January 15, 1991. Walking up Congress Avenue in Austin, with thousands of others, to see Mom sworn in as governor of Texas.

At the birth of my son, Joel, and then equally, last June, when my first grandchild, Rory, was born.

Happiness is like an elusive butterfly: whenever it comes my way, I grab it.

The first time I stood on top of the hill that I now live on, in 2007.

On a personal level, the friend who is a single mum raising two kids by herself during this Covid era. She is a real hero. If a historical personality, I choose Mikhail Gorbachev, who probably saved the world from world war three.

That I still don’t understand life. When I was young, I thought at some point I would find somebody who does. I am 45, and there is a good chance that I’ll never meet somebody like that.

When I was 16, at the beginning of the summer vacation, I worked in a factory that made industrial valves and I was a much worse industrial valve producer than historian.

I would like to come out at 16 or 17, and not 21.

When my dog died a couple of years ago. We were in Greece on vacation and a friend was watching her at home, and she was bitten by a snake. We rushed home, but we were too late by a few hours.

I was almost run over by a bus when I was 13. And in 1991, in the Gulf war, an Iraqi missile hit close to my house.