Ex-Crossing Guards Shouldn’T Have Scars

Your Slice host served his hitch back in sixth grade.

I was proud to wear the orange. But believe me. The vast majority of former crossing guards have no right to claim that they now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

* Party animals: “We, too, had a problem with deer in the string beans,” wrote Lois Smith of Deer Park. “So we put a radio outside tuned to our favorite music. The next time we looked out, the deer were dancing.”

* Says here: 1. An alarming number of men and women appear to be unaware that eating with your mouth wide open is unattractive.

2. Those who don’t understand the appeal of pets tend to be people who never stop talking.

3. People incapable of distinguishing between “assertive” and “rude” are exhausting.

4. It would be great if a local TV station came up with a slogan for its news shows that was modest and grounded in reality.

5. Racial profiling is wrong. But The Slice has no problem with Spokane cops randomly pulling over drivers in Trans-Ams and Camaros.

6. Thousands of people around here never engage in any of the activities that supposedly are universal summertime experiences in the Inland Northwest.

7. Local class warfare is inevitable if people with big incomes don’t stop talking as if everyone around here has the same opportunities.

8. Not every walking tattoo lurking at the STA Plaza is a convicted criminal. Some were acquitted.

9. If you make donations to your alma mater on the basis of football success, have you asked yourself “What’s wrong with me?”

10. Having contempt for certain local lifestyle stereotypes just means you’re paying attention.

11. The Northwest is great, but other regions have better night sounds.

12. For those who like to blame everything on minorities, this must be a frustrating place to live.

* Gone but not forgotten: Patsy Pinch knows her brother, David, still winces when he thinks back to that dark day many years ago when their mother threw out a big basket full of his baseball cards.

And Ted Redman remembers when he was a newlywed in 1970 and the couple’s puppy shredded many of his Playboy magazines — some dating back to the ‘50s. “Whether my new bride had anything to do with it or not, I couldn’t say,” he wrote. “Though I do know she and the mutt had a remarkable rapport.”

* Today’s Slice question: When confronting an ethical dilemma, do you ever ask yourself “What would Jimi Hendrix do?”