Continuing with the sailing-dream sequence, the top A&J strip is a portent of things to come: an early disappearance of son Gene. The second strip featuring a well-known entertainer earned me two free tickets to one of his concerts. I can tell you almost exactly when that was. It was the fall of 2001, 18 years ago. I remember it well, because we had to line up with a few thousand other people outside the Birmingham Civic Center and wait for what seemed like forever while, one by one, we went through security, including a metal detector. That was a first time I’d ever encountered that at a concert or any event of that nature, but it wouldn’t be the last. This particularly concert was about two months after Sept. 11, 2001.