And So It Begins

"The View from the Mantelpiece" is an homage to a story my father has told for as long as I can remember. He claims to recall being perched on the mantelpiece at the age of 18 months.

Okay, so maybe "story" is an overstatement.

Anyway, the columns in my college newspaper had names, not just bylines -- "Sidewalk Social Scientist," from a Blondie song, was one of my favorites. I always thought that if I ever had a column, I'd call it "The View from the Mantelpiece." Naturally, the year I got a column, they stopped assigning names to them, so I never got to. Now I can.