the small town park. The greeting plaque welcomed us to the future home of James T Kirk. The driver stopped by a statue. Another marker proclaimed his future birth. I breathed in the night air thinking this town made James T Kirk, the captain of the USS Enterprise, was he was. I was that drunk.

"How you feel?" James asked, as my Scottish friend drank a beer with Rockford.

"Like I went to Jerusalem." In fact this was even more holy than Jerusalem. Jesus was a myth and James t Kirk was a myth in the making.

"I thought you would, now how about going back to your hotel for some serious drinking."

"You got it." James lived out here most of the year. He didn't speak to outsiders much. His wifeno stranger to adversity and told her admirers. "Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them."

She discovered her truth about nerve fibers in a bedroom lab thanks to Mussolini.

You never know where the road will lead as long as you stay forever young.

The Masoretic version of the Bible purported that Methuselah achieved the epic age of 969. His name has become synonymous with longevity in the West. No one in modern history has touched his nonacentarian record, although my great-grand aunt Bert lived to 103.

She circled the world in a sailing ship. One port of call was Bangkok. Bert was the first of my family to visit the Siamese capitol, but not the last. Other relatives have reached ripe old ages. My father lived to