The Slice: We both spell party with a Zzzz

There must be something about the name “Spokane” that brings out the urge to take a walk on the mild side.

After Slice reader Dale Roloff told me that there is a Spokane Creek in South Dakota, I went online to learn more.

The first thing I found was a Web site for an outdoorsy resort in the Black Hills. Named “Spokane Creek,” this place described itself in the first sentence as “family oriented.”

Of course. With “Spokane” in the name, what else would you expect?

Then, in case any doubt lingered, the Web site specified, “We are not a party campground.”

Duly noted.

“Type A or Type B: Roberta Garner, associate registrar at Whitworth College, has determined that there are two kinds of runners.

The distinction often makes itself apparent when a couple of people training for Bloomsday pass one another going in opposite directions.

One type is satisfied to offer a polite nod. The other insists on presenting a report on that day’s run.

“Slice answer: Debra Reid, who lives on a cul-de-sac, is among those in favor of speed bumps on all residential streets. “You wouldn’t believe how many people just speed up and down this street,” she wrote. “This includes delivery drivers and people who just use it as a turn around.”

“Today’s skunk story: Back when he lived near Walla Walla, Jim McCall raised a few chickens. Once he trapped a skunk he believed was harassing the poultry.

He drowned it in a nearby creek. Then he placed the carcass in a garbage bag and put it in the back of his pickup truck.

Later, after having driven somewhere to do a bit of business, he noticed that the garbage bag was gone. But the Lazarus-like skunk was now revived and hiding behind a tool box in the truck bed.

“I put the tailgate down, hoping he would leave,” wrote McCall.

The skunk declined to disembark.

So McCall drove off, with the tailgate still down.

Only after the truck had gotten back on the road did the skunk move toward the tailgate. The critter did not, however, jump to its doom. It just stood and watched.

“So here I am driving around Walla Walla with a live skunk that anybody behind me can see,” wrote McCall.

He pulled over. Then McCall tipped over an empty 55-gallon barrel. The skunk got in.

His next stop? The local Humane Society.

By that time, McCall had decided this was one animal that deserved a second chance.

“Today’s Slice question: Have proms gotten better or worse?