Two days ago, I was prompted to do something that I’ve done thousands of times in my life, but which has become so unfashionable as to border on socially inappropriate: I was asked, in a public facility, to bow my head and pray before eating the breakfast I’d paid for.

I was traveling over the weekend, and spent Friday night at a bed-and-breakfast in Black Mountain, a small town east of Asheville. I’d never been to Black Mountain before, and was thoroughly charmed by the place. There are lots of neo-hippies there for whom Asheville has become too corporate, man, which gives the town a funky appeal. There are good restaurants, numerous galleries of the arty kind, and mountains in every direction you look. Billy Graham’s home may be just up the road in Montreat, but in Black Mountain there is alcohol available by the glass — thankfully.

On Saturday morning, the inn’s guests — many of whom were loitering on the front porch with coffee — were herded into the dining room when the breakfast buffet was set up at 8:30. It seemed peculiar for the serving of breakfast to be so regimented, but the reason was quickly apparent. Before eating, the husband-and-wife proprietors thanked everyone for staying at the inn, described the various breakfast choices, and then asked everyone to join them in a blessing and prayer.

So we did. All two dozen of us reverently cast our eyes downward as God was thanked for the bounty and beseeched to guide us safely as we set forth that day. Meanwhile, the thought running through my head was the inverse of Dorothy’s everlasting utterance to Toto: We’re not in Oz anymore. We’re back in god-fearing Kansas.

You just don’t see a group of strangers who have nothing in common except that they all checked into the same hotel led in prayer like that anymore. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the world is worse or better for it.

I’m neutral on the matter. I’m a committed backslider, but the prayer carried a comforting echo of my youth, when every dinner was preceded by a blessing. (Somehow, breakfasts and lunches seemed to be exempt). Prayers were also offered before sporting events and almost all formal meetings of any kind. Once, as a rookie reporter, I was called on by a township supervisor I’d antagonized to say the opening prayer at a board meeting, a request that came with no warning and was clearly aimed at embarrassing me. But all that praying in my youth left me well-prepared. My prayer was this: “Lord, help me to be fair and help the board members to be honest. I know that second part’s gonna take a lot of work.”

But until this weekend, I couldn’t have told you the last time I’d heard a public prayer in a secular setting. It’s been years, I’m sure. I don’t know if there was any cause and effect, but that was the best breakfast I’ve had in ages.

(1) I’ll confess to being both amused by the idea that John Edwards’ alleged love child is surely causing much hand-wringing in newsrooms (particularly at the News & Observer, his hometown paper) and swept with a feeling of pity for my former colleagues, who have to decide how to cover this news — or whether it should even be covered at all. I’ve participated in such deliberations before, most recently a couple of years ago when Raleigh singer and almost-Idol Clay Aiken was reported to have had all-male whoopee in an area motel. It’s the kind of story — sordid, unconfirmed and invasive — that makes reporters want to take a bath and then look for another line of work. But in Edwards’ case, things are different. He’s a national politician who made his family and his small-town values a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Does it matter that he apparently has been boinking another woman and fathered a child with her? My bet is that the N&O, and most other mainstream papers, will decide that it doesn’t, and will just look the other way.

(2) Speaking of the News & Observer, its parent company McClatchy Newspapers reported second-quarter financial results yesterday, showing a drop in profits of more than 40 percent from the same time last year (prompting one debt rating agency to immediately cut its outlook on the company). The most interesting bit of news, however, was that McClatchy executives may have finally been embarrassed by the high dividends being paid to shareholders — a large number of whom are McClatchy family members, who control the company through a two-tier stock system. In his remarks accompanying the financial results, McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt said: “Our board will meet during the third quarter to consider dividend policies and we will look at additional cost saving measures as necessary.” Translation: The company needs cash right now more than the trust-funders do.

(3) I came across an interesting fact while reading a Portfolio magazine profile of new Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth. It seems that her aunt is Tina Weymouth, the bass-playing founding member of legendary New Wave band Talking Heads. I can pontificate on this matter in one word: cool.

It is only coincidence that both my children left home on the same day. Book critics hate the use of happenstance in novels, but writers know that life is full of coincidental events, like this one: My daughter left for Manhattan early this morning, driving a rented truck stuffed with her furnishings. This afternoon, my son will board a plane headed for Iraq.

My joke for the occasion, admittedly weak and undeniably redolent of whistling past the graveyard, is that I’m not sure who I should worry about the most.

I’m proud of the gumption both have put on display. A year ago, my daughter – stuck in a dead-end job after graduating from college in 2005 – announced she’d be moving to New York to start life afresh. Skepticism among some friends and family members was high, but I encouraged her to go, on the theory that certain itches are best scratched when you’re young and unencumbered by spouses or children. I’ll admit that I sometimes wondered if she’d actually do it, but she never wavered in her determination. For the past year she worked at three jobs to fund her adventure, and spent the last month shedding unnecessary items like her car and much of her furniture. Yesterday I helped her pack what remained in the truck. She doesn’t have a job yet, or even an apartment, but she’s forging ahead in the belief that bold moves shouldn’t be derailed by such small details.

My son returns to Iraq a combat veteran, having been through one deployment already. Until a couple of months ago, when his Marine battalion learned exactly where it was headed, I feared he’d be sent to Afghanistan, where things have gotten worse as Iraq improves. That prospect didn’t seem to bother him, though, which didn’t surprise me. As I occasionally explain to people who wonder why he isn’t distraught about going into conflict: Does a fireman fear leaving the station, or a police officer balk at patrolling a beat? It’s what they do, what they’re trained for.

Still, it’s been strange to hear myself saying that I’m glad he’s going to Iraq. As I mentioned in a previous post, I became fully aware of what he faced on his first deployment only after he came home. The state of blissful ignorance I lived in while he was there was a one-time event. I can’t return to it. I know too much now. But as I ponder what the alternative could be for this deployment, I sense I’ve been given a small gift.

I knew this day eventually would arrive. When my daughter was away at college, her younger brother was still around the house. By the time he left college to join the Marine Corps, she was back in Raleigh to work. Now, for the first time, they’re both gone — having coincidentally departed on the same day.