A month ago, I received an email I never expected. As I read it, I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.

Once more, the political season is upon us. I just returned from a week of canvassing in North Carolina.

I have participated in the Cross-Island Hike at least 15 times, but at 77 years old, at the end of each year’s hike I mutter: “This will be my last one.”

The first notice I received was from the Registry of Motor Vehicles announcing I had a birthday coming up, and was required to renew my driver’s license.

Fifty years ago I was in line in the cafeteria at Boston University. A radio played in the background, and I heard the stunning news: Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot on the balcony of a Memphis motel.

Some say it’s trudging over the hill. Others consider it the prime of life.