The Slice: ‘Spo-cane’ – Just a Stones’ throw away

I‘ve been thinking about Mick Jagger noting the other night in Missoula that some fans had come to the Rolling Stones concert all the way from “Spo-cane.”

And I have decided there should be an annual award for the highest-profile mispronunciation of our city’s name. Send your 2006 nominations to The Slice.

What should we call it?

“Dance fever: A student leader at Ferris High School asked me to be a chaperone at the upcoming homecoming dance.

I accepted this invitation.

This will afford me an opportunity to do something I’ve long yearned to do: Police the behavior of teenagers.

The theme of the Oct. 28 gathering will be “A Haunted Masquerade.” So I’m assuming costumes will be involved.

That should make it easier to flag unacceptable behavior.

“Hey, you – Witchy! – try casting your spell from a few inches farther away from Spider-Man there.”

I can’t wait. I’ll report back to you in my column appearing on Halloween.

“For the record: The Barbara E. Smith who attends Central Baptist Church is not the Barbara E. Smith who wrote about adding “in bed” to fortune cookie fortunes.

“Second and third chances: So it had come to the point in the fundraising breakfast for Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs where someone the agency had helped stood at the podium and talked about the difference SNAP had made in his life.

Alphonso Guster, who is trying to launch a small business, admitted he had made mistakes. He said that before hooking up with SNAP, his record prevented him from opening a bank account.

I figured he must have written some bad checks or something.

When I got back to the office, I looked him up in the newspaper’s files to see if we had written about his fledgling enterprise – artistically customizing sneakers.

What I found instead was a criminal history more troubling than a few bogus checks. There was an assault, a burglary and some other stuff.

I sort of felt as if I (along with the maybe 200 others at that breakfast) had been had.

Had SNAP been had, too? I spoke with a couple of senior administrators. They said they didn’t know much about the man’s past. I don’t doubt that.

I met with Guster. “I’m trying to put all that behind me,” he said.

I want to believe him.

If I had it to do over, I’d still write a check to support SNAP. It’s a good organization.

And can we, as a society, afford to simply give up on a person?

Maybe, at some point, there’s no other choice.

But I hope Al Guster’s business takes off. And even if it doesn’t, I don’t mind that someone in Spokane tried to help him.

“Today’s Slice question: Closets in what Inland Northwest neighborhood are home to the biggest collection of Coldwater Creek apparel?