Fifty years ago, Earth Day took the country by storm, sparked by events like a massive oil spill off Santa Barbara, a river in Ohio catching fire, and the silent spring of pesticides.

My son Owen’s fourth grade teacher announces that it is “Drop Everything and Read Day.”

Let’s start with time. As T. S. Eliot wrote some 70 years ago, “In my beginning is my end.”

He was perched at the carved wood and marble bar of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, eyes glittering like black diamonds.

Finding bright spots in the darkness. Chapter 3.

Chappaquiddick, the Hollywood version, has a scene of the Ted Kennedy character walking through downtown Edgartown.