There really wasn’t. That’s one thing I kind of regret. I started reading, and became interested in reading very young. But I read sports books. I read sports pages and newspapers. That’s one thing that I would like to have had that I missed, reading more scholarly books than I did. I was so devoted to sports.

To Kill a Mockingbird.

I’m going to confess I haven’t finished The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg.

Nineteen Eighty-Four. I always meant to read it before 1984, and once 1984 had passed I didn’t see the point.

A canoe, mixed sun and cloud, no deadlines in sight.

Of dying, only if painful and protracted, or if I get stuck inside an inert body. I would also not wish to be trapped in a jar.

Lazy, anxious, and distracted.

That human beings will follow their stupid and greedy side, rather than their smart side, and go down the plughole. We’re circling the rim.

Begrudging mean-spiritedness.

Where to begin? How about working the archery range at the Sportsman’s Show in 1956? “The pointy part of the arrow goes at the front.” Or going door-to-door in 1963, when I was a questionnaire re-writer for a market research company, asking a 36-page questionnaire about bowel movements for a laxative company. “No one is going to answer 36 pages on that!” I bleated. “They’ll kick me out after three pages!” “Ah, but those who don’t,” they said – “those are our target market!”