I like to laud my parents for getting married on this date in 1936 but giving birth to me ten years later. Indeed, I was conceived right after World War II. Aware of the coming war, they wisely postponed the pleasure of having me. As I was talking about my parents’ marriage at Benjamin’s today, I realized that my praise had a personal twist to it, too: were it not for the war, I would have been nine years older than I am today. To wit, I would have been seventy-seven. At my age, nine years are hardly a joke. If only I could credit my parents for this felicitous age difference.