It was a very odd year

　　LOS ANGELES —As memories of pregnant chad fade fast and George W. Bush gets ready to move into a White Hous e, some people think he won in an election so close it was decided by one Supreme Court vote, it is time to lo ok at some of the year's odder stories.

　　While politics is not usually included in this annu al recounting, the endlessly recounted U.S. presidentia l election—finally decided 36 days after ballots were c ast—certainly qualifies as a weird tale.

　　After all, it had all the elements: the mystifying butterfly ballots of Palm Beach County, volatile voting machines, journalists groping to spell the word "Tallah assee," dimpled, hanging and pregnant chad—the tiny pie ce of paper that should be pushed through when a vote i s cast on a ballot—and the fate of a nation hanging in the balance, no less.

　　But all's well that ends well, as they say.

　　Thanks to the 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court, t he recounting stopped, Democrat Al Gore conceded defeat , Bush became president-elect and television stations s topped calling people named Chad to ask them what it fe els like to be named after bits of paper.

　　Florida, the chief scene of the election confusion, was also the setting for another odd tale of the year 2 000—the saga of little Elian Gonzalez in which a tug of war ensued between Cuba and the United States over whet her the young shipwreck survivor should stay with his a nti-Castro Miami relatives or be returned to his commun ist homeland.

　　After a seven-month front-page fight that split a n ation and wound up as a television movie, Elian eventua lly was returned home but not before he went to Disney World for an All-American day, hugging Mickey Mouse, ma rveling at Cinderella's castle, and eating a mouse-eare d ice cream bar.

　　Alas, there was a jarring moment when the boy was a bout to board a boat on the "It's a Small World " attra ction, said Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Miam i relatives of the boy who lost his mother when the shi p they were fleeing Cuba in sank.

　　"He was a little frightened… he asked 'Is this boat going to sink?'"

　　(Reuters)