Sylvan

In 2002 the late Mary Parry and I ate breakfast at Knight's Diner in Spokane. I recalled going there during the Clyde Beatty Circus when I was seven years old. Both the circus and Knight's Diner were on N. Division St, but here it was on the bend where Market St. becomes Illinois Avenue. Apparently, if you turn your back on a greasy spoon in Spokane for a mere 20 or 40 years, that sucker can pick up and move across town. The bend was in my old neighborhood, but we certainly never had Knight's Diner during my Rogers days. To me, this movement seemed to be a kind of distortion in the time-space continuum.

It got weirder. As I was paying, I heard a jingle on the piped-in radio that was right out of my childhood:

Good ol' Smilin' Sylvan

Good ol' Smilin' Sylvan

Let's go to Smilin' Sylvan,

West 227 Riverside

At least some things didn't change in Spokane! This jingle apparently had been burned into my brain during my formative years. I'd never been to Sylvan Furniture, but it was comforting to know it was still there and that the jingle was playing in the Spokane radio market clear into the new millenium.

Before I got too excited, Sylan closed. Now it is a comedy club named Comedy Sportz at West 227 Riverside. Now Spokane also puts the “West” after the number, like other cities always did. This is conformant, but it wouldn't scan so well in the jingle. Not to worry, the jingle is now moot.

Eddie Mauget