The Slice: Did you ride a chopper or drive a truck?

This is purely theoretical, so just go with it.

How would you answer if a kid got up from watching 1969’s “Easy Rider” and asked, “Grampa, were you a hippie or a redneck?”

Down in birdland: Skeeter the parakeet, who has been in The Slice before, is a unique song stylist.

When Skeeter was less than a year old, Anne Sanders and family sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to the musical bird. But he had trouble learning it all.

So Skeeter sang, “Buy me some peanuts and crack.”

He eventually mastered the lyrics, as well as a few lines of “Hit the Road, Jack.”

More on that another time.

A resting place runs through it: “Having only lived here for about four years, I keep hearing about bodies found in the Spokane River, to the point where whenever I cross the river I cannot help but look for bodies,” wrote Ray Fahrenkopf. “Just wondering if I am alone in this morbid quest.”

No, Ray. You are not alone. There’s a reason why some of us think the city slogan should be “Near nature, near reality.”

Recalling the 1969 moon landing and those first words: Ritzville’s Dale Anderson would have liked to have heard, “What do you know, it is made out of cheese.”

Learning to swim: “My mom was afraid of deep water,” wrote Marilyn Kile. “She put me in swim lessons at a young age at the YWCA. I learned to swim and she seemed very happy.

“In the 1950s and 1960s we had a cabin on a bay off the Spokane River near Post Falls. My two brothers and I swam, learned to water-ski, walked on the logs that were around our swimming area, dove off the dock, et cetera. We loved the water.

“I don’t know how hard this was for my mom to watch, but she never said a word. I know she didn’t want us to be afraid like her. Thank you, Mom!”

Referral sought: “My husband and I recently relocated to Spokane Valley and have yet to find a place to get a really good pastrami sandwich,” wrote Linda Summerhill. “One on deli rye bread with pickles and mustard. Perhaps you or your readers can suggest a good deli or restaurant where we can get one.”

Today’s Slice question: When people look at you now, they would never guess that you used to be a …?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Now accepting stories of the worst guests you ever had at your lake place.