The Robinson Newspapers’ offices are moving to the Burien Elks Club building this month and it has a special significance to me.

The BPOE has held a warm spot in my heart for a long time. It started when I was boy in Portland, Oregon.

I was about six or seven and I remember how excited I felt when my Dad took me and my brother Russell and my sister Norma to the Hippodrome Theatre for the annual Elk's Club Children's Children's Party.

Along with hundreds of other kids from needy families (25 per cent of Portland fathers were unemployed) we were treated to a big stage show of circus clowns, highwire acts and jumping dogs.

After the performance we all filed down to the stage and were given a huge mesh stocking as long as your arm filled with nuts, candies, small toys and a huge orange in the toe.

What a memorable day.

No wonder I gladly became a member when the Elks opened a lodge in Burien. I never forgot that joyful moment in my life.

When I was a new owner of the White Center News in 1952 a young man came in to the office and asked us to run a story about a sock dance at the Fieldhouse. Hs name was Bob Walters.

As a member of the Elks Club, I had seen him a time or two over the half century, so when he brought another story into the Highline Times’ office six months ago I asked if the Elks were using the lower level of their big building on First Avenue South.

He said no but gave us the name of someone to talk to about it.

The Elks, Eagles, Moose and other fraternal organizations have been sliding in membership for some time so our lease should help them.

Times have changed but the Burien Elks was once the place to go for food and entertainment. Dennis Day sang there among other notables. Hopefully times are changing for the better and our Elks Club is on its way back up.

I had this great idea to make some buttermilk pancakes for Elsbeth. She always gets short shrift because her birthday is on the 23rd of December and things get pretty hectic around our house that close to Christmas.

So I bought some blueberries and put them in the fridge and told her I would fix her breakfast. I was going to serve her in bed like my friend Ken Sealander has done his wife for 40 years, which is likely a world Guinness Book record.

First I made the coffee. That is pretty easy. Just fill the glass pot with the numbers on the side up to the six and pour the water in the hole in the top. Then take the glass jar out of the fridge with the coffee in it and take out two big scoops and put them in the thingie that swings out to the side that has a screen on it and then hit the button and it will turn red. When the water gets hot it drips down into the pot and the light turns green when it is ready to drink.

Sometimes I get mixed up and put the coffee in the bottom pot but that is easy to fix.

My biggest gripe is the little clear plastic boxes the blueberry packers use. They are so slippery you can't hang on. I reached in the fridge to get a box and the danged thing slipped right out of my hand and popped open scattering blueberries all over the kitchen floor. Zounds. You can't kneel down or you crush berries into the flooring. They are too expensive to just get a room and sweep them up so you have to bend over and get them one at a time. I m must have bent down a hunnert times.

I didn't tell Elsbeth of my ordeal but she wanted to know if I washed them off.

"How did you know I spilled the blueberries?"

She said, "I saw a berry over in the corner. You missed it."

"I washed them off," I admitted.

"Okay. Nice hotcakes"

This is the season for disasters.

Last week after battling Christmas crowds we were having a bite to eat at the Safeway deli when neighbor Louise Rice spotted us and came over to drink her latte at our table. She was raving about how good her drink was and insisted on having me try it.

She put it down, went over and got me a cup and handed me her hot espresso to pour myself a couple of gulps.

I never made it. Her cup was hot and slid right through my hand, plopping latte onto the table like a grenade. It exploded and swamped the table, my shirt, my pants, her jacket and the floor.

Undaunted she went back and bought a new drink. and poured me a sip herself.

You have no idea how it tests a man's comfort zone when his Dockers are soggy. It makes you pretty crotchety.

New Year’s resolutions take too much discipline for most people and end up falling by the wayside. Instead I just hope a lot.

This year I hope:

We can bring the troops home.

The Iraqis can form a lasting democracy.

That religious differences don't result in civil war.

That Iran changes plans to build nuclear capabilities.

That Palestinians shake hands with Israeli's and give peace a try.

That an $800 billion national debt is not enough to push the United States into bankruptcy.

That the Burien Town Square proceeds as planned by city leaders.

That North Highline residents can decide their own future.

That loss of the monorail in West Seattle results in a feasible plan for either light rail on the freeway or a unique combination of a half mile floating bridge from Jack Block Park and then a half mile underwater tunnel to Seattle waterfront. Or anything more exciting than a new viaduct.

That Boeing gets a big contract for a lot of unmanned fighter planes they can build at the old Plant Two in South Park.