Column

Baby boomer Darrell Kerby, a 1969 graduate and former Bonners Ferry mayor, didn’t fight in Vietnam. He was spared the horrors of war by his lottery number, 173. On his Facebook wall on Veterans Day, Darrell shared his deep appreciation for those who did serve: “I have stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and traced my classmate’s name. I have stood in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’s exhibit of articles left at the Vietnam Wall. I saw and read the messages from sons to fathers they had never met. I read love letters from girlfriends whose boyfriends had never returned. I saw ladies’ panties, baby shoes, letterman’s jackets and sweaters, varsity letters, footballs and basketballs. Items so personal, painful, and meaningful you would literally need to have been born without a heart to not be moved to uncontrollable tears.” The beautiful essay goes on to tell of Darrell’s visits to Normandy, Pearl Harbor and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, concluding: “I have attended dozens and dozens of Veteran’s Day remembrances. I get it. My fellow Americans get it. Veterans, there is truly no way to appropriately say thank you. You and your families know intimately firsthand that freedom isn’t free. What I know is … we must never … ever … forget.” Bingo. 65 and holding

You do the math. It should be easy. You just have to estimate.

I grew my first beard in college. It was scruffy, I was scruffy, it was a scruffy time. Since then, there has almost always been some sort of hair on my face, even as the follicles up top were being vacated.

I keep thinking about a story that appeared in the S-R a couple of Saturdays ago. Accompanied by several fine photos, it was about a tabby cat that greets children getting off the bus outside a Spokane grade school. It should have been on the front page.

The feds are getting ready to give the Spokane Police Department a report card of sorts – a wide-ranging set of recommendations arising from a two-year review of department practices. It will be several weeks before the public is allowed to see the details. But next week, the team from the Department of Justice’s COPS program will be back in town to go over the preliminary recommendations with city officials and to establish a schedule for how and when the department will meet what are expected to be about 40 recommendations.

The Slice is no longer going to print grade-schoolers’ instructions on preparing a Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, it has been fun. But I think it is time to call it a day on that annual feature.

Spokane may never get the straight skinny behind last week’s forced resignation of city planning director Scott Chesney. Some mysteries (i.e. Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart, KFC’s secret spices …) are probably better off unknown.

The late evening drive back to Spokane from Seattle this time of year seems so much longer than usual. It’s darker earlier, the weather is dicier and it’s just less pleasant … until that stretch of Interstate 90 between the Columbia River and close to Moses Lake when the darkness is illuminated in places by Christmas lights displays. How wonderful to see these colored lights dancing by the side of the road in the dark of night seemingly in the middle of nowhere. How cheerful. How unexpected. But how did they get there?

A reader took it upon himself to explain certain women’s fondness for short hairstyles. Has nothing to do with manageability, he said.

Washington State University President Elson Floyd came out recently with some “clarifying” remarks about his university’s plan to go it alone on medical education. He emphasized the ways that WSU’s pursuit of state dollars to train doctors in Spokane would differ from the University of Washington’s pursuit of state dollars to train doctors in Spokane.

This old soldier didn’t quite make it to Veterans Day. Jim Ayers’ failing heart gave its final beat Aug. 7.

This might be the perfect time of year to launch a weight-loss regimen. Perhaps you believe the opposite is true. After all, we’re still in the backwash of Halloween and high-calorie holiday grazing looms on the near horizon.

It’s Monday. That means you might hear stories today.

A chest filled with lost pirate plunder would’ve been more of a National Geographic discovery, to be sure. Ditto for a bag of D. B. Cooper’s missing cash.

Idaho’s state Capitol is due for $400,000 in accessibility upgrades, to bring the renovated historic structure in line with requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. They range from new wheelchair-accessible seating areas in the fourth-floor public galleries of the House and Senate, to improved ramps and handrails in various locations, to new signs.

It turns out that quite a few guys of a certain age still have their high school letter jackets. Or, as in the case of Randy Hopkins, letter sweater.

A few months back, Don Waller, the head of the Spokane firefighters union, criticized the mayor’s plan to expand political appointments as “not the way government is supposed to work.” He could just as easily have been referring to the more recent news that Ben Stuckart, president of the City Council, passed along an internal legal memo to Waller himself – who just so happened to be the city’s opponent in the legal case in question. The subject line of the email, sent to City Council members from a city attorney, read: “ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED appeal decision.”

Teresa Vanairsdale was late in filing her annual Priest Lake litter report. But here, at last, is her 2014 audit of roadside garbage.

The eulogy was over, but the stories about Toots Robinson were not nearly finished. They kept erupting, unbidden, from the audience.