I am a difficult person to buy a Christmas gift for. I think that I hold that in common with many men in this Newport Harbor Area.

What we want, we have the resources to buy, and we purchase it at the point we want it. Or what we want is too big or too difficult for us to get so we don't have it as much as we might want to have it.

So you are stuck with buying people like me ties, golf balls, and cologne -- items which probably don't turn you on because they are so prosaic, so common. Yet they are safe gifts to give. Or you give gift certificates or cash which seem sort of antiseptic.

This doesn't mean that we don't need anything or want anything. It is just that a new car or a substantial pay down on the house mortgage or a semester's tuition -- those items which would really make a difference -- are simply out of the ball park.

In the larger area, those things for which we so much yearn no one can obtain them for us either. I'd exchange, and I know you would too, every gift you would ever get during the next ten Christmases to make the Orange County bankruptcy go away. I think of Fran Findlater whose son, Jim, at age thirteen, suffered a severe gash in his left leg which was broken when he was hit by a car as he rode his bicycle. Since then, two years later, he has had five operations and still needs to make regular visits to the doctor to have his bone development checked. He and his mother are the innocent victims of this Orange County financial debacle.

Awarded an insurance settlement of $60,000 two years ago to help with his future college costs and medical needs, Fran was going to put that money in a major bank in a certificate of deposit earning two percent interest until her son turned eighteen. The day she went to court for a final settlement, the judge recommended that she invest the money in what was then a brand-new county fund specifically for minors who received money after accidents. The county fund paid nine percent interest. You know what has happened to that fund, and you can imagine the rest of the story.

I'd give up every future Christmas gift imaginable to give that kid back that investment, to bring peace in Bosnia, somehow to reverse the epidemic of binge drinking on our college campuses, and the horrendous increase in drug usage among our youngsters. But no waving of my Christmas magic wand, no Santa Claus can bring those gifts.

There are just so many wallets, briefcases, bathrobes, and slippers that a person like me car use. So we are back to the same old dilemma. What Christmas gift do you buy for someone who basically has everything he needs?

I have given a lot of thought to this in the last few years and few days and have come to a massive conclusion. There's one gift I need, and I need it 365 days a year. I need it every bit as much as the air I breathe, the water I drink, the food I eat, the shelter over my head, and the love of my family. In fact, it is a gift that is much more important than any or all of these. And you need it also. It's a gift that is available to all.