You know you’re getting older when your youngest grandchild goes off to college. When getting out of a car takes longer than it used to. When you sometimes have to ask for people to repeat themselves. But you know things are still generally all right when you read a wondrous book like “A River Runs Through It” and revel in the wording that flows as smoothly as the rippling water described therein. When you see a shooting star in the nighttime sky. When you hold someone you love in your arms. When you bite into a juicy peach. When you...
Last night as I watched the opening of the four-day Democratic Party convention in Chicago, I was impressed by the high level of speech-making and the choreography of events. Speaker after speaker sounded like a professional with words written that seemed to come – and may have – from a small cadre of writers who produced fine work. Whether it was New York Governor Kathy Hochul, former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, or the three Bidens, daughter Ashley, First Lady Jill, or the President himself, all climbed the pinnacle to give one of the best speeches...
Of all the people I met while living in England in 1987-8, among the most memorable was Bernard Ingham, press secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was not too available to us out-of-country types, so every Monday while Parliament was in session, Ingham would brief members of the Foreign Press Association. Journalists, myself included as a columnist for the Financial Post, who attended the Economic Summit in London in 1988, agreed that of all the briefings by staff of leaders, Ingham was the best. Not just information, either, but performance as well. Ingham’s manner was gruff, his face ruddy,...
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