By SHARON RANDALL, Scripps Howard News Service

It's not about the turkey. Or the stuffing. Or the Jell-O mold that nobody eats, but everybody swears they've got to have.

It is not about the table that sat for all those years in the bay window of the dining room in a house I no longer call home.

Do you believe in magic? Quick, which is a better trick: Pulling a rabbit out of a hat, finding a coin behind an ear or transforming a boy into man?

It's not easy to come up with ways to amuse a 12-year-old, especially if you don't get to see him as often as you'd like.

God willing, by the time you read this, the election will be over and we can all breathe a deep, national sigh of relief.

The candidates can go back to doing whatever they did, or did not do, before this campaign began several millennia ago; or at least they can go back to wherever they came from.

Today I did something I've never done before: I voted early -- meaning, before Election Day, Nov. 4, when most voters will go to the polls.

And I don't mind telling you, I felt pretty darn special.

People will talk to you, if you give them a chance. If you listen, they'll tell you what's on their minds and their hearts. It doesn't take much to connect.

Especially in the air.

Sometimes, when flying, I feel like talking. Other times, I don't. If not, I find earphones come in handy. Just slip them on and act oblivious. It's easy.

The first time I saw him, I thought he looked like a retired drill sergeant; or maybe just somebody who knew who he was and had mastered the art of living -- and dancing.

I dubbed him "Sarge." My guess put him near 70, but I'm no judge of age. The older I get, the younger people look.

On a fine October day, one month before the coming election, I stood in a park watching my son help a young woman fill out a form.

It was only a moment, enough to lock the image in memory. Then I got busy asking folks if they were registered to vote.

"Home" means different things to different people, but almost always, those things are good.

Recently I wrote a column about a 7-year-old in Oakhurst, Calif., whose grandfather asked me to take part in her geography project.

Things don't always go from bad to worse. Sometimes, they actually get better.

I've seen it happen often enough that I ought to expect, rather than doubt, all the things I hope for; good more than bad, happiness more than sorrow, plenty far more than want.

But that is not the philosophy with which I was raised, or as I was taught to say, reared.

The mail brought a package with a notebook and a request from my friend Fred, better known as Natalie's grandpa.

"Please help Natalie get her Journey Journal around the world," he wrote. "It would make her smile a lot."