The Slice: Remembering the week that was in Smokane

Maybe it’s too early to be talking about winter.

But thanks to our recent experience with Beijing/Mexico City air quality, we already know what will be the Northwest’s catch-phrase, if we make it to December.

We’ll hear it when the snow starts to pile up. We’ll hear it when the roads resemble a hockey rink. And we will hear it when the temperatures go into free fall.

“At least you can breathe.”

We will remember September, when respiration was an iffy proposition.

Or perhaps the choking smoke from forest fires will be forgotten by winter. Who knows? Sometimes we have short memories around here.

But I’m betting people won’t forget this week. We won’t forget the lentil soup visibility, silent birds or rumors of a sun in the sky.

I predict this experience with inhaled particulates and red eyes will bring out the inner stoic in us. You will see it emerge in a few months.

Everything is relative.

Car stuck in a snow drift? Fingers numb from the cold? City plows forgotten about your street?

“At least we can breathe.”

Slice answers: “I have been a nurse for 36 years and I never really thought of it as a job,” wrote Neil Schwaiger, an RN in Moses Lake. “Been at it so long now it must be a career.”

Another question asked what you do when someone grumbles about diversity. “I’ve said this to people numerous times,” wrote Kim Engel. “What a truly boring place the world would be if everyone looked and acted like me.”

Cindy Matthews said pretty much every non-native who settled here could have been called a drifter at one time or another.

Sherri Hyams said life without onions would be tasteless.

Gary Polser said it sounds pretty normal when his last name is prefaced with “Old Man.”

And at least a few Slice readers still carry business cards or Elwood P. Dowd-esque calling cards.

Feedback on Sunday’s Slice: “At the age of 84 I don’t think of next summer, I hope,” wrote Jack Thompson.

Lights out: Carlin Jude wonders how many other summer travelers have gone back to visit their old hometowns in fireflies country and discovered the lightning bugs appear to be gone.

Today’s Slice question: Which is more apt to make you say “He’s dead to me” – a high-profile personality being accused of a crime or that same person supporting a politician you loathe?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Coming Friday: One woman’s valiant struggle to stay awake at the symphony.