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.