An old friend sent me a list today of all the former employees of the Wilson Publishing Company who would be attending a reunion in the next week or so.

The list spans more than 40 years. I was surprised to find that I know or recognize nearly half the names. Each name sent me into fresh reverie, triggered a sweet memory of another era.

My friend, Brian Mitchell, like me, was an editor of one of Wilson’s several weekly newspapers in Southern Rhode Island. Brian’s was the newest of the three and he got to create his paper from scratch – a most challenging and yet, enviable, task.

Mine was a hand-me-down, more than 100 years old but well-cared for – the flagship paper of the little Wilson empire, The Narragansett Times.