If you're a mayor, you're used to taking the heat. But not the flames.

But last weekend, that's exactly what Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker did. To save his next door neighbor.

Booker arrived home at his apartment to find one of his security detail knocking on the door of the building next door to warn them that the second floor was on fire. The officer managed to get two women and a man out of the building. But one of the women told the mayor and his security men that her daughter Zina was still upstairs.

Can't find the trophy though. I think the last time I saw it, it was broken. That's the problem with trophies. Just ask the University of Alabama football team. They won it all this year - including the national champion trophy. It's a $30,000 Waterford crystal football. Well, it was.

We know about the iceberg. And the lifeboats. Even the wreckage and debris two miles under the ocean.

But with a blockbuster movie and all the Titanic TV specials, we probably won't be hearing about the lists. Not the first, second and third class passenger lists from when the voyage began. But the two lists that emerged when the Titanic went down. As it turns out, the only lists that mattered.

There's just something about the Titanic. Yes, the ship sank - but it seems our fascination with it is unsinkable. And that includes me.

So many stories. So many life lessons. But in the many moving stories of that horrible, haunting night, there's one that just blows me away. One passenger - John Harper. A man whose life and choices during those three fateful hours still give me goosebumps.

John Harper was a Scottish pastor...a widower with a six-year-old daughter...a man who'd been invited to preach at Chicago's prestigious Moody Memorial Church. It was April 1912. And it just so happened that a ship - the new world wonder, named Titanic, was sailing for America. John Harper booked passage for himself, along with his daughter Nina and her aunt.

Sometimes the Bible makes me laugh out loud. This past weekend, reading the Easter story, it happened again.

They're about to bury Jesus in a borrowed tomb. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, issues this command to his soldiers: "Make it as secure as you know how" (Matthew 27:65).

That has to be - at least in retrospect - the dumbest order in history.

Use a really big rock. Put on a really strong seal. Post some really intimidating guards.

You gotta feel bad for the youngest child. There's a thousand pictures of the firstborn - "hey, we've never had one of these before!" Maybe 300 or 400 of the secondborn. Possibly 30 of the final arrival. Oh, we loved him just as much. We just didn't have as many pictures of him. Probably because his brother and sister wore us out.

When we watched our family movies each Christmas, young one wouldn't stay for long. But every once in a while, he'd poke his head in and ask, "Am I in it yet?" He got a lot done while he was waiting.

Yesterday, my pastor was talking about the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. My mind wandered (not the pastor's fault) to a horse I met one day in Texas.

I was recording my youth broadcast with a live teenage audience on a Texas cattle ranch. I asked if they could arrange a horse for city boy Ron to ride, so I could record one segment on horseback. Two adjectives defined my equine request - "old and harmless." Dressed in a cowboy hat and chaps - all photos have been burned - I mounted the steed they'd found for me.

I should have asked his name sooner. See, this town had a monster tornado some years ago. Wanna guess my horse's name? Yup. Tornado. And there was no turning back.

The folks at the hospital asked my father-in-law if he'd like to donate his organs. He smiled and said, "Depends on how soon you want them." Great answer.

Someone somewhere decided to donate their heart if something happened to them. Today, that heart is beating in the former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney. Doctors had done everything else science can do to save and extend his life since his first heart attack at the age of 37. Stents, bypasses, an implanted defibrillator. But now, at age 71, his life probably depended on the ultimate solution - not a heart repair but a totally new heart.

Right now, there are probably 3,000 Americans whose lives depend on getting a new heart. Their average wait for one to become available is somewhere between six months and a year. Dick Cheney had to wait 20 months for his.

At first it seemed like some apocalyptic event had hit our town. Schools are all empty...not a school bus in sight...lots of people suddenly disappeared. Not to worry. It's just Spring Break.

Of course, for many of America's young people, Spring Break is code for "party like there's no tomorrow." After downing lots of booze - and sometimes drugs...your internal censors go off duty. So a lot of folks come back from break with little memory of some big mistakes. Partying that lasts for a night, regrets and scars that can last a lifetime. Going for "break" and coming back broken.

I've lost my shamrock tie, and I'm bummed. Of course, everyone else is thrilled. I loved wearing it for St. Patrick's Day every year to celebrate the part of me that's Irish. In spite of the fact that people insensitively described the color as "barf green." It doesn't seem that anyone's missing it but me.

I'm not sure what old St. Pat would make of the holiday named for him - pouring green dye into the Chicago River and parades full of green-dressed celebrants. I do know that Patrick - who's pretty much obscured by the festivities - was quite a guy with quite a story.