I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.

I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.

My mother enjoyed old age and because of her I've begun to enjoy parts of it too. So far I've had it good and am crumbling nicely.

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature.