My Sunday column was about growing up in Spokaloo, the great underdog city. It’s changing rapidly, and we’re almost hip now. Unbelievable.

Feeling in a nostalgic mood this morning? Share your memories of growing up in Spokane when we were as far from cool as possible. Or maybe you think we’re still a two-dot town. And that’s OK? Or not?

Here’s the beginning of the column.

One afternoon in downtown Spokane, I smelled a scent that combines dog doo, bus diesel and sewer fragrances. I was elated. Finally, it smells like a big city.

I grew up here, lived in bigger cities in my 20s, and then returned home in 1985 to find intact the Spokane Underdog Syndrome.

Those of us who grew up here knew it well. Seattle’s poor stepsister. Out-of-style clothes. Mediocre restaurants. No nightlife. And after high school, the fleeing of the best and brightest.

But Spokane is in transformation from “underdog to wonder dog” as my childhood friend Maureen Cosgrove put it recently.

( S-R File photo of what is now Riverfront Park, pictured in 1971 )