I canceled my fax service the other day. It had dawned on me—belatedly, very belatedly—that I was paying AT&T, my telephone service out here in California, forty-seven dollars a month for something I hadn’t used in—well, at least several years, perhaps more. Forty-seven dollars used to be enough to buy a glorious dinner for two, with wine included, at one of the best French restaurants in New York, back in the era, sixty years ago, when I lived in New York. It wouldn’t even cover the tip at such places, these days. But even so one can always find useful

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