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When my father turned 80, I gave him a teddy bear, because when I turned 50 someone gave me one. And I liked it. And my late father liked it, too, even though he was from a different generation.

Teddy bears have been a part of my life for what must be 10 years now, from the day Marilyn Godfrey called me up and asked me if I would help her get some teddy bears.

I was doubtful, to say the least, that anyone would want to donate teddy bears. They are a warm and cuddly commodity, to be sure, but kind of expensive.

But Marilyn, who has since left the city for the far north, was very persuasive, as many others can attest.

So I started asking for teddy bears in this column. That was about 5,000 teddy bears ago.

The actual number is 4,924, and they still come in, a few this week, one last week. I report when they come in, but I have stopped asking for them. You read and you remember. The word gets around.

Like the person who recently dropped off a pink teddy here anonymously.

The bears - new ones only, please - go to Bears on Board, a program of the Attleboro Area Council for Children which Marilyn used to head up.

The bears are bagged in plastic bags and given to local police officers, firefighters and ambulance crews to give to children in crisis. They carry them in their vehicles. Others go to probate court.

Occasionally, at a school I might visit, I run into a kid who got one of the teddy bears, after he was in a minor car accident with his mom, for example, or there was a fire at their home.

That makes the very little I do seem so worthwhile.

This is a nice thing. You give me the teddy bear, I give it to the Council for Children, they give it to local public safety people and they give it to a child. What could be simpler.

On Father's Day, I send out a big thank-you to you all.

You'd think he'd be busy... I was on the New York Times crosswords and games Web page the other day - I subscribe to their crossword puzzle service because I like to spend a week suffering my way through their Sunday puzzle - when I saw something interesting.

A former president, a husband of a U.S. senator who is also a presidential candidate, who is involved in numerous foundations and causes and is a father himself, has found time to get involved in a crossword puzzle.

On the NYT site you'll find an on-line puzzle called "Twistin' the Oldies" that was constructed by Cathy Millhauser and has clues written by Bill Clinton.

"The clues in this puzzle are a little more playful and involve more wordplay than in a typical crossword," says an editor's note. "You have been warned."

What better way to spend a quiet day...

Thanks for the papers

Thanks to G.J. and Joan M. Provost of Attleboro for a copy of a paper from Binghamton, N.Y. "Stopped here on a weekend trip to USPA convention in Independence, Ohio," they write.

See you next week.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle and The Siilver City Bulletin. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.

"Went to see my brother Ron, my grandson Michael and wife Becki, and my great grandchildren Crystal and Michael over the holiday weekend in Upstate New York," writes Mike Warenda. "Brought back a copy of the Daily Gazette from Schenectedy and the Troy Record."

"We picked these up at Old Orchard Beach, our favorite getaway," writes Gail Coelho in a note with copies of the Portland Press Herald and the Maine Sunday Telegram.

See you next week.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle and The Siilver City Bulletin. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.

See you next week.

ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle and The Siilver City Bulletin. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.