If my parents were “the greatest generation,” I am in the luckiest generation.  Born a year after Pearl Harbor (Nov. 20, 1942 in New York City), I grew up oblivious to the tens of millions of deaths during World War II and barely even remember rationing.  My grandfather had not survived World War I (died in France, 1918), but my Dad got through WWII okay and even stood on the deck of the Missouri when the Japanese signed the surrender.

After working in New York a few more years, Dad got a job with Hearst Newspapers in Washington.  One of my first memories is arriving in Arlington, Virginia, in 1948 ahead of the moving van and sleeping on mattresses lent by our new neighbors. In 1949 we moved to a house in Alexandria Dad bought for $25,000, a fortune in those days.  The house was on the edge of a large patch of woods, though which I could walk half a mile to elementary school.   As I tell my grandchildren, I made this trek shoeless in the snow every day.  The creek that flowed through the woods was a great playground for me and my brother, but also the cause of several floods that filled our basement and still give me terrifying dreams.  I happened to be in Alexandria visiting my mother (age 95) during the recent Hurricane Sandy and I was able to calm Mom’s fears while trying to ignore my own.

My social climbing Dad had me take the test to enter the poshest school in D.C., St. Albans, from which Al Gore graduated a few years after I did.  It was a church-run school, which didn’t bother me because I was a devout little acolyte in my home parish.  I could still fire up the thurible and swing that incense pot, if asked.  At St.A. I learned all the Latin a boy might need and lettered in baseball, though I was no star.

I was destined from birth to attend Cornell, my Dad’s alma mater and my grandfather’s employer.  I studied English, lived in a co-op, and became managing editor of the Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper.  My finest hour on the Sun was putting out an extra on Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963, to report John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

I spent two years in the Marine Corps, rising to the exalted rank of corporal.  The less said about that interlude the better, since it involved no service in Vietnam but much labor in the mess hall and head.

In 1967, a month before discharge, I married an old Sunmate, Nancy Dunhoff.  We lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn while I worked at Dow Jones and Co.  In 1968 I was transferred to London, where in short order we had two little British kids.  I left Dow Jones in 1972 to try my hand at full-time freelance writing.  First I wrote about business, then about show business.  I wrote hundreds of articles over the decades for the Los Angeles Times Calendar section, and hundreds more for British newspapers like the Guardian and the Daily Mail.  I interviewed and wrote about many of the big movie and TV stars and traveled to many countries to visit film locations.  The Soviet Union, Borneo, Kenya, Paris, Rome, Helsinki—my passport got all the stamps.

I even visited Los Angeles, where film companies put me up at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.  I usually got tired of room service pretty quickly and took a taxi to Manhattan Beach to sleep on the couch of an old Cornell buddy.  He thought it would be cool if I lived in MB, so I bought a house on 29^th St.  Nancy and I had been talking of moving back to the USA so we’d have a shot at getting American grandchildren.  Our kids, then 9 and 11, took it in stride and soon lost their adorable English accents after only a few playground beatings.  They did indeed grow up to marry Americans (Cornellians, in fact) and produce five grandchildren for us to enjoy in our declining years.  Three live in Torrance and occasionally take in a senior game at Dorsey.

I ran in 20-some MB 10Ks and one LA marathon and played in MB’s night softball league, but my sports career didn’t really blossom until I turned 55 and discovered senior softball.  I am now, as everyone around me knows, certifiably nuts and play ball more than half the days.  Like Lan O’Kun, I hope to die on the softball field and rise again and play some more.