Rather than writing an expansive general introduction to the Hornbook, and missing this or that sidebar anecdote, I’ve opted for this device, the Interim Memo. From place to place in these pages, when some updating information is needed, I’ll drop in on you and do one of those numbers like the pre-end credit explanations in a movie, telling you what happened to the principal characters, or passing along whatever dubious wisdom I’ve accrued in the twenty years between.
Take for instance this column.
I was thirty-eight years old. I was dating a marvelous young woman named Lynda who went on to get her degree and Master’s in psychiatric medicine. Last I heard, she had married one of her professors at UC-Berkeley, and was in practice. I may have some of this wrong, she may be a psychologist and not a psychiatrist, but I seem to recall she went to medical school as well, so probably the latter. Haven’t heard from her in years, and that makes me mildly sad. We were good friends, she was a fine person, and now, at age fifty-five, I recall those kids and pets, men and women, friends and lovers, who have gone past and don’t keep in touch.
But when I do cast back in reflection on the women I knew, one thing comes sharply into focus: they were all a kind of getting-ready for meeting and marrying Susan. And I lament the thirty-five years I spent without her.