The End of the Summer Is the Beginning of a New Shapiro Era

As temperatures drop and our minds refocus, my world is very different that what it was in the spring.

Labor Day is traditionally considered to be the end of summer. It certainly doesn’t feel that way in Northern Virginia—on one hand, kids started school two weeks ago (which makes no sense to me), while on the other temperatures will be in the 90s for another week—but September does tend to get the mind back into focus after the dog days of vacation and a more leisurely work pace for most professionals.

For me it brings a new mindset in more ways than one. Ever since my dad passed two months ago, I’ve felt acutely the weight of orphaned middle age. It doesn’t help that my body decided that this would be the year to add assorted creaks and ailments to the mix, of late what I imagine is sciatica—now almost completely resolved so I’m grateful not to need a hip replacement in my 40s.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

’s discussion of healthy aging really hit home as I’ve tried to incorporate new exercise and nutrition regimens in the face of extreme stresses. After an insane two years of running for school board, changing jobs, the Georgetown cancelation saga, changing jobs again, getting a book deal, having twins, writing said book with infants in the house plus two other little boys and a declining father . . . it’s been a lot.

And that’s where we get to the introspection that comes from losing your second parent as an only-child immigrant of only-child immigrants who’s now by default the keeper of the family legacy. It specifically weighs on me that I’m the only one who can tell the tale of (1) my worldly paternal grandfather Yakov (for whom my oldest son is named), (2) my brilliant mother Galina (for whom my youngest and only daughter is named), and (3) my parents’ scratching and clawing to give me an idyllic childhood that launched me on a path where I can provide my kids a childhood that’s much more comfortable but hopefully just as idyllic. From the privations of Siberian exile to the privilege of Falls Church in one generation. As a different Yakov, the Soviet emigre-turned-comedian (in Branson!) Smirnov would say, what a country!