After having struck out on my own — trying to survive by publishing my own weekly newspaper in suburban Chicago, I returned to the Meadow City, in 1964.

My smartest decision: re-enroll at Highlands University, the institution I had left five years earlier, following grades less than many-splendored. Pell Grants and lottery scholarships hadn’t been invented yet, so most students took a part-time job.

There was an opening at Groth’s Grocery on 10th Street in Las Vegas. I’d long been aware of the family name, my having been a classmate of Jane Groth at Immaculate Conception School. But I found out the elder Groths, Ed and Emma, no longer owned the neighborhood store; they sold it to an Ignacio Flores, and the Groths had taken jobs at the Highlands Bookstore. Groth’s Grocery, familiar to many, became the last place that delivered groceries. People like former HU President Thomas Donnelly, Dr. H.M. Mortimer and J.S. Torres would call in their food orders, and by noon get home delivery.

Anecdotally, I once took an order to the wrong Torres residence on Seventh Street, only to have my boss scream at me when I returned, “You went to the wrong house!”

Embarrassed, I drove back to reclaim the groceries, but the cook who answered the door explained that the folks actually liked the groceries and decided to keep (most of) them. They became regular customers.

This propitious way of gaining a customer really happened, but even a team of wild horses will not get me to reveal whether the original wayward delivery was accidental or contrived.

• • •

The grocery experience came to mind as I received a recent e-mail from my friend Eddie, the eldest Groth, announcing that his younger sister Jane had passed away at age 71.

She died of cancer.

Mike Tolson, of the Houston Chronicle, interviewed a number of Jane’s acquaintances and colleagues concerning the Las Vegas, N.M., transplant who became the founder of a successful Houston-area school for autistic children.

Tolson wrote, “A little more than three decades ago, as her 40th birthday approached, Jane Groth Stewart discovered her calling unexpectedly. She began to do volunteer work at a Houston school catering to children with learning issues and found she had a knack for reaching a special population.

“Stewart struck off on her own three years later, started a school for children with developmental challenges, and figured she might make a difference in their lives despite a lack of specialized training or practical experience in running a business.

“Although uterine cancer finally took Stewart’s life on Nov. 11, by then her Westview school had become one of the city’s top schools for autistic children and the answer to thousands of parental prayers, proving to an uncertain world that children diagnosed with a variety of disorders on the spectrum of autism could learn and prosper.”

From modest beginnings, Westview, the school Jane founded, grew in enrollment from a handful to more than 140 on a large campus in west Houston.

I’m proud to have been Jane’s classmate.

• • •

Part of the cause of drops in mail processing by the Postal Service is due to computers and cell phones. But what happens when the electronic message is way slower than snail mail?

Let me explain:

I’ve sent probably three text messages in my life, always  responses; I don’t ever create a message but instead try to answer — because the texting framework is already set up.

All I need to do is peck a bit and hit “reply.”

But that too is a mixed bag. My phone simply intuits what it thinks I’m writing. As each succeeding key is pressed, the phone tries to guess letter combinations. When the supposed word is too far from my ken, I usually end the message or take a deep breath or simply call the other person or ponder whether 21st century technology is what it’s cracked up to be or just say, “awww, fuggettaboudit.”

Today, my cell phone buzzed, with a text message suggesting we have a picnic in Gallinas Canyon. Please realize that by “today” I mean Jan. 20-something, when wind gusts of 50 mph were recorded in the Meadow City. So what’ll the conditions be up in the canyon?

Care to join us, Adm. Robert Edwin Peary, or any members of the Donner party? So I’ve been invited to a picnic, but no amount of cell-phone button-pushing discloses either the sender or the date or time. I suspect it was my son Ben, who lives in Albuquerque, and who is the only son to call me “Pops.” Was the invitation trapped in cyberspace since August?

We’re not accustomed to spreading out a blanket on the frozen tundra, where only caribou survive, passing the charcoal and wieners and chowing down popsicle-style in late-January. Similarly, it would be dangerous to take lighted briquets indoors. No, a gathering sans blanket, marshmallows, paper plates or food you cook on the spot does not a picnic make. And you also need ants and even uncles.

So, my son — if you’re the author of the text of dubious origin — let’s wait until August for that picnic in El Porvenir.

Meet you there.

• • •

Notice to several school board candidates: Don’t give the word “athletic” a fourth syllable.
Notice to anyone operating an electronic message board: When I criticize out-dated, misspelled, incorrect messages, I’m asking only that you fix the errors, the same way teachers ask students to correct theirs. By no means do I imply the various schools need to perform a post-criticism total shut- down of the message boards, as has apparently happened with the sign near Sierra Vista Elementary.

Notice to anyone on a P.A. system: It’s still pronounced “jewel-ry,” not “jew-lery.”