I’m closing out my eighth decade, and since I’ve always wanted my own opinion column, I’m starting one now. With four daughters and a few good friends, I have potential readers, and I’d like to share some of my thoughts, observations, memories, discoveries, conclusions I’ve come to and questions I’m still asking.

I transplanted myself from Colorado to Oregon several years ago, love both states and have daughters (and their families) in both. I’ve been widowed for a long time. During my working years, most of my jobs had something to do with the translation of ideas into words. And on my own, I’ve always been a reader and a writer, even though mostly unpublished and unknown.

How much time do I have left, of health and eyesight and soundness of mind, for this enterprise? I don’t know, of course. What took me so long? Don’t ask. All I know is that here I am, a deer in the headlamp of that onrushing train.