November 25, 1994

THE ELDERLY man and his companion had driven off the New Jersey highway on a recent afternoon in order to use the facility of a restaurant. Once inside, the elderly man, not uncommonly, ignited a commotion among the patrons. His familiar face is long and lined, his eyes rheumy, his hair now snow white. He is slightly stooped from an arthritic condition -- his aching knees and arm, remnants of his former occupation. He wears a pacemaker to juice his heart, and fairly recently underwent stomach surgery for a long-suffered ulcer.

Sandy Pitt and Sajan Mathew pounded on the door of a shuttered house on Union Avenue. They were searching for a 37-year-old welfare recipient who had given the address as his own. Ms. Pitt amd Mr. Mathew, Westchester County welfare workers, peered through the window into a barren room littered with bottles and cigarette butts. They surveyed the heap of trash on the lawn. They agreed that no one lived there.

Jim Kelly had thrown a bushel of passes to his running backs and the Buffalo Bills were outperforming the Detroit Lions in this matchup of back versus linebacker in the Silverdome today. So there was little surprise when, with 1 minute 35 seconds to play and Buffalo trailing by 28-21, Kelly began a Bills' drive from his 16 with a 9-yard pass, out of the shotgun, to a running back, Thurman Thomas. This time, though, the Lions altered the matchup.

Fierce fighting raged today around the Muslim enclave of Bihac in northwestern Bosnia when Serbian forces pursued a steady advance toward the center of the town and NATO allies failed to agree on how to save it. In a move to discourage retaliatory bombings by NATO, Serbs immobilized about 200 United Nations troops and observers around Sarajevo and detained about 50 Canadian troops north of the capital. The tactic, used by the Serbs in the past when they faced air strikes, left the peacekeepers virtual hostages.

IN folk music, there is almost always a message. So when Tom Paxton writes a new song with a chorus that ends, "I wish I could start all over again," Mr. Paxton just may be trying to tell us something. "The heavy touring is going to end in May, when our first grandchild arrives," the 56-year-old troubadour, who has been challenging the world's conscience for more than three decades, said recently. "We'll just do festivals, special events, galas, the jobs I really want to do."