I’m having flashbacks. Big time. This started with a personal story told by actor-comedian Jim Carrey. He had a frightening experience that reminded me of a fear I’ve carried since the early ’60s.

It was early Sunday. Our air conditioner kicked on. My happy button triggers every time that happens. It had been happening a lot.

Before me was an invitation that beckoned: “Come. Discover.” I had stepped through this old wooden door before. This time I was on a mission and this was the perfect portal — taking me nowhere in particular or anywhere I wanted to be.

It’s fitting that Aldo Leopold would mourn the death of the prairie in a graveyard. I feel I am doing something similar in my front yard. But let me tell his story first.

Yes, today my age rolls into a higher number. Oh boy. My Facebook page is heating up with friends and family wanting me to be happy.

We had wandered into an oasis away from the steel and glass stalagmites, congestion of traffic and humanity, and major tourism beacons.

"For me, (inspiration is) often a comment I hear or read that captures me and demands that I do something with it," Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, in his weekly PaperWork column.

"But know this. If I ever say to you, 'Good luck.' I really mean it," Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, writes in his weekly PaperWork column.

"A trip to New York always provides stories to tell. Or for starters, a series of observations. Let me share more of my notes," Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, writes in his weekly column PaperWork.

"We get caught up in the story and the characters but I also remind myself that a human being, a real character, created the story with people we become attached to and relate to and remember," writes Lonny Cain, the retired managing editor of The Times, in his weekly column.

"I never cared for report cards," Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, writes in his Paperwork column.

Let me tell you about this dream. I’m driving down a long stretch of highway, and I can see my future in the distance. I see myself slowly aging as I get closer.

Follow me please. We’re taking a little walk through my house.

“Dodge and weave! Dodge and weave!” That’s me shouting my life advice for the day.

My love of books should be well known by anyone who knows me or reads these weekly chats. But today I want to share your love of books.

Sarah knew before the rest of us. But none of us expected how fast her fight would end.

If I’m getting sentimental about libraries, I must start there, when I borrowed my first book.

I’ve added something to my morning coffee wake-up. A daily ritual.

It was a lightning moment, sparked by a few words. A simple sentence. I cannot recall all those specifics, but I remember the words, who said them, and the overwhelming feeling that washed over me.

Right now I’m fighting an urge to pull out some old LPs or maybe my 45s. But I will put that off for now ... so I can tell you why.

OK. I must tell you about my fingernail. The right hand, thumbnail to be exact.

When I spill out thoughts and personal observations each week I sometimes feel like the great pretender. Or perhaps the better word is “wimp.”

Oh, the things people will do for money. And television lets us watch them.

So many things are changing. Change. It’s in my head where I’ve been replaying that song, the one where Quincy Jones laments the steamroller we call time.

I was in seventh grade when I had my first revealing eye exam. When I was condemned to a life of wearing glasses.

“Reading cursive can now be added to the list of most-wanted skills – at least according to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration,” reports Danielle Jennings in People magazine.

Every week I drag part of my life story to the curb. Want to know more about me? Then join me at the end of my driveway on Tuesday night.

My friend Joan was lamenting the speed of life.

A bit of Jimmy Carter’s legacy spilled into my world last week.

Oh, Henry, Henry, Henry. You had no idea what the future would bring. By that I mean more “brain rot.”

The clock was nudging noon. Then I had to laugh at my first thought.

I talk to Mom and Dad now and then. Their photo. That’s not unusual, right?

This happens every year. Every Christmas season. And I cannot shake it.

“Keep the home fires burning.” I borrow those words from the British song of the same name composed during World War I.

Max Planck supports a theory that consciousness does not depend on our brain to exist and could move on when the brain stops. Perhaps to another brain. Another life.

Life is a countdown. To you know what. Sure, we all know this, but then we cross some kind of threshold. We reach a certain age and find ourselves measuring time. Counting down the numbers of years we might have left. At least I do.

My “Blue Book” is open and saddens my day, on this Nov. 18.

... what I really want to tell you about is the little French lady with the cast iron frying pan.

I was standing there because there was a D-Day, June 6, 1944, when all around me was bloody chaos.

The trip involved 21 days of travel: three plane flights, two train trips, one touring bus, one mini-touring bus and many various and some colorful Uber drivers.

As promised … more from the PaperWork mailbag.

This column that pops out of my mental toaster each week is always about connecting. Me to you. You to me.

I like to compare marriage to an intricate tango.

A reader of this column … who reacts. He lands in my email box a lot with fun facts, observations, and he set me straight recently about ideas.

Ernest Andrus is already planning his next birthday in 11 months.

I was 17 years old. Writing my epitaph.And now ... a few decades later ... I’m reading what I wrote and I stand by it. No changes.

Coffee. Couch. Scroll my cellphone. Next day: repeat.

As a storyteller and lover of stories, I offer words of warning.

I’ve been thinking about my parents. Not the parents I knew, but the mom and dad I did not know.

Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episode 21: “Kick the Can.” ... The episode had a lot to say about aging, which I clearly understood better this time.