The Slice: Every year at about this time

The surest sign of spring fever in the Spokane area?

“The sighting of restored classic and antique cars,” wrote Sally Gardner of Spokane Valley.

Let’s move on.

Now hear this: Fritz Stout weighed in on the conversation about hearing aids started in Sunday’s Slice.

“Maggie had been after me for years to get my hearing checked. I was pretty negative about wearing objects that would immediately brand me as old. That and I didn’t really think I needed them.”

Then he emerged from a gun range one day and realized he could not hear anything in his right ear.

“Anyway, this incident convinced me finally to break down and have a hearing test. Which showed the loss in my left ear was severe and the loss in my right ear was profound. I was amazed as I still didn’t think my hearing was that bad.

“I now wear hearing aids in both ears. Maggie says the biggest difference is that I talk much more quietly now. The unintended consequence of which is that it’s now Maggie saying ‘Huh?’ all the time instead of me.”

More uses for old newspapers: Readers employ the S-R to line the bottom of bird cages (Annie Sanders said her bird likes to have my mugshot face up), to make bedding for baby goats, to clean windows and to start campfires.

Deer Park’s Dave Swett said he uses yesterday’s newspaper to remind him of what day it was when he did all that stuff yesterday.

North Idaho’s Jim Corcoran uses wadded up newspaper pages to help dry baseball caps just out of the washer. “I then use the old newspapers to start fires in my shop stove.”

The more things change …: “As you know, I ride the ol’ No. 66 (STA bus) out to Cheney a couple days a week,” wrote Jim Clanton. “I cannot help but notice that most of the students and fellow faculty members have their heads buried in their iPhones the whole trip.”

The other day, Jim watched a movie set during the Cold War. There was a scene on a subway. “Everyone had their heads buried in the (real paper) newspaper. It occurred to me that things may not be so different after all.”

Today’s Slice question: At what exact minute of the day is Interstate 90 most predictably insane along the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene corridor?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Silent stoics don’t always get what they want at home or at work.