How well I remember a dear Roman Catholic friend of mine telling me, "You evangelicals are so caught up in your 'personal relationship with Christ' that sometimes you forget it's not all about you!"

News out this week shows that this year, the average age of first marriage rose again, to 28 for men and 26 for women, up from 27 and 25 just last year. What's going on?

I remember when Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976. My parents were not big Gerald Ford supporters. They were in fact fans of Ronald Reagan (as I was. I was a junior high school nerd. Different column.) My parents were very politically active then, and that was a heartbreaking election for them and even me.

There is a distinctive smell from the full candy buckets at the end of Halloween night. Even in a bag of mixed bought candy, that smell doesn't seem to come through. One gets it only at Halloween when one breathes deep of the sickly sweet mixture the kids have in those buckets and bags.