Out and About

When he reformed his own dance band in the late 1940s, Tommy Dorsey said that it was about time that somebody got "things" going again.

"You ca't expect to have any real interest in dance bands if the bands don't go round the country and play for the kids," said Dorsey, who was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing."

Now, almost 60 years later, the band that bears his name will bring the music that influenced "America's Greatest Generation" to Lancaster. Its goal has changed little as it reaches out to attract a new generation of listeners.

If you are going to host a bowl game get-together this week or next for your friends, you can score big with your fellow couch potatoes by offering customized dishes that cater to individual tastes.

And with 350 pizza slices consumed every second in the United States, it wins the coin toss every time.

Few foods will score more points from your football buddies than pizza.

Pita pizzas custom made by your guests, based on their individual likes, are the way to satisfy even the finicky eaters.

It's not as hard as it sounds, either.

Jan Miller doesn't know how many lights are in her McIlwain Road yard, but it takes 11,500 watts to power them.

Jan and her husband, Jerry, started working on their display the weekend after Thanksgiving. The winter wonderland they build in their yard each Christmas includes wooden, hand-painted cutouts, a Nativity scene, inflatable Santas and snowmen, mechanical reindeer and polar bears, and a penguin ice-skating pond.

"It's hard to say which one's my favorite," Jan said. "I keep saying, 'Oh, this is my favorite, that one's my favorite.'"

HEATH SPRINGS – Maddie Greene is two-thirds of the way there.

First, she got to ride L&C Railway's Santa Express on Saturday.

Dressed in her snowman sweater with a green polka-dotted red bow, pulling her hair back, Maddie, 5, was dressed for the season as she looked down to check the time on her Dora the Explorer watch.

Her second wish, she said, was getting "in the paper."

Now, with those out of the way, the only thing that's left is a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.