The Slice: In reality, rarely was there paradise by the dashboard light

Hey, kids!

Your grandparents are liars.

OK, maybe that’s a bit harsh. But according to The Slice Institute for Social Research, 68 percent of all nostalgic stories about antics at drive-in theaters are grossly exaggerated.

•The Wayback Machine: Coeur d’Alene’s June Eachon was going through some of her mother’s belongings in the attic. She came across a postcard mailed in 1910 from The Spokesman-Review.

“Let us break the news to you,” it said. “We miss your name from our subscription list. Don’t you begin to miss The Twice-a-Week Spokesman-Review? $1.00 per Year.”

•Just wondering: When watching Spokane TV news coverage of a major local event, do you ever find yourself recalling a wonderful line spoken by a reporter in the movie “Broadcast News”: “Let’s never forget, we’re the real story, not them.”

I’m thinking of one particular station. Can you guess which one?

•Slice answer: Did you find happiness in Spokane?

Julie Schroeder said she did.

“As of September, it will be 18 years since I temporarily moved here,” she wrote.

•Trade-offs: Spokane’s Bob Strong lived most of his life in the South and Southwest. He doesn’t miss fire ants, killer bees, scorpions, et cetera.

But he wouldn’t mind if we had fireflies.

•Self-correction: It’s entirely possible that you might have read one of my observations and found yourself thinking, “Boy, Paul can really be a nutcake.”

But take heart. There is always the chance that I will come to realize that all on my own.

The other day I came across something snide I had written 15 years ago about Hawaiian shirts. I had suggested that they were airheaded affectations favored by those who think a wacky garment is a convincing substitute for an original personality.

Well, I’ve changed my tune. I myself wear them so regularly now that one of my colleagues recently stopped at my desk and asked, “Where’s the Hawaiian shirt?”

I had gone with a striped seersucker number that day.

Anyway, it makes me wonder.

What’s some aspect of summer about which you have changed your mind?

Camping? Growing tomatoes? The, uh, mytho-poetic, spiritually transcendent nature of fly-fishing?

•Pull that groin: I saw something about a Spokane media dodgeball tournament and another line from a movie occurred to me.

Walter Matthau was playing a guy watching a college football game on TV involving two teams from a distant state. The actress playing his wife, I think it was Carol Burnett, asks how he could possibly care about the outcome. “I don’t,” he answers. “I’m just rooting for injuries.”

•Today’s Slice question: If the lemonade’s not moving, what should kids try selling?