It’s never not a chaotic month. I spent much of November arranging to have this paper mailed from a new post office. The Syracuse newspaper group in whose wake I sailed switched to a different printer, and their new printer could not meet my needs. The old printer (with whom I remain) has proved to be excellent over the past two years, and so I am now mailing from Plattsburgh, NY, closer to the print shop and within waving distance of Quebec. If you are holding this issue in your hand rather than reading it on some electronic device, I will have danced the USPS gavotte successfully.
I was beset by a more existential turmoil when I realized that I was about to reach the exact age at which my father died on (of all days) Veterans Day. At this writing I’ve barely outlived him, and I wonder at the justice of that. He was a healthy, athletic guy who loved sports and served in World War Two. He did smoke, which I’ve never done—though I’ve done everything else wrong. Somehow, unlike the Old Man (who never got to be as old as I am now), I am not one of the golfers of the world. Nor am I a bowler. I am my own kind of sedentary wreck.
Nonetheless, I saw our lives playing out in parallel. We married at almost exactly the same age and we both ventured (or should I say “stumbled?”) into publishing. When I began to approach the age at which I found him deceased on the floor—61 yea
