We've had a lot of fun in our family with some of the tapes I made when the kids were little. I can hear what they sounded like before they had much of a vocabulary - before their voices changed. It's special memories. So is the tape of our wedding over 30 years ago, it's always a pretty tender time when my wife and I sit and listen to the day we made our lifetime vows to each other. Happy tapes - and then, there was President Richard Nixon - not happy tapes.

The Watergate accusations flew back and forth without making any fatal damage until an aid testified that the President had tapes of his oval office conversations. There was a big legal battle over releasing those tapes, but, eventually the world heard the not very pretty things that were said behind closed doors. I wonder if President Nixon just forgot sometimes that the recorder was running, or if he thought none would ever hear what he was saying. Well, he was wrong.

I really enjoy picking out gifts for the people I love, I enjoy giving the gift, I don't enjoy wrapping the gift. In fact, it's tempting just to hand them the present, but it just isn't so special to get a gift in a K-Mart bag. It's nicer to have it wrapped in wrapping paper and bows. But there's something about my motor coordination I guess, the lines must be down between my brain and my hands. My wrapping looks alot like a five-year-old's, so I usually prevail upon my wife, or if it's for her, my sister-in-law. You see, wrapping is extra trouble but a nice gift should come in a nice package.

A lot of us will tell our grandchildren about the winter of '96. In the New York area we had a double hit. It just about buried us, or sank us, or both! Now snow can be beautiful. It can be fun. I've always enjoyed the unique charm and beauty the snow brings, but not when there's three feet of it in one day! It's too much of a good thing. A lot of wet moved up from the south and it met a lot of arctic cold coming down from the north and we were shoveling the result for days to follow. I told my wife, "We won't see our yard for months!" I was wrong. A couple of weeks later some more "lot of wet" came from the south. Now rain is good! When we don't have enough of it for our reservoirs we get a drought here. Warm is good! It melts mountains of snow. But a lot of wet met a lot of warm and everything melted so fast that we got floods! Two good things, but not good when there's too much of either one.