The Slice: It wouldn’t hurt to add a little salt

I don’t want to discourage people from shoveling their sidewalks.

It’s the right thing to do.

But because of our frequent melt-and-refreeze cycles, a case could be made that pristinely clean (potentially slick) walkways can be more treacherous the next morning than essentially untended paths.

“Slice answer: Christy Bristow said a Spokane-themed Christmas Village might include a little Habitat for Humanity home being built by volunteers.

“The mean streets of Green Bluff: “My family moved to Colbert from San Diego five years ago,” wrote Marian Ortiz. “We came for the usual reasons – less congested, safer, better to raise kids, etc. While in San Diego, we had lived on a very nice street, in a nice neighborhood of custom homes. Unfortunately, the young man who lived next door to us had no visible occupation, but appeared to live very well and had a constant procession of questionable types in and out of his house at all hours.

“One evening, he was in his garage and was shot three times in a drive-by shooting. This all took place not 30 feet from my 2-year-old son’s bedroom, where my husband was reading to our son.

“On a Friday night in our first December here, I heard sirens and saw flashing lights in the street in our quiet new neighborhood. I thought, ‘Oh, no – not again! Not here, too!’

“With great apprehension, I went to the front door and opened it a crack. I heard a voice from a public address system singing, ‘Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus …’ Yes, it was our local fire department, heralding the arrival of Santa on a fire truck.

“Talk about culture shock – but obviously, in a good way.”

“Just wondering: Do any hosts still encourage the wearing of “Hello My Name Is …” stick-on tags?

“Christmas cards from businesses: Lynn Aus over in St. Maries doesn’t mind them if they’re from a local business with which he has a personal relationship. “But, on the other hand, a company that mass-mails greetings – forget it.”

Dianne Cook acknowledged that they can be tacky, but she said some people who receive precious few holiday cards probably welcome the ones from stores and service providers.

“Call for unity: “If the media, both newspaper and TV, would not refer to the area north of the Clearwater River as ‘North Idaho,’ maybe the people in the southern part of the state would not think it was a separate state,” wrote Slice reader Don Brown.

“Reader challenge: Name 100 on-air people who have worked in Spokane TV news.

“Today’s Slice question: How often do sisters give birth on the same day?