Sharon Vander Meer, the Optic’s genial general manager managed to gift the staff in the newsroom and composing room with new Macintosh computers.
    But before we bring out the champagne and dancing girls, let’s make it clear that we part-timers received only hand-me-downs. The handed-down computer beats the pre-Civil War version it replaces, but it still lacks the style, capacity and features of the new machines.
    In about 1954, when gas sold for 30 cents a gallon and a pack of cigarettes went for a quarter, I was riding around with two friends named Fred, a Leroy, and a Paul.
    About 12 years after the fact, a student ascribed to me an honor I would give my eye-teeth for. In introducing me to his parents, the then-30-ish young man told his parents, natives of Santa Rosa, that I had co-written “Bless Me, Ultima.”
    When it became clear that a young reporter with the New York Times had fabricated stories, made up quotations and sources, heads started to roll. So great was the public’s interest in the downfall of reporter Jayson Blair that the story even made the cover of a national magazine. The Times, a powerful, 165-year-old paper, whose 200 reporters don’t know the meaning of “quit,” did a lot of face-saving. They simply used the phrase—anathema to them—which politicians have used for years: “no comment.”
    Julian Vigil, an instructor in English at Luna Community College, said the other day, “You NEED proofreaders at the Optic.”
    What may have started out as a game of “Let’s see what happens if. . .” could have had catastrophic consequences.
    Eight days ago I opened a birthday package from my son Stan, from Seattle. The number 8 is significant because it is the perfect square of 64. And 32 multiplied by 2 is 64.
If you’re able to associate the photo on this column with my visage, please tell me what you see. Do I have the letters S-U-C-K-E-R stamped across my forehead?
    Let me explain. If I were in a crowd of say 50 people, the one panhandler in the group would find me to hit me up for a couple of bucks–to buy a meal. Yeah, right!
In the 60-plus years I’ve known this city, I can attest to radical changes when it comes to growing up: people walked all over town and thus made constant contact.
    Bank checks used to be free; you could help yourself to a pack of them at almost any bank. Each pack of checks was coded to a particular bank, but the idea of personalized checks was still a ways off.