Arrow-right Camera
Subscribe now

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

The Slice: Dress for something like success

I had a boss at my first newspaper job who believed in a dress code for men.

Most of the year, male staffers were required to wear neckties while on the job. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, ties were optional.

So here’s my question. If you were the czar of Spokane area fashion, what aspect of your dress code would you relax between the summer-bracketing holidays?

In the matter of sharing recipes: “My mother-in-law, long gone, was a fabulous cook,” wrote Jan Stone of Davenport. “I was not. There was a favorite of my husband’s that she always made for him. He insisted I learn how. He had his mom carefully write it down. It was a kind of sweet roll. He stood right beside me and watched over everything I did with his mother’s recipe in hand. I followed his every direction.

“They were a total disaster. Hard as bricks. He sat and went over the recipe to find what had gone wrong. I sat with him and smirked to myself. Even I knew you do not frost the sweet rolls before baking them. But that was what she had written down.

“This was early in our marriage. When I explained what had happened he looked at the recipe and the subject was dropped. We both knew she had done it on purpose and the subject was never mentioned again and neither was my cooking.”

Slice answers: Readers reports on flat tires don’t really point to a trend that can be confidently blamed on home-repair activity (and workers littering the streets with nails and screws) following November’s wind storm. Potholes still get a greater share of the blame.

Warm-up questions: To what do you attribute your long streak of being given warnings instead of a ticket for minor traffic offenses? Has marijuana’s legality in Washington diminished its cultural cachet in certain “Dave’s not here” circles? Who holds the local record for most phones lost? If house renters and apartment dwellers are made to feel like second-class citizens here, what does that suggest about Spokane’s inner “Babbitt”? What’s the coldest you have been while camping on Memorial Day weekend? At what point does the inescapable presence of thieves in our community tamp down your civic booster tendencies?

Today’s Slice question: How much does it annoy you when it becomes clear an adult doesn’t know the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Identify the classic movie in which an insurance salesman says: “It all began last May. About the end of May, it was.”

More from this author