The Slice: Another one bites the dust

The Slice asked what sound you make when seeing an Olympic ice skater fall.

Rod Lincoln, 76, had an answer.

“I think it’s the same sound I make when I’m trying to get out of my chair.”

When people think Spokane is a West Side suburb: Not long after moving to Spokane from the Seattle area, Rick Straub got an invitation from a friend in St. Louis. “It was for a dinner he was hosting for a couple of other retirees and me when he was coming to Renton.”

Rick informed him he already planned to be in Seattle for a family gathering the previous week and couldn’t make the trip again so soon. “Got a very terse response saying something like ‘Well, sorry to bother you.’ ”

Rick immediately called him to clear the air. It turned out his St. Louis friend thought Spokane was near Everett.

Cindy Matthews of Post Falls once had an elderly uncle make plans to come for a visit for the first time in 40 years. He asked if she could pick him up at the airport at 9 a.m. – the Seattle airport.

“Luckily we were able to get it cleared up.”

On a related note: “Late one evening, I was playing pinochle on the Internet with three other people,” wrote Sylvia Beach. “Someone asked where we lived and one guy said he lives in Seattle. I then said I also live in Washington but live on the right side of the state. The Seattle guy got a little indignant and said, ‘What do you mean the right side of the state?’ I said, ‘Look at a map. I live in Spokane.’ End of conversation.”

Life in another century: The Slice had asked about going home for lunch.

“My father, Bill Beamer, was head accountant for Hecla Mining Company, back in the day when the headquarters were located in Wallace,” wrote Kathy Hickman. “All his working life, he walked home every day for lunch, as did I, from elementary school.

“Those were the days a good share of the mothers stayed home. Lunch was on the table as we arrived. We all ate together. I’d head back to school, Dad would take a 10 minute power nap and head back to the office.”

Today’s Slice question: What did you learn about Spokane the last time you went to an emergency room?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Several readers said one way to deal with not being able to hear a TV program because of a family member’s coughing is to turn on closed captioning.