History hasn’t been kind to Lilac royalty

I think the History Channel is the reason more people don’t pay attention to the Lilac Festival royalty.

You see, we’ve gotten used to associating monarchs with beheadings, intrigue, war and inbred marriages.

It’s hard for fresh-faced teens to compete with that.

•Slice answers: “The (erroneous) assumption that has been made about me on separate occasions, even in separate countries, is that I am a former high school cheerleader,” wrote Bridget Freeman-Wamsley.

Christy Cornelsen and her husband, who are in their late 20s, picked Cheney as the place to raise their family. They are not students. But practically everyone they meet assumes that they are.

•There’s still time to enter The Slice’s Faded Furniture Contest: But here is some of what I’ve heard so far.

Cindi John owns a reclining chair that her mother purchased in the late 1960s, when Cindi was a kid.

In 1985, Cindi had it reupholstered – in time for her daughter Amanda to “upchuck baby formula” all over it.

“It is now 2007, and I am dying to get rid of it,” she wrote.

Her husband, however, has argued to keep it. For one thing, the cat likes climbing on it.

“It now has a place of honor in Amanda’s old bedroom for when guests come,” said John.

Margret Hanna Burdega was furnishing a farm house on a tight budget in the early 1960s. “I bought five molded plastic chairs so each of our children would have their own chair,” she wrote. “I think I paid about $5 each.”

The chairs aren’t what you would call attractive. But they won’t go away.

Jeannie Maki told about a toad-stool ottoman that is, well, an eyesore. “It belongs to my husband and was with him before me,” she wrote. “It is so worn out on top – no longer any fuzz left at all – that you can see its stuffing. And the covering around the bottom is starting to pull away from the stand.”

She mentioned the possibility of getting it recovered. “That was like suggesting that the favorite teddy or binky be washed.”

The piece was a gift to her husband from his parents. “Our daughter has quietly suggested that they get us a new one for Christmas. But that was followed by silence, so it wasn’t brought up again.”

•Final round of spelling bee stings: “I had won my school bee and advanced to the Marion County (Indianapolis) bee,” wrote Joyce Mann.

Then she misspelled “mucilage.” “It dealt my ego a serious blow,” she wrote.

“I was an eighth-grader from Grand Coulee and was selected to participate in the Inland Empire Spelling Bee held at Whitworth in 1960,” wrote Janice Holcomb.

She left the “i” out of “waiver.” “I’ll never forget it.”

•Today’s Slice questions: What is the western border of Eastern Washington? What is the southern border of North Idaho?