American Baptists did not have saints, but there was a theological progenitor—Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island after he was “asked” to leave Puritan Massachusetts. He established the first American Baptist church in Providence. Williams should be considered one of our most important Founding Fathers, but he seems to be almost unknown today. When I used to walk by the Roger Williams Hotel on Madison and 31^st Street in Manhattan, I wondered how many of my fellow passersby had any idea who Roger Williams was. The hotel was built on land leased from the neighboring Baptist church, and, I once heard, was owned by the American Baptist Church. Times change. The hotel was sold, and now has what seems like a brand-tested name, The Roger.

Williams was a remarkable man. Unlike many of his American contemporaries of the early seventeenth century, he treated the Indians with respect and produced a primer of the complex Algonquian language. (Bill Bryson in Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language states that this work “is a feat of scholarship deserving of far wider fame, incidentally.”) But Williams should be better known because so much of his thought, expressed in his voluminous writings, broke from conventional thinking and was the foundation for many of the bedrock principles of this country—sovereignty in the people, equality of people, liberty of individual conscience, and separation of church and state.

Williams made the radical argument for his time that governments were not divinely inspired. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus pick a government or endow rulers with authority. Instead, Williams contended, sovereignty is with the people. Just as people come together and join with God to form a church and then pick its ministers, the people come together to form a government and grant authority to the rulers.

This led Williams to reject the common notion of his time that the state must enforce God’s laws in order to prevent religious errors. Instead, since the state gets its powers from the people, government is invested with all the errors of the people. Any attempt to enforce religion by the state will always be error-filled and will, in essence, be an attempt for people to have sovereignty over God. Thus, long before Jefferson, Williams called for a “wall of separation” between church and state, a wall he called for to protect not the state, but religion. He believed that religion always suffered when it was protected or required by the state. For Williams, the church is protected by spiritual weapons and harmed by government efforts to enforce religion. God makes Christians; not a government. When religion and politics are mixed, the result is not true religion, but politics.

For Williams, religion was a personal thing. For Williams, personal conscience is God’s line of communication to an individual. Humans being imperfect, they might be wrong about conscience’s demands, but since the conscience comes from God, it is a sin for a person to act contrary to her conscience, even a mistaken one. If I (or the state or a religious leader) forces you to act in opposition to your conscience, I am forcing you to sin, and by forcing you to sin, I am sinning.

In other words, everyone must be allowed to worship as their conscience dictates, and no one should be required to worship against his conscience or to support religious practices that are against his conscience. Jesus did not force or coerce anyone to God. Man, then, can’t force anyone to faith.

A mistaken conscience can be corrected only by persuasion, not by force or coercion. An appeal to conscience, for Williams, required the related God-given ability of reasoning. Conscience demands proof, and proof comes from intellectual rigor. Proof has to satisfy reason or be from the Bible or from a writing that convinces an individual that it was divinely inspired. Williams rejected the Quakers who were led to Christ by a movement of an ill-defined spirit within the person. Such movement did not, could not, satisfy reason.

These views did not just lead to the separation of church and state but to the corollary precept of religious toleration. They led not just to liberty of conscience on religious matters, but on all matters. And since Jesus did not indicate that one soul mattered more than another and all individual consciences should be respected, it meant that society should treat all equally.

(I have refreshed my understanding of Williams’s life and teachings primarily from Roger Williams: The Church and the State by Edmund S. Morgan and Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry.)

These Baptist precepts have led me both to my religious sensibilities as a youth and to my political thinking as an adult. The religious and the American neatly coincided. Just as people come together with God to form a church, the people of America came together to form a country—“We the People . . .” Sovereignty does not belong to the authorities, but starts with ordinary individuals. Both the church and America are founded on freedom of conscience. Religion cannot be imposed, forced, or coerced; it is the result of individual reason and persuasion. In America, a political view cannot be imposed, forced, or coerced; it is the result of an individual decision. (To be continued.)

What most people know about Baptists is that they practice adult, not infantile (ok, infant), baptism, and baptism not by merely sprinkling of water but by full immersion of the believer into water. The definition of an adult for baptism, it turns out, may be a bit loose. I was baptized when I was twelve or fourteen. But apparently old enough to profess that I was willing to accept Jesus as my savior.

Our church, as with many if not all Baptist churches, had a place near the pulpit for the baptisms, but it was different from what others may consider a baptismal. It had to hold enough water to dunk a six-footer. Ours was about the size of a hot tub, but without the heaters or the air of decadence. It, of course, was plumbed so it could be filled with water and then drained. Those of us being baptized changed out of our Sunday finery into something that could survive being soaked. When my time came, I got into the water that came up to my waist. I was surprised by the minister, who was wearing fishing waders that were not visible to the congregation. He supported my back and head. I leaned backwards until I was under the water, and then he lifted my sputtering body upright and said that this symbolized death and resurrection and a new life in God. And, so, at least for those moments, I was saved.

Baptists practice adult baptism by immersion because of the Bible. The Bible is divinely inspired, Baptists believe, and the ultimate authority for leading a Christian life. Baptists find no scriptural support for infant Baptism. The specifically-mentioned baptisms in the Bible, for example, of Jesus by John the Baptist and one done by Phillip, were of adults, and there is nothing to indicate that John the Baptist’s other baptisms were not of adults.

Infant baptisms are a man-made ritual, according to Baptists, and it is not Christian to use man’s rituals over those of the Bible. And while it takes some extrapolation to conclude that immersion is required, the Bible says that Jesus and others came out of the water, and other passages do seem to support that the biblical baptism was by dunking, including the verse, I think it is in one of the Romans, that says baptism symbolizes life, death, and resurrection. Sprinkling or the thumb’s spreading of water on a forehead doesn’t really seem to be a good symbol of that. (I have wondered if we should draw different messages from some frequent consequences of the different kinds of baptism. Thus, a common result of infant baptism is a wailing baby. Do tears and caterwauling upon first encountering the Trinity mean something? With adult baptism, the first response is gasping for air as the person baptized emerges into the air. Is that somehow symbolic? The baptized baby is often dressed in a nice, sometimes expensive, gown often never worn again. Baptized adults might wear the equivalent of choir robes, but often wear old clothes, as I did, that will be worn again many times. Is there a symbolic meaning there?)

Baptists maintained that the only biblically-based rituals were adult baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  And on the first Sunday of every month we had communion. Little cubes of Wonder bread and shot glasses of Welch’s grape juice were passed around. (As frugal as the church and congregants were, it might not have been Welch’s, but an off brand.) I did like communion, but it brought some of my first doubts. I was told to take the Bible literally, but our church also commanded teetotaling. When I asked about why no wine, I was told that when the Bible said “wine,” it meant grape juice. Hmmm, I thought to myself.

Adult baptism and communion and the Bible. Any other ritual or source comes from man and not God. No genuflecting. No stations of the cross. No Book of Common Prayer. No required kneeling. No incense. No icons. No required head covering. No rosary. No “mandatory” church attendance. No prayers other than to the Trinity. No saints. (It still bothers me to hear “The Gospel According to St. Mark. No, it is the Gospel according to Mark.)

Baptists are not only separated from other denominations by the lack of much ritual but also by the absence of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. The only kind of churches Jesus and his apostles recognized were no larger than a congregation, and Baptists maintain that is what the Christian church should still be. Nothing is above an individual church. No one imposes a minister, priest, or vicar on a Baptist church; the congregation selects its leader. No bishops; no presbytery. Each congregation is supreme. (To be continued.)

I was raised in Wisconsin. I was raised a Baptist. To many these would seem incompatible statements because when they think of Baptists, they think of Georgia or Alabama or Texas. They think of Southern Baptists, but there are many varieties of Baptists in this country. Our church was part of the American Baptist Convention, which now has the name American Baptist Churches. (Earlier it was Northern Baptists.) Our affiliation came from my mother’s side of the family which had roots in upstate New York. If you drive through New York State or New England, you can see hundreds of little frame buildings, invariably white, neat, and small, at crossroads or byways that are American Baptist churches. These northeastern churches always remind me of my First Baptist Church in Wisconsin, which was also small and white. I don’t know about those other churches, but our church building did not have to be large because the congregation was not large. I doubt that the pews ever held anywhere near 100 people at a time.

I have not paid enough attention to the New York churches to know whether they invariably have a belfry, but to me our building seemed especially like a church because hanging in those upper reaches was a real bell. When a boy in my church got to be twelve or so, he would be put on the roster to ring the bell at the beginning of the services. (Back then, I never wondered why girls were not bell ringers.)

I loved ringing the bell. At the appointed time, I would walk upstairs at the rear of the church to the balcony. (With such a small congregation, I never once saw a parishioner up there during a service.) A ladder went from the balcony through a small opening to the belfry. A rope hung from the bell to the floor. We had been instructed on how to ring the bell. The first strike must not be tentative; it had to sound as full-throated as any of the other rings. This meant grabbing the rope as high as possible. I would get on my tiptoes and pull as hard as humanly possible to the floor so that the bell would swing as far is it could and the clapper would hit the bell firmly.

To me it was always a thrilling sound to hear that first strike correctly executed. And just as that first strike had to be full on, the last strike had to be as firm as any other and then silence. We were not to allow any ding, ding, ding trailing off. This required halting the bell’s swinging by getting an extra firm grip on the rope and then holding the rope at the floor as the last striking occurred. And thus the first prayer of the day: “Don’t let the rope slip out of my hand. Don’t let the bell pull me off the floor. Don’t let the bell pull my shoulders out of joint. Don’t let my feet slip.”

With the bell successfully stopped, it had to be carefully returned, through good rope management, to its neutral position where it stayed for another week. Job done. Having felt as if I had called the service to order, I descended the ladder and the stairs to take a seat in a pew. Sometimes as I got to a seat, an adult, almost always a man, would give me a nod, which I took to mean, “Well done.”

That ringing bell was the most flamboyant part of the service. Think about all those jokes you might have heard about the taciturnity of a New England farmer. Our church descended from those roots.  We had a simple service with little ceremony or pomp. Yes, there was hymn singing, a responsive reading, readings from the Bible, and a sermon. I wouldn’t say that it was joyless, but it was staid. I was surprised when I went to church with a high school girlfriend. (Ok, not the hottest date of my life.) The Methodist minister said something that was meant to be amusing during his sermon (it was mildly amusing at best in any other context than a sermon), and some congregants sort of laughed. I realized that in my church, I had never heard a chuckle during the service, much less a laugh. (To be continued.)

The few reporters who did seem to care about the content of what I was saying were often well-known national network correspondents. These interviews were taped, not live or live on tape. The interview was going to be edited, and only a small segment of it would be aired. That portion would be selected by the correspondent. In these situation, I found the reporter pushing me to say a particular thing. I began to realize that when this happened the reporter already knew the story he or she wanted to present and wanted me to say something that would fit this preconception. I might have said many things in the five or ten minutes, but the snippet that would be aired invariably conformed to what I had discerned to be the reporter’s viewpoint.

This began my withdrawal from at least some of the media business. I decided I would not do radio or TV when I could be edited. Soon thereafter, I tried to avoid all broadcast media. I considered myself a scholar and educator, but I seldom felt that I was educating anyone when doing broadcast appearances. A sound bite, even though I took some pride in producing them, was a trifle, a bon-bon, a chocolate truffle, and not much else. Moreover, an edited interview seldom, if ever, captured what I wanted to impart.

I continued, however, to try to accommodate print reporters. Sometimes a newspaper reporter wanted only the equivalent of a sound bite—something pithy that could be quoted to round out a story. But often the reporter was trying to learn something about the subject at hand. As I have learned from my own writing, a writer generally must have some mastery of the subject matter to write cogently. I often had a dialog with print reporters as they sought to understand the difference between murder and manslaughter or how immunity is granted. When this happened, I felt I was doing a public service by being an educator.

Most of the reporters I talked with were on short deadlines and there was little time for more than one conversation, but when they had a longer lead time, they or someone else at the publication would call back to make sure that they had correctly recorded what I had said. They were checking their facts, something that did not happen with broadcast media and does not seem to happen much with certain politicians today. At least one time, this produced an ethical dilemma for me. A magazine’s fact checker read back a quote and asked if I had said it. I knew that I had, but hearing it read back, I knew that it was going to be misconstrued by some readers. Should I deny making it, even though I had? Should I change the words, even though the quote was accurate? I owned up to it, and it was misconstrued, making me look rather heartless. I am still not sure that I did the right thing.

Even though I got used to some fact-checking, I was surprised by one effort. That was when I got a call from someone who worked with Gail Collins, the columnist at The New York Times. I had not been interviewed for what she was writing, but she was asserting something reasonably arcane for a Sunday column, and Collins was not entirely sure that the statement was correct. Her fact checker’s research came across something I had written that indicated that I might know about her assertion’s accuracy, and thus the call to me. Imagine that! Before going public, she was reaching out and taking steps to make sure she had her facts right. And you can make your own sarcastic comments about the fact-checking prowess of at least one person who regularly criticizes the press.

I am content with the career I have had, but sometimes I think back to before I had embarked on it. A couple times I was offered jobs on newspapers, and I wonder what would have happened if I had accepted one of them. As with many of you, I have liked and disliked many of the news sources I have encountered in my life. I wish that I could trust their every word, but that has never been and will never be. I have been part of or witnessed events that have been later reported by news outlets. Almost always, I have found some flaw in the resulting story while, at the same time, usually finding much that was accurate. I have learned what Kevin Young in his important book Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News states, “Daily news changes, evolves; it is truth, on a deadline.”

Of course, journalism has flaws. I have learned that from my readings through the years as well as from my direct, but limited, experiences with the media. But even so, I know that journalism is still one of the most important careers anyone can have.

Once or twice, a reporter came to my home for an interview. One of them was a huge disappointment. A powerful French citizen had been arrested in New York, and I was contacted by the French media as they tried to understand American, and more particularly, New York criminal procedure. After a week or so of this, I was contacted by a reporter from a French radio network, and I definitely perked up. The timbre of her voice was perfect, and ooh la la, that French accent! This was as sexy a voice as I had ever heard. I tried to explain to her what a grand jury was and how a trial jury was selected and the point to our adversary system—concepts not engrained in the French soul. After we had talked for a while, she asked if she could come to my home to interview me in person. Trying to hide my eagerness, I consented; I longed to see this vision. I was at least half-way in love already.

She came the next day. At the front door, she started chattering. To my surprise, she was nervous, but then the cause became obvious. The Brooklyn neighborhood was scaring her, and pointing to a taxi across from the house, said that she was relieved because the cabdriver who had brought her had agreed to remain until she went back to her midtown Manhattan office. The voice was still French-accented and throaty, but lacked that attractive, self-assured, worldly tone from the day before. As I guided her to the living room for the interview, I stole a look at her. Homely might have been a generous description. My thoughts that I might have been starting a Truffaut movie with Catherine Deneuve were shattered. I know that looks can be deceiving, but voices can be, too. On the other hand, she did a thorough, professional interviewing job asking me good questions about how a criminal case proceeded in New York City. She was trying to learn so that she could educate her audience, and I felt I was doing my role as an educator by helping her.

All the interviews for radio and TV were not done in my home or office; instead I was often asked to come to a studio, and I felt as if I were truly important when a network would send a car for me. (This taught me what I already knew: the subway is often a better way to get around Manhattan than an auto, even if someone else is driving.)

The studio interviews were different from the ones in my office because makeup was often applied. I did wonder why if my unvarnished visage was good enough for a camera in my office, it was not good enough in a studio, but I figured the TV people knew best, and I’d sit through a makeup session, which took only a few minutes.

The studio interviews made me more nervous than the office ones. The chance for a second opportunity often disappeared in the studio. In my office, if I mispronounced a word or screwed up in another way, I could say, “Hold it. I messed up there. Ask me that again so I can give a clearer answer.” This seldom happened, but I was relaxed knowing of that possibility. In the studio, it was often live or “live on tape” and that removed any chance for “Let’s do it again.” But while makeup and the elimination of any extra takes made the studio appearance different, it was generally similar to an office interview in that the reporter seemed to be more interested in the prescribed length of the interview rather than the need to inform either the reporter or the audience. (To be continued.)

The President’s approval ratings are low, perhaps historically low, or at least they are if you look at the average of all the respectable polls and don’t cherry-pick the one that is an outlier, as the President will do. The approval rate for Congress is even lower. This skepticism is not limited to the government, but also affects another important institution. Distrust of the media is rampant.

Poll results depend on how a question is framed. Asked generally about Congress, only a small number of respondents approve, but people reply much more favorably when asked about their specific representatives and senators. Something like this may also be true for polls about “the media.” That broad category may get more negatives than questions about the media’s specific subgroups.

Those who regularly watch an evening network news show probably think it does an acceptable job. The same may be true for the Sunday morning news shows or “60 Minutes.” A question that asked about the trustworthiness of cable news networks as a group would not be very useful; the “Fox News” devotee is not likely to think any other cable news source is reliable. Similarly, a broad question about newspapers may elicit much different responses from questions about a local newspaper or about national newspapers, such as The Washington Post or The New York Times. And, of course, a general question about internet news sites seems meaningless as would broad question about social media, YouTube channels, and chain emails.

A question about “mainstream media” also doesn’t make much sense because the meaning of “mainstream” is never clear except it seems to exclude Fox News. I am surprised by that because Fox News regularly touts how much it is watched and often stresses that Fox is watched more than any other cable news networks. Aren’t you, by definition, “mainstream” if you are viewed by so many people? (I recently learned that Fox’s slogan of “fair and balanced” refers to its content. I had assumed that when it said “fair,” it was referring to the hair and skin tones of so many of the women who regularly appear on it. And by “balanced,” I thought it meant something like a teeter totter that always swung down on anything to do with Obama and now is permanently up with Trump.)

The media is not a monolith. If I had not known it before, I certainly learned it in the days when representatives of the media asked me for comments on criminal trials, forensic science, or the jury system. I soon realized that local television or radio was merely looking for a sound bite. The reporter did not really care about the content of what I said, only that it was short and pithy. The reporter’s major goal seemed to be to get something on the air; actually informing the public was a much lesser concern. (A well-known local reporter called me late in the afternoon to ask if I would comment on a trial that had just concluded. As I was about to reply, I could hear her talk to what I assumed was her boss in the newsroom. She was asking to be allowed to send a crew to my office, and he was saying there was not time to do that before the evening news. She insisted she could make it and then said, “He always gives me great quotes.” I had talked with her but one other time.)

A few times I was interviewed at home. Most often this was by telephone for a radio. If it was for a radio network, the reporter often was not looking for a sound bite, but for extended comments, and I felt more comfortable when I thought that I might have the chance to educate listeners about the topic. That was true for a BBC interview on the use of DNA in criminal cases. This particular interview, however, had an unusual twist. I had just finished exercising and was sweaty when the home phone rang. It was a producer from a BBC show who asked if they could interview me live. I said ok, and the producer said that they would call back in a half hour–more than long enough to get the shower I needed. As I stepped out of the spray ten minutes later, the phone rang. I gave the live interview wet and naked—the only time I assure you. (Try not to visualize this—you might not sleep for weeks.) (To be continued.)

“Julien ordered more wine when the first bottle disappeared and was pleased to see that Charlotte drank what he considered to be the correct amount for a woman: less than half but not less than a third of each bottle.” Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray.

One of the few reasons to play golf is to pretend it is ok to buy and wear one of those white, plastic-looking belts.

The brother of a former colleague made and sold pornographic pictures. This bothered the ex-colleague some, but he still stayed in touch with his sibling. One holiday season he gave his brother a beautiful ceramic pot. A few years later he visited his brother, who had some of his pictures hanging in his study. The ex-colleague spied his brother’s girlfriend and his gifted pottery in a photograph. This bothered the ex-colleague, but when he told me the story, he concluded with, “Well, at least she’s got a pot to piss in.”

“Despite the extraordinary intelligence of dogs, cats, seals, dolphins, elephants and chimpanzees, there exists not one among them that a human could train to keep an appointment to meet at a particular location two weeks hence.” Leonard Shlain, Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius.

You take a picture on your phone. You immediately look at it. You might then send it to someone or post it on Facebook or Instagram. But after that initial concern about the photograph, how often do you ever look at any of the pictures you take?

On the Fourth of July, I asked the Australian couple who are on the path to American citizenship if Australia Day was celebrated in a fashion similar to our Independence Day. She said “Yes,” that it came in mid-February and family picnics were often held. I was confused, but was quiet, about the date because I thought I remembered seeing flyovers during the Australian Open and knew that the tennis tournament was over by then. She continued that Australians often heard their National Anthem on that day. I said that I would not recognize that anthem, and she replied that many Aussies did not learn the words when it was changed from God Save the Queen. I looked over at the husband, and he looked lost or as if he were not paying attention. Then he quietly said, “I am pretty sure that it is on January 26.” I had seldom witnessed a husband more gently correct his wife. My admiration for him increased.

“He would ponder all the various forms of laughter there could be. So far, he had only categorized four: laughter at your own expense, laugher at the expense of others, laughter at the human predicament, and laughter at small animals falling off tables.” Jonathan Goldstein, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!

Perhaps my starry-night runs over the Brooklyn Bridge were so vivid because my senses were heightened as I went over the bridge. New York back then was seen, and no doubt was, a much more dangerous place than now. The bridge after dark was reputed to be an unsafe place, and the only patrol I ever saw on it in those days was a sometimes glimpse of a lone cop on a motor scooter. He seemed unlikely to prevent a mugging or assault except perhaps if it was going to be attempted within a hundred yards of him. The walkway always had some people on it during the day, but after dark the walkway was mainly deserted, and this largely unpeopled space led to me being extra alert. Over the course of my running days, the city generally became safer, and more and more people were on the bridge at all times. After years of feeling a certain daring in running over it at night, the fear, never entirely gone, waned. I still found the winter runs on clear nights thrilling, but, perhaps because I now had seen the above-and-below stars many times, but perhaps also because my senses were not as alert as they had once been, the sight, still spectacular, was less so.

Even during New York’s bad days, I did not feel afraid running over the bridge during the day when it had a steady stream of bike riders and pedestrians. But there was one exception. A hundred yards on to the bridge, I could feel someone on a bike following me. I slowed up; he slowed up. I sped up; he sped up. I went one way around a pillar; he went the other. I stopped out of his sight at one pillar and hoped that he would get in front of me. He did not emerge. I resumed my running; he fell in behind me. My heart was racing from more than the running. At the end of the path, he finally came up alongside me and said that he appreciated my running. He had decided that I was a good runner and wanted to see if he could keep up with me, especially on the uphill part. I thought it a bit bizarre, but I was relieved and bid him a good rest of the day.

The walkway physically changed in the years that I regularly ran the Brooklyn Bridge. In the beginning, the gradient was less steep than now because it was punctuated by a dozen or so steps three or four times in the mile. This didn’t make much of a difference to runners and walkers, but it meant that bikers had to get off and carry the bicycle up or down the steps. It meant that bikers seldom got a head of steam, and I thought that kept everything safer. The walkway, however, was renovated to remove the stairs. That concerned me because I thought that bikes would go too fast once they had an uninterrupted half-mile downhill.

The danger now, however, does not come from the bikers as much as from the pedestrians. Back when I ran over the bridge, few tourists were on it. The walkway was primarily used by a certain type of a dedicated New Yorker. Times have changed as the walkway has become a tourist destination. This has brought a group of vendors who mostly congregate on the Manhattan edge of the bridge. The number of the tourist pedestrians has increased so that walking across the bridge is like walking on a crowded sidewalk. The walkway has a line painted down its middle, and those on foot are supposed to be on one side and bike riders on the other. The number of pedestrians, however, has become so large that they almost always spill over onto the bike lane, and, of course, the tourists are gawking, mostly looking for pictures to take. As they move to get the right background for their selfie (would the world really be worse off if the selfie stick had never been invented?), they often do not pay close attention to where they stand and move into the path of a bike. I have yet to see a collision, but I have seen many close calls. When I ran the bridge, I could run freely without having my strides impeded by others. Today that is impossible.

After I gave up running, I often rode a bike over the Brooklyn Bridge, and that could be done safely. That is no longer true, and savvy bike riders now head to the Manhattan Bridge. That bridge’s two walkways are now open. I don’t like them much. They are narrow and next to the road and subway tracks that go over the bridge, and I find that jarring, but one of the walkways is designated just for bikes, and it is a much safer way for the riders to cross the East River than the Brooklyn Bridge.

The renovation of the walkway that eliminated the steps got me some brief, and quite limited, fame. There was a controversy about how the work was to be undertaken. The city planned to close the walkway during the renovations. I then worked in lower Manhattan, and regularly commuted by running over the bridge. One day, I was stopped on the walkway near Manhattan and asked to sign a petition to keep the walkway open during the work. Unbeknownst to me, a Post or Daily News photographer snapped my picture, and that photograph later appeared accompanying the newspaper story. I did not regularly read that newspaper and had not seen the picture, but the next day, I went into Perry’s, the grocery store a couple of blocks from my home where I often shopped in my running clothes. Stewart, the nice guy who ran the store, said that he had seen my picture in the paper. I said that I did not know what he was talking about, and he pulled out the paper from behind the counter. He was right. I was in the picture. As far as I know, Stewart was the only person who saw that picture and recognized me.

I started running by doing it after work, but soon I was also running at lunch a few times a week. At first, I ran around a small park near my downtown Brooklyn office, but then I wanted to go further. I started to run over the nearby Brooklyn Bridge, turn around, and run back. I had walked over the bridge a few times before, but this began what would be many, many more trips over the bridge. As time went on, I frequently ran between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and in those days, the Manhattan Bridge walkway was not open, and the Brooklyn Bridge was often the most convenient route for me. I am not sure what the total number of trips were, but I am confident I ran over it more than a thousand times.

I fell in love with the Brooklyn Bridge. Its distance was satisfying. It is almost exactly a mile from the Brooklyn steps to the walkway to the Manhattan terminus of the bridge. The upward sweep was a bit of a running challenge, but not too much so, and going downwards was not too steep to be excessively hard on my knees. It was also pleasing because the walkway is on a higher level than the roadway. I would be aware of the cars and when there was bad traffic on the bridge, try to race them across the span, but the elevated walkway kept me separate from the traffic. Mostly, however, it was satisfying to run the Brooklyn Bridge because of its beauty and the sights I could see.

The bridge’s Gothic arches are iconic for good reason and have captured the imaginations and talents of artists, including, of course, those of Georgia O’Keefe’s. Those stone arches, however, did more than just define the bridge. Because of the bridge’s incline, the arches were not only in front of me, but also above me. They seemed to represent a symbolic goal. From the Brooklyn side, they framed the Manhattan skyline through their openings. They made me want to reach Manhattan, be a part of Manhattan. That skyline, however, cannot be contained in the frame of the arches. It extends above and around those pillars. New York can be reached; it can be entered, but it can never be encompassed. There is always more.

I especially loved running the bridge towards Manhattan after a light rain. The walkway consisted of wooden beams, and when wet, those planks would reflect the arches. The arches were underfoot and in front of and above me all at the same time.

Running to Manhattan in the early morning on a clear day brought a different kind of light. I would be running west and the rising sun would be behind me. The windows of the Manhattan skyline would catch the sun and be aglow. The reflected oranges and yellows and reds made it seem as if a light show were being performed.

It seldom seemed as exciting running over the bridge towards Brooklyn. Brooklyn was home, but Manhattan had the better skyline. Even so, sometimes the run to Brooklyn, too, brought spectacular sights. There is a period in the spring and fall when the sun, as viewed from the bridge, sets directly behind the Statue of Liberty. When I would see that, I would always stop and soak up the sight. With the sun low on the horizon, the sun appeared unnaturally large and almost looked as if it were attached to the Statue. I never found a spot off the bridge where I could observe this phenomenon, and when I saw it, I was always grateful that I had taken up running.

The bookend to this was seeing a full moon rising over Brooklyn as I ran home with an early night run. A rising full moon has always been spectacular to me, but it was even more so from the elevation of the bridge walkway.

Another night scene was more memorable to me. Sometimes I ran over the bridge on a cold, clear winter’s night–the kind of night when everything in the sky is extra crisp, and although stars are not really a New York City feature, where even the stars stood out. The bridge’s wooden-slatted walkway had gaps between the boards. Through them I could see down to the East River. On these nights, the stars above stood out as if they could be touched, but looking down in the cold air, crisp images of lights could be seen reflected by the water. Those lights may only have been from buildings or vehicles, but they seemed to be the reflected stars. It felt as if the stars were above and below me, and I was running in their midst.

My running days are long gone, but my attraction for the Brooklyn Bridge has not ended. On occasion, I walk over it. This is now a bit of a struggle, and I am often amazed that it once was a nearly effortless run. Still, almost every time I go over the Brooklyn Bridge, I still find a sight that amazes or inspires me. As a result, my living room is filled with images of the bridge. I have an oil painting; a numbered print; photographs; a reproduced image I saw oat a New York Public Library exhibit; Christmas cards; and more, all depicting the Brooklyn Bridge.  (To be continued.)

When you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, do you wash your hands before going back to bed?

The “pro-life” activist said that we must protect the rights of all human beings, the born and the unborn. I wondered why she stopped there in her personal definition of “human being.” Why not all human beings, the born, the unborn, and the dead? If she believes in eternal life, as I assume she does, shouldn’t the deceased count, too, if we are going to redefine what is a human being?

“As was often the case when an independent woman was wronged, the media began judging the victim.” Patricia M. Salmon, Staten Island Slayings: Murderers & Mysteries of the Forgotten Borough.

A notice in the elevator car of a friend’s building informed the residents that garbage must be properly disposed of or else there could be “an infestation of unwanted vermin.” I wondered what vermin were wanted.

A man promises his wife that he will be home at six and will bring a pizza and a salad for dinner. He arrives at six but does not have a pizza and a salad. Or he arrives at nine with a pizza and a salad. Has he kept his promise? If a candidate promises to build a wall on our southern border that will be paid for by Mexico, has he kept his promise by seeking American taxpayer money from Congress to build part of a wall on our southern border? (How many of you remember Trump at campaign rallies saying that he would build a “beautiful” wall on the whole border and then saying, “And who is going to pay for it?” with the crowd enthusiastically shouting, “Mexico!”)

I had forgotten the German-Turkish-American server’s name. She feigned, I think, that she was upset. I said, referring to the Mexican-American server/busboy standing next to her, “I have known him longer, and I forget his name.” She replied, “We call him Doughnut.” I looked at him and said, “Why is that?” He just smiled, and she explained. “He went to a house of pleasure, and instead of giving out dollar bills, he handed out doughnuts.” The Colombian-American bartender said that it was a strip club near Costco. The Mexican-American server/busboy had bought the doughnuts at a fancy neighborhood shop, and he had given them out to the strippers. He would not tell me what kind the doughnuts were—I thought that they should have been Boston cream–but his English is limited, and he might not have understood the question. A few minutes later, however, he looked at me with his always sweet smile and said, “Now I am a VIP.”

“Helen Twombley liked that word [duckish]; it meant the time between sunset and dark.” Howard Norman, The Bird Artist.