The mailbox saved my life in 2018. I was swept up in a political hit when a high school friend of mine was nominated to the Supreme Court. Extortionists, psychotics, the media and Congress called for my head. The Washington Post slimed me, even if they couldn’t find me. My only known address, wrote Marc Fisher, was “a UPS box in Georgetown.” Fisher also noted that I was “a rebel” who was “outspoken, profane, sometimes boorish, but also surpassingly loyal to his friends.” Up your ass, Marc.

During the height of the fall 2018 insanity I drove by to pick up my mail. Out front was a reporter with a camera. She was casually pacing up and down the sidewalk, waiting. Waiting for me. I slowly parked in front of the store and just watched her. I was her prey, and just feet away. I silently drove away. It was several weeks before I picked up my mail. There was a stack of it, and I didn’t know what I would find—death threats? I was relieved to see it was mostly normal stuff. It lifted my soul to see several issues of The New Criterion and DownBeat. There was also a marriage proposal. Civilization might survive after all.