When the tornado sirens went off in town, I suddenly found myself huddled in a closet with two of my grandchildren. Oh yeah, and the local radio station on real loud. I'm not particularly thrilled about the style of music they play (which shall remain nameless), but they had the scoop on the storms.

As I'm reassuring the kids, I'm thinking, "I hope this closet will do it." Thankfully, we didn't have to test it. The tornado went north of us. At our own house, we've carefully thought through the safest place to be if we're suddenly on Twister Expressway. Our other children have basements. We're glad.

I wasn't expecting a goat to be my teacher. But something kind of special happened yesterday when a good friend of ours helped a new baby goat come into the world. Yes, you might say he was "kidding" around. But you shouldn't.

Right after this little wobbly arrived, his mother ran off and abandoned him (a sad picture of what happens even to some human children). That's when Sandy, the Great Pyrenees guard dog, came to the rescue. Our friend tried to remedy this heartbreaking situation by leaving the baby in a grassy area, near where the little guy had arrived. No deal. Then, Sandy went over to the newborn and started licking off his birth residue. This barnyard drama culminated as Sandy, carrying the little guy's scent, gently nudged the mother over to her baby. She got the point. Her mom instinct finally kicked in as she started licking her kid. In the animal kingdom, when you give your kid a licking, it's a nice thing.

Ninety-nine years ago this week, the unsinkable ship sank and some 1,500 passengers died. I've got my boarding pass for the Titanic. For real. They gave it to me at the entrance to a Titanic artifacts exhibit I went to. Except it doesn't have my name on it. It says "Mr. J. Pearse, Crew." Having the name of someone who was really there that night made what I saw a whole lot more personal.

What a great time to be traveling out East! It's cherry blossom time. I've just been where those pink beauties are popping out everywhere. One of the gals on the Weather Channel was broadcasting from Washington, DC. with a backdrop of exploding cherry blossoms.

The long winter is over. For baseball fans, that is. It's time to move from snowballs to fastballs. The sluggerless solstice ended recently with two glorious words: "Opening day!"

And just as in each of the last ten years, St. Louis Cardinals star Albert Pujols is expected to have another Hall of Fame season. He's acknowledged by many to already be one of baseball's all-time greats.

Wow, does our uncle pay for a lot more than we realized! Uncle Sam, that is. The prospect of a government shutdown is revealing all the people and services that would feel the pain if Uncle doesn't get some money. Suddenly, America's military and government workers - who do more things for us than we ever thought - won't be seeing their paycheck on time. It looks like even our National Parks will be affected. Does this mean Smokey the Bear might not get paid?

There's been a run on graveyards lately. Not because more people are dying, but because more people are connecting the dots in their family tree. A couple of recent TV programs that show famous people pursuing the story of their family's past have fueled an explosion of interest in genealogy research. Just ask the librarians who are welcoming visitors from all over to their newly-enhanced genealogy resources.

If you've been flying commercially recently, it's probably best if you were too busy to watch the news. Let's see - there's the plane that suddenly had a hole in the roof - and the ones where they've found cracks since then. Oh yeah, and the plane with the bullet hole in it.

A young man we know is pretty distraught over a death in his family. Suddenly, he's decided to delete a bunch of Facebook friends.

I've talked with people who have been the deleted friends of someone else I know. It really hurt. It's quite a time we live in. You can delete a relationship with a stroke of your finger.

World events - even ones as tragic and dramatic as Japan's quake / tsunami / nuclear emergency - tend to get pushed off the front page by the next big story. And these days, there's a next big story just about every day.

But I'm thinking about those workers at those damaged nuclear power plants. They have to know what's happening to their bodies and their futures as they work in that radiating place. But they also know that lives are at stake in their efforts to contain the invisible killer that leaks from those plants. So they risk it all.