William F. Buckley's yahrzeit

Bill Buckley died one year ago this week. His son Christopher remembers him today. Excerpt from the son's eulogy for his father:

How many words flowed from those keyboards. I went up to Yale recently to inspect his archive of papers. They total 550 linear feet. To put it in perspective, the spire of St. Patrick's rises 300 feet above us. By some scholarly estimates, he may have written more letters than any other American in history. Add to that prodigal output: six thousand columns, 1500 Firing Lines, countless articles, over 50 books. He was working on one the day he died.

Jose Martí famously said that a man must do three things in life: write a book, plant a tree, have a son. I don't know that my father ever planted a tree. Surely whole forests, whole eco-systems were put to the axe on his account. But he did plant a lot of seeds and many of them, grown to fruition, are here today. Quite a harvest, that.

It's not easy coming up with an epitaph for such a man. I was tempted by something Mark Twain once said, "Homer's dead, Shakespeare's dead, and I myself am not feeling at all well."

Years ago, he gave an interview to Playboy Magazine. Asked why he did this, he couldn't resist saying, "In order to communicate with my 16--year old son." At the end of the interview, he was asked what he would like for an epitaph and he replied, " 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.'" Only Pup could manage to work the Book of Job into a Hugh Hefner publication.