Whenever someone passes at too young an age or due to some tragic mishap or a stroke of bad luck, someone always says that the recently departed “loved life.” Which I would call a nice but imprecise sentiment. It’s so vague it’s almost meaningless.

HE’s definition of a lover of life would be the Kinks guy who loves living adjacent to Waterloo Station.

I’m actually a lover of the splendor and symphony of all great European train stations. Ditto the great cities and towns — Paris, Rome, Munich, Hanoi, Hoi An, Milan, Prague, Venice, Arcos de la Frontera, Caye Caulker, portions of Key West, the Berkshires, Monument Valley, Lauterbrunnen — and the tens of thousands of beautiful pastoral vistas all over. Ditto my cats, my granddaughter Sutton and her parents Jett and Cait and Sutton’s Uncle Dylan, black Volvo wagons, BMW rumblehogs, heavy leather jackets, Indian or Italian dishes, vinyl record albums, cookies & cream gelato, Italian suede lace-ups, etc.

The only negative that comes to mind amidst all this joy and nurture and rapture, the only aspect of life on planet earth that I consistently have problems with and which generally darkens my worldview are…well, people. Not everyone, of course. The majority are fine. I can just can’t with the three-toed sloths.