It was called the "The 200 Club" and to be a member was simple: All you had to do was graduate at the bottom of your class. There were about 40 of us in this self-appointed, self-denigrating group in May 1964. I remember worrying that we would be called up to graduate in order of class rank…

He says not to come and I don't. I respect his wishes because he is my father. He is old and he is sick and he is leaving me. The cancer is killing him and the chemotherapy is its unwitting accomplice. He has been in a hospital for more than a month now. He's a good patient, everyone says. He was a good soldier, too. He doesn't complain and he does what's he told…

Thirteen weeks without writing a column. Without cutting and pasting pieces of life, a thing I did three times a week for much of my life. My grandson, Adam, is asleep upstairs in my house. His mother, my daughter, is in Foxborough waiting to try out for "American Idol." He dreams and so does she…