The Slice: Voted most likely to be suspicious

Is it just me or has modern life made everyone suspicious about practically everything?

A card arrived in the mail at home. It said “BURLINGTON HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI NOTIFICATION: Verification of the information in your records is urgently needed.”

It was adorned with my alma mater’s crest and had a 1-800 number.

That’s odd, I thought. I had no idea anyone at my New England high school knew I lived in Spokane. I think my last contact with anyone connected with BHS was at my 10-year reunion in the ‘80s.

Then I read that this request had to do with a “directory project” being undertaken by a business in Virginia state. Mental alarms sounded.

I stopped thinking about old friends and instead pictured junk mail, spam, sales calls and chain letters.

I put the card aside and considered trying to dig out an album by The Who. You know, the one with “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

“Best small-town doctors: Marilyn Othmer of Chewelah, Wash., nominated Dr. Kim Johnstone.

“She ALWAYS has time to talk to her patients and never shows any sign of being in a hurry,” she wrote. “… She seems so genuinely interested in not only her patients, but their families as well. She has a wonderful sense of humor and we share a lot of laughs and occasionally tears.”

Dean Stevens in Priest River, Idaho, nominated Dr. J.B. Fowler and Dr. Charles Falter. “They and their staff are dedicated to their patients and see them for regular appointments and fit them into the schedule on an emergency basis,” he wrote.

Pat Rice, Almira, Wash., sang the praises of Davenport-based Dr. Rolf Panke. “He listens, he asks questions, he offers solutions and he makes me laugh,” she wrote. “What more could you ask for?”

Joe and Patty Leifer of St. John, Wash., gave a thumbs-up to nurse practitioner Blaze Burnham, who sees patients in St. John and Garfield, Wash. “He understands the people here,” they wrote.

And Michael Riley of Potlatch, Idaho, said Dr. Dan Schmidt of Moscow (Idaho) Family Medicine is just about everything you could want in a physician.

“He’s a professional and skilled practitioner, he has intuition and a questioning mind, and he’s a great talker and listener,” wrote Riley. “We had a great conversation about life, happiness, and everything over my vasectomy operation a few years back. And if that isn’t male bonding, I don’t know what is.”

“A call for consistency: “Since we live in ‘Eastern’ Washington, I’d choose ‘Northern’ Idaho,” wrote Slice reader Jan Humphreys.

“Warm-up question: Whose cat stretches out to the most amazing length on hot days?

“Today’s Slice question: Ever forget that you had turned on a sprinkler?