In 1989 when we started our business, The Lovely Marianne asked me what I was going to do to make money for her and our four daughters. I told her I was going to write books, but it would take some time to do that.

I’m 69 years old and my hair is as brown as it was when I was a teenager. A bit of it, mostly around my ears and the back of my neck, sneaks in as gray, but some Russian barber just buzzes those stray hairs away and I’m back to being a young fella again. I like the Russian barbers.

We live on The Isle of Long, which means that if you throw a rock you’ll hit a large, chrome-plated diner. These palaces of gastronomy have just about anything you could want for any meal of the day and the food arrives on the table seconds after you decide what you want, and often even before.

In 2016, when I retired from speaking and traveling just about everywhere, I got involved with the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York. The society has been meeting regularly since 1785. They opened, and continue to operate, the second-oldest membership library in New York City.

Decades ago, I was rocking on the porch of a Victorian house we had rented for a week in Cape May, New Jersey, our beautiful summer city by the sea.

In 1970, when I started in the heating industry, there was a battle going on between the folks who believed in catching and controlling the air in a hydronic system by holding it inside a plain-steel compression tank, and those who thought it was best to catch the air and just get rid of it using automatic air vents and diaphragm-type compression tanks.

It pays to have the right vehicle for the job.

Men and women often communicate differently.

Rules often exist for a reason.

A list of things life has taught me so far.