This column will attempt to honor and re-affirm a lost tradition: the personal essay. The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into the readers ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom. Through sharing thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, and whimsies, the personal essayist sets up a relationship with the reader, a dialogue--a friendship, if you will, based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship. To this end I hope to be as successful as my literary hero's, the great ones, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, George Orwell, H. L. Mencken, Annie Dillard, and most of all, Nenslo O of Portland, Oregon. (The commentary button has been disabled on this site because you are here to read what I write, think about it and nothing more. Just like an old-fashion newspaper.)