This division can't continue

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For a moment last Wednesday, possibility hung in the air - the possibility for change, for understanding.

You could feel it, like ozone before a storm.

America gasped - black, white America - and while the country held its breath, we were one nation, unified in our horror and outrage and despair.

Virtually no one who had seen the tape of Rodney King could understand how a jury could acquit the police officers who'd kept beating him when he was down. All of America was stunned. If reason had triumphed over rage, if marches had been opted for instead of mayhem, America might have stayed unified. A bridge might have been spanned.

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Uplifting book about living tells us to enjoy today

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Uplifting book about living tells us to enjoy today

William Safire, the New York Times' resident expert in the use of the English language, made a mistake last week. He wrote: "The last time a dying man ran for president of the U.S. was in 1944." This is not true. Franklin Roosevelt WAS dying when he ran in 1944, but so is every man who is running for president now. We are all dying from the moment we are born. We don't like to think about this, but death is our destiny. None of us knows when or how or where we'll die. We don't come with guarantees or promises. We simply are until we are not. To quote an Elton John’s song, we are all "candles in the wind."

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Cable offers new adventures in slime

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The station is WWOR, Channel 9, from New York, now delivered to us through our cable system.

It's not an x-rated station. We don't subscribe to it. It comes free with our basic package, and like most every other TV station, it's packed full of news and talk shows and re-runs.

Last Thursday at 7 a.m. the station showed "James Bond Jr.," followed by "Widget," "Head of the Class," "It's a Living," "Jenny Jones" and "Nine Broadcast Live."

Nine Broadcast Live is the subject of this column.

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When THE catalog arrives

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The new Victoria's Secret catalog arrived sometime last week, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it until now. The men in my house love the thing. They must have a sixth sense, a kind of male E.S.P. Either that or they secretly phone ahead to find out when the catalog is being shipped, because they always know the moment it's in the mailbox, and grab it the second it arrives.

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Church could say `come home'

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The ad has been running in newspapers for more than a month now. "Rediscover the Catholic Church." It isn't a bad ad. The words are all in the right places. The intent is clear.

But the message is strained, because the tone is formal and distancing. "More than anything, we can show you how to rekindle your relationship with God. We can show you an approachable God, a merciful God, a God who gladly welcomes those who come back to Him."

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Sloppy Kids Made by Mom

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Sloppy Kids Made by Mom

She told me, when my children were babies that once I started picking up after them I would never stop. "If he's old enough to get a toy out of a toy  box, then he's old enough to put it back when he's done with it," my mother-in-law said. 

And I said, "You're absolutely right.”

But when she wasn't around, I didn't heed her advice. I'd look at the mess on the floor, Fisher Price people everywhere, Legos under…

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Group's goal is to help kids conquer hate

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It was just another breakfast. I didn't want to go.

Eight a.m. is too early for small talk and smiles. I enjoy sitting at my kitchen table, reading the paper in silence, then facing the day.

But Karen Schwartzman from the Bank of Boston called and lured me. She said I'd get a chance to meet Margot Stern Strom, who is not only the executive director of Facing History and Ourselves but one of its two founders.

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Lessons in a summer garden

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Lessons in a summer garden

t must be a byproduct of age. It must develop like a taste for lobster or pate, or like gray hair, slowly, but inevitably. How else to explain it? When I was young I used to hate working in a garden; now I'm old and I love it. Why?

When I was a child, you couldn't lure me outdoors. My mother tried. She bought me a package of bachelor button seeds and a planter at the five-and-ten and brought in from outdoors a pail full of loam and said, "Here, now you can grow your own garden." She must have believed that once I saw life spring forth from seeds I had personally buried in dirt I would be awed and treasure all life that emerged from the ground. But it didn't work that way. I didn't have any interest in the seeds…

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Molly: Tale Goes On

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Molly: Tale Goes On

"How come you don't write about Molly anymore? Does she still jump on people? Is she still devouring the back steps? Does she still drool?"

McSoley trains dogs. He sent me his book, "Dog Tales" when we got Molly. I read the book, studied it, memorized it; I even tried to follow it. "Yes, Molly still jumps on people," I told Mr. McSoley. "Yes, she still drools and as for the back steps - no, she doesn't eat them anymore but that's because they're practically gone."…

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Pen pal's letters one of life's treasures

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Pen pal's letters one of life's treasures

I have accepted his words and his love, the way an infant accepts food. I've never wondered at them before. His letters have arrived sometimes in clusters, sometimes separated by weeks. I've relished them all. They are breezy, newsy, funny, warm, full of joy and wonder and life. I've shared them with my husband and children and answered some, but not all.

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New Medico: One tale of greed and of sorrow

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Complaints about New Medico Health Care System of Lynn, the nation's largest chain of head-injury rehabilitation facilities, have led to investigations by the United State's Attorney's office in Boston, the New York State Health Department and a congressional sub-committee. Adelaide Powers is a patient at Lenox Hill, one of New Medico's 36 facilities.

Her voice is a rasp on the phone. "Can you come?" she whispers. "I have things to tell you."

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Comforting lesson in the face of fate

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Why? That's what you want to know. You look at the list of names divided into those killed and those who survived the crash of USAir Flight 405 and you think, why?

Why one person and not another? Why does a man die and his wife survive? Is there something that connects the survivors?

If a woman with tickets for a different flighthadn't insisted that her tickets be exchanged, she and her husband would still be alive. If a couple coming back from a cruise had spent an extra day, even a few extra hours, in Florida, they would be alive. If an Ohio surgeon had sat where his wife sat, he would be alive, but she might not be.

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Nobody thought Jerry Brown would prevail.

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"Some of you are saying to yourselves that there is not much that one person can do. But I tell you that together, we can prevail." - Jerry Brown, Oct. 21, 1991, announcement speech.

Politicians dismissed him. The press disparaged him. The pundits - the self-acclaimed experts who make their living telling us what we've just heard and what we should think - totally disregarded him.

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Dealing with coma victims

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They're in there but you don't know how to reach them. You know it. You believe it. You cling to the fairy tale that a kiss - or something like a kiss - will wake them. You cling to everything.

You bring in a stuffed animal, a favorite thing, and you take it and rub it up and down against a cheek.

"Do you know who this is? Can you smell it? Can you feel it?"

And you pray that they can.

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One year later, a mother mourns

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There is no warning. The earth doesn't tremble. The sky doesn't darken. A siren doesn't sound so that you can run for cover, so that you can steel yourself for pain.

It's a direct hit every time and the pain is like nothing you've ever felt before. It burns, rips, chokes, suffocates and inundates every limb,every muscle, every cell, every thought, every breath.

It strikes the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, children, family and friends of 23,000 Americans every year.

The pain doesn't pause. It doesn't sleep. It doesn't abate.

And it never goes away.

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Life full of `little' adjustments

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Let's see if I have this straight. This is how we must live our lives: We must never talk to strangers, must in fact, walk with our eyes down as if we are deep in thought, while we stride purposefully on our way. Purposefully is the key. We want our body to give out the message: don't mess with us. That's what the experts say.

We must walk on brightly lighted streets in groups, never alone in the dark. We must constantly be on guard. Is there someone behind us? Is that someone too close? Quick, cross the street and walk more purposefully. We must walk alone through parks or alleys or even sparse woods.

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