Kaye reminds me that I neglected to mention a couple of significant anecdotes from our recent vacation in Mexico.

We did a lot of walking and gawking in Cabo San Lucas. Kaye and I love to absorb the local flavor in typical tourist fashion.

One street sight was particularly disturbing to us. As we strolled along a sidewalk, we were slowed by a crowd gathered around a Mexican family. Cameras were clicking, pointed at some children posing next to a dog. The pathetic pooch was dressed in colorful clothes and was sitting on its haunches with the handle of a basket clenched in its teeth. People dropped coins into the basket.

The poor animal was not allowed to move as we watched. Kaye and I had all we could do to walk away without expressing our displeasure at this exploitation. Each time we walked by for the rest of our stay, the same family and the same dog in the same pose appeared never to have moved. We saw no food or water dish nearby. It left us with a bad taste.

The second story was another chapter in the Detroit airport rush for our plane on the way home. Having to pass through Customs and Immigration, pick up our luggage and go through security again was exhausting and nerve-racking.

Airport metal detectors hate me. Over the years, I have only seldom been passed through without hearing buzzers and alarms.

Once, it was nothing more threatening than the metal in a gum wrapper. More recently, it has been a forgotten coin, a cell phone, a belt buckle or just my arms brushing the sides on my way through.

On the way to Cabo, I was delighted when the guard in Burlington called me by name as I walked through. She said she was from Plattsburgh. It's a good thing I didn't try to put anything over on her.

On the way home, though, I almost got whiplash from having to back up and try again so many times in Detroit. It got to be a standing joke with the security guard.

"Take off the belt," he ordered.

"BEEP!"

"Keep your arms in," he requested.

"Too fat," I explained.

"Just big muscles," he responded with a chuckle. For some reason, that evoked a round of raucous laughter.

In any case, I finally passed muster. By then, we were so late that our seven-month pregnant granddaughter, Meeghan, grabbed my belt from the tray along with Kaye's purse and jacket and all of her own belongings and began running for the far-off gate to hold the plane for us.