No News is Good News

                       Gordon Studer

There is a brief time first thing in the morning, before the rest of the world is revealed, when things are just fine. This is that time.

I have walked out to the end of the driveway for the newspaper but have not yet opened it. It's a brisk fall day, cold and bracing but with no precipitation and a fair amount of red and gold leaves still adorning the trees. I've had my first cup of steaming black coffee and am about to have my second. Like me, both my cats have made it through the night, including the 19-year-old who is apparently still healthy, greedily gobbling breakfast and meowing for more.

Soon enough everything else will come flooding in: the bombings, the protests, the natural disasters, the hatred. Death and destruction, Man tormenting Man -- it's all out there, just a click away. That little red button on the TV remote will bring it inside. But until then, there is only coffee brewing and cats stretched out by the fire. I think I'll keep it that way for a while.