The world's explosive enough

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It was a birthday celebration, a country club throwing itself a fun little party. Nothing unusual about this.

Only a lot of people in Canton, which is 15 miles south of Boston, didn't have a clue about Wampatuck's 100-year birthday bash. It was to most a surprise party.

People were aware of other things, though. They knew that the Democratic National Convention was in town, that the terror-threat level was high, that commuters were being searched, that there was more air traffic than usual and that these were perilous times.

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Dems' hoopla leaves behind a party of unnoticed victims

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There's no doubt that the Democratic National Convention is the big show in town this week, pure theater, players strutting and fretting upon the stage, overstating and overdramatizing. At the Wang, they'd get the hook. At the FleetCenter, they'll get an ovation.

That's politics.

But what's happening offstage is the more important show.

More than 900 pairs of soldier's boots were placed around City Hall last week to represent the American servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq so far.

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Xena still a moment to cherish

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Xena still a moment to cherish

I'm surprised she still visits. She said she would. She said, ``When I get my license, I'll be able to drive to your house anytime, Beverly.'' But she was 11, then. And 12. And 13.

``I'll never leave you, Mama,'' I said when I was small. And then I did. It happens.

Xena, the cousin from New York who spent so much of her childhood with me playing Spit, walking, talking and planning her adult life, has had her license for two summers now. And she has visited, just as she promised. She's called and said, ``I miss you. Can I come?'' And then driven two-and-a-half hours, away from her family and her boyfriend and her work and her life, to spend time with me.

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Bask in summer glow of friends, family

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Bask in summer glow of friends, family

The grass needs to be cut. It always needs to be cut. The evergreens need to be trimmed. The roses need to be pruned. And there are more weeds than flowers in my front yard.

I see all that needs to be done. But none of this is bothering me this summer. I'm looking beyond all the ``should do's.'' I'm looking at how thick and healthy the grass is, how the bare spots aren't bare anymore. I'm looking at how the impatiens have filled in, how lush the evergreens are, how red the roses, and how close to perfect my tiny, weedy, overgrown world is right now.

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We're right to close the book on reading

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We're right to close the book on reading

Americans are reading less. Never mind Oprah and her book club. Never mind that you can never get a parking space at Barnes & Noble in Braintree, and that there's always a line at the checkout. According to a new survey, ``Reading is in decline among all groups, in every region, at every educational level and within every ethnic group.''

The worst statistic? Only slightly more than half of us read even one book in all of 2002.

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ALS mustn't paralyze us with fear

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ALS mustn't paralyze us with fear

I didn't know him, had never even heard of him until I read about his death in Monday's paper. ``Francis A. Carlson, at 30, of Franklin, ALS activist.''

ALS is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Lou Gehrig's disease. Of all the diseases you don't want to get, this ought to top the list. It paralyzes the body but leaves the mind intact. People think it's rare, that it strikes only older people. But in the United States alone, 30,000 people have it, 15 people a day die from it and 15 more are, every day, diagnosed with it.

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Yankees' bats pound Sox fan's morale

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Yankees' bats pound Sox fan's morale

He says it's over. Finished. Kaput. Never again. He says he's wasted enough of his time, energy and mind rearranging his life for them, thinking about them, cheering them on and defending them.

He says not any more. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not on your life.

He says this, of course, on a Friday morning, when the Red Sox are sleeping or working out or reading self-help books - doing whatever it is they do when they're not bobbling balls, leaving the bases loaded and breaking their fans' hearts.

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Groundhog daze is daunting

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Groundhog daze is daunting

The rabbit was easy to identify. I saw it a few weeks ago as I pulled into the driveway. It sat on the lawn with its long ears, brownish fur, cute tail, and I've seen it every day since, hop, hop hopping around.

It's definitely a rabbit. No doubt.

Birds are easy to name, too. We have blackbirds, cardinals, sparrows, a pair of blue jays.

They flutter. They tweet. They soar. They're all definitely birds.

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Truth amid Moore's propaganda

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No one I know goes to the movies anymore. My father says he can't sit that long. My daughter says she can't deal with the crowds. My friends say they haven't the time. My neighbors say they can't remember the last movie they saw. Even the guy who came to inject pellets into one of my trees last week said it has been years since he's been to a movie.

I tell them they need to see ``Fahrenheit 9/11.''

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Love, not laundry, makes marriage work

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Love, not laundry, makes marriage work

``You're not doing the job you did when I first married you,'' my husband chides, turning to me with a grin and dangling from his hand a thick tangle of unmatched socks, which he has pulled out of his drawer. They are different textures, different patterns and different lengths. But they are all black. Why are all of his socks black?

On the floor, next to him, in a laundry basket, under a stack of towels, are his golf shirts, five of them, not ironed. Around him, there is more disarray.

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No furlough for victim

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No furlough for victim

The mother is calm because she needs her daughter to be. The mother is the leader. She can lead her daughter back to the night that changed their lives, or she can take her hand and walk her toward tomorrow.

She chooses tomorrow.

After the hearing, when the boys who sexually assaulted her then 15-year-old finally admitted what they had done, the mother went to a store and bought her daughter a small box and said, ``Put all your bad memories in here. It was one night of your life. It's not your whole life. You have a choice. To let it ruin you or to let it go.''

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Meet the modern dad: A guy who really knows his kids

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Meet the modern dad: A guy who really knows his kids

She never laid out a suit for him. He didn't wear suits. He wore a navy blue police uniform - wool pants, wool jacket, long sleeves even in the summer. And my father pressed his uniform himself.

He ironed in the dining room, probably because we hardly ever used that room. I would sit on a chair, my back to the window, and watch as he placed a wet handkerchief up and down each pant leg and meticulously steamed in a crease.

``You don't ever put an iron directly on wool or you'll end up with shiny pants,'' he told me.

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From Lucy, a fulfilling year

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From Lucy, a fulfilling year

It's one year later. One year after the ground caved in and the world blew apart and the center failed to hold. One year after we were told, ``I'm sorry'' so many times that we were sorry, too.Three hundred and sixty-five days, some of them terrible. The day my granddaughter Lucy Rose was diagnosed with Down syndrome. The cold, rainy day she came home. The day the doctor said she needed heart surgery. The day of the surgery when the operation didn't go as planned. The days after, at the hospital, when we felt helpless at her side.

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The memories stay put, even if we don't

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The memories stay put, even if we don't

It occurred to me as I was sitting in the Great Hall in Codman Square, Dorchester Thursday morning, a guest at a breakfast celebrating this treasure's 100th anniversary, that a building really is more than brick and wood and everything it takes to hold it together. And it's not just sentiment that draws us back to a place.

Sure, we come back to places to say, ``This is the house where I grew up.'' Or ``This is my old school.'' Or ``This was my library.'' But usually we come back because there's something of ourselves, and others, that was left behind.

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