The Slice Helping Hands Come In Different Colors
On Sunday we saw this guy outside a Spokane discount store struggling to fit an oversized box containing some sort of playground equipment into the back of his covered truck.
Another man stopped his car, got out and immediately started to help. Together, they managed to get the box into the truck.
They smiled at one another, waved and went their separate ways.
One of the men was black. The other was white.
It was no big deal, of course. Happens every day. But as we watched, we remembered that the nuts aren’t the only ones with a say when it comes to race relations.
Sure, sure: You would have won your office Oscars pool except you picked nominees that you wanted to win, not nominees you thought actually would win. Right. We believe you.
The real world can wait: A colleague was taking part in a career fair at Gonzaga Prep when she overheard a student tell a friend about his approach to the event. “I did all the careers with guns,” he said. “The Secret Service guys didn’t have sunglasses. I was disappointed.”
Three items that just happen to fit right here: 1. The urge to drive with a little dog on your lap must grow as you get older. 2. That sound you hear in the morning is the collective sigh of people arriving at work and discovering that, for once, there wasn’t a “You screwed up” message or an urgent note about some horrible assignment waiting for them. 3. About 5 percent of the people with media credentials for high-profile public events are actually working reporters.
Slice answer: Spokane’s Peter Alan McKinney, 6, said that if Jesus had owned a pet it would have been a bunny rabbit named Saint Patrick.
Warm-up questions: Do you ever find yourself feeling like livestock in a slaughterhouse when going through the entrance to the North Division Cinemas? What local park has the highest concentration of dog droppings?
Today’s Slice question: What would be the perfect passwords or secret phrases designed to help Spokane area residents identify one another as Inland Northwesterners when meeting by chance while out of town?
(Our picks…the first person would say “I’m having a bad air day.” Then the other would wink and respond “Huckleberry.”)
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing
MEMO: The Slice appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. Check out the Christopher Anderson photography show at the Corbin Art Center.