We need more holidays

Visitors today ranged from the 2-year-old son of my former colleague and friend Erika Rosenberg (who came with his Mom) to my 83-year-old former colleague, friend and fellow pancreatic cancer survivor Read Kingsbury (who came with his wife Neva Flaherty, who is another old newspaper friend).

Two-year-old Nate was definitely more of a handful, deciding in the impeccable logic of his age group that chess pieces, a fireplace shovel, letters from a Boggle game and a telephone were much more fun to play with than the Legos and big box of toys his Mom had brought along.

I thought Erika was energetic as a reporter when she was in our bureau from 1999 to 2004 (which she was) but I can see it was a mere warmup for keeping tabs on Nate, who is adorable and even let me give him a hug.

What Read lacks in energy he makes up in wisdom. The long-time editorial-page editor of the Rochester Times Union is still writing opinion pieces weekly for papers on Cape Cod and Block Island, keeping the locals up on issues like global warming and cap-and-trade that seldom get intelligent comment in smaller papers.

I also took a walk and had lunch with with another former colleague, Yancey Roy, who left our bureau about two years ago to become the media honcho (not his exact title) for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

He took my ribbing about having yet another day off with grace, and let me commiserate about the Red Sox and also cry on his shoulder.

What better friends could anyone ask for?