As I pick up my pen to write, a warm tantalizing aroma is coming from the kitchen. Someone is baking chocolate cookies, I do believe.

Thank goodness we are through with February. It was such a tricky month. First it was quite warm, and I thought I was coming down with spring fever, and it would be a good time to take a walk. Not for health reasons, but to see if I could find any sign of spring. I found none. The last of the month turned so cold. Listening to the weather report you start shaking. Then here comes March.

I'm reminded of a cartoon in the Courier-Journal with the wind blowing. A little boy calling to his mother to come quickly, he thought the March lion was trying to get in his window.

Today we are going to visit some of the art and craft shops. They always are a constant source of interest to me. You never know what you may find. Some of the proprietors at one time, were travelers just like you and me. They came and liked what they saw, and came back later to open a shop of their own - The golden age group for extra income.

In these shops I am always looking for famous lines, here is one that is more famous today than when it was spoken. "The buck stops here" by President

Truman, of course. Some businessmen even today display it on their desks, thinking that it tells the story.

During the war how comforting it was to hear Roosevelt in one of his fireside chats say - "The only fear we have is fear itself." We slept better thinking our nation was in good hands.

Did you ever get out of bed in the morning and seem to stumble over your feet? My daughter has a plaque hanging on the wall that might help you. "This is the day that the Lord has made, Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118-24.

"Let Me Live in my House by the Side of the Road" is by Sam Walter Foss. I have always wondered if it is built of brick, stone, stucco or maybe log. Now I have my answer. Yankee magazine discovered it in Tilton, New Hampshire, along with other related stories. It's a frame Cape for sale with 1/2 acre. Research takes you as far as your imagination goes. Sometimes you find what you are looking for and sometimes you do not.

The Tilton house seemed the perfect place where he may have written the poem of six stanzas, the most famous lines taken from the fifth.

We are told Sam Walter Foss was born, in Canada, but spent most of his life in the New England states. There was a home spun quality about him that touched people. He died in Somerville, Massachusetts in the year 1911.

Here is an art poster by Charles Schultz that turned up in the research of Snoopy lying on top of his doghouse looking up to the star-studded sky, perhaps he too could live in his house by the side of the road.

Or hurl the cynic's ban? -