The Slice: It was back in the tall tail B-52 days

Here’s something Spokane and Seattle have in common.

Maybe you have noticed. Longtime residents of both cities sometimes identify a bygone era by the kinds of aircraft that could be seen and heard overhead at that particular time.

OK, every city has airplanes in sight. But not all have had multiple generations of bombers or fresh-from-the-factory airliners.

Mixed marriages: “In reply to your Slice question about Idaho/Washington mixed marriages,” wrote Lila Kimm of Hayden Lake. “I do believe they last. My husband and I – John from Washington and me from Idaho – will be celebrating our 61st anniversary on July 16.”

Slice answer: The Slice asked who around here has maintained the same hairstyle the longest, and Tom Solberg shared this.

“Regarding stable hairstyles, I submit for your approval: In 1988, sensing the inevitable and eschewing the comb-over, I purchased hair clippers and trimmed my hair back to a nice, easy to maintain length of an eighth of an inch or so. I put on a different attachment to trim my beard to about a quarter to a half an inch. I call the beard my ‘bicentennial beard’ since I started growing it in 1976.”

The joys of being a grandparent: Gail Conklin’s granddaughter Ashley was 4 when she explained, while pretending to be a pony, “Grandma, in this land where anything is possible, it is easier for a horse to do jumping jacks than for a duck to land on a cake.”

Well, sure. Everybody knows that.

Warm-up questions: If there were referees at Easter egg hunts and they called penalties on overly rambunctious kids, what would be the names of the infractions? So what became of all that fake grass in Easter baskets decades ago? Where would you start when trying to explain to a child why Easter is not, as the youth had put it, “a second Halloween”? What happens when someone hides Easter eggs too well?

Today’s Slice questions: In big cities it’s fairly well understood that everybody can’t be a star. At least not everyone at the same time. But in a place the size of Spokane, does the “small pond” dynamic work against us in the sense that practically everybody figures he or she ought to be center stage in the cultural life of our community? Does that bring out annoying qualities in people? Or is it, on balance, actually a good thing?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@ spokesman.com. Did you say fruit loops, fairy loops or locker loops?