The Slice: Few things are better than an imaginative mother

Here’s a story I think you will enjoy.

Last week, The Slice asked for recollections of how geography helped shape readers’ Halloween experiences. I was mostly thinking in terms of weather.

But Bill Turner, a retired professor at WSU, shared a memory that struck me as a snapshot of a largely disappeared way of American life.

“During the Second World War, my parents and I were living in rural eastern Kansas – in a small town (Harveyville) near Topeka. I was 4 or 5 at the time.

“My mother was always looking for ways to keep me, a single child, busy. On this one Halloween, she dressed me in a costume – I think it was one of those domino-type masks she had made from cereal box cardboard. Then she gave me a flashlight and let me go trick or treating. One catch. We were the only house for miles.

“Her plan was to have me go outside, walk around to the back door and knock. One cue, she opened the door, acted surprised when I said ‘trick or treat,’ and placed several bits of candy in my paper grocery bag.

“After prompting me to say ‘thank you,’ she suggested I try the front door. I retraced my steps around to the front door and found the earlier scene at the back door was repeated after I knocked.

“We did this dance from door to door several times, probably until she ran out of candy. It was almost like trick or treating in a small neighborhood.

“My mother was very ingenious that way, to make something out of essentially nothing. Ask me sometime about Christmas.”

Slice answer: The magic words to help start a balky old car on a freezing morning? Rich Clift had an answer.

“I always say ‘Start, you S.O.B., before I trade you in on a Corvette.’ I don’t have a Corvette yet so it must work.”

Re: Keeping the calendar: Karen Reinhart doesn’t mind keeping track of family birthdays. Here’s why.

“With siblings’ birthdays on Nov. 20, Dec. 4, and Dec. 19 and then Christmas, my Dec. 31 birthday was seen as a burden rather than a joyous occasion. So I like to make other people’s birthdays special.”

When you most have to wear sunglasses around here: Right now, and for several months to come, said Dennis Foster. “When the sun is always on the horizon.”

Today’s Slice question (fill in the blank): I have a ( ______ ) at my desk/work station that is older than some of my co-workers.

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman. Some people just like saying “tomfoolery.”