Today's a big day for David Smith, a 42-year-old fellow who was raised in Raleigh. He and his family are closing on his old homestead near North Hills -- buying the place from his father. Smith, who's in the security business, is pretty happy about the whole arrangement, as he and his wife and two children have been living in and enjoying the place on a quiet residential street since early summer.

Ah, yes, that time again. The air is crisp. The leaves are ready to turn. The scent of Italian sausages and onions will soon be wafting from the State Fairgrounds to the Outer Banks. My sinuses feel as if John Henry, the steel-driving man, was inside my head.

The daze lingers. So does the uncertainty. Financial markets roil. Nearly a month after terrorists attacked the United States, the shock of it all hasn't lifted -- a chronic shock, almost, it is -- though a renewal of patriotic spirit has reminded us: United we stand. There is comfort in that.

We couldn't have known, my young friend and I, that his Social Studies homework in that first week of September -- on the political and religious divisions in the Middle East -- would come to have such an eerie significance just a week later. What follows is a whimsical report on what seems now like a long-ago week, a week before the world turned upside down. Printing it now perhaps is a reminder of just how quickly and dramatically our lives, and our perspectives, can change.

I was a "Kangaroo" man myself. It wasn't anything against Fred Rogers, except for something beyond his control -- when he started his program 33 years ago, I was already 15, and while I'm sure it would have enlightened me even at that advanced age, it might have garnered me a little ridicule during the after-school hour with the jocks at Johnson's Pharmacy in Raleigh.

You can see the advertised worship on any playground -- kids running around with the numbers and jerseys of their favorite athletes, or hunkered down on the floor at home with picture cards, trading off with their friends and having those elemental discussions about the virtues and shortcomings of various stars of field and floor -- and yes, screen and stage.

One sophisticated soul of my acquaintance, watching a concert advertisement on a television commercial a couple of weeks ago, said: "Are they kidding? I've never heard of something like this in Memorial Auditorium."

In that memorable scene early on in "Oliver!," the North Carolina Theatre production now under way at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh's BTI Complex, young Twist is encouraged by his fellow orphans to request a second helping of thin gruel. He walks slowly to Mr. Bumble, holds out his bowl and says, "Please sir, I want some more." Mayhem ensues, of course.

Our Governor Easley doubtless harbors the political notion common to all elected leaders who remember what happened to pool ol' George Bush the Elder after he did that "read my lips" thing on national TV. When reality sunk in, George the Elder had to go along with a tax hike, whereupon assorted conservative pundits began to hang on his hindquarters like alligators.

The State Capitol, 9:30 a.m. or so, sunny and warm, a week ago Monday: The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) stood amidst their many unfurled flags. Mostly middle-aged and older fellows they were, though with a handful of youngsters joining Moms and Dads. Some were attired in various degrees of Confederate garb.

He was, as they said in those days, a man with a position in the community -- physician, landowner, upstanding husband and father, community activist. Dr. Manassa Thomas Pope was his name, and as the 19th century turned to the 20th, he built a spacious and sturdy house on South Wilmington Street in Raleigh.