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The Slice: Sometimes quiet diplomacy is the answer

Here are a few skunk stories in which cooler heads prevailed.

“A number of years ago, I was on an overnight, fall fishing trip,” wrote Chip Corsi. “Sleeping out on the ground, with no tent, I awoke at daybreak to the rustling of leaves. At arms length from my face was a skunk, going about its business. I quietly repeated to it, multiple times, ‘Go away skunk, go away skunk.’ Happy ending, it eventually did. I got up, walked a few steps to the river, and caught a big brown trout. Thanks for the memory, Mr. Skunk.”

Pullman’s Bill Brock shared this.

“It was a canoe trip in Montana. The night was fair, so I slept under the stars. In the gloaming, just before dawn, one of my friends began tickling my face with a feather duster. Too sleepy to open my eyes, I lashed out blindly with my hands, but, lying prone, I couldn’t land a clean strike.

“The tickling continued, and I kept striking with my fists until I realized I was TRYING TO PUNCH A SKUNK! At eye level, no less.

“Fortunately, failure dogged me in this lowly venture and I escaped unscented. My wife speculates it was professional courtesy that stayed the skunk’s hand.”

Roger Erhart passed along this story.

“A few years ago I was golfing with friends at Kokanee Springs Golf Resort in Canada. It was dusk and we were done golfing for the day as deer were overtaking the golf course. I was walking down a path to meet up with my friends at the 19th hole when I stepped around a corner and was startled by Mr. Skunk about five feet in front of me. We stared each other down and I slowly stepped off the path and went way around him. No harm done.”

And when Mike Storms was a student at Gonzaga University in the late 1960s, he sometimes took walks at night. “One such evening I was going down a dirt path and found myself face to face with a skunk. We looked at each other for a moment and then turned around and headed our own ways in peace.”

If you prefaced your last name with an O’: Dan Canada would become Dan O’Canada.

And Dorothy Yeaw noted that her last name is pronounced “Yaw,” though many mistakenly say “Yeah.”

Which, with the O’ would come off sounding like “O’Yeah.”

“That would be a great name.”

Today’s Slice question: What is your vernal equinox tradition?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Name the character in 1981’s “Body Heat” who was a Florida State graduate.

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