Tom McLaughlin: The final deadline

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten,” according to Psalm 90, and I reached that milestone yesterday, April 7. We live longer here in the 21st century United States than people did in ancient Israel when Psalm 90 was written, but not much longer. Because of a circulatory condition I didn’t think I’d make it even this far because I haven’t been able to purchase life insurance since I was 33. Yet here I am, still sucking oxygen.

Reaching 70 seems like a good time to take stock and make some changes. I began writing for publication sometime during the Carter administration. My pieces were occasional until sometime late in the George H. W. Bush administration when I committed to writing a regular, weekly column for various newspapers. With advent of the internet, several websites picked it up, too, and up to now about 1,500 columns have been published in hard copy. Deadlines for 800-word columns have crimped my weekly schedule ever since, and that has become tiresome.