Snowman

They floated and fluttered. Zigzagged and swirled. Giant snowflakes fell from the sky, painting the whole world white. "Grandpa! Snow!" Frankie cried, as he ran to the window. "Can we make a snowman?" "Yes, indeed," replied Grandpa, getting their coats. The backyard was piled high with foamy-white snowdrifts. Frankie made a snowball. Frankie pushed it and rolled it until it became a life-size snowman almost as tall as he was. "This is the best snowman ever!" Frankie exclaimed.

Robert J. Kelleher, who helped lead tennis into the modern open era while serving as president of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Assn. and who later became a U.S. District Court judge based in Los Angeles, has died. He was 99. Kelleher, who was also captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1962 and 1963, died Wednesday at his Los Angeles home after a long illness, said his lifelong friend, former Mayor Richard Riordan. Before 1968, only players classified as amateurs were allowed to enter the major international tennis tournaments.

His friends knew he had a way with words. So when some filmmakers acquainted with Jo Nesbo asked the Norwegian crime writer to suggest a title for their upcoming horror movie, he tried to oblige. After musing on the story — friends go on a snowboard trip, and, then, one by one start dying — he came up with what he thought was the perfect title: "The Snowman. " His friends' response? "They said, 'Probably,' " recalls Nesbo, 51, in a phone call from Oslo. " 'Only problem is, there's no snowman.' " Rebuffed, the author reflected on the image itself — about "something so trivial, even cozy," but also potentially menacing.

MUSIC Aspiring crooners, seasoned chanteuses and unabashed amateurs gather for the Music Center's annual Holiday Sing-Along, a festive outdoor event featuring such favorite songs as "A Holly Jolly Christmas," "Frosty the Snowman" and "Chanukah, Oh Chanukah. " Lyrics sheets will be provided. Music Center Plaza, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m. Fri. Free, tickets required. (213) 972-7211. http://www.musiccenter.org.

As host of the weekly show "Off-Ramp" on KPCC-FM (89.3), I take exception to Susan Harris' letter about the death of talk on KLSX [Letters, Feb. 28]. She wrote, "There is always NPR when you feel like being educated." OK, granted there's lots of education and enlightening debate and all that on KPCC, but my producer Queena Kim and I always strive to include at least a modicum of mindless entertainment on our show. Surely my bad Andy Rooney impression ("I knew Burl Ives, and he hated that snowman with his fancy vest.

MUSIC Aspiring crooners, seasoned chanteuses and unabashed amateurs gather for the Music Center's annual Holiday Sing-Along, a festive outdoor event featuring such favorite songs as "A Holly Jolly Christmas," "Frosty the Snowman" and "Chanukah, Oh Chanukah. " Lyrics sheets will be provided. Music Center Plaza, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m. Fri. Free, tickets required. (213) 972-7211. http://www.musiccenter.org.

Snowman problems snowballed for Canoga Park sixth-grader Barry Caceres. "I was trying to draw a snowman, but I made a mistake and made the head in the wrong place," said Barry, 11. "Then when I drew the person building the snowman, I made him too small. So I had him stand on top of another person. But the person on the bottom looked too nervous. So I drew in a dog for him to be looking at. "It was mostly an accident.

Showers and thunderstorms from Texas to Arkansas ushered in the first day of spring today, while a snowy reminder of winter covered higher elevations of the West. Spring arrived officially at 8:14 a.m. Students at Lake Superior State College in Michigan welcomed spring by setting a fire that "melted" an effigy of a 7-foot snowman and reading poetry under fair skies and temperatures in the teens. "Spring is most welcome in view of the 140 inches of snow this year," said Prof.

Finally released after spending half of his life in prison, and still he had to wait. So Christopher Boyce hung around the prison parking lot, rubbernecking, taking in the fresh air around Sheridan, Ore., unsure what to make of freedom. A half hour went by before the big Suburban at last came lumbering up the driveway, carrying his father, a former FBI agent, and his mother, once a Catholic nun.

Snowzilla may be a smash hit with shutterbugs, but some neighbors of the two-story-high snowman in Anchorage say they're fed up with the hordes of gawkers clogging their street. Billy Powers supervised construction of the original Snowzilla last year. At 22 feet, his new Snowzilla is 6 feet taller.

His friends knew he had a way with words. So when some filmmakers acquainted with Jo Nesbo asked the Norwegian crime writer to suggest a title for their upcoming horror movie, he tried to oblige. After musing on the story — friends go on a snowboard trip, and, then, one by one start dying — he came up with what he thought was the perfect title: "The Snowman. " His friends' response? "They said, 'Probably,' " recalls Nesbo, 51, in a phone call from Oslo. " 'Only problem is, there's no snowman.' " Rebuffed, the author reflected on the image itself — about "something so trivial, even cozy," but also potentially menacing.

They floated and fluttered. Zigzagged and swirled. Giant snowflakes fell from the sky, painting the whole world white. "Grandpa! Snow!" Frankie cried, as he ran to the window. "Can we make a snowman?" "Yes, indeed," replied Grandpa, getting their coats. The backyard was piled high with foamy-white snowdrifts. Frankie made a snowball. Frankie pushed it and rolled it until it became a life-size snowman almost as tall as he was. "This is the best snowman ever!" Frankie exclaimed.

We knew something was afoot in Zurich when our lazy walk through the streets of the old city turned into a full-fledged history lesson. My husband, 8-month-old daughter and I had flown into the city just a couple of hours before, and as we wandered along the Limmat River, we heard three booms that sounded as though they'd come from a cannon. We weren't sure what it was -- or why -- but as a crowd began gathering at the Weinplatz, an open plaza just off the river, we joined in.

As host of the weekly show "Off-Ramp" on KPCC-FM (89.3), I take exception to Susan Harris' letter about the death of talk on KLSX [Letters, Feb. 28]. She wrote, "There is always NPR when you feel like being educated." OK, granted there's lots of education and enlightening debate and all that on KPCC, but my producer Queena Kim and I always strive to include at least a modicum of mindless entertainment on our show. Surely my bad Andy Rooney impression ("I knew Burl Ives, and he hated that snowman with his fancy vest.

Snowzilla may be a smash hit with shutterbugs, but some neighbors of the two-story-high snowman in Anchorage say they're fed up with the hordes of gawkers clogging their street. Billy Powers supervised construction of the original Snowzilla last year. At 22 feet, his new Snowzilla is 6 feet taller.

Finally released after spending half of his life in prison, and still he had to wait. So Christopher Boyce hung around the prison parking lot, rubbernecking, taking in the fresh air around Sheridan, Ore., unsure what to make of freedom. A half hour went by before the big Suburban at last came lumbering up the driveway, carrying his father, a former FBI agent, and his mother, once a Catholic nun.

In a new spot for Sun Diamond walnuts from Young & Rubicam of San Francisco, a snowman-shaped cookie jar comes to life. When no one is looking, the snowman snatches cookies from a nearby plate and consumes them by removing its head and tossing the cookies inside the jar. Here is how San Rafael, Calif.-based Industrial Light & Magic animated the snowman: 1. Photographers shot an empty cookie plate and a bag of walnuts, taking light readings to be used later.

The nation's most famous "country club prison," once the domain of such celebrity felons as inside trader Ivan Boesky and Watergate figure H.R. Haldeman, is shutting down. The Lompoc Federal Prison Camp is being converted into a higher security federal prison. A prison with fences and razor wire instead of small "off-limits" signs around the property. A prison where inmates have to wear khaki uniforms instead of shorts and T-shirts. A prison where inmates can't play tennis in the afternoon.

It's a bit like, well, a postcard: In the midst of another virtually rain-free winter, shirt-sleeved Angelenos bask in the singular warmth of a January Santa Ana. Meanwhile, somewhere in the frozen reaches east of the Colorado River, the recipients of that card squat by the miserable fire in their snow-shrouded home, gaze at the palm trees on the card and give themselves over to the emotion that has launched a million westward migrants--weather envy.

There's a snowball fight going on in Laguna Niguel. It started on Rancho Grande six nights ago when someone, some anonymous neighbor who has yet to make his or her identity known, rang the doorbells of 14 homes and disappeared into the darkness, leaving only a brown paper bag, a picture of a snowman and a list of instructions: Put the snowman in your upstairs bedroom window to show that you have already been "hit."