The Slice: There’s mud and then there’s mud

Deer Park’s Ken Campbell saw the question about mud rooms.

“I grew up in a genuine ranch-house, meaning our house was near the feedlot where we fed the beef cattle during the winter months.”

They didn’t have a mud room.

“Mom didn’t seem to mind a little nice clean mud.”

But when the material on family members’ boots had a distinctively bovine aroma, as Ken put it, she put her foot down.

He remembers her words: “Stoop down and take those boots off! Don’t take even one step into this house until you do.”

It made no difference to her if the weather left the boots full of rain or even snow, he recalled.

Something tells me that if we put this to a vote, Ken’s mom would win in a mudslide.

Just wondering: Ever see something on a colleague’s computer screen that you wished you hadn’t?

Slice answers: “In regards to your question about whether or not we can remember what our residential area looked like prior to construction: I can,” wrote Bob Isitt. “When I ran cross-country at Whitworth College we came to this wooded area to train on trails. Absolutely no homes existed.”

That has changed. In fact, Bob lives there.

“I’m sure that the trees in my yard are the same ones I ran past 45 years ago. Now, I just rake up their needles … constantly.”

Spokane Valley’s Ken Stout shared this.

“I live six blocks south of where I lived as a kid. We were on top of the hill along 19th. Looking south back then, you saw a vast undeveloped prairie all the way out to 32nd. After a few years they started plowing roads through there. I taught my future wife, Kathy, how to drive a stick tranny 3-on-the-tree out there. We probably drove right by our future home lot.”

Ro Lisk also had an answer to the question about whether she can remember. “Actually, no. I live in an old automobile warehouse downtown. So if this ever was farm land, which I doubt, it’s been hundreds of years and I’m only in my 70s.”

Today’s Slice question: Who has had the same book on his or her nightstand for the longest time?

By the way, I’m thinking here of something other than religious texts.

Feel free to email me a photo of the book you have been reading (or intending to read) for much of this century.

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane,WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Mark Cosgrove’s first vote in a presidential election went to Harry Truman.