This week’s column is about my lunch with Gordon Atkinson in San Antonio, and funny stories we tell ourselves. His was funnier.

I suspect a big reason we ended up friends, though, is because we’ve been married for more than 30 years to women we adore, women who confuse, delight, and amuse us, and essentially keep us alive. We both married fairly young by contemporary standards, and so we’ve been putting miles on our marriages and our knees at about the same rate.

And we’re both the fathers of daughters. Some of you are nodding. Some of you have absolutely no idea.