The Slice: Sometimes an iffy notion

Here are five excuses for not going out and working in the yard that are guaranteed to invite skeptical looks from others in your home.

1. “I could be walking into an ambush.”

2. “I think those crows are up to something.”

3. “I’d have to put on pants.”

4. “Are you kidding? Did you see my horoscope today?”

5. “That yard’s got it in for me.”

Here on Outdoor Intercourse Day Eve: Readers were asked just what they recall about when this fresh-air celebration of intimate social congress became a thing.

“I was a radio/tv major at Eastern Washington State College in 1969,” wrote Steve Sibulsky. “As a work-study job, I edited the twice-weekly mimeographed events calendar that was distributed all over the campus. I distinctly remember adding the words ‘Hooray, hooray it’s’ next to the masthead’s ‘Thursday, May 8, 1969.’ ”

He recalls the department chairman was not amused.

Jim Frick was a student at Washington State from September 1964 until June 1968. “It was common knowledge … the 8th of May is the 69th day of March.”

“I first celebrated in 1974 at Eastern and it seemed to be pretty well established,” wrote Rick Straub. “Talking to my Seattle friends, they said it was celebrated on the 1st of May. Not sure if it is the warmer climate or the fact that Puget Sound folks feel they must always be ahead of us Inland Empire rubes.”

Greg Cossette said he couldn’t really shed any light on all this. “However, I do clearly recall hearing the chant, ‘Hooray, hooray, for the 8th of May – Outdoor Intercourse starts today!’ in the spring of 1967 while a naive freshman at EWSC.”

Jan Jenne wrote, “I have no definitive proof of when it started, but I started at WSU in the fall of 1966. Outdoor intercourse day was celebrated in the late 1960s.”

Go, Cougs! Go, Eags!

In the matter of remaking 1967’s “The Graduate” 50 years later: Mike Storms suggested replacing the word “plastics” with “robotics.”

When long-ago co-workers post old pictures on Facebook that include you: Four thoughts often come to mind.

1. Why on God’s green Earth was I wearing that?

2. If only I had known then what I know now.

3. Uh, interesting hair I had back then.

4. Does he/she still have a crush on me?

Today’s Slice question: Will Bloomsday go on forever or will event organizers one day decide to pack it in?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Lots of readers knew the horse that won the 1889 Kentucky Derby was named Spokane.