Date of destiny

Whether you write dates the European or the American way, today is 03-03-03. Make it memorable.

My uncle Art died last week. About him, my cousin wrote last year that he "still had a lot of living to do" even though he was, at age 83, suffering a recurrence of cancer and was particularly depressed about it. A steady but somewhat impatient man, in his retirement he developed a hobby of composing newsy three-dot essays -- like Herb Caen without a job -- and sending copies to all his relatives. By newsy, I mean that he actually passed along news and sports items and commented on them, despite the fact that he had showed no particular vocation for journalism or writing throughout his entire life. Essentially, he became a columnist with an audience of about 25.

In fact, what he was doing was blogging. He never used a computer except to send email (and, showing a lack of imagination, never sent his "columns" through email, but only through snail mail) and never knew what a blog was. But blogging was what he was doing, just in a different medium.