`The Proof was Always on the Page'

Good health spoils us. A bad cold is less suffering than irritation. Why me? Why not? In Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement, Richard Brookhiser writes:

“But nothing comes unmixed. Age brought the trials of age, to Bill and, indirectly, to his colleagues. His hearing began to go. He helped it depart by firing a pistol out his bedroom window in Stamford at the geese on his lawn.”

Humor helps. Of Al D’Amato, Brookhiser writes: “A gross being, he could be funny.” I remember Irving Howe calling D’Amato a “chowderhead,” Three Stooges-style.

Brookhiser dedicates Right Time, Right Place to Terry Teachout and writes of him:

“Terry was a little reserved, a little anxious, bursting with attention, eager to show how much he knew. None of us ever needed persuading of that; the proof was always on the page.”

Just writing that, I feel better.