The Slice: Evaluating the family archives

The world might be moving away from print.

But some questions about ink on paper linger.

For instance, how do you decide what to do with old newspaper clippings that mention members of your family?

Dump them on your children or other younger relatives and let them worry about it? Have a family history bonfire?

Asking for a friend.

Her brother Harold played the part of Tarzan: Donna Odean shared a story of growing up on the prairies in southern Saskatchewan. It involved a swinging-from-a-tree adventure that went wrong.

“Looking back, now, perhaps the fondest part of the whole memory is that of my little English mother, whose greatest fear was that her youngest daughter would grow up to be a tomboy, saying with a sigh as she straightened my skirt and comforted me in her arms, ‘Child, I despair you will ever be a lady!’”

So what was your mother’s greatest fear?

Just wondering: What was your most memorable laundry disaster?

Just wondering 2: How do you decide who you could trust to take care of your pets while you are away?

Name game: “I am not a grandfather, but I have a pretty cool nickname as an uncle,” wrote Craig Heimbigner. “When they were even younger than the 8 and 6 they are now, my niece Savannah and nephew Sutton in San Antonio, Texas, were in a discussion of what was I? Their Grand Uncle? Their Great Uncle? We decided it was Great Uncle Craig. So they called me that for half a day and then it devolved to Great Craig.

“I have been Great Craig ever since. It does not upset me at all to hear shouts of their greetings of ‘Great Craig! Great Craig!’ every day when we visit. Now if I could just get everyone else in the family to go with it.”

This date in Slice history (1996): Slice answers: Terry Graham said the Steer Inn’s tartar sauce has stained more shirts and blouses than any other local restaurant item. And Sally Murray said no Spokane area block party is complete without “A fat woman in a halter top and a fat man in shorts with no shirt.”

Today’s Slice question: Are you able to enjoyably rewatch certain movies and television dramas after a few years in part because you will have forgotten the details about how the stories turn out?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. This week at Expo ’74: The Carpenters, Chicago and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.