As I look out this morning I see two tulips. They are ones we did not get dug up last fall and survived anyway. And it reminds me of a story. Back in the 80s I was struggling with a PhD at the age of 52 at Lehigh (10 years into my new life , courtesy of JC - but that is another story). The first night we arrived at Bethlehem, PA, it was lightening (something we seldom had seen in CA), the lights went out and a knock came on the door. There appeared a little guy with two candles. He turned out to be Hasan Yusef, a theoretical mathematics PhD student from downstairs, who came with his family from the real Bethlehem in Palestine. They were Muslims and I learned a lot about the Palestinian plight during the two years I knew these very nice people. But what about the tulips? Oh yeah - My wife was always helping Hasan's two girls 6 and 7 with their English and one day they were in the park and saw some tulips, and my wife pointed and said Tu-lips. The girls repeated Two Lips, Two Lips, and smiled and pointed to their cute little lips - a great story my wife told many times. So anyway I saw the flowers and wondered where are the girls? - young women now with children of their own I guess. I heard that Hasan Yusef got his PhD but his University in Palestine was closed so he went to Jordan to take a teaching position - very low paying at that time. And I wonder about the girls and hope they also survived anyway, and I pray for Peace. God help us to understand better. In the words of another guy from LA, "can't we all just get along?"!!