When the chips are down, get out of town

I didn't have a flight suit or a band waiting, but I don't think a "Mission Accomplished" banner would have been out of place when I arrived home Sunday.

Thanks to dogged determination and more than a week of searching, our son will now have his favorite Christmas candy -- chocolate cherry mash.

The challenge was finding the cherry chips.

A check at one grocery store turned up a shelf labeled "cherry chips," but it was vacant.

"They didn't come in on the truck," the grocer explained.

Fudge, sugar cookies. My wife kept the kitchen busy with everything but cherry mash candy.

A check at another store ... milk chocolate chips. Dark chocolate chips. White chocolate chips. There, cherry chips -- oops, another empty shelf.

Peanut butter cookies with chocolate stars. Pecan sandies. The options were running out.

Wandering a discount store's limited baking aisle turned up nuts, soda, sugar -- no cherry chips, or chocolate, for that matter.

Sugar cookies with peanut butter cups. The Christmas cook was about out of ideas.

"Do you have any cherry chips?" I asked the store of last resort. A sad, sideways shake of her blond head.

The big day was only was five days away.

"I started looking right after Thanksgiving, and I couldn't find any," our neighbor, Christy said.

Fortunately, I had to drive out of town Sunday, with just enough spare time to check out the cherry chip possibilities.

"I hope you didn't have to drive all the way up here for these," the clerk said as she rang up three 12-ounce bags of precious red Christmas candy ingredient.

Our recipe required only 6 ounces of cherry chips, so we had enough for six batches -- way too much cherry mash candy for even the sweetest tooth.

Christy was grateful when we offered her our two spare bags.

Perhaps we should start looking now for next year.

Christmas and New Years should be times to rejoice, reflect and celebrate, but as the recent increase in the terror alert indicates, those of us who have time off for the holidays should take time to give thanks for those who are doing their best to keep the rest of us safe.

Jason Frederick, who is co-publisher of the Hitchcock County News as well as a Nebraska Public Radio reporter, joined fellow NPRN reporter Hope Stockwell in creating a series of six stories honoring servicemen with Nebraska ties who have died serving in Operation iraqi Freedom.

The first, broadcast Monday at 6:30 and 8:30 a.m., honored Army Spc. Nathaniel Caldwell Jr., a 1999 Peru State College grad, 27, who died when his Humvee rolled.

Today, Former Lincoln Northeast High School graduate and Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Swisher was the subject of the broadcast. He was killed Nov. 2, in Baghdad when his unit was ambushed with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

Future reports include Wednesday, a report about Staff Sgt. Daniel Bader, a Nebraska native who died when the helicopter he was riding in was shot down on Nov. 2; Monday, on Marine Capt. Travis Ford, 30, from Ogallala, a former University of Nebraska cheerleader who proposed to his future wife using a megaphone and signs during a game at Memorial Stadium; Dec. 30, on Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class David J. Moreno Jr., who died of a non-hostile wound on July 17; and Dec. 31 on Army Spec.. James R. Wolf, 21, of Scottsbluff, who died when his truck detonated an improvised explosive device near Mosul, Iraq, on Nov. 6.

Celebrate the holiday well. Show your friends and family how much you love and appreciate them. And while you're at it, say a prayer for the families and friends of the Nebraskans mentioned above.