The Slice: You can’t believe everything you read

Longtime Slice reader Bonnie Rae sent an answer to a question in my column, using a vintage postcard to convey her response.

The question was “What’s the No. 1 reason you are not a typical Inland Northwesterner?”

Bonnie’s answer: “Because I’ve lived my entire life in the Inland Empire.”

I like that. But the thing that really got my attention was the postcard. It shows the old Spokane Coliseum when it was new.

And here’s what is printed on the reverse. “This new building was constructed at a cost of 2 1/2 million dollars and is the finest of its kind in the United States. It is used for sports events and many civic presentations.”

The Coliseum was built more than 60 years ago and demolished in 1995.

It was a good building. The Boone Street Barn, as it was sometimes known, served Spokane well.

But “Finest of its kind in the United States”?

Seems a bit boosterish for modest, self-effacing Spokane. Maybe that’s because the card was not produced here. (It’s unclear whether that photo description originated in Boston or Tacoma.)

But on second thought, maybe a little more of that kind of drum-beating is precisely what we need. You know, to expunge the last vestiges of the famous Spokane inferiority complex from our community psyche.

Maybe a sustained outpouring of superlatives could balance the scales of image/reality in the minds of those who typically define us as Not Seattle.

I’ll start. See if you can tell what fixtures on the Spokane cultural landscape I’m talking about.

“Absolutely the finest assemblage of pigs out in a park to be found anywhere.”

“The best fest, a fest unlike any other fest in the known universe.”

“The most dynamic, interactive, wholly integrated building to park buses outside of in the free world.”

“With or without a covering, it remains the finest remnant of a world’s fair pavilion extant.”

“No mere fur-chubs or rascally rodents, these noble engine hose-chompers are, in fact, the greatest animals in the pantheon of all creatures great and small.”

“The greatest nightly gathering of beards, craft beers and collarless shirts in the United States.”

“With or without the ponderous surface load of dog droppings, it remains the best city park in America.”

“The best college basketball town anywhere; you will find a population that mostly understands the virtue of sanity and the concept of having a life.”

“The world’s best airport that used to house a taxidermy polar bear.”

Today’s Slice question: What is Spokane’s biggest waste of outrage?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. A life without onions would be …