The Crown Hill 3-5's Cooperative Preschool goes on numerous field trips throughout the school year; the Ballard Locks, Northwest Puppet Theater, Center for Wooden Boats and closest to home, trick or treating at nearby businesses. One stop always stands out - the small store angled at the corner of Northwest 24th and 80th, Saleh's Delicatessen. No bowl of miniature candy bars at that stop; the owner Steve Saleh slides open the ice cream case so the little people in costumes can pick out whatever they want, eclipsing all other choices for as many years as parents can remember.

The store signage says Saleh's Delicatessen even though they stopped selling sandwiches several years ago. In truth the location offers more choices of wine than anything else, but is still a friendly place to buy the newspaper, a candy bar, a lottery ticket, beer, cold drink or an emergency can of Spaghetti-O's. Unlike a 7-11 Convenience Store that is open 24 hours a day, with the beer locked in the cold cases between 2 to 6 a.m., Saleh's really is open 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. each day. The 7-11 trademark name and signage are identical across the entire United States, but Saleh's has a name that dares to sound more "foreign."

Like so many, I was out of town during the February school break. There was no need for crossing guards by Loyal Heights Elementary, there were no drop-offs at Crown Hill Preschool so most local children were spared the news trucks parked on Northwest 24th or the reporters broadcasting live from in front of Saleh's. I missed "tonight's top story" and the subsequent video re-plays on CNN and Fox. How was it packaged, "Hate Crime Caught on Video?"

Eight days later calm was returning to the small store even as school children crossed at the intersection before first bell. Flowers still surrounded the cash register but the phone was quiet. The owner Steve Saleh was on his way down to King County Courthouse for the arraignment of the man and woman who launched racial insults at him and his nephew even before they tried to buy beer. The pair had already been asked to leave a tavern and then a directed a cab to where they hoped to buy more alcohol. Not that they had a way to pay for the cab or the beer, other than trying to use a Safeway Club Card. It was a situation that was ugly before they added violence to the racial insults, handily earning the charges filed on March 1 of malicious harassment and hate crime. The security camera captured the sight and sounds of the altercation and within a day the Saleh's incident had national airplay.

Soon after Steve's business neighbors learned about what happened on the night of Feb. 20th a woman came in with a card of support signed by the other businesses. Then came more cards and flowers, visits from customers that Steve hadn't seen in three, four months, phone calls from across the country from people who wanted to apologize for the behavior of a man and a woman they had never met. Steve even received a letter from the mother of the male suspect who said that he wasn't raised to be a racist. A teacher from his younger daughter's school stopped in to see how they were coping. The drunken couple that chose to keep hurling racial insults along with saliva and fists probably didn't picture Steve's youngest daughter in her St. Benedict's Catholic School uniform while they made assumptions about his race and religion.

On the day of the arraignment the sun was shining and the kids were back in school. There were no news trucks with strange telescoping antennae, just a battalion of crossing guards in orange vests. Inside Saleh's it smelled like a florist shop. At the Crown Hill Preschool the lead teacher wondered aloud what she and the students could do for Saleh's. The flowers, the hugs, the handshakes that have been offered to Steve and his family members since that night seem to be the neighborhood's form of chicken soup for the injured and ailing. At the preschool, the teacher decides they will make cards celebrating the arrival of spring and take them to Saleh's in a few weeks. The kids won't need to have a reason; it's just what good neighbors do - they open their doors, their ice cream case, their hearts.

Peggy's e-mail is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com and her blog is at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard/