The Knicks are in the NBA finals. The New York team has not won that basketball championship in over fifty years, and it has been that long since the spouse has been a team sports fan. (She does have her tennis favorites, not always based on their good looks.) She watched eagerly and got pleasure when the Knicks won championships those many decades ago, but she learned the next year what diehard sports fans already knew: almost always your team ends the season without a championship. In short, they lose. Sports fans, somehow, overcome the almost perennial disappointment; the spouse could not. She buried her fandom never to resurrect it. She has not been watching the Knicks this time around.

I don’t understand. Players inspect three or four tennis balls before choosing one for a first serve. But after hitting a first-serve let, many of them don’t inspect three or four balls for their second first serve but just use the first one bounced to them by the ball person.

“A continual dripping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike; to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in his right hand.” Proverbs.

As I was waiting for a prescription to be filled, a twenty-something woman made some purchases and asked Rose behind the counter, “Do you sell toilet brushes?” Rose said that the store did not. The young woman continued, “Do you know where I might buy one around here?” Rose shook her head. I then suggested a hardware store a few blocks away. The woman thanked me and said, “My parents are coming tomorrow…. They have high standards.”

The Christian radio station gave a few brief Bible readings, although where the sacred words left off and commentary began was not always clear. It also presented short inspirational stories and exhortations. Mostly, however, it played music, and mostly that music fell into the rock category. I remembered back when rock started. (Alas, I am old enough to remember when “Rocket 88,” Bill Haley, and Elvis Aron were all new.) I recalled how ministers smashed 45s saying that rock was music of the devil. This made me think about how powerful He is. In only the short span of my lifetime, He had transformed a genre that would send me into eternal damnation into music that was now for the devout. Hallelujah!

“There are grounds for suspecting, in other words, that there exists a secret constitution, whose first article runs: The security of power is based on the insecurity of the citizens.” Leonardo Sciascia, Death and the Knight (translated from the Italian by Joseph Farrell).

When I was a kid, I would come find in a park or outside an old house a hand pump. Of course, I had to try it. The first couple strokes always seemed hard, but with minimal persistence they became easier. As I pumped, I would wonder if the pump still worked. Was there really water down there? Sometimes the effort produced nothing, but at other times a little water would spurt out. That sight produced a quickened, more forceful stroke. Then larger spurts, and finally, a stream without interruption. These efforts always produced a smile and a sense of accomplishment, a satisfaction that a younger generation will never have.