It was obvious that he was a man who marched through life to the rhythms of some drum I would never hear.

We must ride this strange torpedo out until the end.

Good news is rare these days, and every glittering ounce of it should be cherished and hoarded and worshipped and fondled like a priceless diamond.

I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

I never claimed to be anything more than a nice guy and an athlete.

Given my calling I had to stumble across people who felt the same way. I was a young reporter.

And in fact the only way I can deal with this eerie situation at all is to make a conscious decision that I have already lived and finished the life I planned to live - and everything from now on will be A New Life, a different thing, a gig that ends tonight and starts tomorrow morning.