Bright Ideas

On Wednesday, December 5, I turned 68. It will be the first year since I was in my early 20s when I won’t get a check, worth one dollar for every year I have lived. (It got better the older I turned). My mother started the tradition when I was 25, and we lived in Australia.

First of all, you’re not supposed to send checks to another country, where the bank has to deal with the exchange rate. And if that weren’t enough, she made the check to me, using my maiden name!

I explained her errors to the local bank where we had a checking account. They understood mothers in general and specifically my...