I stopped at Trader Joes for a few Superbowl goodies last week and my friend, John The Wine Guru approached me.

"Do you know if Federal Way has a motto?" he asked.

It was a good question, and I had no answer at the time.

City mottos or slogans and nicknames are a little tricky.

Seattle began with "The City of Flowers" in 1942 to try to get people to plant more of them, to which the city council added in 1990 " The City of Goodwill" in honor of the Goodwill Games.

Less formally, we tagged Seattle with "The Jet City" for obvious reasons, along with the Wizard of Oz-ish nickname, "The Emerald City."

There was also the odd tourism slogan, "See-At-"" which recently morphed into the even weirder "Metronatural," the result of a 16-month, $200,000 effort by the Seattle Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

The slogan for Washington State was "Al-ki - Bye and Bye" but this did not drive enough tourism, apparently, so the tourism wonks added "SayWA!"...which sparks the imagination but doesn't make me want to buy apples or salmon. Are we the Hard of Hearing State?

Tacoma has a few different slogans starting officially in 1910 with the grand, "City of Destiny."

Later, business types added, "When Rails Meet Sails," which is catchy. More modern city folk came up with, "One of America's Most Liveable Cities," and Tacoma business leaders recently pushed the nickname, "America's No. 1 Wired City," to attract tech companies.

All of these are pretty good, considering the fact that the first settlers of the area, Puyallup Indians, called the area "Squa-szucks."

Fortunately, this was never officially adopted, as it just wouldn't translate well on the tailgate of a Toyota truck.

Factoid: If you meet someone from Tacoma, it's amusing but OK to call them a "Tacoman."

The City of Puyallup chose the dull "Working To Be Your Community Of Choice " as its slogan.

Algona is known as "City Of The Great Blue Heron", while Auburn is banking on "More Than You Imagined." Really?

Enumclaw deserves "Gateway To Mount Rainier" and the Burien city council people are thinking about using "Good Things are Brewing in Burien" as a draw for Starbucks, which feels clunky but should make beer drinkers happy.

Renton's motto-du-jour is "Ahead Of The Curve," this being born out of necessity since Federal Way stole "Unsynchronized Traffic Light Capitol Of The World."

A teaser coined by a retired Federal Way School teacher was "There is the right way, the wrong way and the Federal Way" and another Federal Waylian Wag who has a blog online suggests, "It's Not Tacoma, But We Can See It From Here."

But getting back to answer John The Wine Guru's question about our official slogan, according to the City of Federal Way webpage, our city council has picked "It's All Within Reach," ostensibly to exemplify our location between the business hubs of Tacoma and Seattle, the playgrounds of Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier and to points across the globe via the airport and the Ports of Tacoma and Seattle.

Still, it feels like an ad for a gripping tool for old people. Because we are situated as a bedroom community, maybe our nickname should be, "Federal Way - Go To Bed And Get Some Sleep."

Ok, that's good enough for now.

So, Federal Way has a motto, and a new nickname, but no official song.

Seattle has an official song. Here is an excerpt, written by Arthur O. Dillon and Glenn W. Ashley in 1909 called, Seattle the Peerless City:

Seattle sits on seven hills,

Her glory is unfurled,

At her feet is Puget Sound,

Where moves The Commerce of the world.

Chorus:

Hail to the Peerless City,

Metropolis of the west,

The gateway to the Orient,

Whom grandeur hath caressed!

Her bosom's gemm'd with pearly lakes,

The mountains tower near;

The fir tree forest skirts her bound;

The beauty of earth is here.

Nice, don't you think? May I suggest that people could write a song for our beautiful, sleepy but reachable city.

Send them to our headquarters address at 14006 1st Ave. South - Burien, WA 98168 or via email at 'fwnews@robinsonnews.com' with 'Federal Way City Song' as the subject.

I will ask my editors to allow me to print the best selections in my column in an upcoming issue of the Federal Way News, so get busy and make us proud.