Yes, it took Elise Campbell, an eighth-grader at Robertsville Middle School, to get us out of our do-loop bell morass.

Of course it helped that the Supreme Court recently refused to hear the notion that the bell might be religious symbol, clearing the way for us to use our good common sense -- that is, once a 14-year-old respectfully advised us on just what that entails.

To wit: Allowing ourselves to ring the Friendship Bell whenever we like.

I still have a hard time believing there was actually an ordinance in our good city limiting the ringing of a friendship bell.

And I can't imagine how many times Elise and her friends surreptitiously rolled their eyes at those of us who make such rules.

But there it is: The International Friendship Bell stood silent for the better part of its first decade.

Well, hopefully the bell brawl is as cantankerous as our emerging city will ever get.

But what a senior-citizen fracas (think swinging hearing aids and trembling bifocals) it was.

The rest of us -- either too young to understand the argument or too busy to care -- simply sat back and let Elise do all the dirty work.

Which took about a year -- a year of effort, thought and persistence to push the initiative through.

It was certainly reassuring to see all the grins on the faces of our City Council representatives when the ordinance passed unanimously last Monday.

And it was reassuring that Elise did not need to make a last-stance defense of her position -- though she had one, carefully written and ready.

Favorite bell issue images (besides all the "aye" lights lit on City Council's voting board last week):

Herman Postma, former Oak Ridge National Laboratory director, stationing himself bell-side after dark, cane in hand, to protect our symbol of international friendship.

No, no -- of course that never happened (at least I don't think it happened), but it's now the stuff of local urban legend.