SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

DON ELBOW

I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.
— Psalm 143:5

There's a tremendous rip in the upper left of the dress I wore today. That's because our beautiful daughter Neely graduated from high school, and my heart burst with pride and joy.

Most everyone there saw a tall, blonde honor student in a white cap and gown with a shy, sweet smile.

But I saw Don Elbow.

Nobody would ever believe that our classy, reserved daughter Neely was once a cheesy lounge lizard straight out of the Las Vegas strip. But she was.

Right in our home, she put on the ''Don Elbow Show'' for several weeks with the polish and verve of a pint-sized Liberace.

This whole thing was confounding, since the only entertainment Neely had ever been exposed to was the playground and her kiddie CD with ''The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round.'' She must have seen something on cable TV that gave her the idea to start a Vegas nightclub act.

Where'd she get the name ''Don Elbow''? We have no clue. But she was sure that's who she was, so she went with it.

She was about 4. At bedtime, after her root-beer belly was stuffed into her pink footie pajamas, she would command the presence of her mother, father and older sister as her ''audience'' at the foot of her bed.

She would vault up on top of her great-grandmother's hand-me-down headboard, which served as her four-inch wide ''stage.'' She would have on her ''joo'ry,'' which consisted of 47,034 colorful plastic beaded necklaces and stretchy bracelets all the way up her arms. They were colorful. Life-threatening, but colorful.

Today, she dresses tastefully and modestly, like a junior professional. We think she might become a scientist or an attorney. Back then, though, we were sure she would become an exotic dancer. She already had the uniform.

Here's how her act went: once her audience of three had gathered, she would command her father, the stagehand, to stand at the doorway and switch the overhead light on and off real fast — the poor man's strobe.

Then she would begin her monologue. It went something like this:

''Hiya, folks. This is the 'Don Elbow Show,' starring me: Donnnnnnnnnnnn ELBOW!''

This was our cue to give her riotous applause.

''Thankew. Thankew veddy much.''

Then she would crouch forward, stick out her arm to the extreme left and, pointing her finger with an extravagant flair and beaming with delight, she would swing her arm slowly from one side of the bedroom to the other.

''Is there anybody new here tonight?''

There never was. It was always just us three. We gave her more riotous applause, anyway.

Then she would go into her song and dance. It was . . . one-of-a-kind.

First she would swing to the left and sing: ''Deet, deet.'' Then she would swing to the right and sing: ''Deet, deet.''

Repeat; each identical ''stanza'' was rewarded with riotous applause. ''Deet, deet! Deet, deet!''

I’m sure, in her head, she was accompanied by a full-fledged jazz orchestra with a laser light show, theatrical fog and bubbles.

But all we could hear and see was this weird-looking little girl singing, ''Deet, deet! Deet, deet!'' We riotously applauded anyway.

Then the finale: a full, frontal, necklace-jangling flip from the headboard ''stage'' onto her colorful heart bedspread.

The intrepid stagehand would flip the lights in frenzied fashion. Ta-daaaaaaaaa!

Riotous, relieved applause from her fabulously entertained fans. We would tuck her in, turn off the lights, roll our eyes skyward, and blame the other spouse's family tree for sprouting this particular nut.

After a brief, but storied ''run,'' though, the ''Don Elbow Show'' closed.

Neely's energy turned toward drawing mazes and riding her big-girl bike. She never did any more performing. It was as if she tried it and got it out of her system because it wasn’t ''her.'' Her choices moved toward golf and soccer, the flute and her friends.

She is who she is now, which is very, very special.

But I'm her Mom. I remember who she used to be. I remember all the Neelys. I didn't just see one of them graduate today. I saw them all.

It's my job to play the old tapes in my head, the memories of her childhood. I have to line my heart with them as insulation against the long, lonely stretches that are to come, when she won’t be at the dinner table or right down the hall so I can see her and hug her and listen to how her day went and marvel at this glorious creature that I had a hand in creating.

It's graduation. So we do our part: we remember.

Like every mom and dad, when I watched her receive her diploma, I savored the memories of the little girl she used to be – in all her facets and permutations – and looked ahead with joy to meeting the new Neelys that are to come.

Yes, there is somebody new here tonight. There are a lot of them. They are the Class of 2003 – wonderfully talented and diverse individuals.

They're in the season of life where they can relish the spotlight that they've earned, do a little song and dance, and then do a flip into the future, to our riotous applause.

Shoot for the moon, young men and women. Always be yourself, and expect that to change from year to year. That's what makes adult life fun. That's what makes your Maker smile – seeing you feel free to be who He made you to be at that particular stage of your life.

Hey, Class of '03 – congratulations, go get 'em, and God bless.

And one more thing:

Deet, deet!

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

GRADUATION PARTY

May is the month for dance recitals, tornado drills, and graduation parties -- hopefully, not all on the same day. Here are some ideas for a meaningful and slightly different graduation party to mark your child's big day:

-- Serve easy-to-fix finger food with at least one item that relates specially to your child, either his or her favorite, or something from the state the child's college is in or otherwise connected to.

-- At the door, have a stuffed animal that is the mascot of your child's college in a small rocking chair wearing a sweatshirt from your child's college.

-- About a month before the party, or more, ask at the local high school if there is a '' techie'' student who is good with slideshows and mujltimedia who would like to make a little money doing a graduation video for you. Go through old pictures and pick out a representative sample. Choose a neat song that's on a CD that can work as background music. Keep it to two or three minutes. The going rate is about 75 cents per picture used, and for a 2 /2 minute show, you'll probably want about 65 pictures.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

GRADUATION PILLOW

Here’s a fun alternative to a guest book at your graduation party: buy a standard white pillowcase and fit a piece of flat cardboard tightly inside so that it is well stretched out. Duct-tape the corners at the back to keep the rectangular surface neat.

Then put out several colors of permanent marker pen, and ask guests at your graduation party to sign their names, make a wish or draw a cartoon on the pillowcase.

Your child will enjoy bringing that pillow to his or her dorm room as a souvenir and homesickness remedy.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

RED, WHITE AND BLUE GARDEN

With Memorial Day and the Fourth of July coming up, it’s a fun idea to plan a red, white and blue garden this year.

Whether you have several garden areas around your yard, or just some space at your front door for a few pots, here are some ideas for combinations of readily-available annual flowers that will show your patriotic colors this summer:

Red: Salvia

White: Petunia

Blue: Lobelia

OR . . .

Red: Petunia

White: Alyssum

Blue: Ageratum

OR . . .

Red: Begonia

White: Nicotiana

Blue: Pansies

If you really get energetic, you could plot out the stars and stripes of the American flag in living color.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

WOOED BY PIE?

One of the most enjoyable conversations to have with friends is to find out how married couples first met. One of the sweetest first-date stories -- in more ways than one -- started off as two college girls who made a point to sit next to the boy in their chemistry class whom they thought had the most on the ball. If he took notes, they took notes. If he turned to a certain page in the textbook, they'd turn to that page. So, yes, at first, they were just using him for his chemistry knowhow . . . but soon, the chemistry between one of the girls and this young man began to build.

One day, he asked her to come to his dorm room because he had something for her. Don't worry, it was in broad daylight and there was nothing nefarious about it. Well, she wasn't quite sure what to expect . . . and then he brought out a Sara Lee Coconut Cream Pie.

He said solemnly that it was his very favorite and he was happy to share it with her.

It was a nonsequitur, but what a charming one. The rest, as they say, is history. They've been married for more than 25 years. And yes, their anniversary dessert is always a great, big piece of you-know-what kind of pie!

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

DEATH SENTENCE FOR ADULTERY?

The Supreme Court of the African nation of Nigeria has upheld the death sentence for Amina Lawal, condemned for the crime of adultery on Aug. 19, 2002. She is to be buried up to her neck and stoned to death. Her death was postponed so that she could continue to nurse her baby. Execution is now set for June 3.

Is it wrong for Americans to get involved in court decisions of other countries? I say no, if it's something like this, which goes so appallingly against any concept of human rights.

Remember how Jesus treated the adulterous woman, shaming all those who would have stoned her. He didn't ignore or minimize her sin, but He acted to save her life and then told her: ''Go, and sin no more.'' (John 8:11b)

Note that Amina's baby is regarded as the ''evidence'' of her adultery. The father denied everything when he realized the trouble he was in. To find out more about sharia law, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,777972,00.html

Amina's case is being handled by the Spanish branch of Amnesty International, which is attempting to put together enough signatures to make the Nigerian government rescind the death sentence. A similar campaign saved another Nigerian woman, Safiya, condemned in similar circumstances.

The petition is located at http://www.amnistiaporsafiya.org/

Enter your first name in the space marked ''nombre,'' last name (''apellidos''), county (''provincia''), country, and in the drop down box pick Reino Unido (United Kingdom) or Estados Unidos (United States) or wherever. Then click on ''Segui'' and go to the second page. There you have the option of entering your email address if you wish to receive follow-up information. In any case, be sure to click on ''aceptar'' to have your name added to the petition list.

Please sign the petition now, then copy this message into a new email and send it to everyone in your address book.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

IS SOCIAL STUDIES 'POLITICIZED'?

Q. I'm bothered by the use of the term ''social studies'' instead of ''history.'' I think it has opened the door to all kinds of politicization of curriculum and allowed teachers free rein to criticize our country. Why can't school boards just declare there's no such thing as social studies, and let teachers go back to teaching what we want: history, civics, geography, and everything that has made America the best country in the world.

You represent one side of this, and who knows? It might be the majority view by a country mile. But nontraditional instructional philosophies for civics are deeply entrenched in public schools, and unless waves of parents start complaining, nothing is likely to change.

If you look through the social studies textbooks in use in most districts, you’ll see a lot about multiculturalism, diversity, globalism and quite a lot of material which does seem to bash America, capitalism, Christian values, marriage and the family, and more.

Is it left-wing indoctrination of the next generation, to turn them into socialists and globalists? Or is it an honest attempt, true to our nation's founding principles, to teach children about equality, tolerance and looking beneath the surface to find truth?

One thing is clear: most social studies texts are heavily into relativism and situational ethics. That means they teach children that no country is better than any other, no religion is better than any other, and no individual is better than any other. Is that true? Most people would say no. Traditional history topics such as our status as a constitutional republic, the Second Amendment, religious freedom as the reason for our founding, and so forth, often get short shrift.

What would it take to change that? A little ''social studies'' of the power system in your district. Get together with like-minded citizens, study up, and work to get this important subject redefined.

Homework: For both sides, see the National Council for the Social Studies, www.ncss.org, and Maple River Education Coalition, www.edwatch.org

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

The Changing Table

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
-- 2 Corinthians 3:18

I have these stunning, just-about-grown daughters. Blonde hair, blue eyes, dew-petal skin, slender fem-jock builds. Next to them, I look like a potato farmer from Siberia.

When I show my ID at stores, their photos line up next to my driver's license picture. If the clerk is a young male -- OK, any male under 103 -- I've seen it happen time and time again:

His eyes look at my picture, then slide over to the girls' pictures and linger, and then a little frown of confusion and disbelief washes across his brow. Then his eyes slide back over to my Mrs. Potato Farmer picture, then back to the babes.

Finally, when he looks up at me, I lean forward and say proudly, '''I was their nanny.'' It always draws a smile of relief. Aha! That explains it.

Twenty years ago, before I had children, this would have hurt. But now, my rank on the beauty scale means nothing to me. I've changed.

Hey, I used to do the vanity thing. I camped out in the bathroom. I stared into mirrors. I micro-inspected my fingernails for specks of dirt.

But now instead of doing all those things just to primp, I do them to pass the time while our youngest, Maddy, World Champion Dawdler, Princess of the Kingdom of Random, is holding court on the potty chair, chattering away about orangutans and her new swingset and the ant party on the back patio. . . .

This would have driven me screaming yellow bonkers before I became a mother. Now, wasting time with Maddy is one of the most delicious delights of my day.

I've changed. How I've changed. And on this Mother's Day, I'm celebrating that.

I poured my youth into them, and it shows. A few years ago, a little girl I didn't know came up to me at our neighborhood school. ''My mommy went to college with you!'' she said. I found out her mother's maiden name and remembered her, fondly.

''She said she didn't even recognize you when we moved here,'' the little girl continued.

''Oh, yes, well, I've changed,'' I replied.

''That’s what she SAID!''' the little girl answered.

But here's the crazy thing: I'm glad.

Children change you. They grow you up. I used to care about all kinds of trivial things until that first week at home with our first baby, when all I could see was her face and all I cared about was getting ''the dairies'' to work and cuddling her, night and day. Everything else melted away -- the headlines, the weather and especially the laundry pile. Everything.

Children turn you inside out and ''toast'' your inner side, so that by the time they're grown up, you're ''done.''

That's because while they are growing up, you are, too.

When they get an owie and you hug them, it doesn't take long to realize that two arms are encircling you and hugging you back, making you feel better because you've been able to make that child feel better. Motherhood is a two-fer.

Once you know what that's like, you're changed. You can never go back to being self-contained. Your heart has multiplied. Your eyes see on new levels. Their hurts are your hurts. Your dreams are for them. You see yourself, and their father, in them, and it's as if a drawstring of love pulls you all in, snug and tight. Complete. Connected.

And that's why, on this Mother's Day, I can't stop smiling . . . because there’s someone very special who is going to become a mother for the first time this summer.

She's my niece, Theresa. I am going to become a great-aunt, which means I get to act dotty, pinch cheeks and marvel, ''My, how you’ve grown'' while they roll their eyes but secretly love it.

I get to watch Theresa grow and change, the way I did, and discover the profound, private and enduring joys that only mothers know.

And I have something very special to give her.

It's a changing table. Our changing table. It was for morning greetings and evening partings, lots of diapers, ''Itsy Bitsy Spider,'' nuzzling, and the incomparable, unforgettable feeling of baby skin, the most beautiful feeling in the world.

Sure, the changing table has a few miles on it, some dings and dents . . . like me . . . but it has held up under a lot of changes, and is sturdy, strong and ready for acfion.

Young mother-to-be, you are blessed. God is giving you such a gift. Welcome to the sisterhood of motherhood. You're going to be great at it. You're going to love it.

And my, oh, my. How you are going to change.

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

GRADUATE'S RECIPE BOX

A fun idea for a graduation party is to buy or decorate a recipe-card filebox and purchase decorated cards to go in it.

Send out a card with each party invitation, with a note instructing the party guest to write advice, encouragement, a wish, a favorite quote, a Bible verse, an anecdote -- whatever they can share as a ''recipe'' for life -- on the card, and bring it to the party or send it back to the graduate.

It will serve as a fun and different guestbook and a wonderful memento of a special time in the young person's life.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

THE ART OF SOOTHING

Helping an angry or anxious child feel better is one of the crucial arts of mothering. The goal is to relieve and refresh your child and teach him or her healthy ways to do it for a future adulthood that is certain to encounter stress and conflict. Here are some ways:

Touch:

Your child may just need a hug and kiss. Touch is that important. Few of us get enough of it, though. Mothers who breastfed have an advantage here. The child is used to being calmed, comforted and cuddled by the simple touch of Mother’s skin. It often takes just a caress with the palm of Mother's hand down the child’s cheek and under the chin, to bring back those feelings of ease and tranquility from the breastfeeding joys of infancy. Every mom has her own style of touching –- hugs, pats, strokes, attentive body language, whatever -- and it's the very best therapy there is.

Breathing:

Lots of kids who are stressed out hold their breath or breathe only shallowly. Teach the ''take a deep breath and count to 10, and do that 10 times'' technique to flood the body with helpful oxygen.

Redirection:

Teach your child to wait to react to the distress until after a period of relaxation, to get the child's mind off the trouble and into a calmer mood. Listening to music, pounding a pillow, swinging on the swings, bouncing a ball, running around the block, riding a bike to the park and back . . . all are good redirection techniques.

Soothing atmosphere:

When your child is ready to talk about what's wrong, turn off the TV and have soft music, if any, on. If you have a scented candle, now's the time to light it; there’s something so soothing about gentle candlelight. Don't ''call a meeting,'' but make yourself available to talk. There is both biochemical and emotional power in milk and cookies at a time like this, so use it. Make sure to listen 80 percent of the time, and talk 20 percent. Don't allow other family members to bring up anything else that's stressful or a problem, and don’t talk about troubles at mealtime. Don't criticize or judge your child's feelings, reactions or actions, but do ask your child what he or she feels about them now, and help brainstorm alternative suggestions, what good might have come out of it, what might work better next time, and other encouraging, supportive input. Open minds and open hearts allow troubles to fly away.

Happy soothing!

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

MOTHER'S DAY MAGNET

Here's a simple project for a special mother or grandmother in your life:

1. Draw and cut out a flower from cardstock or construction paper and have the child or grandchild decorate it with markers or stickers.

2. Use an Xacto knife to cut a circle out of the center.

3. Take a photo of her child or grandchild and tape it to the flower from the inside, so that the child’s face is the center of the flower.

4. Snip and tape plain paper behind the photo to protect it.

5. Then hot glue to a clothespin.

6. Last, hot-glue a magnetized strip to the other side of the clothespin.

Makes a great way to clip the child's art work or school papers to display on the fridge, or holds notes and papers at a desk.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

THE OFFICER AND THE LADY

The toddler of the household was enjoying being potty-trained, because every success yielded not one, but two Hershey's kisses. She would squeeze her eyes tightly shut, stick out the palms of her hands, and feign shock and surprise when the two candies were put there, one on each palm.

Springtime brought a new sack with foil wrappers in pastel colors.

That, in turn, brought a surreal new atmosphere to the potty-training. The first time the candies were distributed, there happened to be a silver one on her left palm and a pink one on her right.

''An officer and a lady!'' she exclaimed.

The next time, she got two blue ones:

''Twin boys!''

And so it went. Older family members will never be able to eat Hershey's kisses again without thinking of the potty-training characters they represent, at least to the toddler's twisted mind.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

COACHES VS. CLINTONS

Mike Price is fired as the University of Alabama football coach because he spent hundreds of dollars at a topless bar and an unidentified woman charged $1,000 in room service to his hotel bill at a pro-am golf tournament in Florida.

Meanwhile, Larry Eustachy resigns as Iowa State basketball coach after photos reveal that he was drinking and partying with college students.

Now, compare those actions and consequences with what happened to former President Bill Clinton after the various embarrassments were revealed concerning his sexual and behavioral acts, especially with young women while he was at his place of employment, and to Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose financial fandango in Whitewater and other matters involved a considerable amount of money, and both of them are attorneys employed in powerful, serious, public service positions, not sports jobs.

Wuzzup with the mega-mega double standard here?

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

IDEAS FOR SCHOOL REFORM

Q. Twenty years ago, there was a big report, “A Nation at Risk,” that gave many good suggestions for improving our schools. Whatever came of them?

A major report issued on the 20th anniversary of “A Nation at Risk” says that schools have shown little improvement since 1970 in anything but the amount of money being poured into them, and the number of people employed by them. It calls for new reforms.

The report, “Are We Still At Risk?” is from the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. It says the report 20 years ago was right on, but underestimated the power of the education establishment to resist change, and lacked the follow-through necessary to carry its recommendations to reality.

Other findings about school reform from the Koret report:

-- Achievement gaps are as wide as ever for minority and disadvantaged youth, suggesting a need for new methods.

-- Instead of making effective changes in curriculum and instructional methods, schools and the bureaucracies that regulate them have responded to pressure to change by getting more money, expanding their services and tightening the governmental grip, all of which are counter-productive.

-- Schools still are overstaffed and inefficient because of the natural propensity of the powerful teachers’ unions (3 million members, $1 billion in dues) to “grow” school staff and thus membership rolls and dues income with “reforms” such as smaller class sizes, which don’t really improve learning.

-- Again because of union power, schools are still not hiring and paying teachers based on classroom effectiveness.

-- School choice has been blocked, in large part.

-- The American public needs much better information on what’s working and what’s not, to direct our tax dollars well.

Homework: A condensed version of the report is available on:
www.educationnext.org/20032/10.html

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

BATMAN PINK

(M)ale and female created He them.
-- Genesis 1:27c

I have this friend who is a petite blonde and one of the funniest, most capable women I have ever met. Once, though, she contracted a kidney infection.

It got very serious. Her fever was skyrocketing. She lay at home, in bed, writhing in agony.

The doctor wanted to see her every six hours to determine whether she needed to be hospitalized to save her kidneys.

So there she was, flat on her back, in horrendous pain, when her husband came home. He tiptoed into the bedroom, bent down close to her face, and whispered,

"Did you go to the store?"

I still laugh every time I think of it.

What her face must have looked like! What color his face must have turned after he realized he had been a schmuck! There isn't a woman on the planet who would have said what he said.

Now, he's a very smart, very aggressive lawyer, You wouldn't want to tangle with him. But he's also madly in love with his wife and would never hurt her . . . at least, on purpose.

Men and women: vive le difference. One gender can never quite figure out the other. That’s the gimmick that keeps us together. Men may drive women crazy, but where would we be for laughs without them?

I first learned that the difference was inbred and permanent in preschool. No, not as an inmate: as the Garden Mom.

Every year in May, I volunteered to plant flowers with the nearly 100 small fry who attended preschool at our church. Each child brought a flower to plant in the church's garden.

Their parents thought it was a developmentally-appropriate, hands-on learning experience. We thought it was a way to get El Cheapo landscaping. The kids just had a blast because it involved dirt. So everybody was happy.

I loved seeing the different personalities come out during the planting sessions: shy and bold, thoughtful and hyper. The really little ones would drop a bulb into a hole and keep shaking their hand for five minutes, not realizing the bulb had already dropped.

The junior princess, in a dress and lace anklets, cradled her ''lellow'' snapdragon with ultimate tenderness and whispered about the buds: ''Thethe are her eggth.''

Some would bring a six-pack and insist that all of the seedlings were ''friends'' who wanted to be planted close together. Others would obsess over packing dirt around their flower to ''tuck it in'' and soon the mound of dirt was taller than the flower.

One mom won my heart: she had apparently forgotten it was Garden Day. She must have rushed out to her own yard to dig up something, anything, to send. The result: a little pot of everyday clover, in bloom with little yellow flowers. She labeled it ''Colorado Columbine.'' Her little girl was proud of her special flower with the special name, and I’ve never since minded having clover in my yard now that I know it is so primeau.

But you'll note that the little ones who were in to Garden Day were the little girls -- Mother Earths in training.

The little boys, in stark contrast, were running all over the place, grinding the precious seedlings into the pavement with their He-Man sneakers, having swordfights with my garden tools, and shoving dirt clods down each other's backs. They didn't care a fig which flowers were friends.

One brought a cactus; I guess it looked tough. The boys brought a lot of red flowers that looked like flames and machine guns, and great, big, bossy ones that would dominate the landscape and win the turf battle over, what else? Turf.

But I'll always remember one little boy. He seemed mortified as he handed me the flower his mother had sent. Why? Because it was PINK.

It was a lavish begonia in a color that he found unacceptably sissified, especially since all the other little boys were looking on, which is when you most want to look macho, even at age 4.

And then he said it -- the thing that proved to me once and for all that males and females are made differently, period, and vive le difference. He said:

''These are 'Batman Pink.'''

His eyes bore into mine to make sure I understood that these were no wussie flowers. I did my best to exhibit respect and awe to his satisfaction.

And I am still laughing about it many years later. Batman Pink: nobody of the female persuasion would have thought of that name in a zillion years.

But, come to think of it, it's the perfect description of the color of the face of my friend's husband when he realized he'd been obnoxious, selfish and pig-like as she lay there near death, making her want to run over him in the Batmobile.

Males can't help it. It's just how they are . . . different, down to the bottm of their Batman Pink hearts.

God made us different on purpose -- to keep us endlessly fascinated, endlessly laughing, and endlessly, hopelessly, always in love.

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

OGRE'S CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY DESSERT

Here's an all-season, all-time favorite that keeps well in the freezer if well-wrapped. How did it get its crazy name? A teenaged girlfriend of our daughter is 6'4'' and ''Ogre'' is her nickname. (Don’t worry; the awful favor is returned, as she calls our daughter ''Peeps.'') Every time Ogre comes over, she makes a beeline for our freezer and helps herself to one of these. She's not really an ogre – she's a beautiful girl – but she has a GIGANTIC taste for this dessert, and so will you.

CRUST:
2 C. crushed chocolate wafer cookies (''Famous'' brand works well)
1/3 C. melted margarine or butter
1/4 C. sugar

FILLING:

1 C. chocolate fudge sauce, slightly softened
1 quart vanilla ice cream, slightly softened
1 pint raspberry sherbet, slightly softened
1 12-oz. pkg. frozen raspberries, without syrup

TOPPING:

1 8-oz. carton frozen whipped topping, thawed

In medium bowl, combine crust ingredients. Mix well. Reserve 1/4 C. for topping, Press the rest into a 13'' x 9'' pan, or into 20 individual cups or glasses. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Spread softened fudge sauce over crust. Spoon ice cream over fudge. Blob sherbet randomly over ice cream. Swirl gently together. Press raspberries into sherbet. Spread whipped topping over all. Top with sprinkled crust.

Cover. Freeze 6 hours or more. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

GIVING KIDS 'REPS' ON SHOWING LOVE

You badger them to practice piano. You drive them to soccer practice. You drill them on vocab if they ask and you show them how to make their bed and mow the lawn.

So why wouldn’t a mom be deliberate about teaching a child how to show love?

You can, because it’s easy. There are a lot of good books on the market about "love languages" and so forth. But here’s a short list you can teach your kids. Together, brainstorm ways and means of fulfilling these tasks. Then declare a new sport in your home –- year-round "love season."

Put the following list by your calendar, and encourage each person in your family to do one of these for a family member each and every day, and record it. Your family atmosphere will change within a month, in a marvelous way. So if your daughter is named Sally and she matched socks without being asked, she can put "S-2" on the calendar that day.

Do these things for each other, and you’ll get your "reps" on building a loving home with loving kids:

1. Words of affirmation, tenderness and praise
2. Acts of service
3. Physical touch
4. Gifts
5. Time and undivided attention

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

MAY DAY 'MAY DAY'

May Day! May Day! Someone special has remembered you with a charming May Day basket of flowers or cup of popcorn and candy, but you haven't done a dang thing in return and you have nothing on hand.

Not to worry: one of the sweetest May Day gifts ever is a basket of seashells that you collected yourself on your last trip to the shore. Use an extra basket –- everyone has at least one small one hanging around -- and rest the shells on a soft washcloth or piece of lace.

They won't make anybody fat, they won't wilt . . . and most of all, they’ll be memorable, focusing on May's role ushering in the summer fun that's soon to come.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

WHAT? NO ORANGUTAN?

The college daughter called home and talked to each family member. Finally, it was the baby sister's turn. The receiver was placed in her chubby 3-year-old hands. And she said:

"I don't have an orangutan."

The college girl didn't miss a beat. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but you can always ask Santa for one next Christmas."

If she could have seen her parents exchanging glances, she would have learned a key fact about child development: 3-year-olds have only about five things stored in their memory banks, so they have plenty of room for novel ideas, and something like that will, indeed, be remembered eight months hence when the Christmas lists are being made out.

Santa better start stocking up on bananas.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

THE SEX ED KIDS NEED

The nation’s approach to sex education appears to be shifting from how to “do it” to how not to.

The decline in teen pregnancy rates from 1991 to 1995 can largely be attributed to the increasing trend toward abstinence among the nation’s youth, according to a new study published in the Adolescent and Family Health (AFH), a journal of the Institute for Youth Development.

In contrast, the more liberal Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) and the Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (CPTP) have attributed the drop in teen pregnancy to increased use of contraceptives and improved contraceptives use.

But authors of the AFH article claim that both of these studies came to erroneous conclusions because they defined teens “at risk for pregnancy” as being those who had ever had sex, not just those who were sexually active during the year in question. Those other two studies also do not differentiate between single and married teens, which would also make it appear as though more unwed sex is going on than really is.

Besides pointing out the risks of premarital sex – pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases – attention in sex ed also is shifting toward teaching kids about the emotional scarring that can take place in a teenager who indulges in sex, the link between premature sexuality and other high-risk behaviors, the link between premarital sex and divorce later in life, and the fact that contraceptives cannot prevent some STD's, such as genital warts and genital herpes.

For more information, see:

www.centerforlearning.org

www.mish.org

www.abstinence.net

www.TrueLoveWaits.com

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

RED FLAGS OF PHONICS DEPRIVATION

Q. My child came across the word “adjacent” and asked me what it was. I said, “Well, sound it out.” She replied: “What do you MEAN, ‘sound it out’?” I was shocked she didn’t know.

Most parents assume that schools are teaching children to read with proper phonics instruction. But almost none of them are. Instead, they are most likely using Whole Language methods. Those minimize phonics as merely one of several word-attack strategies, such as memorization, context cues, illustrations, and guessing.

Without the decoding skill that comes only from proper phonics instruction, most kids are lost later when they encounter “big” words.

What is your child missing out on? Phonics has a few simple components. The children read text and write about it, and they write from the teacher’s dictation, with the sounds the letters make pronounced carefully and distinctly. The children learn the 44 sounds that the English alphabet letters make, and the 70 phonograms that those sounds combine into. There there are the basic rules of spelling, proper handwriting instruction, vocabulary-building exercises, word notebooks, and lots of reading of lots of good books.

If none of that sounds familiar, then your child isn’t getting proper phonics instruction. Now, many primary-school teachers insist that they DO teach reading with phonics. Perhaps they do to some degree, but in almost 100 percent of the cases, it’s on a minimal, scatter-shot basis, instead of systematically, intensively and explicitly.

Here’s how to tell if your child has not had proper phonics:

Can the child name the short vowel sounds? (ah, eh, ih, oh and uh as in bag, beg, big, bog and bug)

Can he or she read a paragraph from an age-appropriate book with a nice, smooth flow, and no mistakes?

Can he or she read for a long time without getting tired?

Does the child spell well?

Does the child know how to sound out unfamiliar words?

Homework: “The Writing Road to Reading,” Romalda Spalding

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

THE LIZ LEGACY

My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
-- 2 Corinthians 12:9a

When I was a geeky preteen, I used to sneak down to my big brother’s room and look through his high-school yearbook. I would dream about the day when maybe I wouldn’t have glasses, braces, pimples and pudge. Maybe someday I would look glamorous and confident and exuberant, like the girl in the full-page picture I always admired.

She was a varsity cheerleader, shown doing one of those acrobatic jumps high in the air, with her back gracefully arched and her elbows cupped in the soles of her feet. If I ever tried something like that, I would be in a cast for months.

It was a wonderful picture: the Homecoming bonfire blazed in the background as this beautiful young woman literally jumped for joy, celebrating the fun of being young and strong and on fire with school spirit.

Her name was Liz Lueder Karnes.

She died last week at only 53, after battling ovarian cancer and its complications for over a dozen years.

She was a wife of a former U.S. senator, the mother of four impressive grown daughters, holder of an Ed.D. degree in education, and a tireless public servant endowed with an unmatched mixture of charm and compassion.

Her funeral will be packed. I’ll be there and I’ll be crying, even though I’m happy her pain and suffering are over.

I’ll be crying out of gratitude for Liz’s legacy. She left it to me, and to everybody whose life she touched.

She made us believe in ourselves.

She was the eternal cheerleader. It was her special gift: nothing trite or silly about it. She always saw the good in people.

We got to go to a few of her legendary parties in her fabulous home, and I marveled at the pictures of Liz and her family with Presidents and other big shots . . . yet she still knew that I baked Oatmeal Scotchies and she made me feel as though my Oatmeal Scotchies were the greatest achievement in human history.

We had a few serious talks about education, and didn’t see eye to eye on some things. But she never discounted my views just because I’m not an educator. Instead, she listened. Great teachers like to be taught. She did. She went beyond listening to people: she heard them.

She exhibited health and vitality as a swimmer, runner and dancer. Once I made my old standby joke that I look like Boris Yeltsin in a dress, and she grabbed me by the shoulders and said, “Oh, Susan, God has given you a beautiful body, and it’s perfect just the way it is.”

I didn’t exactly see Demi Moore next time I looked in the mirror . . . but I felt better about myself. What a “people builder.”

When Liz found out about the gravity of her cancer, nobody would have faulted her for getting depressed and withdrawing from life. But Liz did just the opposite. Even though she was a totally G-rated health queen, she met friends at the door with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of booze in the other, saying something like:

“Well, clean living has gotten me THIS (the cancer), so I might as well try another tactic.”

The strength that it takes to be funny when you’re facing what she was . . . I was humbled by that.

As I watched the cancer’s vicious attack turn her petite body into a human piñata, and saw what she had to go through just to eat, I was struck by the resolve and tenacity that it took for her to survive.

Did I have that much strength? Was I that tough? Could I fight like that?

I hope to God I’ll never know.

But Liz did . . . and her legacy to us is that if she could do it, so could we. We saw in her the power ignited by prayer that so often comes alive on the inside, when on the outside, the person looks weak and sick and the situation looks hopeless.

She lived 12 years fully, to the max, when the initial diagnosis would have thrown most of us into despair.

What made the difference? Faith. Belief. Trust. Hope. And most of all, love.

Along the way, she mirrored the best of us back to each of us, making us feel just like her . . . beautiful, strong and full of spirit, smiling with excitement, and jumping for joy.

That’s how I see her now. That’s how I’ll always see her.

She was a living cheer: Go! Fight! Win!

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

BOY MEETS GRILL

A great idea for a bridal couples shower is to give a barbecue grill as a group gift. Instead of making everybody run around and buy individual shower gifts, set an amount of money that each party guest should send in, and give that "budget" to the engaged couple to shop and find a grill.

Then gather everybody for a party to show off the group gift. Of course, you need to serve BBQ, but use your own grill -- don't break in the bridal couple's! After dinner, give gag gifts like a spatula duct-taped to a golf club, a "dual purpose" tool. And be sure to encourage lots of toasts that the young couple's marriage will never be cold, will always let the steam escape, and most of the time, will sizzle along!

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FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

A DANDY WAY TO TEACH ENTERPRISE

If you're trying to teach your child the twin tigers of responsibility and entrepreneurship, there's nothing like dandelion picking! Give your child a dandelion picker and a grocery sack, and promise $1 per full bag. Your lawn may stay clear of dandelions for the first time in ages. Make sure the child knows how to get the entire root out, or the child might get a little TOO entrepreneurial -- because a half-baked job the first time will guarantee the need for a repeat, and more pay.

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THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

COLORFUL GARDEN CENTERPIECE

Looking for a cheap but colorful centerpiece idea? Take a clean plant pot saucer and fill it with a red, green and orange or yellow pepper, plus a handful of baby potatoes and a red onion. Put a red votive candle at off-center. Put a flower stem in a plastic or glass water tube if you have one, or just lay a silk flower in place. Cover the stem with a handful of fresh whole green beans. Run a little ribbon over, under, around and through and voila!

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WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

WHERE’S DAD?

The man of the house had a new sales job, and was spending a lot more time traveling on business. He would be gone for two weeks at a time.

His youngest daughter didn’t quite catch on to the change in their family routine.

One evening at dinner, she looked around the table, and asked, “Where’s Dad? Isn’t he hungry any more?”

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

KENTUCKY TESTING DEBACLE SHOWS FOLLY OF REMOVING LOCAL CONTROL

Kentucky was the first state to Goals 2000-ize itself, and institutionalize Outcome-Based Education in its public schools, replacing local control with state control.

Now it has major, major egg on its face. Are other states paying attention?

After a lengthy court fight led by radical leftists in that state, a June 8, 1989, ruling by the Kentucky Supreme Court held that it was unfair for some districts to spend more per pupil than others just because they happened to have more wealth in their districts. In response, the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) became law and basically ruined the schools by "governmentalizing" them.

With a tax increase of $1.4 billion, a whole new system was put in place. It includes standards, assessments, graduation proficiency exams, penalties for schools that don't meet their goals and millions of dollars of rewards for those that do. Plus Kentucky now has a whole new big bureaucracy to administer all this. It's the same kinds of incredibly expensive and intrusive system that most states now are putting in, and which will be made even worse as the federal program, No Child Left Behind, sinks its teeth even deeper into public schools and pushes local school boards aside.

But here's what's sad:

After all of that spending and hardball politics and fuss, Kentucky's ACT scores last year averaged 20 out of 36, one of the worst averages in the nation. That average ticked up just .10 of 1 point since 1990. All that money, and all that damage to schools, for absolutely nothing.

Now that they realize that financially, educationally and from a public-policy standpoint, this has been a disaster, the state is considering getting rid of its statewide high-stakes assessments, the CATS exams (Commonwealth Accountability Testing System), but they have all that bureaucracy in place, they want to save face, and it's a big, fat mess.

You can read all about what's going on in the article, "Critics Push to Revamp CATS Exams," in the April 22 Louisville Courier-Journal, www.courier-journal.com

And you can talk to your state senators and educators and warn them that Kentucky puts on a heck of a horse race, but their education system is a broken-down nag.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell For Parents

DECODING DISTRESS

Q. When my child reads aloud to me, he just stutters along in a monotone. He doesn't have any inflection or emotion in his voice. He makes mistakes and starts over a lot, skips words and gets frustrated real fast. He's 7 and we're getting worried.

What you describe is ''decoding distress.'' The child's brain isn't making the necessary, lightning-quick connections that should allow him to read fluently and accurately by this age. He is having difficulty running the alphabet letters in the text he sees through his mental filter that should automatically match those symbols to the sounds the letters make and allow him to recognize and pronounce words.

But he's not decoding. It's not his fault. It's the school's. This is what happens when kids aren't taught to read with proper phonics.

A sure sign of decoding distress other than the halting pronunciation you describe is poor reading comprehension. If your son can understand the meaning of spoken language -- if his ''listening comprehension'' is good -- but he cannot understand the meaning of written language equally well, the problem isn't with him. His school is most likely using the Whole Language philosophy of teaching reading, which is to let the kids guess and skip, not decode.

Without the accuracy and fluency that comes with careful phonics instruction, the reading comprehension of the average Whole Language student is not as good as the average phonics reader even in the early grades. The gap becomes dramatic by high school.

Parents can prevent decoding problems to a large degree by reading aloud daily with and to their children in the preschool and early primary years. Always read with the text in plain sight and work with your child to make those symbol-sound connections.

With a school-age child in the distress you describe, the solution is to run, don't walk, to a phonics tutor who uses an effective method such as Spalding Phonics, or learn it and teach it yourself.

Homework: Book, ''The Writing Road to Reading'' by Romalda Bishop Spalding, www.spalding.org

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

BEHIND THE BACK TIRE

And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
-- Genesis 8:11

There’s a family man in Omaha who parked his truck in the driveway every night and went inside to his wife and daughter. He had cares, of course, but overall he was happy, healthy and living the American dream.

And then one day he went out to his truck and started it up and backed down the driveway . . .

. . . not knowing that his little daughter was playing behind the back tire.

The jolting bump.

The sight of her crumpled body on the pavement.

The implosion of his lungs and guts.

Yelling to his wife . . . the screams . . . scooping up the limp little body . . . rushing to the hospital . . . the sobbing, the guilt, the self-recrimination, the hopelessness, the shame.

They buried her in one of those sad little child’s graves with toys all around.

He parked his truck over to the side on his driveway and vowed never to drive it again.

Time went on.

He punished himself. It was all his fault.

If he just hadn’t been in such a hurry that day . . . if he just would have been a responsible enough father to know where she was, every instant . . . if he just would have taken a few seconds to teach her never, ever to play around a vehicle. . . .

He felt horribly heavy, lifeless and alone. It was as if he buried his life in that grave, too.

More time passed. Still he grieved.

Why, Lord? Why did You take her away from me? Why did You let this happen? Didn’t You see? Why didn’t You stop me? Why, God, why?

Then one day he went out to his driveway, and right behind the back tire of his truck, right at the spot that was the source of all of his aching despair and pain . . . there was a snow-white dove.

Before his eyes, it took off, majestically, into the sky.

As he watched it fly up, it was as if the weight of the world was lofted up and away from him, carried away on the wings of that dove.

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. . . .” (Isaiah 53:4)

He thought of the dove of peace that told Noah that everything was all right, and that solid ground was just ahead. He knew it meant that his little girl was in her glory, still very much alive, just in a form he couldn’t yet see. It was OK.

He watched the dove fly out of sight, his face uplifted to the sky. He left it that way for a while.

He felt peace. At long last, peace.

He fell to his knees, and sobbed. This time, he felt a healing release. It was as if his heart was resurrecting. He felt a renewed hope and certainty of the life to come.

He won’t know for a long time how all of this fits into God’s plan for his life. He won’t know until the day he holds his little girl again and feels her love and forgiveness, as above them in triumph flies a snow-white dove whose message is peace and whose gift is joy.

That’s Easter. That’s the truth.

Jesus Christ is risen, indeed.

Alleluia!

Amen!

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

EASTER AFTER-DINNER REFLECTIONS

The worship services are inspiring. The egg hunts are fun. The feasts are great. But what a lot of people love about Easter gatherings is lingering at the dinner table and just talking and sharing as a group, whether you’re with your family, close friends, neighbors or roommates.

Here’s how to make that special time even more memorable:

In advance, gather as many plastic, two-part eggs as you will have dinner guests. Think about the real meaning of Easter. Now, inside each one, tuck a little piece of paper with a “prompt” such as:

Tell about a time that what you thought was really bad turned out to be really good.

Tell about someone you admire.

What makes you say “Alleluia”?

Who is the most generous person you know?

Tell about a scary time and how you got out of it.

At the end of dinner, pass an Easter basket around. Everyone has to take an egg, and then respond to the question inside.

Here’s hoping you hear lots of laughter and share some sweet moments, better than Easter candy that melts in your mouth . . . because these are words of love and remembrance that melt in your heart.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

MEMORY QUILT

Teenage sports teams, music groups, clubs or other high-school activities give moms a great opportunity to help their child make a tangible, lifelong memory with a special quilt they’ll have forever. This is a great sendoff for a senior going off to college.

Using cotton fabric, cut out a soccer ball or softball or tennis racquet or band instruments or whatever symbol might work for the activity in which your child participates. Give one to every player on your child’s team or in your child’s group, without your child knowing. Give each student a permanent marker such as a Sharpee pen, and ask them to write a note of encouragement, record your child’s nicknames, “in” jokes, or whatever they would want to put down for posterity, and sign their names, sort of like a yearbook autograph.

One way to do this and maintain secrecy is to delay your child for a half-hour to some team function, such as a pizza party, and get the fabric “balls” signed.

Then sew them onto quilt squares that go with your school colors, and fashion a quilt. You could cut out snazzy letters in a different fabric for your child’s first name and player number if you wish. Denim makes a great border. If you can’t sew, call a quilt shop or fabric store and ask for a referral to a private seamstress.

The “memory quilt” makes a great presentation to a graduating senior from the whole team at the end-of-the-year banquet. And it will give that young person an extra boost of confidence off at college, knowing that the “home folks” were glad to be part of his or her team.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

EGG-CITING DOOR DECORATION

To welcome guests at Eastertime, or just to cheer your neighborhood, take a large piece of foam-core board or posterboard and cut it out in the shape of an egg to fit your front door.

Then, just like a mother bird fashions her nest out of whatever she can find, decorate your egg with scraps and leftovers gathered from around the house: spray paint, tempra paint or watercolor paint, use markers or crayons, glitter glue, doilies, tear up tissue paper and glue on, make button art, arrange colorful beads, use yarn or rope, glue large flat sequins, punch holes in colored paper, twist and glue pipe cleaners . . . whatever looks festive.

Attach to your door with blobs of “sticky tack” adhesive dough, or use a good plastic or duct tape that won’t damage your door’s wooden surface. Beware of those spring winds and make sure it sticks.

The decorated egg keeps from year to year if you put it in a plastic trash sack and put it up above pipes in a basement closet or some other out-of-the-way place.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

A-B-C-D-F-I-G

That first little try at “The Alphabet Song” needs to be supported and encouraged, so just hold your hand over your mouth to hide your laughter when the next little person in your life comes up with lyrics like ours is singing this week:

''A-B-C-D-F-I-G,

''H-I-J-K-Lello-Mello-P.

''Q-R-S, U-and-V.

''Now I know my A-B-C’s.

''Next time won’ choo sing wiff meeeeeee?!?!?!''

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

COLLEGE PROFESSORS ARE . . . UNBALANCED?

A student group at Ithaca College in New York reported this week that 93.6 percent of the faculty are Democrats or Green Party members, vs. 6.4 percent who are Republicans.

This astounding lack of political diversity on campus was most pronounced in the department of political science, where the entire teaching staff was made up of Democrats or Greens.

The Ithaca College Republicans used voter registration records and a faculty list to come up with the numbers for 15 departments. They excluded the hard sciences and the applied sciences such as physical therapy.

Results were reported this week in www.FrontPageMagazine.com

If colleges really want to be bastions of political correctness and to celebrate diversity and so forth, it would seem to make sense to have this same study done and publicized for every college and university in the nation. Then watch the fur fly.

It’s hard to imagine any college teaching staff – or any group of working people in this day and age -- tolerating that degree of imbalance for other human factors, such as gender and race. But if that same proportion or thereabouts holds up at other campuses, that’s a strong statement about the ideological stranglehold that leftists have on our ivory towers.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

TEACHER TROUBLE

Q. My third-grader has a teacher who has been on several leaves of absence, has been bounced around from school to school in our district, screams at the kids and is disorganized, never sends any papers home and hasn’t changed the bulletin boards since September. Half the class is bored out of their skulls and the other half are misbehaving. What should I do?

1. Stay calm and rational, and keep this in perspective. Remember, problem teachers have personal problems. This sounds like someone battling depression. Be kind.

2. Discreetly ask other parents if they notice anything wrong.

3. Meet and work out a plan to monitor the situation for a time.

4. One of you should quietly obtain your district’s teacher evaluation document, which lists all the expectations for teachers and codifies what is unacceptable. Share this.

5. Another person could obtain a copy of your state’s teacher competency statute, which should define teacher incompetence and grounds for dismissal and the steps leading up to that drastic measure. Share this, too.

6. All parents should document things that their children say about what is going on in school, so take notes and date them and file them away. It is unfortunately smart to keep copies of misspellings, incorrect “corrections” and errors of fact that come from the teacher or are evident on your child’s papers to document incompetence. Many incompetent teachers are aware of their shortcomings and they tend to “accidentally on purpose” never send notes or schoolwork home to try to avoid parental accountability.

7. Wait for a precipitating, actionable event – a child starts bedwetting, there’s an incident of abuse by the teacher – and meet as a group with the principal to work out a solution.

That may be an aide, an enforced leave, or a new teacher.

Homework: National Council on Teacher Quality, www.nctq.org

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

YOU'RE ALL SET

In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
-- John 16:33b

I hate it when my husband goes out of town. Things happen. It’s Mrs. Murphy’s Law.

Once when I was pregnant, he left on a weekend golf outing, but scurried around doing Honey Do’s first.

He brushed off his hands, picked up his clubs, pointed to all that he had accomplished, and told me, “You’re all set.”

Those three little words . . . I hate those three little words.

Sure enough, he had forgotten to plant five potentilla bushes at the foot of the driveway. They had been shriveling in their pots for a week. So, even though I was great with child, I hauled them down there and planted them myself.

But there was a glitch. My back gave out.

I had to crawl all the way up the driveway at a snail’s pace. Naturally, guests arrived to visit next door. Our neighbors greeted them: “Oh, that’s just Crazy Susan. Always kidding around. Isn’t she nuts? Ha ha ha!”

All set, eh? Hmmph. All set for Divorce Court!

Another time, we moved on the same day he was to leave for another golf outing. The movers left, he found his golf clubs in the clutter, said cheerfully, “You’re all set!” and blew town, Brown, leaving me with 4,200 boxes to put away.

I got started: “Bedroom,” “Kitchen,” “Put In Storage and Forget For Another Ten Years.”

But then . . . organ music . . . it started getting hotter and hotter. The thermostat said “72.” But it felt like “99.” I panicked. There was a big, old boiler downstairs. I imagined it was bubbling like a cauldron, jumping off its footings, flames licking out toward combustibles such as myself and the children, the whole shebang about to go . . . SHEBANG!

But then I saw a whole ‘nother thermostat at the back at the house. It did, indeed, say “99.” Ohhh. There must be TWO thermostats in this new house! My elbow must have spun the dial on the second one to the max while I was rounding the corner with one of those big boxes.

All set? Hmmph. I re-set my personal thermostat to “frigid” after that.

I bring all this up because last night there was a big party at our house. We were the hors d’oeuvres stop for our neighborhood’s annual progressive dinner. Sixty-five snappily dressed guests met for nibbles and saw our house looking its best.

What they DIDN’T see was my Hag of the Western World act the week before, using my body as a human hammer to get this dump into shape.

Gardening, spray-painting, vacuuming . . . I worked like a dog, especially picking up the 17 zillion maple hulls out of the irregular flagstones on our back patio.

But seconds before the first guests arrived, I caught sight of Maddy, our 3-year-old, out there grabbing fistfuls of wet sand and throwing them up in the air – “HAPPPP-py New Year!” All over my precious patio. One fistful plonked onto the living room window and slid down, leaving a trail of grime that would be our guests’ first glimpse of our lovely, peaceful home.

That’s when the tick on the right eyelid began.

Two minutes later, the lightbulb over the buffet burned out, leaving guests to peer haplessly at the food. The tick on the left eyelid began.

The twitch on the mouth came after 90 minutes of so-so slush from the rented margarita machine. It was too liquid. People were good sports, but I was upset. Then the sun went down and the slush iced up . . . at the precise moment the guests had to “progress” to the next house. So they left. I was stuck with a boatload of leftover margaritas. I mean, a 55-gallon drum of leftover margaritas.

Shaken, not stirred? Neither. I twitched.

And where was my husband during all of these trials? My rock, my fortress, my margarita machine mechanic?

Out of town, of course.

He had been called away on a mission of critical importance. No, not to Iraq. Not for work. It was to a softball tournament, to support our daughter’s team, of which he is a grand poohbah.

Oh, make no mistake: before he left, he took a half-day off work and whizzed down his Honey-Do List. He whipped the yard into shape. He took the storms off the screen porch.

As he was leaving, he even flipped on the air conditioner for the first time this year.

“You’re all set!”

I felt a chill of margarita-like proportions. But it was nothing compared to what my feet felt at 7 this morning.

The softball daughter forgot to turn off her alarm clock before she left town. So it buzzed loudly. I leaped out of bed, my tired bod still leaden from all those party preparations, and staggered downstairs to turn it off.

Two steps into her room – squish, squish – and I knew the nearby air conditioning unit was backed up and leaking badly. Icy water was soaking her off-white carpet, sending shock waves through my bare feet, driving my cardiogram into the mega-millions, and worst of all, beginning to stain the beautiful beech baseboards.

But then I thought of the wet vac out in the garage. I could haul it down there. I could use it all day and well into the night to fix this flood. I could beat this thing!

I was . . . all set!

Hmmph!

And THEN I remembered the boatloads of leftover margarita slush in plastic sacks in the freezer.

Hmmmmmm!

I was all set, all right!

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

NEIGHBORHOOD PROGRESSIVE DINNER

A fun and easy way to socialize with your neighbors is to pick a likely Saturday night once a year, and plan a progressive dinner. After you've set the date about six months in advance, recruit host houses for the two key stages of the evening, where all participants will gather: hors d'oeuvres and dinner. A typical schedule: hors d'oeuvres at 6, salad at 7, dinner at 8 and desserts at 9.

Send out invitations six weeks in advance with a firm deadline and ask for volunteers to host salads and dinner. Depending on how many people are coming, you should keep it to no more than 20 people at each salad house and 10 people at each dinner house. Each participating couple should pony up $25 per couple or so to cover food and drink, or at least a large chunk of the cost.

Participants who are not hosting a party should be assigned as cooks: some can make hors d'oeuvres and bring beer, wine and pop, some can make the agreed-upon salad recipe and bring it, some can cook the dishes for the dinner, and some can make scrumptious desserts. They can arrange with the hostesses whether to bring the items in advance, or at the time of the party. Since everybody lives so close together, it's totally do-able to stop in between the hors d'oeuvres and salad houses to pop your dinner casserole into the oven, then stop back home to pick it up and bring it piping hot to the dinner house. It's a good idea, too, for someone to haul the leftover alcohol and soft drinks from the hors d'oeuvres house to the dessert house.

A typical method is for the organizing committee to choose recipes for the salad and dinner houses so that everybody has the same thing no matter whose house they go to. Appetizers and desserts can be cooks' choice.

That night, the chairman and assistant can sit at a table at the hors d'oeuvres house and give out nametags, collect money, and assign people to their salad and dinner houses.

Nothing will go wrong, but even if it doesn, cell phones and short distances between homes can solve problems in a heartbeat. And people are really willing to help.

Love thy neighbor -- and bon appetit!

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

REMEMBERING BIRTHDAYS

Birthdays are important, and it's a great social skill to remember the birthdays of people you like and love. You'd be surprised how hard that first birthday away from home can be, at college, when many young people are too shy to spread the word that their birthday is coming up. That empty mailbox is sad to see.

Moms can model the importance of marking people's birthdays for your children by giving each one a "birthday calendar." You can buy calendars for this purpose, or make a simple one with 12 notepaper pages or a small spiral notebook.

Label each page with the month and then number the days in that month: 1 through 31 for January, 1 through 28 for February and so on. You don't need days of the week since the birthday calendar is a "perpetual calendar" that will work for several years.

Then your child can write down the names of friends and families on their birthdays and keep the calendar for handy reference. One family had each child tape the birthdays to the inside of their closet doors; another put them up on a bulletin board in the family washroom.

A nice accompaniment to the birthday calendar is to give your child a box of blank cards that he or she can draw and color on before sending to those special friends.

The best result of this thoughtfulness is that friends who are touched by your child's faithful friendship are a million times more likely to remember your child's birthday. And that's something worth celebrating.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

A GOLF 'IN YOUR FACE' TO BAD GUYS

Sick and tired of war in the Middle East? Here's a way to relieve stress: download photographs of the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. You can find them by typing in their names on a search engine or going to a joke website. Enlarge them to 8 1/2" x 11" or if you really get serious, go to a print shop and have them made up poster size.

Mount on cardboard and duct-tape to garden stakes.

Stake in your yard a few dozen feet away.

Then set out pitching wedges or other golf clubs and a supply of golf balls. Everybody who comes to your house will enjoy a turn trying to whack a few shots at these guys who've teed us off so much for so long.

It's an "in your face" that will be satisfying, classy and fun.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

WHAT'RE WE HAVIN'?

My sister took her two kids to the grocery store late one afternoon. It was one of those great grocery stores with a bakery that turns out scrumptious, aromatic cookies to tempt shoppers, especially late in the day. Not only that, but they give out free samples to cute kids who come by.

Well, my sister had her two cute kids in the cart and was hurrying through the store trying to pick up her exciting list of broccoli, milk, bread and Cheerios -- is there any other list, for a young mother? -- when an employee offered each of the kids a big, warm chocolate-chip cookie.

"I'm sorry, but you can't have those," their mother said. My niece dutifully turned her cookie down.

My nephew, then about 5, wasn't so compliant. He reached for his cookie anyway.

"No, Mark, you can't. It'll spoil your dinner," his mother said.

He paused thoughtfully, scrunched up his face, and asked, "What're we havin'?"

You know, some things in life are just worth it, all the time, and a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie is one of 'em.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

A WOMAN GOLFER’S VIEW OF THE AUGUSTA FLAP

I’m a woman. I’m a golfer. Therefore, I’m even more qualified than Martha Burk to comment on the fact that the Augusta National Golf Club in Atlanta, Ga., host of the world’s biggest golf tournament every year, The Masters, doesn’t have any female members.

Martha Burk is the “political psychologist” and “women’s equity expert” who is trying to force all kinds of owies on Augusta because it remains a men’s only club. It’s a private club that pays taxes, and doesn’t use any tax funding the way the Martha Burk organizations of this world do. So it’s a producer entity, not a consumer one. Most people would say that means people like Martha Burk should MYOB. Most people would interpret Martha Burk’s whining about the men-only club as being like someone with such a small grasp of reality that they picket their neighbor’s house and tell everybody to stay away from there, because they planted red tulips instead of yellow ones.

The members have shown their class by promising to pay charities the zillions of dollars that the TV sponsors used to pay for the privilege of participating in the limited amount of advertising the Masters used to allow. The members are dipping into their own pockets, in other words, to help the deserving charity recipients who were counting on the Masters income, and to spare the former advertisers the possible bad press and boycotts of the Martha Burk campaign against Augusta.

For her self-described “rabble rousing,” which in effect threatens many worthwhile charities that help a whole lot more women than she ever will, she is getting nice press in the radical left media, and most everybody else thinks she’s out of her gourd.

For what it’s worth, and for the record: as a card-carrying women’s libber and lifelong golfer who would give my eyeteeth to play that course some day, I think she’s out of her gourd, too.

You can go to the National Council of Women's Organizations to read more about her. Try not to laugh when you see that she refers to herself as “chair” of that group – chintz or velveteen? – and that she refers to herself as “Doctor” because she has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington. She’s not a physician who invested the years of blood, sweat, tears and brainpower that that title signifies, in other words, so she’s not really a “doctor” except that she has her nonsense course work “Piled Higher and Deeper.”

You can also go to The Burk Stops Here to order a dozen hilarious golf balls with her face on them for $19.75, which promoters believe you will drive 300 yards off the tee just because it will be so fun to hit that face so hard.

So, like getting Non-Doctor Non-Chair Martha Burk to shrink away and go find something worthwhile to do that truly helps people, taking your frustrations out on those special golf balls will be a win-win.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

TEACHING THE OLDER NON-READER

Q. I couldn’t believe my ears when our middle-school principal said that more than half of the kids in our very good suburban school can’t read at grade level. How can the teachers in Grades 7-12 do their jobs with so many weak readers?

Parents who deplore ineffective reading instruction in the early grades fervently hope secondary-level teachers wake up to why older kids can’t read, since it appears that only teachers have influence with other teachers. Parents dream of the day the Grades 7-12 teachers will march on the grade schools and demand a better job, since they are left with the very tough job of attempting to help middle-school and high-school kids overcome bad, ingrained reading habits and pick up the comprehension skills, vocabulary, fluency and most of all, motivation to read, that they missed in K-6.

The committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children of the National Research Council reports: “The educational careers of 25 to 40 percent of American children are imperiled because they don’t read well enough, quickly enough, or easily enough to ensure comprehension in their content courses in middle and secondary school.” (Snow, Burns, and Griffin 1998, p. 98)

One of the most helpful things that should happen is that all teachers, including those in Grades 7-12, need to recognize that Job One is to make all kids into the best readers they can be. Too many times, teachers on down the road disdain that task as being beneath them. But if instruments aren’t tuned, the orchestra stinks. It’s the same thing with even the best curriculum and instruction in middle school and high school: if the students can’t read, even the best teacher will fail.

Parents of struggling readers should buy this book for their teachers:

Homework: "When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do" by Kylene Beers (Heinemann, 2003, 392 pp.).

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

BOWS UP

I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.
-- Philippians 4:13

One of my Great Moments in Ignominy was the day in Rocky Mountain National Park when I decided to maximize my leisure-time enjoyment by taking a class on archery.

Ah, the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune that significantly reduced my self-esteem. William Tell, I ain’t. Cupid’s job is safe. If I were a Native American, my family would starve. I was that bad.

I wasn’t even strong enough to pull back the bowstring and stand still at the same time. The bow and I both wobbled as if we were drunk.

My fingers wouldn’t stay in place, even after the instructor arranged them manually to hold the arrow shaft -- twice. The arrow clattered against the wobbling bow like an unlatched storm door in a strong spring wind.

I wasn’t nearly coordinated enough to aim properly; spectators in adjoining counties were backing away discreetly as we practiced our stance all along the firing line.

Finally, here came the instructor’s cue: “Bows up!” Then: “Loose!” And all of us beginning archers shot our arrows with a mighty grunt of effort.

Most everybody else’s zinged forward and sank precisely into the line of targets . . .

. . . while mine lay uselessly on the grass about five feet in front of me, sadly off course to the left.

I could have thrown it farther and straighter.

I was hurt. I never expected to be so bad at something that people have been good at for so many centuries. It looks so easy in the movies. You know: the captain says, “Bows up!” and all the archers snap into position with nary a wobble in the bunch. Then, “Loose!” and there go all these beautiful, snazzy shots with zing and precision.

How do people get so good at things like that? It was beyond me.

Well, several years later, I had one of those waking dreams where you experience something so real and yet so unusual, it can’t have been a dream, and yet it can’t have happened the way you remember.

In this waking dream or whatever it was, I was on an archery range. But instead of a traditional target, all of my loved ones were standing a distance away from me. I knew this had something to do with how I was supposed to treat them, as a born-again Christian. But I wasn’t sure what was going on. I was standing there with a bow and a quiver of arrows, and somehow I was supposed to aim and shoot at them.

Somehow, I knew that those were arrows of love that I was shooting and the whole point was to help them.

But I knew I was a terrible shot. And suddenly, my bow grew in height. It stretched from over my head to the ground, and its girth became like a tree trunk.

I tried to aim it, anyway, and it wobbled in one hand as my other hand fumbled with the first arrow. This was going to be a disaster.

And then, all of a sudden, the bow was perfectly still. I could feel it pull backward, perfectly straight, with no effort on my part.

And suddenly, the arrow was being aimed in perfect alignment, and I knew that once it was released, it would fly straight and true.

I felt Someone standing right behind me, like a golf pro helping a beginner with the right form. I sensed warm arms around me, strong hands covering mine, a steadying influence.

I was filled with joy, and released the arrows with total confidence that they’d find their marks.

And then poof! The moment was over.

I had kind of forgotten about it until the other day. I was driving to a lunch date with a close friend who was very distressed, in big trouble with some ongoing issues, and in need of comfort and a listening ear.

On the way there, I was praying for the right words to say, special words that would really help. And I was worrying about how the constant barrage of bad news about the war in Iraq was probably making a bad situation seem even worse.

I’m kind of a stumblebum at times like these, clumsy and tongue-tied. I was wondering how I was going to do this person any good, when suddenly, I saw the license plate on the car ahead of me:

“BOWS UP”

Tears sprang into my eyes and my throat choked up. I remembered that vivid archery dream.

I didn’t need any special ammunition or skills. There was Someone with me, with strong arms around me, Who would aim my words like arrows of love, straight and true, into my friend’s heart.

That’s exactly what happened, too, with no effort on my part.

No matter what the target is, no matter where you aim, you will succeed if you will just remember Who is there with you on the firing line.

Don’t worry about having the strength and skill. Just put yourself in position.

Bows up, everyone. Bows up.

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

PLAY DATES FOR YOUNG AND OLD

If there's one thing young parents neglect, it's adult time for themselves as a couple, away from the kids. But if there's one thing young parents all do, it's enroll their children in some kind of a play activity, whether it's through preschool or a kiddie gymnastics class, the Y, church, whatever. Funny, isn't it, how we all know kids need the company of other kids, but somehow we don't translate that to our adult need to be with each other just for fun once in a while, too.

So here's what to do: next time one of those classes is ending, schedule a celebration lunch at your house. Invite each parent-child combo for a nice luncheon casserole and salad (parents) and pigs in a blanket and bugs on a log (kids). The kids can explore the host child's toys while the parents sit and gab. You can have a planned game such as bingo if you wish, but the fun of being in someone else's house is usually sufficient for all ages.

Then set up a play date for adults. Say you have four kids at your luncheon. Take turns being the babysitting house for the next four weeks. Plan every Saturday night to drop off your child at a different playmate's house for a few hours. One set of parents will babysit while the other three sets go off and have some couple time, which is crucial in this day and age.

After everyone takes a turn, your kids have all had a chance to play at a new friend's house, learned lessons aout sharing and being a good guest, and most of all, the grown-ups have had a little R&R and free, quality babysitting, too.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

CONNECTING KIDS TO SOLDIER COMFORTS

Older children and teenagers are certainly asking questions about the war and must be wondering what it is like to be a soldier in it. Kindle their patriotism and give them a bit of a geography lesson and a reality check by participating in one of the many shoebox supply operations going on.

You can go through your house for extras you have on hand such as soap and batteries, and add a few items to your shopping cart with your child at your side, while discussing what daily life is like for those representing our country in the deserts of the Middle East.

High temperatures are creating a call for small portions of individually-wrapped and melt-proof items such as candies, powdered teas and fruit drinks, and other edibles, instead of large containers of them, which might spoil too fast in the heat.

While TV and video games might give kids the idea that war is glamorous, two frequently-requested items from the battlefront prove that it actually is anything but:

1) Flea collars. That's right; the G.I.'s are putting them around their wrists and ankles because those sand fleas bite, and it hurts.

2) Quality feminine hygiene products. Does the U.S. government skimp? Well, let's just say they don't may not see quality feminine hygiene products as a part of necessary armament, but if you're a quality female, you know that it is.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

A FRIENDSHIP BOOK

What a thoughtful teenage son my friend has. She has been mega-stressed out at work, and her duties as a wife, mother, household manager and school volunteer were fritzing her out, too.

So she did a self-loving thing: she scheduled herself a "Mom's Weekend Off" with a three-day stay at a resort she had always wanted to go to. Highlights were to include her first massage, a little shopping, and lots of time to enjoy a stack of good books poolside, getting a spring tan.

She also confided to her family that she planned to use the time away to reconnect herself spiritually. In all her stress, she had been feeling pretty cut off from God and drifting away from His influence and purposes in her life.

So her 18-year-old son did something very special and admirable: about a month before the trip, he snuck into her email address book and got the contact information for many of her oldest and dearest friends. Then he emailed us a request to write her a love letter. We were to include a Bible verse or two if it struck us, and we were to tell her how much she has meant to our lives and how she has enriched us and sustained us. He was going to tuck it into her suitcase at the last minute as a surprise for her trip.

It was such a pleasure and joy to write that letter, the only thing that could have been better would have been to be HER, reading all those letters in her surprise friendship book. I'm sure she laughed and cried and laughed some more, lost count of her blessings, and praised God for her son's thoughtfulness and creativity. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it soon.

It made me regret that I don't write letters like that all the time . . . and it made me resolve to do the same thing for someone else who's special, next chance I get.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

THE ‘OUTIE’ DANCE

It's only a matter of time before a new dance craze rocks the nation and plays Carnegie Hall. It's called "The Outie Dance."

Here’s how you do it: put a sticky dimestore star on your navel. It's particularly entrancing if have the good fortune to be an "outie" as opposed to an "innie."

Then puff your tummy out as far as it will go, and suck it in as far as it will go, rapidly and repetitively, to the rhythm of a jazzy tune such as "Hakuna Matata" from "Lion King."

Doesn't matter a whit what color star you choose. Around here, the navy blue one seems most artistically pleasing.

Yes, this all came about as our toilet-training toddler found a creative new use for the reward stars she was putting on her little chart in the bathroom. It's an odd new form of belly-dancing. But if the lust for a new star to dance “The Outie Dance” helps the child ace the skills of the W.C., it's should be a star in any parenting constellation.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

SAY WHAT, QUEEN NOOR?

The queen of Jordan grew up in America in a Christian home and belonged to the same sorority I did, Kappa Kappa Gamma, although she went to Princeton and I went to plain old Mizzou.

When she married the well-liked King Hussein of Jordan, she changed her typical American name -- Lisa Halaby -- to "Queen Noor al-Hussein," or "The Light of Hussein," in keeping with his country's patterns. She was the only woman at her wedding, according to the customs of her newly-adopted country. She relinquished her American citizenship, turned her back on Christianity and converted to Islam.

OK. Now in the face of the war in Iraq, she is using her bully pulpit to state to the American people that American Christians and Middle Eastern Muslims "all worship the same God" and that basically, we're all alike.

O . . . K.

If we all worship the same God, Queen Noor, how come you guys don't call Him "Jesus Christ," and how come the God specifically and wondrously revealed in the Judeo-Christian Holy Bible isn't given any kind of a bully pulpit in most Muslim countries, but is in fact censored? If we're all worshipping the same God, how come you won't even give Him a chance to speak to your people?

And if we're all alike, how do you explain why you changed your first name upon your marriage? No self-respecting woman in the United States of America would ever change her first name to please her husband. No way, no how, if she's mentally healthy. Last name, OK; it has its benefits. But first name? That's patently un-American. Don't kid us.

Think about it, my Kappa sister, my fellow mother of four, my former fellow American, and my former sister in Christ.

Get back! Get back! Get back to where you once belonged . . . and made sense.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

CLASSICAL EDUCATION

Q. What constitutes a "classical education"? I've been hearing this term from people who want to combine a "back to the basics" model of education reform with a more modern, high-quality approach, not necessary "back to the way we used to teach."

It's often confused with an elitist education that sticks strictly to dusty old classic books in teeny, tiny type that's booooooring. But think of "classical education" more as offering a true "liberal-arts" curriculum, and you have the idea of its general attraction and value. Basically, it uses the old-school (literally!) order of taking students through these three levels: grammar, logic and rhetoric. Grammar is the foundation -- what's what. Logic is how to analyze information. Rhetoric is how to decide what you think about it, and put the information to use.

They learn language and logic, expressive writing and speech. They get aesthetic appreciation, empirical inquiry skills, spatial relation practice and plenty of mathematics, science and social interaction teaching. What they DON'T get is a lot of Politically Correct, fad-du-jour, special-interest driven content, which is fine with the parents who recognize the benefits of equipping students to think and question, rather than indoctrinating them with what to think.

It's a great alternative to the cookie-cutter style of education that took hold in the last few decades as waves of the Baby Boom and their children moved through public schools. Classical education goes far beyond the familiar school curriculum which by definition is targeted toward the norm and sticks to standardized content from texts written for the mass markets.

On the other hand, a true classical education does not skimp on equipping students to think about and problem-solve on thorny contemporary issues and diversity . . . because a true classical education covers those big-picture issues which have always been key, whether it was many centuries ago, or on today's front page. And a true classical education covers the sweep of history which, by definition, is the epitome of diverse.

A good classical education teaches teenagers symbolic logic, Aristotelian rhetoric and civic responsibility. Those are mighty fine ideals, and if word is spreading about this quality alternative philosophy of education, it's a good thing.

Homework: "Classical Education: Towards the Revival of American Schooling" by Gene Edward Veith Jr., and Andrew Kern (Capital Research Center, 1997, 99 pp.).

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE GOES TO WAR

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

-- Matthew 13:46

A dear friend just got back from 12 days in Hawaii, where three generations of his family stayed at the Hale Koa (''House of the Warrior''), a special military resort on Waikiki. Our friend, former Omahan and University of Nebraska graduate Steve Alberg, was ROTC in school and a captain in the Air Force Reserves. His father, Henry Alberg, was a colonel with the Nebraska National Guard and a longtime helicopter pilot. They all wear their hearts on their sleeves; there's no doubt that family has a deep and abiding love for the United States of America.

Now, most people come back from Hawaii with great tans and self-absorbed stories about snorkeling and surfing. But here's a souvenir for wartime: a letter from Steve about an extraordinary experience his family had a few days ago at Pearl Harbor.

It puts this war into perspective, as we defend the ''pearl of great price'' that belongs to all Americans: our freedom.

Steve writes:

''Security was tight all during our stay, with armed guards and I.D. checkpoints extending even onto the beach. We heard a rumor that the U.S.S. Nimitz aircraft carrier was loading up on fuel, stores and munitions in nearby Pearl Harbor, about to sail into harm's way along with her battle group.

''Early the next morning, the rented van was fueled and at curbside with Col. Alberg, 71 years young, barking orders and indicating that the mission to see the carrier off at Pearl was going to be on time. As we approached the Navy Gate at Pearl, we were inspected and had to produce picture ID to a contingent of MP's who were armed to the teeth and looked very intent on their business. A humvee with a 50-caliber was parked nearby and manned as well. They refused to confirm any rumors about the Nimitz, but the Colonel's and my old reserve military ID did the trick. The weapons were shouldered and a smart salute was rendered from all the young warriors to the old. The Colonel rendered one back to those sharp young troops and held it for a moment longer . . . and so did I.

''One of them said crisply: 'Col. and Capt. Alberg, Sirs, you may proceed but I think you ought to get rid of the Jayhawk ball cap.' We all laughed, and of course Mom told them we were from Kansas City and grew up in Nebraska, just in case they might have any doubt about our background as loyal Americans. The trooper said, 'Ah'm from West Virginia, Maaa'aaam' . . . and then we were in Naval Base Pearl and the adventure was on.

''We saw the old original stone military buildings still obviously riddled by air from the attack in 1941. They are left and still used as a reminder to all those soldiers who see them today -- a reality check. The strafing planes left easily observable double parallel paths of many, many individual four- to six-inch circular pock marks across the stone buildings.

''We headed down toward Battleship Row. On the way we saw more destroyers and cruisers than I have ever seen in my five previous times at Pearl. Lots of activity.

''As we turned the corner, there she was: a gun grey steel behemoth about four football fields in length, maybe 10 stories high. She was parked next to the famous Battleship Missouri with her monster deck turret guns and the sunken Arizona on eternal patrol. What a sight!

''The Nimitz' decks were bristling with fighters and supplies. A tug was approaching her bow, another her stern. And then came the chopper, circling the harbor, scoping out the shore and looking underwater with its sonar, machine gunners in the open doors, scanning the 300- to 400-yard wide channel that runs out of Pearl Harbor to the sea. The tugs slowly turned her around to get her bow toward the channel and the open ocean.

''Approximately three or four weeks before, there had been a rumor in Pearl that terrorists were planning to get an airplane and dive it into the nuclear sub pens and, according to the same rumor, that is why we went to Code Orange at that time. The resulting nuclear problem would be another Pearl Harbor for us. I had earlier noted with interest the Aegis missile cruiser parked two or three miles offshore near the Honolulu Airport flight path and visible from Waikiki and downtown. She stayed there every day.

''The carrier was now beginning her run for deep water. We decided it was time to head to the entrance to the channel going into Pearl Harbor a couple of miles away. We raced back to the van and headed through a back gate into Hickam AFB, taking a shortcut to 'Orville and Wilbur's' cafe out on the point overlooking the channel. That's a breakfast/lunch restaurant on the base named for the Wright Brothers and famous for great egg, toast and bacon 'All American' breakfasts at cheap military rates. We arrived at Orville's parking lot overflowing with cars, and we ran for the point.

''A crowd lined the channel’s coast for hundreds of yards. We found our spot just in time as someone yelled, 'Here she comes! She's rounding the bend!' A great cheer sounded.

''And there she was . . . steaming for open water . . . battle flags flying . . . sailors manning her decks . . . F-18 fighter aircraft and antiaircraft guns at the ready . . . the public address system on board crackling orders and the ship sounding like something out of a 'Star Wars' movie.

''She passed 100 yards in front of us. There were more cheers. The crowd waved American flags and held up signs . . . 'Good Luck and God Speed!!!!' The sailors waved back and cheered us!

''Kids yelled for their dads. Wives and girlfriends waved and blew kisses to their sailors. Grown men were crying and cheering at the same time onshore, myself included. My 14-year-old daughter Katy started crying when the little girl next to her yelled, 'Goodbye, Daddy! I love you! Come home soon, Daddy!'

''My daughter and I and many others ran along the shore so we could be with the 'flat top' and her brave warriors as long as possible.

''At land’s end, they kept going but we had to stop. With a look of real concern, Katy asked, 'Dad, they will come home, won't they? Their chances are good, aren’t they?' I knew she had realized what was at stake and what it was all about.

''She got her answer right away. The carrier's horn sounded – 'Whoop, Whoop, Whoop' -- and with a blast from her mighty foghorn that shook the air and a speeding, low-flying chopper escort zooming right over our heads, she broke into the open sea followed by a cruiser and her sailors standing in white and lining the deck . . . 'Hurrah! Hurrah!'

''We learned they were headed for Maui waters to link up with the Nimitz' entire battle group of destroyers, cruisers and subs which were waiting for her there at sea. Ultimate destination unknown. Our forces are being sent to four theaters out of Pearl: Iraq, Korea, the Philippines and Afghanistan.

''Wherever they are tonight, I can rest easier in this crazy world. I've seen it with my own eyes: the power of that proud ship and the good and brave faces of those sailors and aviators risking their lives to fight for freedom from oppression and terror. I saw their proud, brave families and the tears of the wellwishers, too.

''Pearl Harbor has always been a rallying point for our country, a symbol of who we are compared to other countries and what we have to do to keep what we have for ourselves and for the good of the world. Whatever it takes, it's worth it . . . worth fighting for just as much today as in 1941.

''For all of us who were there to see that magnificent ship embark that day at Pearl, with lumps in our throats and goosebumps on top of our goosebumps, it was a priceless reminder of who we are and what we're like.

“We were all Americans that day! Be brave!”

-- Dedicated to Ben Rudnicki, a U.S. Marine from Omaha now fighting in Iraq, whose mother is my Sunday School teaching partner; she asks for covering prayer for Ben and all our fighting forces.

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Susan Darst Williams, www.DailySusan.blogspot.com, is a writer, wife and mother of four who lives at the base of Mount Laundry, Nebraska.