You do not cut a check in the state of Kansas to John Doe, executioner. The executioner is paid in cash so there's no trail to him

I remember being awed by it - the uniqueness and nicety of style - and I suspect I was a bit jealous because we were more or less of the same generation.

The pleasure of sport was so often the chance to indulge the cessation of time itself--the pitcher dawdling on the mound, the skier poised at the top of a mountain trail, the basketball player with the rough skin of the ball against his palm preparing for a foul shot, the tennis player at set point over his opponent--all of them savoring a moment before committing themselves to action.

The New York Times published the guest list on the front page. The masks were a brilliant concept.

He still has the same way of calling to me, as if I'm still new to him, as if he has yet to get over me.

As happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them. Oscar Wilde said, 'You destroy the thing that you love.' It's the other way around. What you love destroys you.

Give me good books, good conversations, and my Trek Y-Foil, and I shall want for nothing else.