On Reaching 75
“Seventy-five is just a number,” she said.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “but it’s a big number.”
You see, my father died at fifty-four, and I always assumed I too would probably go at or around that tender age. And, in fact, I probably would have gone sooner were I not fit and had I not found myself doubled over and gasping for breath during a walk with my wife on March 16, 2016.
I know that with specificity, because my wife and I had met up at Grand Central Station that day: she’d come from a meeting in Manhattan; I from a taped-for-St. Patrick’s Day appearance with my co-author George Marlin on Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s TV show. (We were promoting our book, Sons of Saint Patrick: A History of the Archbishops of New York.)
