the players, when the Hawks stunk. Where were all these Johnny-come-latelys back then?”

Boy, the lifer fans would have loved getting to say that. And who could blame them?

Slice answer: “In my office at Spokane Community College, I have a secret stash of those Starbucks instant coffee tubes,” wrote Betsy Lawrence. “When one of my co-workers is dying for coffee with no time to run to the café, they become as valuable as a cigarette on ‘Orange is the New Black.’ ”

This date in Slice history (1995): Today’s Slice question: What is something that is a social taboo elsewhere but not in Spokane?

A roadside yard-sale sign that made Jan Jenne laugh: “Our crap could be your crap!”

Warm-up questions: Remember when there was a produce stand where the South Hill restaurant Luna is now? Is the tendency of people to rely on their portable phone for the time of day an indicator that wristwatch tan lines are soon to be a thing of the past? What was the least realistic aspect in the depiction of fighting forest fires in the filmed-near-here 1989 movie “Always”? What’s the point of wearing long shorts with high socks? Who is the Tracy Flick of Spokane? What’s the best way to keep impotently angry sphincters out of your life? If you could change it, what would be the ideal annual rainfall for the Spokane area?

Today’s Slice question: Are there people at your workplace you have known most of their lives?

(This is prompted by an S-R colleague turning 47 recently. I met her here at the paper when she was 21.)

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Compare childbirth with the suffering involved in completing a mountain stage in the Tour de France.

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