SIX FLAGS OVER WOLF’S

My 92-year-old great aunt, Nel Wolf, lives in Sutton, W.V., a little town on the Kanawha River with approximately 1,100 residents. The Sunday of my visit just before Easter happened to be when the news first broke that our P.O.W.s had been set free by Iraqis. My aunt was thrilled by the news and upon going out in the afternoon to pick up some jelly beans for her antique bunny candy bowl to be set out on the coffee table, she decided she wanted two more American flags for the front porch, bringing the total to six. "There, it’s Six Flags Over Wolf’s," my aunt laughed upon sticking the two new flags into place. She told me that when someone asked her the week before how she’d managed to live so long, she answered, "I’m a Republican and a Methodist."

Here we are, Opening Day of LisaLeland.com.

If there’s one thing I’m convinced of since pulling the plug on my first website, Freespoken.com, it’s that writing is a use-it-or-lose-it muscle.

I’ve let mine atrophy for the last two-and-a-half months.

Among other escapist tactics, I’ve spent a great deal of time reading (some junk, some valuable), watching TV--especially leading up to the war, during the war and after the war--and shopping for the best deals on vegetables, fruits, albacore tuna and Progresso soup in my neighborhood.

The highlight of my unauthorized "sabbatical" was renting a car for two weeks at Easter and sightseeing my way through southern Pennsylvania on the way to visit my 92-year-old aunt in West Virginia before heading home to Ohio to visit my mom in Akron, my brother in Dayton and my sister in Mansfield.

I took some back roads coming back and saw a bunch of new territory off I-80, including Pottsville (home of Yuengling beer), Hazelton, Allentown and the tiny village of Jim Thorpe.

Pennsylvania is definitely "God’s Country" and when John Denver sings about West Virginia being "almost heaven," he’s not kidding either.

Okay, that’s enough catching up for now.