Scraps, or: The Judge, the Countess and My Mother

Scraps, or: The Judge, the Countess and My Mother

They accumulate, the scraps of material there wasn't room for a column, but are too good to throw away. So, like a good seamstress, the prudent columnist puts them away for another time, confident they'll fit in somewhere someday. Or maybe make a patchwork quilt of a column when they're all sewn together.

My mother used to have a big box of such scraps. She never threw anything away. Now and then when I was a boy I'd find one of them incorporated in one of my shirts or a pair of pants. Neat. The economy of it...