Going Grand.

A friend of mine emailed me a passage from Carl Sagan's last chapter of his book Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium:

Near my shaving mirror, so I see it every morning, is a framed postcard. On the back is a penciled message to a Mr. James Day in Swansea Valley, Wales. It reads:

Dear Friend,

Just a line to show that I am alive & kicking and going grand. It's a treat.

Yours,

WJR

It's signed with the almost-indecipherable initials of one William John Rogers. On the front is a color photo of a sleek, four-funneled steamer captioned "White Star Liner Titanic." The postmark was imprinted the day before the great ship went down, losing more than 1500 lives, including Mr. Rogers'. Annie and I display the postcard for a reason. We know that "going grand" can be the most temporary and illusory state. So it was with us.

They say that most stomach ulcers happen in September.

Posted by Andrew at September 18, 2006 11:12 PM