But I'll start with the New York Knicks.  According to the New York Times , the Knicks gave their city something new, IMPOSSIBLE JOY .   It is different because New York’s mass unifying events tend to imply unbearable tragedy: 9/11, Sandy, Covid. Their best player, Jalen Brunson, was small (for basketball), underestimated (by his last team), conditioned (by his father, a former Knick) to know that winning here would mean more than winning anywhere else. This place has cheated bankruptcy, built (and rebuilt) towers, raised Jay-Z and J. Lo and J-Seinfeld. It has been told to drop dead and refused. It has elected a billionaire and a socialist and a Bill de Blasio. It has processed Donald Trump as a 20-something curiosity, a chattering pooh-bah, a steak salesman, a defendant and a president whose attendance in Game 3 had Knicks maniacs of all political persuasions wondering about an executive curse. Then from Sports Illustrated : Some of the greatest athletes in sports history hav...

 I retired in 1999 at the age of 59, so I've had a quarter century of bliss.  But more about that later. Then there is Bette Nash.  She passed away last month at the age of 88.  She was an avid New York Yankees fan, and last lived at a retirement community in New Hampshire. Was born in 1935. Hired in 1957 by Eastern Air Lines as a legal secretary, but attended its charm school and became a stewardess in 1958, the year I graduated from high school. Kept working as a flight attendant through her marriage to James Nash in 1973, and had a son, who has suffered from Down syndrome.  She continued working. Switched to Trump Shuttle in 1989 after Eastern's shuttle and 17 aircraft were sold to Donald Trump. But, as most of Trump's enterprises fizzled, including this one, she moved to U.S. Airways Shuttle, which became American Airlines Shuttle in 2015 when those companies merged. Honored by American Airlines for 60 years of service , given diamond earrings by chairman CE...