Dad read passionately The New York Times daily since 1949 when he moved his family from Shanghai to Queens, New York. He participated at the birth of the United Nations in 1946 at London and Lake Success, Long Island. If the local stationery store were out of The New York Times, Dad would walk miles to the next store to buy it. Often he would take the bus and subway to Manhattan's NY Times Office to get a copy. When he moved to Palo Alto in 1979, we got him a home-delivery subscription so he didn't have to search for his beloved The New York Times. He kept up this ritual for 51 years, first reading the Obituary pages, then the Editorials and OP-Eds. Then he would read the International & National news, and the Arts sections. The Sunday New York Times would keep him busy for the whole day. His favorites were the Book Review, This Week in Review, and the Sunday Magazine.

Dad's library contained clippings from The New York Times relevant to the author or book. He was meticulous and wrote the date and page number of each clipping. In his Wilhelm & Baynes I Ching book, I found Cary Baynes obituary (Nov. 10, 1977), and learned that she died at 94 in Ascona, Switzerland. In his Jacques Barzun's An Essay on French Verse were obituaries of poets Charles Olson (Jan. 11, 1970) and David Ignatow (Nov. 19, 1997) and a book review of Allen Ginsberg's Collected Poems: 1947-1980 (Dec. 15, 1984). One of Dad's latest clippings was an obituary of "Herbert Young, Who Fought in World War I, Dies at 112" (April 28, 1999) when Dad was nearly 97 years old. Dad enjoyed reading the New York Times on the Web "On This Day: Oct. 20, 2000" June 2, 1952 obituary of John Dewey and "On This Day: Nov. 15, 2000" March 7, 1986 obituary of Georgia O'Keeffe. During Dad's last year at Westgate Rehab Center, he looked forward to reading his favorite newspaper. I've bookmarked interesting articles from The New York Times that kept Dad's mind afresh.