Lisa Gordon

Business travel can take the starch out of the most self-assured corporate titan. So some executives cope with the stress of success by bringing along their old "blanky" or "teddy" or "Mr. Duck," security objects from childhood that make far-flung places seem more like home.

You and your sweetheart are dancing beneath an August moon as waves break in rhythm on the shore. A transistor radio plays "See You in September" as you press so close your bodies fuse and pulses rush. For the rest of your life, whenever you see that kind of moon, you think of that song; and when you hear that song, you remember those waves and that dance. Unlike other times and other tunes, summer memories and summer music remain linked in our minds. Even after the memories grow hazy, the melodies stay clear.

On May 4, 1970, Dean Kahler and Charles Fassinger met on a grassy hillside at Kent State University. Kahler, a 6-foot-3 farmboy with flaming red hair, was 20 and a first- semester freshman. Charles Fassinger, 39, was married with three children, and a lieutenant colonel in the Ohio National Guard, commanding the second squadron of the 107th Armored Cavalry. In the last 20 years, Kahler and Fassinger have told courtrooms and commissions what they think led to the Kent State shootings, which left four students dead and nine wounded. Earlier this month, the two finally told each other when Gannett News Service brought them together for the first time since the tragedy.