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ETCETERA Diamonds from page 7 unless they feel they can economically make a go of cutting them.” In response, the New York dealers formed a committee two years ago to work on ways to push for government assistance to retrain workers on machines and seek U.S. trade agreements with diamond-rich African nations outside of South Africa to generate new sources of rough. A rejuvenated supply would lead to a new dawn of cutters, polishers and a re turn of the many middlemen squeezed out by low-cost overseas competition, said Mayer Herz, the committee’s chairman and a cutter for 25 years who left the busi ness to become vice president of an online jewelry site, Mondera.com. “We’re saying let the diamond market meet the bush,” Herz said. “We have an industry that’s dying for product. We’re not being treated right by the supplier. We want to do it the American way, helping to build Africa by giving them the val ue of what their diamonds are worth.” Haas calls it “a chicken-and-egg kind of thing. We try to convince DeBeers to channel more rough here. Without the rough, we lose the cutters. Diamond pro ducers tend to send their goods to'cutting centers where labor is cheap.” Others in the industry believe that the Internet, an inexpensive, efficient way for dealers to drum up business without stepping foot on 47th Street, is a con tributing factor. Rubin, with his traditional head cover and knotted cords of his prayer vest peek ing out of his jacket, was staring at the glowing screen of a laptop computer. An im porter bom into a Jewish diamond family, Rubin is a rare sight at the club — he’s wired, routinely tracking price, quality and availability of diamonds on the Web. Family finds holiday tradition in Christmas lights by Joey Holleman The State Columbia — Elaine and Ed Vetter knew Christmas lights came with the house when they bought it this summer. But it wasn’t until later, when they started un packing box after box of lights left in the attic, that the couple realized just what that meant. Their real estate agent and the former owners warned them about it: The owners of the eight hous es in the compact neighborhood “do it up big” for Christmas. One dark home would ruin the “Winter Wonderland” effect. And the Vetters’ new neighbors in the Crepe Myr tle subdivision tried to drive the point home. “Every time we’d meet somebody new,” Ed Vet ter said, “it wouldn’t be five minutes before they’d say, ‘You know about Christmas, don’t you?”’ They knew, but they didn’t really understand “We thought, that’s OK, we like to decorate at Christmas,” Elaine Vetter said. “They said the lights stay with the house, and we thought, ‘A few lights, no big deal.’” Then early this month, the Vetters took invento ry of the Christmas decorations they had been sold with the house. “We drug them out of the attic, looked at them and said, ’Uh, oh,’” Elaine Vetter said. For 101/2 months a year, Crepe Myrtle is a quaint, little subdivision in the Oak Grove section of Lex ington County. Then the homeowners flip on the hol iday lights, and suddenly traffic backs up on Oak Dri ve. For six weeks, the multitude of lights and decorations creates enough of an attraction to draw tour buses. That could have ended this year, however, as two of the eight homes, including the showpiece home on, the comer of Oak Drive, were sold. There aren’t any neighborhood covenants requiring the Christmas dis play, but there is some neighborly pressure. Dean and Chris Black felt that soon after they pur chased the comer house. At a neighborhood Labor Day picnic, everyone talked to them about Christmas. “They were.very sweet about it,” Chris Black said. “They said, ‘You’re going to do it, right? Because you’re the first house [on the street] and you have to do it.’” The Blacks have lived in the Lexington area for years and had driven by the Crepe Myrtle neighbor hood once or twice during the holidays. But they did n’t connect the house they were looking at with the light show at first. Then they went into the garage and stared wide eyed at four racks of lights. Each rack had several dozen light strings hanging from it. There were wreaths for the windows and a handful of holiday lawn statues. Just as with the Vetters, all of the decorations were included in the sale of the house. The Blacks bought their home from the Amick family, which started the Crepe Myrtle subdivision and its Christmas tradition. The Blacks felt obligated to keep it going. “I don’t think you could not do it,” Chris Black said. She was concerned, however, with how the fam ily would get it done. The Blacks’ multigenerational family is a meiger of two households. They haven’t finished cleaning up their two former homes to be resold. Dean Black said last Saturday was the only day he could devote to the Christmas decorations. So Saturday, the Blacks and their new next-door neighbors, the Vetters, strung lights in every bush and tree in their yards. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it,” Ed Vetter said. Both families had one complaint. 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