Dan Chabot

Amid all the dire headlines about wars and revolutions, violence and victims, depression and despair, divisions and arguments, natural calamities and international rivalries, remember:
Somewhere a teenager is giving up his subway seat to a lame old man with a cane.
A mom is comforting a lost little boy in a big-box store until his own mom can find him.
A neighbor is retrieving your newspaper so it doesn't get soaked in the rain.
A driver in a long line is letting another one merge.
Somebody is leaving the kids at the lemonade stand a $20 tip.
A stranger in a parking lot is scraping the ice from your windshield, too.
A neighbor is cutting an elderly widow's lawn and putting her trash cans away.
A passenger is giving up his airline seat so a couple can sit together.
An entire town is out looking for a toddler who strayed from his yard.
A homeowner is bringing water to sweating workers digging a new utility trench.
A cop is delivering a baby in the back seat of a squad car.
A man is paying the bill for the people behind him in the fast-food line
A confused, sightless walker is being redirected to his bus stop.
Someone is delivering a complimentary coffee to the office "coffee girl."
And yes, somewhere a Boy Scout is helping a little old lady cross the street.
"It's what Americans do"
Let's not dwell on the 24-hour cycle of bad news.
There's a lot more of the other kind going on around us every day.

Emma O'Doud is tired...

...and not just because she's 86

  This fierce, feisty patriot is tired of what's been happening to her beloved country, of sinister, woke, menacing forces -- like some of her neighbors at the retirement home -- pushing it toward socialism and mediocrity.

   She thinks a lot of other people feel that way, too, and sets out to find them.

  When she does, she leads millions of angry seniors, determined to save their vanishing America, in a "Ramble on Washington."

  Congressmen and bureaucrats cower behind locked doors as Emma, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, delivers the marchers' demands for a return to traditional values and a united America.

 ***

    And she has a message for today's generation:

   "You have been entrusted with a precious gift, the beacon of democracy, liberty, freedom.  Do not squander it, do not let this light go out, or you and your descendants will answer to history.  We will curse you from our graves if you fritter away the precious gift that was handed on to you through our ancestors.  If America goes extinct, the world will slip into another Dark Ages from which it might never emerge." 

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The old house will be torn down to make way for a new bridge, and the present owner invites three other families who lived there over the years to gather for a last farewell. When they do, they learn that their childhood home has given up an astounding secret...

When Derry Danaher's fiancé dies unexpectedly, it is left to him to make funeral arrangements. Overcome by grief, he hires a shoddy storefront funeral home, which makes a mockery of the services. Vowing that everyone deserves an inspiring, uplifting goodbye, he sets off on an unlikely crusade...