No one, perhaps, has had more influence on my social and political thinking than William F. Buckley, Jr.

Like others, I remember his robust command of the English language and rapier wit.  I recall reading (ala Notes and Asides) a letter written by someone who was upset by something WFB had written and promised to never again touch an issue of “that bi-monthly rag”.  Buckley replied that he resented his NR being called a bi-monthly rag….“it is a fortnightly rag”, he corrected.  Touché.

There was, of course, National Review – and his spy novels and opinion columns – but the works I loved best were his sailing journals.  In them, he seemed to present a sublime sense of the transcendental life of both ancient and eternal mariner.

When the history of our last century is definitively written, some ages hence, I believe it will record that the Tyranny of the Vicariously Compassionate was held at bay, in large measure, by the sheer will of this intellectual giant.  Fair winds, WFB.
Charles Bryant, Tulsa, OK