Over the many years I’ve written this column – I think it is now 14, but who is counting? – I’ve taken pride in never missing a week. (Except for the couple of months years back when I impetuously quit, and then returned.) Only once has a column been spiked, or not used by the editor, and that was a wise call as I had more than the usual intemperance when it came to describing a certain clerk of the Superior Court.
But weekly opinion writing takes its toll. Some weeks the well is dry, especially when, as now, I am in the midst of a long summer vacation, idling time away at the Cape with my wife, my kids, my dogs and a pile of books. I could yield my space, and invite the publisher to find another voice, but that might be my undoing. This is, after all, my bully pulpit — I’m not yielding an inch.
