The Slice: Good things come to cities that wait

A quote at the end of a fine S-R story by Nick Deshais about changes on East Sprague caught Susie Etten’s eye.

It struck her as a great idea for a new city slogan for Spokane. That quote: “It’s finally happening.”

High school sports mascots as personal destiny: My friend Mike Cain is a fan of scotch. “Not till reading Tuesday’s Slice did I connect my affinity for the water of life to my three years at Shadle Park High School. Maybe it wasn’t a waste of time after all.”

Go Highlanders.

Hope, Idaho’s Carol Gollin recalled that her high school back in Lakewood, Ohio, fielded teams called the Rangers. “I was an only child, and now I wonder if I could have thought of myself as a Lone Ranger.”

This theme made Pullman’s Jack McGrath wonder. “My alma mater (in Mansfield, Washington) was and still is called the Kernels.”

As in a kernel of grain. “Would that make my destiny being crushed into flour or turned into pasta?”

And Sagle, Idaho’s Sue Poppino shared this.

“We had a good laugh this morning about having the same traits as our high school mascots. I graduated from Okanogan High School in 1971 and our mascot is the Bulldog. My husband of 33 years frequently refers to me as a bulldog because he says when I get a hold of something (an idea, a project or a plan) I keep chewing on it and won’t let go until whatever is accomplished. He’s a Priest River Spartan and tighter than the rivets on the Golden Gate bridge. I’m talking financially frugal, not physically tight.”

Slice answers: Bitter about your hard-earned skills at operating the horizontal/vertical controls on a TV set becoming obsolete?

A bit, admitted David C. Dodson of Hayden.

“But I was also a maestro at wire wiggling and rabbit-ear wrangling. Alas, these skills are no longer necessary either.”

Regarding the long-ago days when Coors beer wasn’t available everywhere, Sandpoint’s Forrest Schuck remembers loading 33 six-packs into his Volkswagen in Oregon and setting out to deliver the beer to his family in Minnesota. “About 10 of them made it.”

Gene Daspit was a B-52 navigator stationed at Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1972. His crew took a plane down to Wichita, Kansas, to be on display at an open house. While there they acquired 35 cases of Coors to take back to North Dakota.

Today’s Slice question: Do Saturdays retain their magic after you retire?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. What’s something Spokane could teach other cities?