The Slice: That was back when Bobby Sherman lived in Seattle

According to something I read online, this was the date in 1610 when Henry Hudson sailed into what is now known as Hudson Bay and thought he had made it to the Northwest (or at least the Pacific Ocean).

He would not be the last to get something fundamentally wrong about our region.

There are still people who assume all of the Northwest is politically progressive. And some outsiders/visitors expect the entire region to be a rain forest. Et cetera, et cetera.

I’m sure you have your own list.

But this got me thinking about being wrong. And about a theme The Slice dealt with a few weeks ago – gullibility.

Readers shared their stories, but I neglected to tell a tale on myself.

Quite a few years ago, my wife and I were in Seattle. We were walking along the waterfront. She called over to me that she had found a plaque marking the spot where the brides had landed.

I knew she was referring to the 1968-70 TV show, “Here Come the Brides,” which was partly inspired by the 1954 musical, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”

I don’t know how I would have fared if I had been given a quiz on the loose factual underpinnings of those stories. Though, to be honest, I’ve never claimed to be an expert on the subject of Northwest brides and their propensity for singing, dancing and general nubility.

So in that moment, confronted with a report that a plaque documented this chapter of Northwest history, I just said something like “Oh, really” and walked over to see where the brides landed.

There was no such plaque. Decades later, I can still hear my wife laughing.

So anyway, if you’re ever over in Seattle and someone says “Hey, here’s where Henry Hudson discovered the Northwest,” don’t fall for it.

What you learned from your divorce: “Both my wife and I went through unhappy marriages of approximately 15 years and we now have two takeaways,” wrote Richard Bravinder. “The first is that we knew what we DIDN’T want in a marriage, and after understanding these things it has worked out well beyond our expectations. The second thing we learned later in our marriage is that the first 15-year marriages seemed to last forever but our current marriage of 30 years is flying by way too fast.”

Today’s Slice question: What would be the story line of a set-in-the-Northwest musical, “Here Come the Husbands”?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. If Deer Park’s Dave Swett had a sidekick, he would want it to be Deputy Barney Fife or Chester from “Gunsmoke.”