Dear Folks, I really took to heart what all of you said. And I believe I know now what my "guilt" problem is all about. It's because I can't remember my helping other people out when I was younger. I believe I can't remember because I thought nothing about it at the time. It was the thing to do and didn't take that much effort on my part. However, there is one thing I did that was a bit out of the ordinary. I bought my house in Oakland, CA, a few days before the assasination of Martin Luther King and I had blacks living on both sides of me. However, it didn't take me long to feel comfortable in the neighborhood in spite of the Black Panther activity going on in Oakland. In fact I became very good friends with my one of my next door neighbors, Bea and Johnny. One day when I was outside in my back yard I noticed smoke coming from their back window. I immediately pounded on their door to let them know that there was a fire. We called 911 and Johnny got out the garden hose and managed to douse it before the fire department got there. Before they got there Bea, Johnny and I stared down at the water that was creeping closer to their wall-to-wall carpeting and I ordered Bea to get me some towels to mop it up before the water caused any real damage. I got down on my hands and knees and kept sopping away as Bea kept handing me more towels. In fact I was still on my hands and knees when the fire department showed up. Now mind you, all of the firemen were white and so was I and I wondered at the time if they were a bit startled to see a white woman on her hands and knees mopping up the floor in a house where blacks were living. But it wasn't like that at all. Bea, Johnny and I were good friends and good neighbors. All three of us tried our best to minimize the damage. It didn't matter who put out the fire or who grabbed a bunch of towels or who mopped up the floor. We were all in it together. We were always good friends and neighbors and I guess I remember that one incident because of the excitement of it all. vee