Dear List: Today I celebrated Christmas with my little family, two daughters and my son with all their chidren. I can only thank the Good Lord for allowing me to be here as I am now recovering from cervical spin surgery, two in fact. The first one went wrong and they had to reoperate the next day to fix the first! A large blood clot was pressing on my aorta vein causing heart problems. This was my 16 th surgery, including two heart bypasses, two hand surgeries, a knee surgery, angiplasties, throat surgery, foot surgery, ear surgery as a child, many angigrams, a TURP, and am now looking at going through a procedure where they place a small camera down my throat to check for damage to the vocal cord. I feel that the Good Lord has been with me so many times as I faced these problems. It has really shown me the meaning of Christmas with my loved ones. We have all prayed for a better world to raise the children in and peace to all my cousins. I am nearing 70 and so many of my family have gone on to glory, its so sad, but each new grandchild just confirms our immoratiltiy. Our line marches on. Hopefully to a better world than the one we leave them! God bless all our cousins on line and may He point us in a direction that will tell us about those that have gone ahead! Paul Parker Lomita, CA PS: To all you easterners we are suffering from this 71 degree weather! All my roses are in bloom and the flowers are spectactular this time of the year! Just rubbing in our good fortune for our weather!