5 FEB 03: SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Today is a big day in our area - "National Signing Day" for high school football players. This event is even more interesting in the age of home computers - because you can place bets on how many of the players can write legible signatures.

Our TV station talked not only to the football players signing college commitments, but their parents. Several moms and dads said they were thrilled for this day to come - probably because they don't have to worry about coming up with the cost of a college scholarship.

(Here's my question, though: if they call it "National Signing Day," how come the TV stations never go to schools for the deaf?)

I puzzle at how several agencies are able to rate which colleges have the best recruiting classes. Do they base this on players' speed? Their team records in high school? Or something more important than any of that - which players have the highest G.P.A., so they'll stay eligible?

E-MAIL UPDATE! One of our nieces wrote us with a follow-up to her husband being held up at gunpoint (1 Feb):

We are having the police patrol our apartment more often and basically just being more aware of our surroundings. The paper did get into trouble though, from the police department and the press association of Kansas. So hopefully no one will have to go through this again.

I hope not, either. Maybe now I should gently tell my niece that her husband's address probably is in the phone book already.

I checked the web site of this newspaper, however, and the crime report is still posted there in its entirety. When I read it, though, it wasn't the address of my niece that surprised me. Since when has she been married to a guy who works in a liquor store?!?!