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The Slice: Is modesty missing? ‘Little bit’

Sometimes, when I hear bragging or observe smugness, I think of the movie “Shane.”
Many of life’s behavioral riddles are answered in that classic Western.
For instance, what do you do when someone asks if you know how to do a certain thing and the truth is — by any objective standard — you excel at it?
One choice is obvious. You can say “I happen to be a genius when it comes to setting up a blog,” or “Sir, you are speaking to one of Spokane’s leading authorities on cross-country skiing.”
But there’s another way.
A scene early in “Shane” shows how to handle such moments.
A young boy inquires about whether the film’s title character can shoot. (We all know the answer.) And the thinking man’s gunfighter offers a model all experts should strive to copy.
“Little bit,” he says.
Now I know advocates of self-empowerment say we should blow our own horns or risk being overlooked. But my hunch is that the modern West would be a better place to live if more of us followed Shane’s modest example.
Come back, Shane. Come back.
“Here’s a story prompted by last Friday’s Slice: “A couple of years ago my sons, Kevin and Sean, came home from elementary school,” wrote Barbara Graham. “I asked all of the usual questions about their day. They told me they had to have recess inside that day because of the black guys on the playground.”
Utterly baffled, Graham pressed for details.
Eventually, one of the boys explained that the playground had been deemed too slippery.
“Then I realized they were telling me they stayed in because of black ice.”
“Well, it’s the thought that counts: Molly Austinson was outside clearing the sidewalk when her 5-year-old son, Cole, appeared. “Mom, I am going to help you shovel snow,” he said. “That way you can get less done faster.”
“Real tree or fake: “Real,” said Duane Cocking. To make his case, he quoted Dr. Johnny Fever from the old sitcom “WKRP.” As Cocking recalls, that slightly spaced-out disk jockey once observed that nothing says Christmas like going out and killing a tree.
“All tied up: I have a friend who sails on Lake Pend Oreille in the summer. And so what does he do at this time of year? Well, one of his fascinating diversions is learning complicated new sailor’s knots. It turns out there are a lot of them.
So your assignment is to identify the phony knot-names in the following list made up mostly of real ones. Good luck. The answer can be found down below The Slice’s contact info.
A) Monkey’s fist. B) Skank’s claw. C) Lark’s head. D) Clove hitch. E) Turner’s tangle. F) Eye splice. J) Widow’s revenge. K) Sheepshank. L) B-24. M) Sheet bend. N) Granny knot. O) Timber hitch.
“Today’s Slice question (appropriate for only a small number of readers): How did you manage to stick to your 2005 New Year’s resolution?