Lately—wandering myself so near the privileged vista of Fifty, fretting now as the worrywart father of two—I can only marvel at Grace Meadows Delman, her grief-stricken carelessness in shipping me north five days after Dad’s funeral. She is still alive, she is yet sexually active, and (natch) a resident of Florida. I must tell you later: At our curious seaside reunion last year, the woman at least started to explain.

II.

Age eight, arrived by train wearing a brass-buttoned maroon uniform that made me feel like both a chimp and a chest of drawers, I found myself standing at attention on the muddy windblown soccer field. I had been banished here to march in something called the Junior Color Squad. I had no idea what any of this meant. I’m sure I still don’t. But, feeling confused while hoisting the snapping flag at a forty-five-degree angle, trying to keep its pine staff upright as my own child-spine never could remain for long, I did accidentally achieve at least one minor-chord form of early immortality. (I guess you could call it my first publication.)

Near the back of last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine, beside the Crossword answers, opposite a quaint section devoted to diet camps for the troublingly chubby kids of the persons glazedly svelte, a column is given over to those also-ran boarding schools that still need to advertise. And there you’ll find a listing for my make-do alma mater.

The ad’s boilerplate photograph—timeless and yet slightly dated in some way now adjudged half classy—shows two uniformed boys. The brunette to the right stands blowing his trumpet. And, beside him, holding a huge flag, heraldic if unfamiliar, another male child squints at you, a blond kid appearing very bullied if noble, mild.

Pitifully pretty, he looks embarrassed at discovering himself far too visible and this overtly Caucasian; the kid stands half lost under a black-billed cap. My worldly daughters look it up every Sunday. They tease me—oh, they’re merciless. They call this uniformed child “The Salt Shaker.” I guess because he seems the paler half of some matched set. A real little “whiteyhead,” he is.

I pretend to whine at all of this; I hide my face behind “Sports” and then go nose-down into the “Book Review.” My girls enjoy such fond and weekly ribbing. But sometimes, when they’ve left the room for a few more gallons of Diet Coke, I’ll slowly turn toward the ad. I feel suspense almost—squinting over my now-necessary bifocals.

A few pages earlier, find come-ons for sponsor-seeking outfits that intend to stamp out international hunger. As bait, they offer photos of darling grieved third-world kids. You’re being asked to adopt one in exchange for cute snapshots of “yours” shown in his cleanly rags. You can expect your kid’s biannual letters written directly to you, and in his own dear crabbed (if now-protein-stoked) handwriting.