Inside the Portage County line By GENE KEMMETER of The Gazette ANNIVERSARY OBSERVANCE: Will Lehner of Whiting isn't making his usual visits to area schools on Friday, Dec. 7, to talk about the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941. Lehner, the lone survivor of the attack living in Portage County, is back in Pearl Harbor with other survivors, visiting the various sites. He's been back to Hawaii several times, including a trip last November when National Geographic paid for him to go for a documentary it was filming. Lehner was on the USS Ward, a destroyer that sank a Japanese midget submarine outside the entrance to Pearl, about an hour before carrier-based Japanese planes attacked the U.S. fleet inside the harbor. The little sub was apparently trying to slip into the harbor when it was spotted by another U.S Navy ship and then by the Ward. The Ward fired two shots, one that hit the sub, and then followed up with a barrage of depth charges. Lehner was topside at the time and saw the sub go down and debris come up, so National Geographic wanted him to tell about what he saw. National Geographic was looking for the sub, using underwater photography, but didn't find it. When the documentary aired on television in May, Lehner sponsored a party at Partner's Pub so friends and relatives could watch the program with him. During the program, they saw Lehner several times on the national broadcast. Lehner said he enjoys speaking to students or others about his experiences on that "Day of Infamy." He wants to do it to remind people of what happened. * * * STOCKING UP ON COOKIES: Don't have time to bake all those homemade cookies you'd like to have for the Christmas holidays? Well, other than going to the store, the last chance to pick some up is Saturday, Dec. 8. That's when cookie walks will be held at St. Paul's United Methodist Church, 600 Wilshire Blvd., Stevens Point, and St. Peter Catholic Church, 800 Fourth Ave., Stevens Point, beginning at 9 a.m. What is a cookie walk? Well, it's an opportunity for people to stock up on Christmas cookies, without baking them. Usually, church groups sponsor the events, baking a wide variety of cookies for the holiday season. Shoppers get a box and a plastic glove to handle the cookies and go around to various tables, selecting the cookies of their choice. The shoppers are charged for the cookies by the pound, usually $5 or $6, and generally get one to two dozen per pound, depending on the weight. St. Joseph Catholic Church in Stevens Point and Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Plover held their cookie walks last Saturday, Dec. 1. If you weren't there within a half-hour of the 9 a.m. opening, you got few, if any cookies. Most were gone by that time. Beautiful Savior had about 150 pounds of cookies available, while St. Joseph had about 500 pounds, including about 100 pounds of pre-packed varieties. The moral of the story is, if you want a variety of cookies, be there early. The doors don't open until 9 a.m., but people have been know to gather at 7:30 a.m. to wait in line for first choice.