The Slice: Let’s all do some name-calling

There’s a Slice reader who refers to a certain Spokane neighborhood as “the Palm Reading district.”

And that makes me wonder. What would you call your neighborhood?

OK, let’s move on.

“They’ll be out there again next week: When you see bent-over little kids carrying overstuffed backpacks to and from school, do you ever find yourself composing a caption to go with the scene?

Here are a few that occurred to me during the last school year.

“C’mon, Rico, we can still make the summit by nightfall.”

“If anybody asks what we’ve got in here, let me do the talking.”

“Have you seen the rest of my platoon?”

“And suddenly a member of the Donner Party came down from the mountains.”

OK, your turn.

“Name game: My father has been in the hospital. While taking my mother to visit him each evening, the two of us fell into a routine.

One of the hallways we go down is lined with photos of graduating classes from Sacred Heart’s school of nursing, which closed in the ‘70s. There are dozens of framed collections of pictures. Each night, we pause to look at a few.

The faces and hairstyles draw you in. And my mother, who became a nurse in Philadelphia shortly before World War II, has enjoyed noting the evolution of uniform styles over the decades.

But the thing that has fascinated me is the names. It’s a long hallway full of perfectly good, non-junky first names.

So here’s a tip.

If you are expecting a baby that might turn out to be a girl and you have not decided on a name, get yourself over to Sacred Heart. Ask for directions to the hall of photos.

You might find the perfect moniker. Years from now, your daughter will thank you.

“Slice answer (How you told the father of your child that you were pregnant): “I didn’t,” wrote a reader who wanted to remain anonymous. “My husband had younger brothers and sisters. When I started vomiting the second week, he told me.”

“Small World Department: A Spokane woman’s uncle in Mississippi recently received an envelope mailed from Spokane. But it wasn’t a letter from his niece. It was from a Spokane man organizing a multiyear reunion of fellow graduates of Belzoni (Miss.) High School.

“Today’s Slice question: What if college football teams could not use players who came from other states?