The Slice: A grandmother by any other name

After asking what your grandchildren call you, I heard from Penny Mathison.

I had just started reading her handwritten note when I realized it was a familiar story. So I checked the archives and, yes, The Slice had asked that question before.

Here’s Penny’s original answer, which appeared in The Slice on June 21, 1997.

Terms of endearment: “When my two grandsons were little, I took care of them,” wrote Spokane’s Penny Mathison. “They heard my husband call me ‘Hon’ all the time and so that’s what they called me. Now they are 14 and 15 and 6 feet tall, and they still call me ‘Hon’ – even in public places. I love it. They are great boys.”

Those boys are now 35 and 36, and they still call Penny “Hon.”

“I love them so much,” she wrote.

Just wondering: Mildred Scheel got her microwave oven in 1986. It has gotten a few new parts over the years. Which reminds Mildred of this.

“I remember my father laughing about the man who bragged, ‘This ax has been in our family for four generations. It’s had three new handles and four new heads.’”

Do you own a microwave older than Mildred’s?

Feedback on Sunday’s Slice: John Weisenburger shared this.

“The electronic garage door opener should ALWAYS be placed in a different location inside the car when bicycles are carried on a rooftop bike rack. Or leave it out of the car entirely. Retrieving the remote from a different location is a reminder to stop and remove your bike before pulling into the garage.

“Frequent trips with the bike on top of the car increases the probability of unintentionally modifying the garage door and its frame, the bicycle frame, the rooftop carrier and the sheet metal of the car’s roof. With enough momentum, you’re all the way in the garage and have seriously twisted all the aforementioned items.

“The noise of this happening is truly sickening. Speaking from experience, it’s best to go in the house without even looking at it until the next morning after you’ve had some coffee.”

Warm-up question: Are you old enough to remember when monitoring NCAA games, if you were not there in person, required watching TV?

Today’s Slice question: What’s the most disturbing rumor you heard about the business that employs or employed you? (Did it turn out to be true?)

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Watch your back today, it’s the Ides of March.