Longtime South Sound residents fondly recall the days when they were so secure in their home they routinely left the doors unlocked. Not anymore. This is a different age with different circumstances. Take what happened to Sheila Davids. She was at her 20th Avenue home recovering from pneumonia when a man knocked on her door telling her he needed to hide, that he had methamphetamine at his home and that he was being chased by unseen individuals, including the police. The man went away and Davids, distracted by a telephone call, forgot to lock her door. About 30 minutes later the man returned, this time walking directly into Davids' home. He tried to climb her stairs and after about seven frightening minutes, he went next door and jumped into a car where a woman was buckling her children into their seats. The man, who later was arrested by police for criminal trespassing, never threatened Davids, just unnerved her. The lesson, and it's a good one, is to keep the doors locked.

Students in Richard Muse's class at Nisqually Middle School are getting some real-life experience in horticulture. Muse's students are rebuilding an old greenhouse at the Ostrom Mushroom Farm next to the school. They also are creating a vegetable and native habitat garden and plan to raise plants that will be used to restore a meadow on Mount Rainier. Kudos to officials at Ostrom who allowed the social studies and environmental studies class to use the land and the greenhouse as a working classroom. The students have learned more than how to turn shovels full of dirt. They were required, for example, to learn how worms enrich the soil by adding nutrients. These practical experiences add immensely to learning acquired from books and other traditional sources of information.

Sometimes accountants see Internal Revenue Service tax bills that miss the mark by a couple thousand dollars. But few have seen the kind of bill presented to John Ramer. The homeless Salem, Ore., man got a bill claiming he owes the government just under $6 million based on his 1994 earnings. Ramer would have to have made $15 million that year to face such a tax bill. In reality, he said, he was working for about $7 an hour that year. The owner of the Candy Kitchen Wolf & Hybrid Rescue Ranch in Pinehill, N.M., confirmed that Ramer earned only $300 or $400 while working there. When the IRS makes a mistake, it's a whopper.

Four South Sound residents are on a goodwill trip to the Guanabacoa Music School in Cuba this week. Karl Applebaum, a noted violin maker, will use his talents to repair stringed instruments used by some of the 250 students enrolled in the school. In addition, members of Olympia's Guanabacoa Project hope to open lines of communication by beginning a pen-pal exchange involving students enrolled in Olympia School District. Michael Olson, a conga player in the musical group Obrador, initiated the venture several years ago and has watched it blossom into a community effort. Cultural exchanges, with people getting to know one another as individuals, help break down political barriers.