I’ve Got a Thing for Horizons

Also: Emily swam today!

I’ve got a thing for horizons. Unfortunately, where we live, unless you are standing atop one of our taller mountains, it’s difficult to see off into the distance.

This thing I have, came to me late in life. It was when Samwise and I first drove across the country in Bill, the beloved Beetle convertible. I was not very healthy, and had just finished a New England book tour that had us at 22 events in 20 days. A little known secret—I passed out after three of those events. (Photo by Ken Stampfer.)

The goal of the trip across the United States was to do it before I died. Actually, I had two goals: own a convertible and drove across the country. That long hospital stay in 2016 prompted these desires. I was hooked up to a dialysis machine when a priest asked me if I had any regrets I wished to talk about.

“Not that I can tell you about, Father.”

But it started me thinking. What regrets did I have that I could do something about?

We were not walking very far that spring, a year after I was re…