I don't believe in yard signs.

"Then why," my neighbors may ask, "do you have those three on your own lawn?"

Friendship, my friends. Friendship.

I have one of those "pearl of great price" friends who has been there for me, in good times and bad, seemingly forever. But each four years, we have the same argument.

"Man, it's a total waste," I say. "Nobody is going to change his or her vote because of these signs you're sticking in my yard. That is as implausible as believing that those nice, well-dressed Mormon youths going door to door are going to convert foot-washing Southern Baptists to Mormonism. Politics and religion are for the most part set in cement. Yard signs merely irritate neighbors and friends of the opposite persuasion."

As I drive through our subdivision, I get the feeling I'm living in McCainsville, USA. My friend counters that it's because Obama signs are hard to come by.

But one staunch Raleigh Democrat insists that the majority of Obama supporters are still too shy to openly declare their support for an African-American president. "We're just not there yet," he argues.

He well remembers the 1996 Jesse Helms versus Harvey Gantt Senate race, when one morning he found his Gantt sign lying on the lawn. Next morning, it lay on the grass with the stake driven through it. He replaced the sign only to find it later out of reach on his roof.

"I got the message," he said.

I like to think we've made considerable progress in race relations since 1996. Anyway, folks, don't predict the election's outcome by counting yard signs.

Someone once said, "It ain't over until the Fat Lady sings." The Fat Lady doesn't sing until Nov. 4.

The magic moment

Do you wonder at what point young mothers decide it's time to take their babies out of church? Most seem to know the magic moment somewhere between a baby's low-level fretting and its ear-piercing howls of anger.

The Right Rev. Bob Mullinax remembers the time his Dad took him to visit a Baptist church in tiny Lake Creek, Ga.

When the Bible-thumping preacher's voice soared to fortissimo! fortissimo!, a woman with a baby started to leave. "Lady," the preacher boomed, "that baby's not bothering me."

"I know," the mother replied, "but you're bothering the baby."

A great nominee!

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann each night makes a "Worst Person in the World" award to someone who has insulted Olbermann's sensibilities.

I'd like to nominate for that honor the bankrupt Lehman Brothers' CEO, Richard S. Fuld Jr., who has no apologies for approving "special payments" for two departing executives totaling $18.2 million, even as the investment bank was pleading for a taxpayers' bailout.

According to The Associated Press, Fuld himself received an estimated $350 million in compensation between 2000 and 2007.

It takes a dog

"I agree with whoever said 'If dogs don't go to heaven, when I die I want to go where dogs go because it's bound to be a nice place,' " Jim Richmond of Raleigh writes.

"I grew up in the small town of Hillsboro before the 'ugh' was restored, and before fence and leash laws. All the town dogs were free to run around and socialize. Like Blackfriars' Bobby, they had regular rounds you could set your clock to: a stop behind Forrest Brothers grocery for a bone, a stop at the firetruck to leave a message on one of the tires, a long nap on or under somebody's porch to rest up before meeting the paper boy before dawn to accompany him on his rounds.

"Hillary wrote a book about villages raising children. Villages once did it with the help of a pack of dogs. Children knew the name of every dog in town, which family claimed him, and which ones didn't like to be petted or given a tummy rub."

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