Golden State

Dearest Family and Friends, The French have a proverb: “No man is a hero to his valet.”  Or, I might add, to his grandchildren. It wasn’t always that way with my grandchildren, and I brought about my own downfall. I can’t blame Marcia, which is unfortunate because one of the purposes of having a wife is to take the rap for things she hasn’t done. Yet my undoing was so clearly of my own making that there is nothing to be gained by pretending otherwise.  This story starts four years ago when my twin grandchildren, Vivian and Irene, were three years old and just starting to walk with confidence. I stared directly into their clear azure eyes and told them in all seriousness that unlike the other people in their lives, I was perfect — that I knew everything and made no mistakes. I don’t know why I conjured this story, a claim that from the very onset contained the kernel of its own collapse. Perhaps I wanted to teach my grandchildren a life lesson about human frailty. Or maybe I wa...