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It's the tail end of 2006, and I'd like to take the opportunity to revisit some previous columns.

First, an apology -- back in my June column about Dungeons and Dragons, I said "Gary Gygax created [it] in the 1970s." A knowledgeable reader brought to my attention that I neglected to mention the game's co-creator, Dave Arneson. I didn't mean to slight anyone, and those interested can find much more info on the history of D&D online.

We're still playing our campaign; it's gotten smaller since we lost a couple of members, but we are soldiering on.

I noticed the controversy surrounding Christian Trejbal's "Virginia is for haters" editorial. Folks came out of the woodwork to kick him around for suggesting that Southwest Virginia might not be "for lovers," as the bumper stickers would have you believe. Instead, he insinuated that there might be pockets of intolerance, as exemplified by the 300,000 folks in Virginia who voted to amend the state constitution to enshrine homophobia even further via the "sanctity of marriage" act.

In my opinion, being intolerant isn't a great way to persuade others that you aren't intolerant. I'd like to extend an invitation to Christian to go fishing at the New River sometime with me and some friends and discuss the level of welcoming one can expect to find in the New River Valley.

Another column that sparked a lot of comment was my September one on the Will Morva manhunt. Morva, of course, is still in jail. He has a new trial date set for March 29 for the robbery charges that were the reason he was imprisoned in the first place. His defense is asking for a change of venue, as the widespread publicity about his escape and the killings that followed may make it difficult to seat an impartial jury.

My friend from high school, the one who is in Iraq, read that column online and e-mailed me: "Part of me worried if some fragment of karma hadn't wormed its way from Baghdad through the light-dazzled passageways of the Internet into your life, some chunk of smoking Evil (a la Time Bandits) coalescing in Virginia in the form of helicopters and policemen playing Fallujah. A government-issued piece of synchronicity to play havoc with the sleepy morning routine of a small town, nestled in the misty hills around the New River. If so, please accept my condolences, and have the cops ship it back to the Middle East where it belongs. Get W. to pay the postage."

My friend is still alive, still in Iraq and still writing about it. He's now posting on Garry Trudeau's "Sandbox" site. Go to doonesbury.com and click on "The Sandbox" to read reports from many folks currently in Iraq. My friend is posting there under the moniker "Roy Batty."

Finally, let me give you an update on my winter guest, the monarch butterfly. Of all my articles, I think that one caused the most comment.

For a week after the November column that introduced him to the world at large, he hung quietly like a dead leaf from the pine bough in the kitchen window seat. I checked on him frequently but resisted all temptation to wake him up. But then, the weather became very warm outside. I came home from work one day and looked for the butterfly. He had left his branch and was fluttering against the window.

I tried to gently scoop him up and return him to the pine bough, but he became more and more frantic. He was going to cause himself some serious damage by bashing his wings against the window, so I caught him and took him out onto the back porch. I opened my hands and he immediately flew off to the thick stand of bamboo that separates our yard from the neighbors.

That was the last I saw of him. It stayed warm for the next week and I have some hope that he took the opportunity to get far enough south to not freeze. I've thought about him quite a bit and hope he made it to Mexico. Perhaps his stay with us, and his sips from the hummingbird feeder, kept him alive long enough to make that long trip alone.

Pris Sears grew up in Florida, lives in Blacksburg and works among Virginia Tech's computers.