What I found out when I went to school in the United States, was that it helps to gain admittance to prime time universities if you have skills apart from just academics. Most of you know the American universities offer scholarships for athletes who play basketball, football, and other youths. But the universities also offer a lot of scholarships for musicians, for example. On the television you will see that at the big sporting events, the teams are supported by college bands. So if you want to get into a good school and you can?t play ball, it helps if you can play a saxophone.

In my case in 1965, they probably accepted me at Dartmouth because I was from British Honduras, which was what Belize was called at the time. In New Hampshire I would be, therefore, somebody unique, quaint ? a student who would help the American students to broaden their perspective.

Anyhow, anyhow, with the summer holidays in full effect, Mrs. Hyde enrolled our granddaughter in the YWCA?s cooking class, and the first day, which was Tuesday, granddaughter brought home cake she had made. She offered me a piece of the cake.

Well, I normally try to avoid cake, because at my age things like cake automatically become fat. But you don?t really have a choice when granddaughter offers you something she has made on her first day in cooking class.

The problem with the situation was family tradition, on my side. I come from a family which is brutally honest, and very rough on its own members. Most other families coddle their own. Not so with ours. I think we feel that we are supposed to be rougher on our own than anybody outside could possibly be. The good part is that we toughen up our own. The bad part is ? feelings get hurt.

Now my wife is the complete opposite. Her family members can do no wrong, especially her children and grandchildren.

I broke the slice of the proffered cake in two, and began eating it while walking out of the kitchen. It was good, but because of Hyde/Belisle family tradition, all I said to my beloved granddaughter was, almost grudgingly, ?You passed the test.?

After a few minutes watching television in my bedroom, I hollered to my granddaughter outside for her to bring the rest of the cake. As I started eating it, she said, ??E nice, true gramps??

I mumbled, ?Yeah.?

Actions, of course, speak louder than words. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The fact of asking for and eating the rest of the cake, said more than the ?yeah.?

But if my wife had been checking out that cake situation, she would have become angry at me. (For some reason, the better half was taken up otherwise.) My wife would have become angry on the grounds that our granddaughter sought approval, and my response was, typically, sober, if not cold.

But granddaughter was cool. She had not pressured me, and in the end she won her ?props.? The incident became my column because I?m tired of the headlines. And I know you can dig that, headline exhaustion, I mean. So today, I went lower case. Hope you enjoy.

P.S. Older printers will pick up on the ?lower case? thing. That was when we set type in lead letters, in the days before offset printing.