Introduction To Musings XI

November/December 2000

HOLIDAY GREETINGS

Shakespeare has the Earl of Warwick say (Henry IV Part 2, Act III, Sc. 1):

“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas’d;
The which observ’d, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.”

I make no claim whatsoever to have a “near aim of the chance of things.” No Red Sox fan would ever have the chutzpah to assert that. After the 2000 Presidential campaign, with its weird, unprecedented aftermath, I remembered that since I first voted in 1932, I have voted in the Presidential elections for the winner 10 or 11 times; and for the loser 7 or 8 times. I would never [have] amassed much of an estate betting on my choices. I guess I am one of those in the well-worn cliche, “often wrong, but never in doubt.”

My health is a little less robust than when I sent you Holiday Greetings in 1999. After all, in less than a year, I will be 90, if I make it. I agree with Robert Frost who said, “In three words I can sum up everything I learned about life. It goes on.” Amen to that.