(see throat-clearing introduction)

Of course, all of us are moving through time, one foot in the past, one in the future. And we are not typically blessed with the ability to see inflection points, except in retrospect. In any case, I can see now that the summer after my freshman year at MIT, starting 50 years ago this month, was a point of demarcation.

It was a fecund time of writing. I know a lot of you marvel at the quantity of my output today; I am a piker compared to young Paul. That summer, while working full -time at KGW-TV and part time at KKEY radio, I wrote a love letter every day to the woman, thousands of miles away, who would be my first lover―meaning it was my last summer as a virgin.

I condensed a 500-page journal of my freshman year to 35,000 words (available on request). I wrote my last three radio scripts.

I looked back fondly on my first two non-romantic female friends who, unbeknownst to me, I would never see again. I had my last date with the girl I took to the Senior Prom, who taught me a few lessons that made me a better lover for her successors.

It was my penultimate summer living in my childhood home with my parents.

Some things were going on that were clouded in the mists of the future, and so, unknown to me at the time. My future wife had recently moved back to LA from Germany, where she lived on and off with her lover of five years; they broke up. In Des Moines, Dayton and Chicago, the three best friends of my life were preparing to arrive at MIT and meet me in the fall. All of them attended my wedding a decade later, one as my best man.

I attempted to make some deliberate changes in myself that summer; I tried playing tennis left-handed to see if I could be ambidextrous. I tried to consciously lower my voice. I rode my bike five miles to work every day and went on the Stillman diet to lose weight. By summer’s end, I’d lost weight.