Upper East Side

New York Hello friends, and a merry Christmas to you all. I suspect we are all eager to see the back of this year. But the season brings on my sentimentality, and I wonder what waits on the other side of this particular solar circumnavigation. We will welcome spring and, hopefully, with it, the lifting of lockdown. Walking around the dreary streets of the city, I worry what we’ll leave behind us in this annus horribilis. Crowds are thin, sidewalks spare. Eyes are downcast. Has the virus won the War on Christmas? I pray not. When I was a boy, Christmas in the Dent household was a New York affair. The city was near its nadir, yet the Yuletide charm brought out its best, and ours.

New York Hullo, readers. Many thanks for the kind notes and well-wishes. I’ve fully recovered from my bout with the plague and am only a little worse for wear. I’m desperate for a bit more time on the water, but I’m convinced my palate hasn’t yet recovered. I’ve been reduced to taking brandy in the evenings. Still, though far from splendid, isolation hasn’t been all bad. I’ve spent a great deal of time on the phone with my brother Richard. We’re not naturally expressive people, and I’m more than a bit embarrassed about the state of my marriage. But our respective sheltering-in-place, his in Boston and mine in New York, has turned us into talkers. Like the rest of the family, I’ve always called him Dickie.