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This column reflects the opinion of the writer. Learn about the differences between a news story and an opinion column.

The Slice: At last glance, city sidewalks accommodated both directions

Training for Bloomsday does not give runners an excuse to be bullying, three-abreast sidewalk space-hogs downtown.

Regular pedestrians have a right to be on the sidewalks, too, and they are not required to get out of the way of runners or otherwise genuflect before some oblivious trio’s lunchtime workout.

Just wondering: If when you were a child you were expected to give something up for Lent, how did you explain it to peers unfamiliar with this religious practice?

Slice answer: Marilyn Othmer said the local entertainment venue with the least comfortable seats is the Fox Theater. The best seats, in her opinion, are at the INB Performing Arts Center. (That’s the Opera House, for those who haven’t come downtown since the world’s fair.)

Flipping a coin: Bill Bennett had just gotten out of the Army after a tour of duty in Vietnam. He had narrowed his destinations to Europe or Alaska. He decided to toss a coin. Heads, he would go to Alaska. Tails, it would be Europe.

It came up tails.

Suddenly Bennett realized he did not really want to go to Europe. He set his sights on the Last Frontier.

“I didn’t take the coin’s advice but it did help me make up my mind.”

Slice reader Jeff Bergman wonders: “So why do you hear so many sentences and so many questions nowadays starting with the word ‘So,’?” he wrote. “So it wasn’t always so. So why is it so much so now?”

To note the birthday of the late Dr. Seuss: Let’s recall a Slice item that ran 20 years ago. Readers had been asked to come up with titles for a Dr. Seuss book inspired by life in Spokane. Here are a few of their ideas.

“Greenacres and Spam,” “There’s a Pothole in My Street,” “Oh, The Places You’ll Never Go,” “You Can’t Go to the Zoo in Spokaloo!” and “Green light, Yellow light, Red light – GO!”

Warm-up question: This is Sleep Awareness Week. How will you observe it?

Today’s Slice question: How many people do you know who say “Daylight Savings Time” instead of the correct “Daylight Saving Time”?

However you say it, we spring ahead this coming weekend.

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Thanks to the reader who emailed me a doctored photo showing how I would look wearing a George Washington wig.

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