The Slice: Holding onto the season with both hands

Confronted with the final weekend in August, some might want to cram the penultimate 20 pounds of summer into a 10-pound bag.

It’s an understandable impulse.

After all, next weekend is Labor Day. Then, about half an hour later, it will be Halloween candy. Then, before you know, it will be Andy Williams singing “Whoop-dee-do.”

And our team is out of time-outs.

So instead of trying to do everything time and temperature allow, another goal suggests itself.

Sometime this weekend, you could take an unhurried moment and turn your face to the sun. You could close your eyes and silently soak up a solar recharge.

You can review all that you did and sigh about all you wished you had done.

Summer’s not over. It never really is. At least not the part that’s all in your mind.

First impressions that were off the mark: When Sandpoint’s Jan Temple was in her 20s and living in California, she went on a double date. She didn’t know the other couple.

Partly because of the other woman’s flamboyant manner of dress and high-volume personality, Jan took an instant disliking to her. But as the evening wore on, they found they had much in common. Their connection was such that they all but ignored their dates.

“Due to her I eventually ended up quitting my job, putting my stuff in storage and driving her and her cat across the country to see her dying mother.”

For Jan, that led to subsequent moves and meeting her future husband. “Even though we live on different sides of the country, after some 50 years she is still my best friend.”

Whitman County’s Patsy Wood shared this.

“She was blond, tall, curvy and beautiful and I assumed she was not too bright. Turns out she was one of the smartest women I was to meet. And the nicest. I still feel bad about my first impression of her and that was 36 years ago!”

Ball State’s finest: Friday was S-R editor Gary Graham’s last day.

Last summer, on the afternoon/evening I was undergoing emergency brain surgery at Sacred Heart, Gary returned to Spokane from an out-of-town trip and drove straight to the hospital from the airport. He wanted to see if my family needed anything.

Some things you do not forget.

Today’s Slice question: What is the 2016 equivalent of going to a neighbor’s home to look at slides from their vacation?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. You would not be the first to use a high school locker combination as part of your computer password.