The Slice: Giant shadow still looms

There’s still plenty of time to think up some shallow, self-aggrandizing, plastic gesture for Valentine’s Day.

But you have just two weeks to get ready for Groundhog Day. Use that time wisely.

“Just wondering: In your opinion, who was the all-time most attractive figure skater?

“Positive news: “There’s hope for the masses,” wrote Slice reader Richard Palmer.

He has noticed that fewer grooms sport goatees in the S-R’s photos of newlyweds.

“One more note on appearances: A reader who has seen pictures of casino winners on billboards suggested that instead of buying expensive cars and what not, some of them ought to blow their winnings on orthodontic work.

“Today’s real estate euphemism: The phrase “quality construction” bugs North Idaho’s Debbie Miller.

“I just wonder when the word ‘quality,’ when used by itself, began to automatically imply that the quality is high.”

She suspects that sometimes the quality in question is, in fact, low.

“Shake a leg: “Your recent column on dancing parents brought back beautiful memories — one old and one recent,” wrote Bernice Scott. “When I was a little girl, I knew my parents loved to dance, but since they went out to dance, I had not seen it.”

One day, she asked her folks to show her.

“So they put on ‘The Tennessee Waltz’ and glided across the living room floor.

“Many years later, when my father was at the end of his life, he reminisced about how he had loved to dance.

“When my son was married this past November, he and I danced — at my request — to ‘The Tennessee Waltz.’ Both memories still make me cry.”

Deb Gruber can remember seeing her parents dance a time or two. What sticks in her memory, though, is the sight of her English teacher, Mrs. Latin (yes, Latin) waltzing with her husband at a school dance in the late ‘60s. “Almost every kid there was speechless.”

I wonder what waltz music was playing. “Light My Fire”? “Born to be Wild”? “Let it Bleed”?

“Speaking of songs: Les Norton was listening to an old Fleetwood Mac album when a tune featuring the lead vocals of Lindsey Buckingham came on. Norton’s three dogs started to bark and howl.

No amount of shushing made a difference. But when the next song came on, featuring Christine McVie, the pooches settled right down.

Everybody’s a critic.

“Today’s Slice question: Would you appreciate the Inland Northwest’s various festivals and other annual events more if they all took this year off and then came back in 2008?